About the people by the people

Over the past year or so, media companies have been backing citizen journalism efforts like Your Mom in various shapes and sizes across the US. They are creating what some believe to be a more democratic press, but throwing into question what it means to be a journalist. The Sydney Morning Herald reports.

"On one end of the spectrum is Virginia-based Backfence.com, a venture run by local residents - with no editorial guidance from the site's owners - that is evolving into a sort of virtual town square.

On the other end, there's New West, a website specialising in politics and development issues in the Rocky Mountains region. Its goal is to break news in competition with mainstream media; it contains a mix of content by experienced journalists and amateurs.

Most others, like Your Mom, fall somewhere in the middle — almost exclusively written by citizen reporters but edited for grammar, style and some content.

Citizen reporting is still in its infancy, but it's already changing notions of news and news gathering. Bloggers at last year's US presidential nominating conventions helped provide different perspectives on the campaigns. Commuters in London this month provided the world with photos of the terrorist bombings aftermath from their video cell phones.

Articles in support of Roh Moo-hyun on the South Korean website OhMyNews are credited with helping him win the presidency.

"There is an increasing appetite among ordinary people to participate in the news," says Jan Schaffer, of the Institute for Interactive Journalism at the University of Maryland-College Park.

Your Mom is the brainchild of a group of graduate students at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. Rhodes was part of a class that had to come up with a plan for a new media product. The name came from a late-night brainstorming session.

Today the Your Mom has about 1200 unique visitors a week. In addition, 9000 free copies of the 16-page newspaper are distributed at schools, malls, pizza shops and pools throughout the region.

The Quad-City Times invested $US80,000 ($107,000) in Your Mom for start-up costs, and it operates on a $US18,000-a-month budget. It lost money in its first year, but executives said they expect to turn a profit in the coming year".

emily | 4:24 PM | Citizens as Camera Phone Reporters |
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