Citizen Journalism

An Iraqi reporter was seriously injured Wednesday in a landmine explosion in east Baghdad, while another was injured by a sniper in the southern city of Basra, according to the Iraqi Journalistic Freedoms Observatory (JFO). Haitham Ibrahim, a cameraman working for Iraqi al-Dayar satellite channel, had his leg amputated after suffering serious injuries in a landmine explosion in Talabiyah district...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called for the release of Ahmed Mahmud Hassan, of satellite al-Sumariya television, who has been held since March 30 by Iraqi authorities who have not given any reason for his arrest. Mahmud Hassan was picked up in Mahmudiya, 30 km south of Baghdad, while he was covering clashes between Iraqi forces and rebel insurgents. He is thought to be detained in a...

CNN is entering YouTube territory with iReport.com, a new website built entirely on user-produced news. Unlike CNN's own properties—where only iReport submissions that have been handpicked by editors and checked for accuracy ever make it online or on air—the new site will be wide open, allowing users to post whatever content they choose, says a Reuters report. Some details: The new site looks and...

A journalist’s claim that 11 of his close relatives were murdered in Iraq last weekend is false. Amman-based Iraqi journalist Dia al-Kawwaz had claimed on November 26 that 11 members of his immediate family were shot by gunmen the previous day in Baghdad. “We are obviously relieved to learn that the Kawwaz family is safe and sound but this journalist’s behaviour is unacceptable,” Reporters sans...

Aboard the crowded D train, rumbling into Brooklyn on the Manhattan Bridge, the inevitable rant explodes. A rant courtesy of Faye Anderson, whom we'll call Ms CJ, a k a Citizen Journalist. A rant directed at us, Mr MSM, a k a Mainstream Media, for all our perceived faults. "It's not you, the journalist, it's the institution," Ms CJ tells Mr MSM. "You're not telling the whole story. ... You've lost...

Agence France-Presse (AFP) has bought a 30 per cent stake in the citizen journalism platform Scooplive, which will be renamed Citizenside. AFP has stated that it will not take part in editorial decisions on the site, which allows users to publish and sell films and photos for commission. According to a press statement from the agency, it is hoped the investment will allow AFP to 'get closer to...

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's muzzled press and burgeoning Internet have given citizen reporters an audience and an opportunity -- however fleeting -- to spread news quicker than government censors can control it. Zhou Shuguang, whose amateur reporting of a famous property dispute lead to him being hailed as China's "first citizen reporter", poses in front of a dismantled house in Beijing November 2...

NEW YORK — A news site that has allowed its users to write and submit their own articles is shutting down, citing unspecified "business issues." Backfence Inc. had "hyperlocal" sites serving 13 communities in the Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Chicago areas. Residents were allowed to write on any topic, including event announcements and neighborhood traffic congestion, without the meddling of...

From evening arrests on the M6 to the vehicle in flames outside Glasgow airport, the events of the past three days have highlighted the role members of the public play in reporting news as it unfolds. Rolling news channels and newspapers published scores of videos and images taken on mobile phones and digital cameras by so-called citizen journalists. Many of the images have already been collected...

BEIJING (AFP) - In the strictly controlled media world of communist China, "citizen journalism" is beating a way through censorship, breaking taboos and offering a pressure valve for social tensions.In one striking example this month, the Internet was largely responsible for breaking open a slave scandal in two Chinese provinces that some local authorities had been complicit in. A letter posted on...