Speaking on the topic “trend-setting in citizen Journalism, Mr Lang observed that ‘citizen journalists cast their net wider and this is what the traditional media cannot do”.
He said CJ are able to get information faster than the traditional media because they are always in touch with people in their locality.

What drives Grocott’s Mail success
Giving the background of the Grocott’s Mail, the oldest surviving independent newspaper in South Africa, Mr Lang said the Grocott’s Mail has set up a centre in its newsroom to train interested citizens in news reporting.
Grocott’s Mail, according to him, focuses on the youth because “we believed that the younger generation can help bring about a change in the society’, basic computer skills; principles of journalism, writing skills, journalism ethics and basic photographic skills
The citizen journalists are equipped with basic computer and photographic skills; principles of journalism, writing skills, journalism ethics as part of the training.

Mr Lang stated that his outfit use mobile phones in news gathering and reporting ‘because we believe the cell phone is the most powerful tool in news reporting’.
Explaining, he said the computer was not widely accessible whilst most people were also not computer literate.
Grocott’s Mail’s success, he recalled was partly made possible through the use of mobile phones and cited an instance where two citizen reporters used their mobile phone to record a fatal accident.

Positve Impact of Citizen Journalism
 “Citizen Reporters have made the paper more responsive”, he said adding that their contribution had strengthened the newspaper’s relationship with its readers.
The Grocott’s Mail Citizen Journalism newsroom consists of 10 computers, equipped with four USB data cables (compatible with Nokia, Motorola, Samsung and Sony-Ericsson cell phones), three Bluetooth dongles and three card readers to facilitate the transfer of photos and videos from a variety of cell phones and digital cameras onto the computers.

By: News Team: (Naa Lamiley Bentil and Sheilla Sackey)

Managing editor of the Global Voices Ms. Solana Larsen said citizen journalism is not the competitor of the professional journalism in the world.

Ms. Solana Larsen, Managing Editor of the Global Voices is presenting her keynote paper in the 3rd international media conference in Berlin

“I think the new form of journalism (citizen journalism) is helpful for each other,” she said in her keynote speech Thursday at the third international media conference on community journalism in Berlin, Germany.

The International Institute for Journalism (IIJ) of InWent and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) have jointly organised the conference titled “At a tipping point: Community voices create the difference, how mutual journalism innovate the news.”

The conference aims at exploring opportunities available in the new media for both traditional and citizens’ newspapers.

Participants, attended the conference, came from different countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and the United States of America.

Ms. Larsen in her keynote speech cited several examples of using citizen-generated contents at her online platform and said it had created new arena of journalism to express opinions of the general people.

Example of using citizen-generated content

“The local citizen usually try to highlight their local problems through our website—Global Voices.”

The Global Voices, an online platform where the general people, bloggers, twitters and other social media users can write and sent their contents on any issues for the betterment of the community people and society.

Citing another example of Madagascar Ms. Larsen said that there was a breakthrough moment  “when one of the bloggers met a young woman who’s baby was in desperate need of an operation and decided to use her blog for fundraising. They raised the money, and were able to help.”

She said: “I think the bloggers has changed the media not only nationally but also internationally. Because, the people in the world can easily see what is happening outside his country though the blog or other online platforms.”

Ms. Larsen said the Global Voices usually wants to express the voice of the general people instead of proving it as the platform of journalism. “It a platform of expression of speech of the people.”

Citizen Journalism works during the censorship on internet

The Global Voice Managing Editor said internet censorship is a problem some countries in the world like Iran. “The citizen journalism through different social media like blogs had created new opportunities to express the opinion of the people even during the internet censorship by the government.”

Global voices has a cooperation with the BBC. “I’d like to share with you an experience from the past two weeks where I’ve been working with BBC News website editors in London. The goal of our project was to explore how citizen media could help inform their foreign news coverage and vice versa. We added links to Global Voices directly from BBC news stories when it could help add context and we also published free standing stories.”

She invited people in the conference to discussion on the newly emerging journalism arena – citizen journalism.

The International Media Conference of InWent started three years ago. The first one held in 2008 was based on the theme: “Online Journalism: Opportunities and Challenges for Press Freedom” while last year’s forum addressed how new media can be used during election times under the topic: “Elections Time: Harnessing the Power of New Media.”

You can download the PDF of the presentation here:
IIJ-Conference-Keynote-Solana Larsen-CC
(CC by – Creative Commons License / Attribution)

“Communication is now more personalised through the website”,

The State Secretary of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) of Germany, Mr Hans-Jürgen Beerfeltz stated this at the opening.

Commending the IIJ, particularly, Ms Kohl and FAZ for organising the programme, Mr Beerfeltz added that his ministry was determined to promote freedom of expression for all Germans.

“Independent media make the government more transparent,  our ministry is trying to promote freedom of expression not only for Germans but also people in other states”, he said.

Access to media crucial

Access to the media is very important . It is a prerequisite of good governance, Mr Beerfeltz observed.

The standard of journalism he, however , said must be maintained even for citizen journalist.

InWent programmes are geared towards more practical changes in the media, the Chief Executive Officer of InWent, Dr Sebastian Paust on his part also stated this.

Community journalism according to Dr Roland Gerschermann, the Managing Director of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), will contribute significantly towards the development of a more lively democracy across the world.

He, however, explained that professional journalists will  defintely be needed to provide coverage for instance business news.

Ms Kohl welcomes guests

The conference was co-organised by the International Institute for Journalism (IIJ) of InWent and the FAZ.

The Director of the IIJ, Ms Astrid Kohl, welcomed guests to the Atrium of FAZ during which she expressed excitment about the opportunities and challenges for the new media.

At this year’s conference on the theme “At a tipping point: Community voices create the difference, how mutual journalism innovate the news”, communication experts are trying to provide answers to the vexing issues related to community journalism.

The conference also aims at exploring opportunities available in the new media for both traditional and citizens’ newspapers.

It is expected that after the day’s conference, some of the questions surrounding issue would have been resolve.

Third conference since 2008

The concept of this conference as well as of the conferences that were held in 2009 and 2008 has been developed by Astrid Kohl, director of the IIJ.

The main idea is to foster the exchange between media houses in the developed and in the developing world by discussing trends that are defining the future structure of the media landscape worldwide. In the course of the years the conference has proved to be a forum both for knowledge sharing and for networking.

The traditional media has lost some control on news.  It is inevitable for people who wish to report and upload pictures to do so, even for well established media organizations like the BBC, the CNN and the New York Times.

Community journalism new trend

Community journalism, though fairly new, is threatening to bring some traditional media unto their knees with a few already recording less advertisement and reduction in sales of their newspapers.

In spite of the ensuing impact on some of these traditional papers, there are still doubts about the capacity and impact that CJ can have on the global media landscape, hence the conference.

The conference, therefore, hopes to explore the opportunities available to traditional newspapers to incorporate the new media into their work because until now, most journalist still view the emergence of these amateur reporters as an annoyance.

Citizen journalism as they are collectively called has the main advantage of being at the right place at the right time. They help online news site deliver news faster by submitting texts, pictures or even videos of events as they happen.

The products of such news gathering and reporting is then called user-generated content

The InWent International Media Conference started three years ago. The first one held in 2008 was based on the theme: “Online Journalism: Opportunities and Challenges for Press Freedom” while last year’s forum addressed how new media can be used during election times under the topic: “Elections Time: Harnessing the Power of New Media.”

Story by News Team (Naa Lamiley Bentil and Sheilla Sackey)