Is This the Future of Journalism? An alternative to corporate and government misinformation?

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This is one good alternative to the problem of corporate media and government

misinformation.F.

 

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Is This the Future of Journalism?

Oh Yeon Ho’s belief that 'every citizen is a reporter' has changed journalism in

South Korea—and now he’s aiming for the world

 

 

WEB EXCLUSIVE

By Christopher M. Schroeder

Newsweek

Updated: 4:27 p.m. ET June 18, 2004

 

 

June 18 - Oh Yeon Ho is a lean, intense journalist who came of age during

turbulent political unrest in Korea in the mid-'80s—and a media environment in

which old-line and often conservative newspapers dominated the national scene.

For a decade, Oh worked as a conventional magazine journalist, but in early 2000

he launched his own news site—just before the bursting of the Internet bubble.

But unlike many startups, Oh’s OhmyNews.com not only survived but thrived, based

on the simple notion that “every citizen is a reporter.” And now Oh’s Internet

creation has attracted the attention of media giants around the world who

wonder: is this Korean start-up the future of journalism?

 

 

The initial premise is conventional: OhmyNews employs 25 trained reporters who

cover the major news stories of the day. But the twist comes with another 10

editors who review and post as many as 200 articles written daily by nearly

33,000 “citizen journalists”—anyone who registers can submit a 750-word piece in

exchange for a few dollars per story. If the article makes the “Top News”

section, the payout is about $11.

 

 

“They are writing articles to change the world, not to earn money,” says Oh.

His contributors must agree to a code of ethics and eschew racism or

pornography. Every story is posted instantly to the site. There is, however,

an editorial hierarchy to the site’s visual design. Hard news (by the site’s

professional journalists) and the most carefully edited citizen pieces are front

and center, followed by softer stories like entertainment, quick community

updates and finally, toward the bottom, stories not yet edited by OhmyNews.

Most stories are also accompanied by rich and densely populated message boards.

 

 

OhmyNews has become one of the most influential news and information sites in

Korea, with more than 750,000 unique users per day—this during a period when the

leading newspapers’ circulation dropped by a third. The site was widely

credited with influencing South Korea’s election of President Roh Moo-hyun; Roh

granted his first postelection interview to OhmyNews. The later protest rallies

that came with Roh’s impeachment trial were covered in minute-by-minute detail,

in text, photography and even video, by dozens of citizen reporters. Oh

explains, “OhmyNews is a kind of public square in which the reform-minded

generation meet and talk with each other and find confidence. The message they

find here: we are not alone. We can change this society.”

 

 

OhmyNews reached profitability last fall, driven primarily by advertising

(ranging from small merchants to Samsung) with additional revenue from

conferences, content licenses and voluntary donations from users. Although ad

revenue is expected to grow 50 percent this year, Oh suspects that remaining

profitable will remain a challenge. “I have to make money,” he says, “but I am

not an expert in that. Deep in my heart, I am still a reporter.”

 

 

Critics from traditional news publishers in Korea charge that OhmyNews confuses

message board posting with news, and that getting to the truth in any story

requires painstaking reporting and editing by trained professionals. But

OhmyNews’s audience—primarily in their 20s and 30s—may not agree. When some

Yonsei University students recently met with a visiting reporter to discuss the

future of news, one psychology major put it simply: “How can you ever get truth

from one source? The Internet allows us to check multiple sources, to explore

message-board postings, to debate issues with others—that is the only way to

find truth. And besides, what good is information if you can’t react to it?”

“We’re not stupid,” added a business student. “We know that there is a

difference between a message board, a traditional journal and OhmyNews. But by

putting them together, our understanding is better. We can piece together

truth.” Oh is quick to point out that in four years, Ohmynews has had

to publish only four retractions and has never had any significant legal

issues.

 

 

In some ways, Oh says, OhmyNews is a “special product of Korea.” Koreans had

relatively little public access to open and free dialogue and a large portion

had grown dissatisfied with the mainstream conservative media. In addition,

Korea’s small size makes news coverage more manageable—one of Oh’s professional

journalists is rarely more than a few hours away from where a citizen journalist

is reporting. Korea is also, in Oh’s words, “a unipolar society, where the

entire country can be engulfed by just a couple of issues.” And finally, the

nearly 70 percent penetration of broadband Internet access in Korea allows users

to engage more readily; Oh can also experiment in multimedia offerings such as

OhmyTV and Web radio.

Despite these unique factors in Korea, Oh strongly believes that there is a

global need to broaden the definition of news consumption and has recently

launched OhmyNews International in English.

 

 

Will he find a willing audience in the United States? American television

audiences are already familiar with “citizen witnesses” supplying news footage,

from Rodney King to September 11. Online, from eBay to Craigslist.org,

individuals are self-publishing commercial enterprises, and Weblogs have become

a national hobby. On a more organized scale, About.com offers how-to advice

from hundreds of self-posting experts around the nation, and Wikipedia.com is a

self-posting encyclopedia where more than 6,000 active contributors have

submitted 600,000 articles on countless topics.

 

 

So is a more active participation and interaction with news far behind? Oh

thinks so. But he is quick to caution: “Technology itself cannot change society.

Korean citizens were ready to participate. Only prepared people, who can use

the merits of technology, can make a difference.”

© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.