Craig Newmark, owner of Craigslist, the internet’s largest free classified ads site, recently shared his thoughts about the online, grassroots community journalism movement with Grade the News.
One community journalism site offers this definition:
We choose to define it as the reporting of news and information for a certain geographic area… a community, if you will, with the purpose to serve the best interests of that certain group. As an old Publisher friend once said, “Make them happy… make them mad… but whatever you do… make them think.”
With the growing distrust of the mainstream media, so amplified by Bush administration propaganda pushing of the NYT’s Judith Miller in her biased WMD “reporting”, there’s a new niche for citizen journalists beyond what specialized blogs have to offer.
Of course, community journalism is far from a new phenomenon but it has often fallen prey to the pressures of capitalism and the whims of its advertisers in order to survive. If you were to clip the ads out of most newspapers these days, you’d find a small amount of actual content left. That’s where citizen journalists can step in and make a difference. They can also provide a much truer sense of community sentiment than is often presented in mainstream publications.
Newark talks about his interest in Wikipedia as a good example of citizen-driven efforts to report the facts to the public. Wikipedia is not without its problems, however, as one its founders recently admitted. Its architecture and user-driven input style make it vulnerable to quality issues. It’s an ambitious effort to write history as it happens and still serves as a valuable resource for many surfers as long as it’s understood that it is not the be all and end all of factual information available on the internet.
(Note: you can host your own wiki on any topic here. A valuable resource!)
Newark also points to a few examples of more familiar styles of community sites as examples of how well they can work: Backfence in Virginia, Bayosphere, and the Northwest Force. Marty Aussenberg, who has now contributed some articles to Booman Tribune, often writes for the Memphis Flyer. I’m sure there are many such online publications out there that now complement locally printed newsletters and newspapers that offer a much broader reach via the internet.
So, while we in the political blogosphere often target the MSM and corporate publishing houses as we seek to participate in raising consciousness about our issues, often to be met with frustration, we should not forget these smaller locals that also need input and serve as clearinghouses for focusing on local happenings. They’re a valuable resource and they speak to the heart of political action: think globally, act locally.
Does your community offer such a site that is not connected to corporate America?
