Three years ago, a crew of four people quietly launched the South Korean "citizen journalism" Web site OhmyNews. Since then, the site's full-time staff has grown to 53 -- including 35 full-time reporters and editors -- and the number of "citizen reporters" writing for the site has grown from 700 to about 26,700. Citizen reporters submit about 200 articles every day, and about 1 million readers visit OhmyNews each day. The site mixes straight news reporting and commentary. Its influence at the grassroots level has been widely credited with helping President Roh Moo-hyun win the popular vote last December. San Jose Mercury News tech columnist Dan Gillmor wrote recently of the site: "OhmyNews is transforming the 20th century's journalism-as-lecture model -- where organizations tell the audience what the news is and the audience either buys it or doesn't -- into something vastly more bottom-up, interactive and democratic." Oh Yeon-Ho, president and founder of OhmyNews, says his site changes the definition of journalism, of what a news story is and what a reporter is. When it first launched, "the conventional media did not understand it, and there was an atmosphere that treated OhmyNews as heresy, saying, 'What the hell is that?,'" he said. Oh Yeon-Ho is the author of five books and a doctoral candidate in journalism at Sogang University in Seoul, South Korea. In 1999, he received his master's degree in journalism at Regent University in Virginia. In 1988 he received his bachelor's degree in Korean language and literature from Yonsei University in South Korea. From 1988 to 1999, he was a reporter and director of the news department for the alternative monthly magazine Mal. In 1986 he was imprisoned for one year for taking part in student protests against the South Korean government. He was born in the South Korean countryside in 1964.
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I had confidence that citizen participation in journalism was something that citizens currently desired. But I could not imagine that the fire would spring into a blaze in such a short time. |
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Oh Yeon-Ho met recently with Japan Media Review associate editor Yeon-Jung Yu in his office in Seoul to talk about how the site got started -- and where it's going next. This is an edited excerpt of their conversation. Q: The publication process of OhmyNews might be different from that of newspapers. Would you briefly explain it? A: The citizen reporters and the full-time reporters write articles, the articles are reviewed by the editorial department, some of them are placed on the top, some are placed in the middle, some are placed at the bottom (of the front page). Usually (the news is first posted) at 9:30 a.m., so that readers can see it after they come to the office, next at about 1 p.m. after lunch, and then at about 5 p.m., just before they leave the office. Q: Was there a moment when you thought, "This is it!" when you launched OhmyNews? A: Yes. In Korea, readers' dissatisfaction and distrust with the conventional press had considerably increased. Citizens' desire to express themselves greatly increased. Thus, on the one hand, discontent with the conventional press, on the other hand, citizens desire to talk about themselves. These two things were joined together. The reason the Internet was highly attractive was that I had little money and the Internet meant launching was relatively easy at first -- easier than paper newspapers. So I thought the Internet was the space where a few people who possessed nothing could bring about results using guerrilla methods. I thought up our motto, slogan, or concept -- "every citizen is a reporter" -- when I was a reporter for the monthly, Mal. Because the magazine Mal was not mainstream media but alternative media, I had to have that kind of determination or attitude. Only when I was armored with the philosophy of "every citizen is a reporter" could I equally compete with the reporters of the mainstream media. The motto "every citizen is a reporter" has modesty as well as confidence. That is, no matter how small the alternative media I was working for as a reporter, I could be arrogant because of the fact that I was a reporter. And, even though I had a reporter's license, it had the meaning that I was not above a general citizen. So "every citizen is a reporter" means on the one hand, confidence, and on the other hand, modesty.
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We do not regard objective reporting as a source of pride. Articles including both facts and opinions are acceptable when they are good. |
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So, while I was a journalist for Mal, I continuously thought about things like how I could change journalism -- so that not only professional journalists, but also citizens participated in it. I thought of the idea for more than 10 years. However, because there was no Internet at that time, because there was no such concept as the Internet, it seemed it would cost too much if I made it with paper. Then the Internet came out and I thought, "Ah, I could do it through this space!"Q: As a pioneer, you might have faced unique difficulties. If so, what were they and how did you overcome them? A: First of all, (OhmyNews) was the complete demolition of conventional media logic and of the concept of journalists. "Every citizen is a reporter" means destruction of the concept of reporters and also the destruction of the concept of articles. The conventional media did not understand it, and there was an atmosphere that treated OhmyNews as heresy, saying, "What the hell is that?" Among the various difficulties, the real one was the problem of funding. At first it was impossible to find investors. For two years -- no, three years -- every month we had a deficit of about 20 million won (about $17,000). We agonized about this a lot. Since last October, we have barely managed to turn a profit.
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