[Reader-list] Citizen Journalism in the North-East (The Hindu)

[Patrice Riemens]

original to:
http://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/society/article2909750.ece
bwo iac2009 list/ BG

Citizen journos at work
Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty

A vibrant online community of citizen journalists in Assam reports from
remote areas. Citizen journalists regularly reporting for the website are
granted identity cards to help cover big events like ministers' visits to
their areas.

It is barely four in the afternoon in Guwahati and the gentle winter sun
is already preparing to call it a day. But webmaster Babul Gogoi is not
finished yet. He has already uploaded over 15 news items on his website,
assamtimes.org. These are sent across by people he has trained as citizen
journalists in remote areas of Assam. He is hopeful even more news items
will be trickling in.

“On a good day, we receive over 25 news items,” he says. Since 2008, Gogoi
has been holding workshops to train people from various walks of life in
citizen journalism so that they can report news from their areas. He has
particularly focussed on those areas of Assam from where reports are scant
in newspapers and TV channels based out of the capital city, Guwahati.

“We have now a fleet of 200 such citizen journalists registered with us
and are regularly giving us news from areas which do not usually have
newspaper and TV correspondents,” says Gogoi. These reporters are directly
or indirectly associated with the news they send. “If they tag any news as
breaking news, I ensure it is actually so,” he says.

Gogoi and his small team of editors sitting in Guwahati look at the
language of the reports, correct spellings, grammar, etc. before uploading
them along with the reporter's name, address and a photograph. “We avoid
tinkering with their news. We are for free flow of news,” he says. One can
use or reproduce the published news for free. “Our news is now regularly
picked by papers and channels in Guwahati,” he adds.

Citizen journalists regularly reporting for the website are granted
identity cards “to help cover big events like ministers' visits to their
areas.” Based on this card, he says with a laugh, “some have been made
members of the Guwahati Press Club.”

Gogoi doesn't offer monetary compensation to the citizen journalists.
“Many already have a profession and report in their free time. Some,
however, have got professional placements because of their association
with us.”

Thinking up newer ways to make use of technology, Gogoi had the brainwave
to start assamtimes.org in 2007. “As a webmaster for another Assam-based
portal, I used to receive a lot of local news besides Assam-related
cultural/social news from across the world. So I thought, why not create a
site only to publicise local news online.”

Initial contributors included professional journalists and occasional
writers. On doing online promotion seeking local news from people,
“responses began to pour in.”

Things began to roll when he bagged a fellowship from Foundation for
Social Transformation in 2008 to promote citizen journalism and new media
in the Northeast. “Under this, I organised my first workshops, 20 of them
covering 10 districts of Assam and one in Meghalaya. We publicised about
the workshops through mass emails, smses and through local newspapers. I
was also assisted by trainers from Panos South Asia and Mahiti Bangalore
besides having local journalists at each location as resource persons,”
recalls Gogoi.

The workshop content included basics of journalism besides touching upon
ethics and best practices, effective use of mobile phones to click photos
and caption-writing, emailing, etc. “The participants had an interesting
range — students, budding journalists, teachers, wildlife officers,
development workers,” he says.

On sensing a demand for such workshops, Gogoi continued even after the
fellowship ended. “Besides people in remote areas wanting to learn
journalistic skills, I also realised that there is a demand for news from
these areas. Otherwise, why would the Press in Guwahati pick our news? I
feel our reporters are bridging an important gap between where they are
and where the seat of power is,” points out Gogoi.

About the future, he plans to print an annual journal with articles on new
ideas to address some issues relating to the Northeast. “The target
readers will be policymakers, bureaucrats, ministers, academics,
politicians, development workers, journalists and research students.”