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News site turns every citizen to a reporter

NEWS MAN: Oh’s instant news site OhmyNews has caused a stir in Korea

South Korea media has been turned on its head by an upstart Internet news portal called OhmyNews. But can its revolutionary brand of citizen reporting and Internet-only delivery work elsewhere?

It started, simply enough, with one man's anger. When mainstream Korean newspapers in 1999 started writing about the massacre of Korean refugees at No Gun Ri by United States soldiers nearly 50 years before, the story came as no surprise to local journalist Oh Yeon Ho.

For one thing, the dailies were merely playing catch-up with U.S. news agency Associated Press, which had broken the story a few days earlier.

For another, Oh had written a very similar story four years before: His story had appeared in a small left-wing Korean magazine called Mal, where it was largely ignored and unlike the AP story, won no Pulitzer prize. "I was just a proletarian of the media world," he says.

It was then, Oh recalls, that he decided that South Koreans deserved something better. No longer should they have to rely on what he saw as a conservative media elite interested only in news that served their purposes.

"It was a very sad thing for me," says Oh of the fact that local media had ignored the No Gun Ri massacre for so long, writing on it only when a foreign news organization started to dig. "Which is why I decided to create a new kind of newspaper."

His answer: An Internet Web site called OhmyNews, set up with $120,000 worth of computers and software. Four years on, and at an overall cost of $1.5 million, it has become one of the country's most influential news outlets.

Its tireless coverage of Roh Moo Hyun in the 2002 presidential election - a candidate largely ignored by the mainstream press - won it the first post-victory interview with Roh, nationwide recognition by millions of the president's young followers and the grudging admiration of Oh's foes, the newspaper barons.

On top of the story: OhmyNews needs to raise the level of professionalism.

OhmyNews is in fact little more than a Web site, edited by Oh and his fellow editors and filled by ordinary members of the public - what the left-leaning Oh calls "citizen reporters" - who submit stories, comments, pictures and sometimes video by e-mail and from their cellphones.

More than 30,000 of them regularly post pieces, and many more add their comments. A team of editors sift through the material, weeding out potential legal problems and rewriting for readability, while a handful of full-time reporters add their own stories on the top events of the day.

Many of those full-time reporters come from the ranks of contributors, usually after their talents have been spotted by Oh and his team. Kim Young Kyung, for example, attracted the attention of Oh after, as an unemployed history graduate in the southeastern city of Pusan, covering local stories ignored by the mainstream press.

But the bulk of the material comes from the readers themselves: When popular anger against the parliament simmered over earlier this year over its attempt to impeach the president, for example, millions of people use their cell phones to access OhmyNews.

Many of them, already part of the thousands of demonstrators cramming the streets of the capital, added content and comments: One item alone attracted 85,000 responses.

All of this has made OhmyNews a household name in Korea and an important alternative source of news for Koreans frustrated by traditional media, but for its founder its lesson is far broader. By allowing ordinary people to submit news and commentary, OhmyNews offers an interactive, democratic style of reporting that complements and challenges the traditional media.

It has more news-gathering muscle than many newspapers could afford, with thousands of citizens sniffing out stories. For sure, it has been known to be fast and loose with the facts, but it has influence, and, with widespread tech infrastructure, it's a medium that is here to stay.

"In Korea, generally we welcome this challenge because OhmyNews journalism claims a stance that is more about justice, open-mindedness and 'everybody could be a journalist'," says Don Kim, a former reporter. Overseas, OhmyNews has won fans among those who see it less as a challenge to existing media and more a futuristic collaboration between the professional and amateur worlds. "OhmyNews is an experiment in tomorrow. So far, it's a brilliant one," wrote columnist Dan Gillmore in his recent book, We The Media.

The site has attracted some advertising and broke even last year. Now, Oh and his team hope to export the idea and squeeze some profit out of the shoestring operation. Earlier this year he launched an English-langauge version of OhmyNews.

For now, it takes contributions by e-mail, but engineers are working on translating the Korean software used on the local-langauge site so that citizen reporters across the world can upload their contributions automatically, says OhmyNews's international director, Jean K. Min.

Then, Min says, the company hopes to sell the whole software package and its experience to any customer wanting to mimic the OhmyNews business model. "Potential customers will be buying not only software but the extensive know-how OhmyNews has accumulated in nearly five years of operations," Min says. Oh says he has already found interest from news organizations in Norway, Japan and the US.

Accessibility is the key

While OhmyNews has found a place in Korean hearts, sceptics think it may not be so welcome abroad. They point to Korea's three main newspapers, which have dominated mainstream journalism and are so conservative that they reported little of the left-leaning Roh's presidential campaign.

That kind of dominance may exist elsewhere, but not without some form of independent media emerging as a counterbalance. "In the West, we already have things like Indymedia and blogs," says Robert Koehler, an American working as a translator in Seoul, who writes a blog on Korean politics and culture, "One of the things that made OhmyNews so revolutionary in Korea was that there were previously no 'alternative' news media."

Others point to the fact that Korea is one of the most technologically advanced places on earth, where most people have a broadband Internet connection, and are connected even when they're away from a computer, via a cellphone with built-in browser and camera.

This massive penetration has created a way of life that's "always on," says OhmyNews chief editor Jeong Wooh Hyeon. He says the infrastructure is the fundamental part of the recipe: "You can't have a factory if you don't have a well-paved road." But as broadband is rolled out around the globe, the instant-news medium will become more accessible.

The country's homogeneous culture, however, may make OhmyNews' success a peculiarly Koran phenomenon. With most Koreans living in the cities, they tend to be absorbed by the same kinds of issues, usually at the same time, resulting in one big fevered discussion. "I wonder whether it's exportable," says Yoon Young-Chul, professor of media studies at Yonsei University. "Korea might be a specific case."

OhmyNews has its problems: There are accusations that its reporting is not so much journalism as polemic. Critics have said that a lot of material on OhmyNews is both wrong and incendiary, and would not pass muster overseas. Koehler, the American translator, says much of the OhmyNews coverage of the 2002 campaign was geared towards getting Koreans onto the streets, sometimes by skewing the facts. But in the absence of any credible alternative "younger Koreans... tended to believe what they read on OhmyNews," he says.

Oh acknowledged that some articles were misleading, but says, "We've started to be more careful about such issues." He says four libel cases have been filed against OhmyNews. The company has lost one but is appealing against the decision.

This could reflect something of a backtrack in Oh's revolutionary journey. Before, he talked of ending the elitism of journalism, where "news is lecture," to where "news is debate".

Now, he says, he is more careful to maintain reporting standards, in part by hiring an experienced journalist, 44-year-old Jeong, as chief editor. Jeong sees his job as slowly raising the level of professionalism within the organisation, while encouraging individual journalists to dig up stories other newspapers won't touch. "That's the power of OhmyNews," he says.

The English version of OhmyNews looks very little like its Korean cousin - the front page is a melting pot of different styles and topics, from night-time in Rome to Turkey's bid to join the European Union - reflecting the different way the OhmyNews model may affect news coverage elsewhere. For now, the most lasting lesson Oh and his team can pass on is that it doesn't take much to start a revolution. "We can do anything so long as we have an Internet connection," he says.

Courtesy: Far Eastern Economic Review

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Bloggers who dare to tell it like it is

The art of blogging, or maintaining an on-line diary, may not look much like OhmyNews but it shares some of the same characteristics.

There are thousands of blogs written by everyone from chief executives to teenagers, and while most concern themselves with personal affairs, others are political, and often seep into the mainstream. Drones of bloggers attended the recent political parties' conventions in the United States, as much to monitor coverage of the mainstream media as to cover the conventions.

Bloggers have highlighted stories the traditional media have ignored, eventually pushing them into the spotlight: In 2002, for example, they focused on the comments made by Republican Senate leader Ternt Lott in support of segregationist leader Strom Thurmond until the mainstream dailies took up the story.

And last month, it was a blogger who first raised questions about the authenticity of documents used to support CBS presenter Dan Rather's report on President George W. Bush's National Guard duty. The process may not be quite the same as that of OhmyNews but the results are similar.

As Paul Grabowicz, director of the new media programme at the University of California at Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, wrote on his blog at The Poynter Institute: "One lesson in all this is that the old days of news-media control of the information flow are rapidly fading."

So much so, blogging is now on the cusp of becoming its own media business: Many popular bloggers made a modest income through advertising, while others become part of bigger media empires.

In September an Internet-service provider, lured by the advertising possibilities of a site with more than 100,000 readers a month, bought Canadian Jeremy Wright's business and tech blog, Ensight.org, for $ 15,000 and will pay him to keep it going.

That said, the individualism of blogs leaves the "citizen reporter" somewhat exposed: Bloggers who have written pieces their employers don't approve of often find themselves without a job, as these three recent cases illustrate:

* Penny Cholmondeley lost her marketing job at the Nunavut Tourism agency after she posted artistic photographs of rubbish around Iqaluit, the far northern Canadian town where she was based.

* Joyce Park of San Mateo, California, was fired from networking Web site Friendster.com for entries that discussed how the Web site's software worked.

* Jessica Cutler, a former aide to a US senator, lost her job amid publicity over sexual details in her blog.

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Esme a celebration:

... an elegance that has prevailed

by Prasad Abu Bakr

It was a fitting bouquet by Barefoot to a grand lady who grew along with its image over the years. As the show opened with models pacing on the catwalk bringing out the initial few from the range that was presented that evening it was evident that Esme's feel for the style, line and mostly the rhythm that played an important role of the clothes created by the grand masters of French fashion was an inseparable part of her longstanding career.

Barefoot which was never necessarily a fashion boutique on the long run, stocked Esme's creations and marketed them successfully among a clientele that patronised it looking for the many buys featuring a range of unique colour combinations that has remained the hallmark in the woven fabric industry of this country.

It was probably Esme's ability to cut her garments in a manner that complimented the array of weaves in stripes and other motifs, that made them attractive to the buyers of ready-to-wear clothes.

The range of colours and motifs that were all inspired by Barbara Sansoni, Barefoot's initial mentor and one of the country's most prolific colourist and designers of woven fabrics to date (Today Barbara's team at the Barefoot design department comprises Marie Gnanaragh, Preethi Hapuwatte, Nelum Harasgama and Shaunagh Aluvihara).

The combination of Barbara and Esme have worked well no doubt towards all the goodness that Barefoot had to offer in the way of garments which has led to customers sometimes patronising the shop looking for them.

Below-the-knee length Tunic collared Sherwanis worn with fitted Churidars, sleeveless Tunic tops, oversized draped blouses (Esme coat) worn over pants that matched, flowing robes and Culottes with Tank tops to match are a few amongst the range that were put on at the show to celebrate Esme.

Amongst the stunning range was the 'Butterfly Coat' which Esme designed for Barefoot right from the beginning of her association with it and which the store has been selling in numbers since then.

Esme's ability to cut the fabric to suit selected styles depending totally on the texture of the fabric that she is handling comes from her experience of feeling and touching Barefoot fabrics over the years.

The series of sleeveless dresses that she brought out cut on simple straight lines in a range of mediterranean colours with symmetrically placed lines bordering the bottom hemline gave ample proof of her feel for texture and colour when she designs her clothes.

The show was 'superbly' choreographed by the 'Master' of such things, Senaka de Silva and presented by Jane Conrad in her mellow toned style. A bevy of smart models with an un-faltering gait graced the catwalk to a selection of tantalising music in hairstyles by Nimal Abayasiriwardena that added to their angelic looks.

The show, one could say was 'crisp' on a ramp against a set and backdrop that was as crisp in appearance and quick in onslaught. Sarong-wraps cleverly draped, by Senaka again, in an array of black and white Barefoot designs worn with black jacket-tops to beat the heat brought 'Esme a celebration' to a magnificent close with the lady of elegance stepping on the ramp looking yet every inch the 'Great Madame' of the contemporary fashion scene at home.

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Nuwanthi for World Miss University Pageant in November

Nuwanthi Somathilake (25) will represent Sri Lanka in China for the World Miss University Pageant.

This Pageant has been hosted for the past 15 years and is a very popular International Pageant in the country.

Nuwanthi was the 1st Runner-Up for the Miss Swimsuit Pageant for the Miss Sri Lanka for Miss Tourism International pageant in 2002.

She was the 1st Runner-Up for the Miss Sri Lanka for Model of the Universe Pageant at Trans Asia Hotel in 2003.

She has participated in a number of bridal shows at the BMICH and was winner for three bridal shows on three separate occasions.

She participated at the Queen of the World International Pageant in Germany and was placed one of the Top -Ten Contestants.

She holds a Diploma in Child Psychology from a Japanese School and a Diploma in Beauty Culture.

The Franchise Director for this Pageant is Sebastian A.C. Perera, Chairman Celsin Limited who was one of the Judges on two occasions for the World Miss University Pageant in the past.

www.ceylincoproperties.com

www.Pathmaconstruction.com

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