"Every Citizen is a Reporter"

Meet some of the citizen reporters of OhmyNews, a South Korean venture that in 2000 became the first online newspaper in the world to accept, edit, and publish articles from its readers. It was established by Oh Yeon Ho, who has earned his credibility in the student pro-democracy movement of the 1980s, including having served a prison term for his activities.

OhmyNews has grown since 2000 to a staff of 55, with as many as 50,000 citizen reporters contributing from over 100 countries, including a recent addition, Afghanistan. I was lucky enough to represent Daily Kos at a conference sponsored by OhmyNews in Seoul June 27 and 28. Along with the OhmyNews reporters from Cameroon to Afghanistan to Finland, new media pioneers from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Estonia, South Africa, Australia, Japan, Canada, and Israel met for a whirlwind two days of intense conversation and shared understanding of what we're up against in this new venture of ours.

The model presented by OhmyNews and many of these other ventures contrast with Daily Kos and much of the U.S. blogosphere in that they are focused on creating an alternative media, being the journalists that they wish they had in their countries. Their efforts are geared more toward original reporting than the kind partisan political activism prevalent in our blogosphere. But the primary aims of Daily Kos and OhmyNews, or Realno.info, or NowPublic are all the same--having our voices heard above the din of traditional media fluff and, in too many cases, government-run media.

Dr. Oh's efforts have paid off. OhmyNews was instrumental in bringing down the previous South Korean president in 2002, and the election of current President Roh Moo Hyun. Not only did OhmyNews garner the first media interview from new President Roh, but the president himself addressed the opening of the conference:

The media has to change if our society is to advance. The most powerful force that raises the standards of the media is no other than the participation of alert citizens. The standards of the media and quality of its products can improve when more citizens participate in the production and distribution stages and use their responsible criticism to act as a check against the possibility of the media morphing into a political power. Moreover, solidarity between the media organizations that are actively participated in by citizens will greatly contribute to advancing democracy globally.

It was eye-opening to discover the shared barriers--lack of funding to create and grow citizen-centered media, frustration with the traditional media and its disdain, distrust, and fear of our efforts, in some cases repressive government interference, and in others technological deficiencies.  Seems that everyone in the world has heard more than enough about Paris Hilton, as her example was raised over and over again to point to the failures of the traditional media to provide the news that an informed citizenry demands. That's where we come in.

The stakes are high for all of us, but the threats for some are much greater in, say Pakistan where one reporter, Shakil Turabi, has been abducted and beaten twice by Pakistan's intelligence service, as reported by Asiam Khan at Internews in Pakistan. Undaunted, Khan has teamed with Munish Nagar, from India to create a new cooperative venture that has recently included Daud Khattak from Pajhwok Afghan News in Kabul. Makes the slings and arrows of the likes of Brooks, Broder, and Lieberman pretty laughable.

The conference was a non-stop conversation, luckily for me mostly in English, though I did have a chance to exercise my rusty Russian and a few of the Korean phrases I picked up from a very helpful seatmate on the flight over. I was asked again and again what would happen in Iraq, and why we were there. Mr. Khattak had a conversation with another American present about the critical need for the U.S. to refocus it's efforts in Afghanistan--to not abandon the country to the Taliban and al Qaeda. And everyone was intensely interested in the upcoming presidential election. Like us, I suspect much of the rest of the world is just tired of the Bush administration and wants it to be over.

In the end, what I found most remarkable about the gathering was the very strong sense of community that developed almost immediately. That was largely the result of a shared understanding of what we are all up against, but mostly because we all have the same goal--people powered politics, and people-powered media.