A Journalist’s Techtrums

 STOMP! No, it’s not another track by a Hip-Hop Mogul, but is the Singaporean website that represents Straits Times Online Mobile and Print.

STOMP encourages the regular citizen in becoming one with the now media process. Although unlike OhmyNews (mentioned in my previous blog), at STOMP they use a different model of citizen journalism.

Instead of the individual reporting in delivering the story directly, it is being mediated by the journalists at Strait Times in writing up the story based on their information.

However I did manage to stumble upon a blog post that argues this method use by STOMP is not citizen journalism by Cherian George blogging about Singaporean new media, politics and the law.

The argument is that in STOMP the decision of which stories should go up on the website is decided by the editors instead of vice versa as it should be in citizen journalism.

Perhaps due to censorship laws prevailing in the media in Singapore STOMP might not be as broad minded as OhmyNews would be.

Nevertheless it sure is stomping its way through into the world of media convergences in an era in which Mr. Nick Davies feels threatened by excessive PR campaigning.

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What do you get when you combine an 89% broadband penetration, in one of the oldest continuing civilizations with one of the fastest growing economies in the world? The answer is simply OhmyNews.com that encourages citizen journalism.

This South Korean website spearheaded by its CEO, Mr.Oh Yeon Ho had proven to be very successful in gaining its readers affection locally by uploading at least 200 articles a day.

Further they have over 3,000 citizen reporters around the world that keeps help updating the news as it happens.

This project that persuades every citizen to be a journalist also follows a strict set of guidelines and a code of ethics in order to maintain credibility and privacy requirements in every article submitted.

As for the citizen reporters, writing for OhmyNews is perhaps the case of five minute fame, the generous tips from the readers or the simple satisfaction of sharing information with the rest of the world.

This turn of reporting not only allow the truth seeking Gen Y population with an alternative news media, but also allows the reporter to be a bit opinionated in their article more than conservative reporting would allow them to.

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On the boxing-day morning in 2005 I woke up at my in laws’ house to a big commotion. Everyone was rushing towards the TV and my husband said, “Get ready to leave at once in case of emergency”. Their house was located in the coastal area of Colombo and for the first time in my life-time ‘Tsunami’ had struck Sri Lanka.

Sri Lankan coastal areas is dominant in the tourism industry. As we waited patiently in front of the TV and in online news websites, videos taken by mobile phone cameras and camcorders of the tourists in many tourism locations were broadcasted on breaking news.

The television stations depended on the survivors to send in material such as audio & video recordings describing the disaster and images till they could get their teams on site as most of their representatives in the area were killed by the Tsunami.

This natural disaster may go down in history as the trigger of ‘Citizen Journalism’ as the survivors of the tsunami around South East Asia had their say and became a part of the breaking of news as it happened.

Nevertheless the media decided to give official acknowledgment to news worthy material from the public after the London bombings in July, 2005. This was because BBC established their user-generated content desk to support the mass in-flow of the information from the public.

Even though it is a difficult task to monitor or even edit certain material to journalistic standards (especially on blogs), it still manages to provide general public with the information on demand. May it be due to the sixty second fame it has to offer, the money or simply the desire to be informative, citizen journalism certainly is a key player in the present news media.

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