QotW9: STOMP - An Ideal Platform of Citizen Journalism in Singapore?

The advent of the Internet has marked an important transition in our society, especially the power to people, which is seen increasingly in the rise of “citizen journalism” or “citizen media” across the world where ordinary citizens have began to take active parts in capturing, analyzing, and distributing news and information (Wikipedia, 2007). In fact, according to Bowman and Willis (2004) in their seminal report “We Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of News and Information”, the main purpose of “citizen journalism” is to provide “accurate, independent, reliable, and relevant information” and more importantly, to fill up the gap of information that mainstream media has not covered.

“Singapore Seen – You generate the content. You write the report. You take the photos. You shoot the videos. Email, MMS, or SMS at 75557,” The Strait Times’s call out to Singaporean’s participation in STOMP (Straits Times Online Mobile Print) with its aim to create a new platform for expression, interaction, and exchange of information not only between the press and the readers but also among readers themselves in the country. (STOMP, 2007). Could STOMP be an ideal form of citizen journalism for Singapore?

In my opinion, STOMP is currently not an ideal platform of citizen journalism for Singapore but a medium that provides Singapore residents, mainly youths a greater opportunity to interact not only with the mainstream media, Singapore Press Holding (SPH) but also other individuals in Singapore. The two underlying reasons are that these individuals cannot edit or preview their articles before submission and more importantly, they still have great limitations in their editorial decision, which are often decided mostly by the professional editors of SPH in such confined topics “Singapore Seen, ST Foodies Club, ST Digital Club, or English as it is Spoken”. Some of the main national issues are often left out such as politics. In fact, to encourage individual’s participation, STOMP has incorporated both feedback and rating mechanisms where readers can leave comment on and rate posted articles on STOMP. The top five articles will be posted in the front page of STOMP. However, a great issue arises here, would a simple “a top-five award” can maintain Singapore resident’s contributions to STOMP in the future while citizen journalists have started to set up a grass-root level of citizen news network, which is seen in a great example today of OhmyNews International.

OhmyNews International (OMNI) is a large network of citizen journalism, which started in South Korea by Oh Yeon Ho in 2004 as an “open source style of news reporting” with the main motto “every citizen is a reporter” (Wikipedia, 2007). A great feature of OMNI is that there is no staff reporter but only two full time editors from South Korean and the U.S. working 24-hour. In fact, OMNI’s operations are built on the cooperation of amateur reporters and citizen reporters who work in media industry based on a rigorous editing, fact checking, and a strict code of conduct that citizen reporters must follow. Besides, another important characteristic of OMNI is its “cybercash”, which has been a great encouragement for participation in OhmyNews (OhmyNews, 2007). Citizen reporters are recognized for their contribution of news clips to OMNI not only through their names but also through payments in accordance to the section where their article are published. For instance, an article that is published on the OhmyNew’s main page will receive 20,000 Korean won.

To improve its operation, first of all, STOMP should open up editorial decision for its readers to provide them greater freedom in exploring their interest. Secondly, STOMP’s editors can collaborate with citizen reporters in editing their articles to enhance their experience in journalism, which may result in great satisfaction and contributions to STOMP. Finally, STOMP can incorporate some awards for their citizen journalists through monetary award, point’s accumulations, or “best of the month” on Strait Times newspaper, which may not only provide a great experience for Singaporean citizen journalists but also enhance their contribution to STOMP.

References

OhmyNewsInternational. (2007). Cybercash. Retrieved 23:00 March 30, 2007 from

http://english.ohmynews.com/reporter_room/qa_board/qaboard_list.asp?div_code=54

Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. (2007). About us. Retrieved March 29, 2007 from http://www.stomp.com.sg/about/about.html

Wikipedia. (2007). Citizen Journalism. Retreived 19:00 March 29, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_journalism#_note-wemedia

Wikipedia (2007). OhmyNews International. Retrieved 20:00 March 30, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OhmyNews_International