With the Libyan uprising still in full swing, earlier this week we looked at some of the trusted places people could go to get reliable coverage of events as they unfolded. Whilst some of these were the usual news outlets, such as Reuters and the BBC, there was also a plethora of citizens on the ground reporting what they saw as it happened.
It’s political and social events such as this that help to demonstrate how citizen journalism has really come to the fore, and it’s something traditional media outlets can’t compete with given that have-a-go hacks are normally at the scene of a story before it even happens.
Mentioned later in the article is 2010-2011 Reynolds Fellow David Cohn:
Spot.us is an interesting concept, and it’s different from other citizen journalism platforms in that, well, strictly speaking it’s not really a citizen journalism website. It’s a non-profit project that enables the public to commission journalists to report on issues they feel are being ignored – so it’s more akin to citizen-funded journalism for the local community.
David Cohn, Director of Spot.us, says: “We take investigative pitches, here in the San Francisco Bay area, and we try and crowdfund the money that is needed to hire a reporter to do an investigation. Our mission is to support local, investigative journalism. Civic journalism.”
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