Become a Citizen Journalist

Steve Poynter has written up a summary of what’s happening with citizen journalism in the USA where he has analysed the opportunities into eleven layers, and given examples of each from the USA and the Korean OhMyNews which was the inspiration for this movement.

1. First step: opening up the newspaper to public comment.
2. Second step: the citizen as an add-on reporter.
3. Now we're getting serious: open-source reporting.
4. The citizen bloghouse.
5. Newsroom citizen 'transparency' blogs.
6. The stand-alone citizen-journalism site: an edited version.
7. The stand-alone citizen-journalism site: an unedited version.
8. Add a print edition.
9. The hybrid: professional PLUS citizen journalism.
10. Integrating citizen and professional journalism under one roof.
11. Wiki journalism: where the readers are the editors.

Read Steve’s article at: http://poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=83126

Read Dan Gilmour’s book “We the Media: grassroots journalism by the people, for the people” at: www.dangillmor.com and http://wethemedia.oreilly.com

Check out OhMyNews at: http://english.ohmynews.com

Then take the first step by writing a letter to the Editor of a national or local newspaper on a matter of interest or concern to you where you have something that needs saying.