Korea
"Every citizen is a reporter'
The world's first citizens' newspaper (1m visitors) is changing journalism concept; OhmyNews editor talks to Japan MediaWatch.
Jun 8, 2005

The pioneering South Korean news site posts hundreds of stories every day - most are written by housewives, schoolkids, professors and other "citizen journalists."

Founder Oh Yeon-Ho in interview with Japan MediaWatch says his site is changing the definition of journalism - and who can be a journalist.

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 organisations 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.

How does it work?

Oh Yeon-Ho told Japan Media Review's associate editor Yeon-Jung Yu, "The citizen reporters and the full-time reporters write articles, which 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 am, so that readers can see it after they come to the office, next at about 1 pm after lunch, and then at about 5 pm, just before they leave the office.

Why? "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 Internet is very attractive, easier and cheaper to launch, he said. "I thought up our motto, slogan, or concept - 'every citizen is a reporter' - when I was a reporter for the monthly, Mal."

Ohmy News, Oh Yeon-Ho said, does not regard objective reporting as a source of pride. "Articles including both facts and opinions are acceptable when they are good."

By way of example, he said, "The age of competing through the name card "I am a New York Times reporter" has gone.

"When a New York Times reporter writes an article and an ordinary citizen writes an article criticising it splendidly, then the citizen becomes the winner."

"To us, every citizen is a reporter, and citizens have no practice writing straight articles, so how could they do it? They just communicate in their own ways.

"If you ask a shopkeeper to communicate in the professional reporter's format, he would not be able to, would he?

"When a professional looks at an article by a non-professional, it is possible that he thinks the quality of the article is not good enough. Yet, for the same article, is it not possible that another reader might think it very coarse but beautiful?"

OymyNews has difficulties. Since it was the complete demolition of conventional media logic and of the concept of journalists, Ohmy News spelled an end to the concept of reporters and the destruction of the concept of articles.

The other is funds. For three years, the average monthly losses were US$17,000. "We agonised this a lot," said Oh Yeon-Ho.

The OhmyNews grew rapidly. From a staff of four has risen to 53. "The citizen reporters numbered 727 people when we first published, now the figure has almost reached 27,000.

"During the early days, citizen reporters submitted about 10 articles a day; now they submit about 200 articles."

The site had 600 visitors at launch. During the general election, the peak reached 2-3 million, but has now fallen back to a million a day.

But in recognition of the advertising importance of print journalism, Ohmy News has just launched a weekly paper. "We don't do Internet advertisements, we only do paper advertisements."

Oh explained further, "The Internet is the space where a few people who possessed nothing could bring about results using guerrilla methods.

"It is an open space where the concept 'every citizen is a reporter' can be best realised. Internet space does not have any limitations of either time or space, does it? Paper newspapers have limitations of time and space."

Ironically, Oh having grown up in the countryside, is no techie.

"I was the kind of person who hated technology. Even until I was a high school student, I was the kind of person who gathered firewood carrying a coolie rack in mountains.

"Even now, although I use the Internet a lot, it is not that I understand technology much. I newly hired a vice president who is good at that."

Question: There is criticism that OhmyNews supports a specific party or President Roh. What would you say about that?

Oh Yeon-Ho: During the general election, (many said) we supported the individual, Roh Moo-hyun. It is true that we reported the Roh Moo-hyun phenomenon a lot - that is, we covered Roh Moo-hyun's popularity with young voters, and the hope many had that we would change something in the old politics through Roh Moo-hyun.

Q: What are the criteria for the paper OhmyNews?

Oh Yeon-Ho: The publication process for our paper version is very simple. The concept of it is "Best of OhmyNews" rather than doing something new.

His advise to wannabes: For something like OhmyNews to succeed, the participation of citizens is essential. I mean that the network of the Internet alone is not enough, and also the mere dissatisfaction with the conventional press is not enough.

"Nowadays journalism is changing. The form of 20th century journalism and the form of 21st century journalism will be fundamentally different.

"For 21st century journalism, if a reader wants to, he can convert himself into a reporter and this is realised through the Internet.

"Someone might think that this is the unique situation of Korea and OhmyNews, but I think it is not. Even in countries where they don't have OhmyNews, citizens act as reporters whether they recognise it or not.

"Through Yahoo discussion space or the Readers' Opinions section of The New York Times, they are already affecting professional journalists.

"Where professional reporters once exercised their influence exclusively, now they compete with citizens, so professional journalists could be in trouble if they still try to confront general readers with their authority and arrogance.

"Now professional journalists have to survive not only competition among themselves, but also from that with ordinary netizens.

"So it is not important that I am a reporter from an authoritative newspaper company at all. I mean, now the quality of articles is important.

"Thus, it is necessary that the reporters quickly figure out how the world is changing and that they change themselves along with it."
Japan MediaWatch