Friday, May 20, 2005

Collaborative citizen journalism reviewed We've been talking about solo bloggers as citizen journalists for years... More recently, teams of volunteers have been finding new tools to work together reporting or fact-checking news online. The Smart Mobs item The Rise of Collaborative Citizen Journalism points to an MIT Technology Review article with more details. Here are some of the sites it talks about: The Korean OhMyNews Wiki News Dan Gillmor's Bayosphere Backfence Newstrust Indymedia Craig Newmark, the Craig of Craigslist, was interviewed for the article and says he's talking to Gillmor and to folks from the UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism and the San Francisco Chronicle about working collaborative journalism into his network of community bulletin boards. The buzz may be recent, but the idea has been around. Although it's in an MIT publication, the article doesn't mention community sites the MIT MediaLab was involved in setting up 10 years ago as Silver Stringers, particularly the Melrose Mirror, still going strong. (See its FAQ) Here in Knoxville, the MetroPulse has a citizen-journalism-related item this week by Frank Cagle, subtitled, "Being a free citizen is credential enough," and an editorial about using anonymous sources. For local collaboration and general community discussion, I'd suggest SouthKnoxBubba and his BubbaBlab bulletin board. By the way, I see that Craigslist has added listings in Nashville and Memphis. Speculation about what it all might mean for local sites and publications is creating some buzz in another place known for its citizen journalism, Greensboro, N.C. (Thanks from 0106327 to 0107946 for the pointer.) 11:24:46 AM

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