Tunisian PaCTE,(Pacte des Compétences Tunisiennes Engagées), is a citizen project formed immediately after the revolution to bring together Tunisians and supporters to help build a better Tunisia. Speak Out Tunisia was created, in large part, by Tunisian PaCTE. In the days following the revolution, thousands of Tunisians living, working and studying around the world joined Tunisian PaCTE, bringing the total number of supporters to more than 6500 members and counting.

NewsMeBack is very proud to present our Interview with Khalil Ghorbal and we want to thank specially to Anne Medley – a photojournalist and videographer who launched in 2010 a multimedia education project called “Congo in Focus” and who helped us make this interview happen.

Khalil Ghorbal is a PhD in computer science and a Telecommunications engineer. His ultimate goal is to help create understanding in the world. He believes that the human resource (the only “natural” resource really available in Tunisia) is sufficient to improve people’s everyday lives by ensuring dignity, equality and hope for everyone.

Q: Present us Speak Out Tunisia.

A: Speak Out Tunisia is a citizen journalism training project that aims to teach a diverse group of Tunisian citizens about digital media and online journalism. After 23 years of oppression without a free press under Dictator Ben Ali, Speak Out Tunisia seeks to return the power of a free and fair press to the Tunisian people. We will be training two groups of citizens– one beginner group and one advanced group – for four weeks in the capital city of Tunis and a rural location in Tunisia.

Q: What initiated you to start this project?

A: Citizen journalism has been a major part of the revolution since the beginning of the uprising. However, right after the revolution, it became really hard to distinguish real news from fake stories among the thousands of videos and photos on the Internet. To help organize and improve the quality of the media and to help build the public’s trust in reported stories, we came up with the idea to build the first ever citizen journalism network in Tunisia to feed our already existing online TV. Around the same time, we met Anne Medley, a photojournalist and videographer from the United States, who successfully led a similar multimedia education project “Congo in Focus” in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2010.

Q: Who gave you biggest support for launching Speak Out Tunisia?

A: Our supporters are Tunisians and people who support freedom of speech around the world. Speak Out Tunisia is still in the fundraising stage of our campaign to collect the needed money for the project take place this March, so wherever you are, you can still help make this happen! We’ve received incredible coverage from many famous bloggers, local and international media and citizen journalists around the world.

Q: What is the position of citizen journalism in Tunisia and have Arab Spring events had a positive or negative impact on citizen journalism in Tunisia?

A: Let me put it this way – the Arab Spring is a direct result of citizen journalism! During the past year, every citizen suddenly became a local reporter. Thousands of photos, videos, blogs and articles have been uploaded daily and widely shared through social networks throughout all of the Arab revolutions. Citizen journalism has even influenced classical media. Journalists now closely watch online social media networks for news and information. In Tunisia, many ministries have even started their own Facebook pages.

Q: Tell us something about Speak Out Tunisia rewards.

A: Tunisian people are incredibly generous and gracious, particularly toward those who help them! Our rewards are in line with this giving spirit; they are full of love and gratitude. Depending on the amount pledged to our campaign, we offer our donors gifts ranging from a heartfelt thank you note, Tunisian souvenirs (wool scarves, traditional slippers, hot spices, etc.), a photograph of the revolution by award-winning Tunisian photographer Hamideddine Bouali and/ or exclusive links to the videos our future students and trainees produce, just to name a few. The more you pledge, the more you get rewarded! We even offer an exclusive invitation to the closing conference and VIP cocktail party with the directors of the project in Tunis at the end of April combined with two nights in a charming traditional hotel in Tunis.

Q: Do you believe that proper workshops and training are enough to educate any citizen to report as well as professional journalists and how do you see relationship between traditional and citizen journalism?

A: We believe that training workshops like Speak Out Tunisia are a good way to start educating people and improving the quality and journalistic integrity of videos and photos shared on the Internet. Citizen journalism acts as an alternative platform to professional journalism; a place for minorities and underrepresented groups to speak out and express their needs and concerns. It also provides a forum for the people to improve their everyday lives through open communication. Of course, citizen journalists need to continue to improve their skills through practice and mentoring by professional, ethical journalists in the field. Through Speak Out Tunisia, we hope to offer the right multimedia tools to our future students to enable them to report on their communities and then pass their skills on to trainees in the future.

Q: What is your experience regarding citizen journalists and their credibility since some traditional media deeply doubt in it?

A: Obviously, one of the main concerns surrounding citizen journalism is the integrity of its content. Photos and video can be manipulated; events can be staged. How can the public know that what they find on Facebook or YouTube is accurate and true? We believe that by educating our trainees in journalism ethics as well as practical multimedia skills, we can begin to build a network of citizen journalists whom the public can come to rely on for fair and balanced coverage.

Q: What do you expect from Speak Out Tunisia and what are your plans for the future?

A: We expect a lot! As mentioned earlier, we expect to build the first citizen journalism network in Tunisia to feed our online TV. Once established, this first corps of reporters will spread their knowledge through other organized workshops. We hope to give them the necessary multimedia skills and journalism ethics to tell the world their stories, the stories of their families, their cities and the minorities they encompass.

To donate to Speak Out Tunisia, go to Kickstarter

More about Citizen Media Guild and their work will say Brian Stokes, one of the co-founders of CMG.

Brian Stokes has an educational background in print and radio journalism and was employed as a reporter and radio broadcast engineer for a number of years. Now he is blogging on political issues, mainly covering civil rights, social justice and popular science matters. His current blog, Machine Gun Keyboard, has been active since 2005.

Q: How Citizen Media Guild idea came about?

A: CMG was born during a conversation with @Asher_Wolf on Twitter. We were both appalled at CNN’s sacking of 50 staffers including a dozen photojournalists, citing the availability of free content from their ‘iReport’ program. It also came to our attention that local Los Angeles TV news outlets were airing live streaming video from citizen journalists (CJs) like @OakFoSho during the 30 Nov 2011 raid on the OccupyLA encampment, not only without compensation but without so much as attribution. @Asher_Wolf and I are both sympathetic to the cause of trade unionism and agreed that CJs would benefit from a union dedicated to protecting their interests and promoting better presscraft.

Q: What is Citizen Media Guild’s plan for the future, your aim?

A: We’re planning to set up CMG as a proper trade union, which will defend the interests of CJs and promote the legitimacy of their work. Our geographical areas interest at present are Australia and the US but will be by no means limited to those places. We’re likely going to be issuing press credentials and will be making representations to authorities as requested by CJs to get those credentials recognised.

CMG will operate as a non-profit organisation with full public transparency and accountability. We’ll probably need to ask CMG members for nominal annual dues to cover the cost of producing and mailing professional-looking press badges, though we may consider crowdfunding to support the hosting costs of the citizenmediaguild.org website and other projects as they are conceived. Someday, CMG may be able to act as an agency to manage royalties for CJ rightsholders, but that’s a long way down the track. In the nearer term, CMG will discuss presscraft and technical issues, feature CJ content and amplify their messages wherever possible.

Q: How do you see citizen journalism today?

A: Citizen journalism is still very much in its infancy, but the advent of portable technology which makes real-time live broadcast-quality streaming of events possible is making it grow up fast- really fast. Viewing audiences for top-notch CJs like Spencer Mills (@OakFoSho) and Tim Pool (@timcast) have numbered in the tens of thousands during police raids on various Occupy encampments. There’s definitely a market for raw, unedited, live coverage from CJs who have the grit to put themselves in the fray. It’s riveting viewing, without question.

Q: What do you think about relationship between mainstream media and citizen journalism?

A: MSM are largely- and to some degree reasonably- skeptical about CJs. CJs normally don’t have any journalism training and their coverage tends to be narrow, unprofessional and self-interested. It’s been suggested that MSM reporters fear for their jobs as a result of CJ reportage, but this has largely been dismissed as a conspiracy theory- by myself, as well- until CNN singlehandedly validated the idea by sacking a few dozen of their own working journos.

Q: This entire year was turbulent, lots of important worldwide events. What would have known of it if there were no citizen journalists to report?

A: CJs have the great advantage of not being edited. Editors in MSM news operations have to balance the public interest against time/column-inch availability. MSM editors also have to consider newsworthiness and as such ‘saleability’ of coverage to their audiences. CJs can self-publish via blogs and live streaming websites such as Ustream and Livestream, cutting editors out of the loop, reducing or eliminating perceptions of bias by omission.

Mind you, editors are not always the Great Satan. They can be inspiring angels to their newsies, helping them develop their craft, fining up their output and turning hacks into rockstars.

Q: Citizen journalism and citizen journalists are much disputed in previous years. Do you think that perception has changed?

A: Citizen journalism is coming of age, as previously described. It’s incumbent upon CJs to raise their game to make their coverage worth reading/watching. The perceptions of poor-quality coverage are in many cases warranted- we hope CMG can be an aid to CJs to help raise their game and change the general public perception of their reportage.

Q: Your opinion about future of the media in general.

A: MSMs have become far too beholden to their corporate masters. Fox/News Corp is so tainted by the stink of big money & GOP partisanry as to be impossible to define as ‘news.’ It’s shallow rubbish designed to be entertaining to regressive caucasian Christians- and nothing else. Once a paragon of journalistic innovation, CNN has done a big greasy slide into ‘newsfotainment’ which is unrecognisable compared to the roaring, adversarial journalism of the Ted Turner days. Ted would never have kissed ass but there’s not enough bleach in the world to remove the deferential brown ring from around the lips of today’s CNN. At this moment, US broadcast network news is all but irrelevant. US cable TV news MAY have some future, if MSNBC sun gods Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews and Chris Hayes are any indication. However, news media in general are going to have to find a way to make news riveting to consumers without tawdry titillation, fluffy celebrity obsession or partisan hackery- or they’re dog food. Dead-tree newspapers with no online presence, save niche-market local papers, are already irrelevant. Newspaper websites which implement paywalls risk becoming lickspittle echo-chambers for the demographic who will pay for their coverage.

Q: Citizen journalism in the future – how do you see it?

A: If CJs embrace high standards of presscraft and journalistic ethics, they will become the new gold standard of news coverage. However, there’s going to be a certain number of pathetic, unethical partisan hacks like James O’Keefe- who, shamefully to every other CJ on earth, can call himself a CJ, but of the very worst kind. It’s CMG’s goal to help honest, ethical CJs get high-standard work into the spotlight.

Rawporter is helping everyday people cash in on being at the right place at the right time. We connect the media and the masses by building an on-demand mobile news force to capture events as they are happening. Instead of sending out an expensive news crew or waiting on their loyal audience to submit “breaking news,” Rawporter enables news outlets to request specific content from everyday people who are near newsworthy events.  In return, those contributors get the cash and the credit they deserve.

Check out Rawporter’s How It Works video.

We are pleased to share our email interview with Rawporter’s Co-Founder Kevin Davis.

Q: What was the motive which impelled you to start Rawporter?

A: We think there’s an easier way for everyday people to cash in on being in the right place at the right time. We’ve experienced it first-hand—where you capture something newsworthy only to see it lost in the black hole that is YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter. Media outlets are desperate for ways to spice up their newscasts with locally relevant footage. We’re here to connect those media outlets with the masses.

Q: What is your primary aim and what are your expectations?

A: Rawporter wants to help media outlets crowdsource cost-efficient news content that they would normally not have access to. At the same time, it’s important to us that our contributors’ rights are protected, and that they get the recognition they deserve. That’s why, if something sells, contributors get paid. If something is used, they get the on-screen or online credit.

Q: Rawporter – very interesting word game, tell us more about it.

A: As we’ve seen with many recent world events, raw video is incredibly powerful and compelling. Rawporter is about reporting raw events as they actually happened. It is “raw” reporting…hence, Rawporter. We see value in citizen journalism and also see the need for pure raw content that doesn’t take a lot of effort to capture. We simply want people to use our App to capture newsworthy events when they find themselves in the right place, at the right time. The App automatically time, date and location stamps the content so all users have to do is add a few keywords and hit “submit”. They are welcome to act as a “Reporter” but we think the general public would prefer to let the experts publish “polished” content.

Q: Do you have partners who are helping you to carry out this project ?

A: Yes. We are a VERY busy team of three and growing!

Q: How do you see presence of citizen journalism in media today?

A: Citizen journalism is growing exponentially and becoming increasingly relevant because it provides compelling, cost effective content for the media. What’s really exciting is that we’re seeing journalism becoming increasingly participatory, where everyday people are capturing, sharing, and dictating what is newsworthy. That’s where we see Rawporter helping out, by making it easy for anyone to participate in the news.

Q: Do you think that media, in general, is completely in the service of people?

A: Media provides an invaluable service but there are always opportunities for improvement. More transparency and less bias are two examples. We believe those improvements are occurring with the convergence of mobile, social and media—now everyday people can help shape the stories that the mainstream media used to dictate. We intend to help facilitate that.

Q: As a mobile platform you have in front of you great market. What are you offering to ordinary citizens that will inspire them to become citizen journalists?

A: Rawporter is introducing a free iPhone App (Droid is coming soon!) that improves the odds of getting famous and getting paid for simply being in the right place at the right time. We’ve designed the App to make capturing news so easy that anyone can participate. In fact, with our Assignments feature, we’ll even notify you if you’re near something newsworthy and tell you what the media’s willing to pay for it.

Q: In your opinion, will the status of citizen journalism in the media change in the future?

A: Yes, definitely. In fact, we’re already starting to see the mainstream media rely more heavily on everyday people to provide them with compelling news. Occupy Wall Street, the Libya and Egypt uprisings—these are just the latest examples of how the media is relying on everyday people, armed with little more than a mobile phone, to get where their cameras and their crews can’t go. They’re telling the stories we all knew existed but couldn’t document until now.

Q: What are Rawporter’s plans for the future?

A: The first step is our beta launch on 11/10/11. We’ve been coding furiously this year to build the first iteration of our online and mobile platforms (iOS at launch and Android coming soon). We have also been busy making media introductions and building support in news community. Rawporter is changing the traditional content sourcing model significantly, and we expect a significant learning curve. While in beta, we will gather feedback from both contributors and media partners to improve the experience. Ultimately we hope to bridge the current gap that exists between the media and the masses. Finding a way to solve for both audiences will improve the quality of news for everyone and make the media landscape more compelling than ever before.

Thanks to Kevin Davis for taking his time and sharing these information before launching, and these are some benefits for Rawporter’s Contributors and Media:

Contributor Benefits

• Recognition with on-screen credit
• Compensation for submissions that sell
• Active participation in the evolution of new media

Media Benefits

• Efficient resource for fresh and abundant news content
• Visceral and compelling content from a first-person perspective
• Access to content not normally available through traditional sourcing methods
• Ability to push assignments to Rawporter contributors
• Unlimited access to ever-growing stock content database
• Intelligent alerts so you know when news is breaking
• Competitive advantage through innovation

Aidan McCullen, CEO of Communicorp Digital, is the best representative of YouReport and its history, so thanks to his kindness and time we have an exclusive opportunity to present our email interview.

Q: What inspired you to create citizen journalism platform YouReport?

A: We prefer to refer to it as an engagement platform, to enable engagement with the station.
We are very much a listener driven media group, focused on engaging with our audience.
On our station website newstalk.ie, we have many of comments on our online content.
A few years ago I did a course in music production and the course was packed with talent that had no way of being discovered.
I thought how there are so many talented people who do not have a way to be heard.
We decided to create a platform for people to be heard.
We decided to enable the site comments to become the content rather than being a reaction to the content created by the station.
These 2 worlds can coexist in a much more cohesive fashion.
A Steve Jobs (RIP) would say, we connected the dots and YouReport was born!

Q: Since Newstalk is a radio station, was the interaction with audience (citizens) crucial for a starting citizen journalism website?

A: The station is focused on what the audience wants and YouReport lets the audience drive the station more and more as it grows bigger and bigger.

Q: How YouReport works?

A: Post your photo, video or story to YouReport or use the Newstalk mobile app.
Then share it on your social networks getting as many views as possible once your story is published.
When the clock stops, the top four articles with the most views are in with a chance to win the weekly prize.
The final winner is chosen by Newstalk and announced on the Right Hook Shoe every Wednesday and published on the Newstalk website.
As you upload more reports, you’ll earn badges indicating your status as a YouReporter. If you report regularly, you could be awarded reporter, journalist or editor status. The higher your status, the greater your profile.

Q: Tell us something about your rewards – badges.

A: This element is a bonus element to integrate with the growing phenomenon of gamification.
It also ties nicely in with the idea that we want each YouReporter to create a profile.
The profile can act as a CV, where all that YouReporters reports are gathered.
We hope this may lead to either employment or promotion for the reporter.

Q: Now that you have both – traditional and citizen media do you think it’s possible, in general, to connect these two media?

A: Definitely, traditional media must adapt to an increasingly digital world.
We work to Charles Darwin’s observation:

” It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change. “

Q: How do you see citizen journalism in Ireland?

A: It is a new phenomenon in Ireland and we like to lead the way in media innovation in Ireland.
Like anything new it will take time to grow, but we believe in it.

Q: Is your country more open to traditional media or it’s moving towards online content?

A: We believe all media is moving towards a digital or digitally integrated future.
Yes, we are moving more towards digital.

Q: How do you see influence of social media in today media, especially in traditional?

A: It has a huge benefit.
Our stations have the highest Facebook following in Ireland.
Spin1038 for example has 110,000 active fans.
This is because this is not just part of our offering, it is a key part of our offering.
We were the first media group in the world to create a Facebook app to listen live. Listen to our archive and listen to podcasts via our Facebook Pages.
We reward our fans as much as possible with prizes and competitions.
Most importantly we listen to and reply to our fans.
We strive to be available on emerging digital platforms to welcome our audience there rather than follow them there.

Q: Citizen journalism future in Ireland from your point of view.

A: Positive, it will grow more and more.

Q: YouReport plans for the future.

A: Grow with our audience.
Give our audience more and more of a voice and include them more and more in the station.

Enjoy the interview :

Q: What Blottr offers and requires from users?

A: As a citizen journalism news service, Blottr enables anyone to capture, report and collaborate on stories they witness. Our users set the daily news agenda as it happens, almost always ensuring Blottr breaks news before other news services. By reporting stuff they witness, users help their local communities expose stories that would otherwise remain undiscovered. As a citizen journalism service, stories published on Blottr are not editorially biased. Our vigilant community can collaborate with each other to update articles as events unfold, as well as report content that may be potentially libelous, offensive or malicious..

Using all forms of social media to engage and crowdsource information, citizen journalists use Blottr as a channel to break and share news stories.

Uniquely, Blottr is able to deliver a news agenda, created by citizens, that is fast, unbiased and engaging.

Q: Blottr. Interesting name, say more about it.

A: We were looking for something original. The premise that writing something down with an ink pen can, sometimes, cause “blots” on the page was something we latched onto.
To be honest, that’s the nearest to a relevant link to journalism we can muster.

Q: How do you see citizen journalism in your country?

A: Citizen Journalism is the fastest form of news in the UK. Everyday we see more and more news shared and broken by citizens as opposed to journalists. Whilst journalists look around for stories, trying to discover that major scoop, citizens are already at the scene, ready to break stories as they witness them. This has seen mainstream news organisations use social media to source photos and video gathered by citizens, as opposed to having journalists on the ground themselves.

Q: Is citizen journalism connected with traditional media in UK?

A: Traditional media in the UK is essentially made up of print media and broadcast media. Citizen journalism is connected to both but not in the way one may think it is. In recent times and through the emergence of technology, print media has struggled to keep pace with “new media” which is able to break stories as they happen. As a result, by the time you pick up your newspaper the next morning, their coverage has already been broken many hours earlier through web and social media.

Broadcast media has the advantage over print by being able to deliver their agenda 24 hours a day. 24 hour news stations, such as SkyNews, demonstrates that we are all news junkies.

Citizen journalism sits uniquely in the middle of both of these forms of media. It has the ability to break news, be constant and timely, yet provide a proper, unbiased account and analysis of events. Blottr.com has a unique position within this media space because it enables citizens to break news, edit news and share news faster than print or broadcast media.

Q: Influence of social media on citizen journalism in your opinion.

A: The influence of social media has proved pivitol in the way citizen journalism has flourished.

Interestingly, individuals break news on social media sites without even realising they have broken news. A picture taken by someone in London went viral on social networking sites after they posted a photo of the first outbreak of riots in London on their Twitter feed. Nobody in the mainstream media realised what had happened at the time. Social media plays a unique role in ensuring citizen journalism flourishes.

Social media has a big influence on citizen journalism. It provides citizens the chance to break news themselves. Sites like Twitter, Storify and Tumblr are being used by citizens to spread news quickly.

This has led to an increase in crowdsourcing by news outlets. However, often the detail is lost through sites like Twitter, who restrict users to 140 characters per tweet. This is where Blottr differentiates. Not only does Blottr break news early (often first), their coverage is detailed and comprehensive.

Q: Blottr position in media.

A: Blottr acts as a news breaking source to its ever growing audience. By enabling anyone to capture and report news they witness, directly from their mobile device to web (using the Blottr app), we often break news long before mainstream media.

Q: How do you see citizen journalism in the future?

A: The future is here already. Citizen journalism is the fastest growing form of news reporting in the UK. Of course, print media provides a fantastic analysis of events the day after the event, but citizen journalism provides news at it happens by those people witnessing it at the scene. Eventually, you will see blogging and citizen journalism combine, where news broken by citizen journalists will eventually become more analytical.

Print media will always exist, but there is a possibility we will see an eventual departure of newspapers with everything going online as consumers appetite for news as it happens increases. Expect to see citizen journalism become more credible and gain prominence over the next few years as it changes the way news is gathered and reported, with Blottr.com at the forefront.

Q: Blottr future plans and goals.

A: Our mission:

To change the way news is gathered and reported globally through the empowerment of citizens to capture and report incidents they witness.
Blottr aims to become the catalyst of citizen journalism in every city and every country we serve.

The future:

Blottr recently broadened its footprint in the UK, focusing outside of London for the first time by launching into 5 new cities; Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Leeds and Manchester.
Launches in Cardiff, Belfast, Newcastle and Liverpool will follow soon.

In October this year, Blottr will launch into 3 other European countries.

By the end of 2012, Blottr will be available in over 10 countries.

Tackable is a Silicon Valley-based tech startup co-founded in 2010 by Ed Lucero, Luke Stangel and Steven Woo. Lucero was one of the founders of the digital marketing agency AGENDA, which was sold to the WPP Group in 2008. Stangel is a former journalist and Woo was one of the top software engineers at Blizzard, and helped build the bestselling Diablo II title.

Tackable received seed funding from the California Newspapers Partnership, a consortium of roughly 80 newspapers in California. The company’s 10-member team is incubated inside the San Jose Mercury News. In mid-July, the team launched its first product, a location-aware digital newsmagazine called TapIn Bay Area for the iPad. Download the app here.

The team is currently building its second product, an assignment-based citizen photojournalism platform.

Q: Tackable is a new platform, tell us more about it.

A: Team Tackable has launched one product, and is in the process of producing another. Our first product is a location-aware iPad newsmagazine called TapIn Bay Area. We’re currently building a second (still unnamed) product designed around mobile photojournalism. Using this app, traditional print, broadcast and online reporters can create time- and location-aware assignments, which their readers and viewers complete using their smartphones. People can also upload live photos and video to a real-time, digital map. The idea is to give people a live look at the newsworthy things happening in any city, right now.

Q: What was the inspiration for creating Tackable?

A: While studying journalism in college, I wrote for a hyperlocal newspaper startup called the Palo Alto Daily News. We worked under incredibly tight deadlines and were expected to scoop our competition every day, if possible. Live information was a valuable commodity, so we’d listen to police scanners 24/7. (This was 2003, several years before Twitter’s live information stream). The problem with following live information is that you can’t follow it 24 hours a day. You need to sleep. I’d wake up and turn on the scanner feeling like I had missed 8 hours of reality. The early theories around Tackable came out of my desire to solve the problem of those missing 8 hours. Initially, I imagined people dropping digital beacons on a map to indicate, “News is happening here right now.” Later, that concept evolved into live smartphone photos on a map.

Q: Considering that your platform is for live photojournalism, do you think people prefer photos over video and text?

A: When we launch this new platform, people will be able to respond to assignments using photos and videos. Photos are nice: They’re visual, they’re fairly easy to send over a cellular network, and they can instantly capture the subtleties of a story. Videos are cool, but they’re tough to transmit over the network and we find a lot of people shoot shaky cell phone video. That said, video is also very interesting. Text is at best boring, and at worst, misleading. You can tweet from the middle of a protest: “There are thousands of people marching in the streets right now.” The true number could be several hundred. It’s better to instead take a photo of the crowd, and let people see what it looks like for themselves.

Q: What’s the link between citizen journalism and Tackable?

A: We’re huge believers in citizen journalism. Citizen journalism no longer conducted by a small group of dedicated people: It’s become mainstream. Whenever there’s an earthquake, people turn on their webcams, record the footage and upload it to YouTube. People pass a wildfire on the freeway, take a photo with their iPhone and put it on Facebook. Chances are, you don’t do this thinking “I’m engaging in citizen journalism,” you do it because you’ve experienced something notable and you want to share it with the world.

Our issue with YouTube and Twitter is dealing with the keyword-based information stream — the chances of someone seeing “vid_007.mov” on YouTube are exponentially lower than someone seeing “Malibu earthquake footage 03/07/11″. It’s the same with a large-scale emergency — your tweet containing the word “earthquake” will get buried very quickly in the information stream. Facebook is a walled garden, so you’re largely blocked from seeing citizen journalism posted there. We believe a more elegant solution is to organize live media by time and location, rather than keywords.

Q: Do you think Tackable can make a more perfect bond between traditional and new media?

A: We work with traditional newspaper reporters on a daily basis and find that most are eager to try new media tools, if those tools help them be more effective as journalists. The industry’s most popular new media tools — YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and RSS feeds — weren’t designed specifically for journalism. So, we find most reporters cobble together a mix of tools and do the best they can. We’re building this new platform from the ground up with social journalism specifically in mind, with the hope that we do help traditional journalists embrace new media more completely.

Q: What do you think about social media today?

A: Social media will no doubt go down as one of the most significant inventions in human history. Millions of people’s thoughts and interests now instantly accessible in an unprecedented way. It’s fascinating to watch crowdsourcing in action — as the crowd turns its attention to a new viral video or a trending news article. Increasingly, our challenge as technologists is to help people distill the flood of information down to its most important and essential elements. Like anything technical, the first 90 percent of the problem is easy to solve. The last 10 percent will take decades to get right.

Q: What is the Spartan Daily?

A: The Spartan Daily is the daily student newspaper at San Jose State University. I studied journalism at San Jose State, and wrote for the Spartan Daily. We built an early sandbox app for the student journalists at the Spartan Daily, giving them to ability to create photo assignments for students. This app allowed us to experiment with our ideas in a controlled environment and work out what types of incentives work best. The app has been live in the iPhone App Store for the past six months. We’ll probably close the experiment once we launch the full platform.

Q: What do you see for the future of citizen journalism?

A: Right now, citizen journalism and traditional journalism operate separately from one another, and the phrase “citizen journalism” is still stigmatized in traditional newsrooms around the world. I don’t know if traditional journalists and citizen journalists will ever work out their differences. Instead, I see the rise of a third type of journalist — call them spontaneous journalists, or accidental journalists. These spontaneous journalists happen to witness news, and document and upload their experience truthfully. Without meaning to, they’ve written the “first draft of the first draft” of history.

Both traditional journalists and citizen journalists are increasingly using spontaneous journalism as a source of reporting. The problem with spontaneous journalism is that there are 6.7 billion people who could possibly witness and document news, and no way to structure and organize that journalism in a smart way. We hope to build that structure.

Q: What’s in the future for Tackable?

A: We like building interesting things. Right now, our focus is on helping improve the journalist’s tool belt. We’re a smart and creative team, so we’re constantly kicking around other big software ideas. I encourage you to contact us at play [at] tackable [dot] com if you’d like to talk further. We always love to hear new ideas.

Thanks again to Luke Stangel, co-founder of photojournalism platform Tackable for sharing his time, opinion and future plans.

Here are Sonya Rehman’s blog and Twitter .

This is short introduction and presentation of Sonya’s biography in her own words:

I started writing at the age of 19. Technically at 13 though: I used to submit fiction pieces and poetry to a local children’s publication, part of a daily paper in Pakistan. After scraping through a boring undergrad degree in Finance, I worked in Lahore for a few years, dabbling in everything from advertising to print and broadcast media (both television and radio).
In 2009 I left Pakistan on a Fulbright Scholarship to study Journalism at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism where I completed a Masters in Print Journalism n 2010. On my return, I began teaching Print & Broadcast Journalism at the Lahore School of Economics – a business school in the city of Lahore – for a semester as a Visiting Faculty member.
Currently, I’m working at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) as an Editor at their Case Research Centre (CRC) where I edit case studies penned by the business school faulty, and edit the university’s international journal, the ‘Asian Journal of Management Cases (AJMC)’. However, I still continue to freelance on the side for local and foreign publications – whenever inspiration strikes really.
Journalism, and now teaching, remain my life’s true passions.

And now here is the interview :

NewsMeBack – From your experience regarding gender difference, do men or women create bigger influence in media in general?

Sonya Rehman – Would I be labeled a feminist if I stated that women create bigger ripples of change in the world via media? On a serious note, forget genders for a minute. A good, just, and unbiased journalist can alter the course of the world; can set the wheels for true progression in his/her country, and change mindsets via solid, balanced, and empathetic reportage. Male or female, it doesn’t matter. The intention to be a true ‘journalist’ in every sense of the word is ALL that matters.

NewsMeBack – As a very young and very successful woman what do you think – if information and news are not presented online, do they have influence on younger audience?

Sonya Rehman – A world without the internet? Wow, it’s impossible to imagine that now, at this stage, when it is the plethora of news e-zines, citizen journalism portals, social networking websites and portals that have stood as instruments of change and have transformed the course of both our internal and external worlds. Media today wouldn’t have been such a massive, potent force to be reckoned with without the internet.

NewsMeBack – Your opinion about media and information today.

Sonya Rehman – As with every aspect of life: good and bad. Brings forth good, pure change, and yet, on the flip side creates and stirs further stereotyping, bias, hatred and psychological warfare. But with everything, the positive can always outweigh the negative. Media and information today is vast, limitless – the web of opinions, ideas, thoughts, rants, raves – it’s beautiful, and empowering almost – barring the information overload at times!

NewsMeBack – Do you think it’s possible for ordinary citizens to present news from everyday life, or you think news should write only professional journalists?

Sonya Rehman – What is a ‘professional journalist’? Utter twaddle. Anyone can be a journalist, or a writer. Anyone with a thought, idea, half a brain and some passion can present his/her side of a story. It doesn’t matter! Citizen journalism is the future of our world. It is shaping news and truth, right now, by the minute.

NewsMeBack – As a respectable blogger where do you find inspiration for your posts?

Sonya Rehman – Art. People with real stories of strife, beauty and life’s ravages – all rolled up into one.

NewsMeBack – Are bloggers some kind of citizen journalists?

Sonya Rehman – You bet. They are writers. They are citizen journalists. At times, they make more sense than our media moguls and pundits!

NewsMeBack – Traditional or online media.

Sonya Rehman – Both. The tangibility of a crisp newspaper in one’s hands, and the bright glow of an iPad while scrolling through the headlines.

NewsMeBack – Regarding past events throughout the world and impact of citizen journalism and social media, is there a change on how people and media treat and look on them now?

Sonya Rehman – Yup – traditional media has had to pull up its socks. No sloppy reportage. No half-baked sources. Citizen journalists report from the ground, that’s why their reportage/opinions are far more valid, and unbiased. Of course, just as there are bad journalists out there, there are bad citizen journalists too.

NewsMeBack – How do you see citizen journalism in future?

Sonya Rehman – Citizen journalism will shape the course of human consciousness in times to come because it avails the use of text, photos and videos – standing as visual proof of an event. The future of citizen journalism is already here.

Again thanks to Sonya for taking some time to share her views and thoughts with our readers.

This is their official description:

Meporter is a local mobile newsdesk that enables you to write, photograph and video your local news as it breaks. Meporter makes your stories available to anyone in the world with a mobile phone or an Internet connection.

Readers will see your location, comment on stories and check in as eyewitnesses. If they’re on the spot too, they can post more about the story as events unfold. Meporters also win “Press Passes” (badges) for doing tasks on the app that can actually be redeemed for prizes so they feel incented to participate in the community.

News is posted in all local news categories and can be shared with friends in the Meporter community, as well as other social media outlets like twitter and Facebook.

Thanks to Andy Leff’s courtesy, we can present you our e-mail interview:

NewsMeBack – Meporter – how it works?

Andy Leff – Meporter works currently on iPhones and iPod touch. Anyone who wants to post news can download the app onto their phone and start reporting right away. When the app starts up it finds your location anywhere in the world and allows you to then read the local news and post it. When posting the news you can write as much or as little as you want, so there is no character limit, and you can attach pics and videos to the news to give it more flavor. We want Meporters meporting news about anything, it doesn’t have to be some huge event, it can be a local block party, or even a review of a local art gallery. If it is news to you it is probably news to someone else.

Here is a link to a youtube video of how it works:

NewsMeBack – Interesting name – can you tell something more about it.

Andy Leff – Sure can. I have actually owned the domain name www.meporter.com since 2008 when i first had the initial idea for Meporter. I lucked out and the name Meporter was available at the time, so i snagged it for about 10 bucks from GoDaddy. So the name fits perfectly as we want everyone to be a reporter and think of themselves as a reporter so thats where the “Me” part came from.

NewsMeBack – Your platform is great innovation among citizen journalism websites. Where did you get an idea for it?

Andy Leff – During 2008 when i had the initial idea I read a Time Magazine article with the mirror on the cover about the person of the year when it was about “you” and covered all the new social media stuff. Within that massive article there was a smaller article about soldiers live blogging from Iraq and how their blogs were getting a ton of attention because it was unfiltered news from the battlefield. That is what sparked the idea for me. I wanted to build a platform that allowed everyone to tell about what was going on on their street and neighborhoods. At the time the technology wasn’t there to build out what is now Meporter, so the project went on the back burner in my notebook and when location services started to gain popularity and acceptance we knew it was time to start building Meporter. That was back in June 2010.

NewsMeBack – What do you expect on Meporter more – text, photo or video?

Andy Leff – This is tough to say. We know we will get text as we require at least some sort of minimum description of what you are seeing. After that I would probably say pictures and then video. Most people are very savvy about sharing pics through their phones. So I would say Text, pics, and then video if i had to look at current trends and predict the future.

NewsMeBack – As young and very successful man with your own online media platform, how do you see today media?

Andy Leff – I see today’s media as something that is evolving. Online technology disrupted how people view media, and now it is time for mobile to do the same. Old media will never be replaced but it has to adapt to how people want to consume it and use it. So I see Meporter changing the way people consume and report on local news. I think that old media and new media al have a relationship with each other where they are dependent on one another and i don’t see that particularly changing.

NewsMeBack – Meporter is mobile newsdesk for both professional and citizen journalists. Do you think it is possible that your project succeeds in connecting the two media?

Andy Leff – Yes. I think Meporter definitely connects professional and citizen journalism together. We have been approached by many media companies to work deals about syndicating data to them as they don’t have the resources to have their staff cover all of the local events. So Meporter opens up this new platform for them and gives them more coverage than they ever had in the past for their local and regional outlets.

NewsMeBack – Considering Meporter as location based news gathering system designed for everyone, does that mean you believe in citizen journalism?

Andy Leff – I absolutely believe in citizen journalism. it has been going on forever, even before the Internet, when people would talk to their friends about a local event or something that just happened. The technology just helps spread the word faster and allows more people to consume the message. Mobile technology brings that to a new level as there are many people that take pics or videos of things they see everyday while walking around. So now Meporter lets you share that with the world.

NewsMeBack – Where do you see future of citizen journalism?

Andy Leff – I see the future of citizen journalism in mobile and tablet computing. So many people carry smart devices around with them that gives them easy access to the web and each other. We live in a time where everyone has such easy access to gather information, especially on the local level. The problem was there were only limited ways to share it and let everyone know the full story of what was going on. I know that Meporter has the chance to change that.

NewsMeBack – Meporter in the future, plans, development…

Andy Leff – while I can’t predict the future I do know that we have some great plans and ideas for the expansion of Meporter and what we offer. We are developing our Droid app as well as looking into an iPad specific app. We plan on building out more features to make sharing local news reporting easier and we have some really cool ideas on how to get people engaged with local news and getting some really nice metrics and results for advertisers and sponsors. This is just the beginning of what we have planned, so stay tuned and download the app and start sharing your beat on the street.

Another thanks from our side to Andy Leff and wishing Meporter great and successful future.

NewsMeBack: How do you see citizen journalism in Germany?

Michael Maier: It becomes more relevant, but slowly. There are two group: single journalists, who became bloggers. Their influence is growing.
Non-professional writers are less important – unless you count Wikipedia as part of the journalistic environment. They are pretty strong in Germany.

NewsMeBack: In your opinion is reading news divided by generations, senior citizens read more newspaper and younger online news?

Michael Maier: I sure think so.

NewsMeBack: Since you are one of citizen journalism pioneers in Germany, do you think it has more popularity now or its time is yet to come?

Michael Maier: The problem in Germany: We have many public TV and radio stations, all funded by taxes, with politicians as board members. For an example: In Berlin alone, you can listen to 50 (!) public radio stations. There is not much room left for the citizens. And they seem to like it: Let the state do the media, so what?

NewsMeBack: In the age of digital media do you think that Twitter changed information and media field?

Michael Maier: Not yet. But once we have more technology to really analyze Twitter, it will become very important. A recent study of the university of Indiana proved, that analyzing Twitter with an algorithm creates more accuracy in predictions about the stock market.

NewsMeBack: Do readers in Germany prefer shorter content like Twitter or online news websites?

Michael Maier: I don’t think so. If it is an in-depth article with true relevance for them, they will read it regardless the length. What is changing here is the consumption of news via smart phones. On such devices news need to be short, and will see new formats emerging.

NewsMeBack: What brings more attention to people, news presented through video, text or photos?

Michael Maier: Clearly videos, then photos, and text comes last.

NewsMeBack: Do people trust in citizen journalism news since there are lot of those who find citizen journalism as a source of half true information?

Michael Maier: There is also a lot of half true information brought to us by professional journalists.

NewsMeBack: In Germany is there more people who are suspicious or those who are eager to find out more about burger journalism?

Michael Maier: Those who look into the matter become eager. Those who don’t care at all will always claim it’s because they are suspicious.

NewsMeBack: How do you see citizen journalism in Germany in the future?

Michael Maier: Old players will change and/or disappear, new players will arise, and the big public state owned media will live forever like the Berlin wall.

We want to say thanks to Naveen Naqvi who shared her time and views with us.

NewsMeBack: Since you participated in the Eurasian Media Forum Conference what are your impressions from the event?

Naveen Naqvi: If there was a conclusion in my mind, it was that soon there will be no choice but for the various mediums of the ‘old’ and ‘new’ to combine. The important question posed by the World Economic Forum at my session was whether it is economically feasible. I think it is.

NewsMeBack: In your opinion how important information is in ones life?

Naveen Naqvi: In the world we live at this time, it is impossible to exist without being informed all the time. The world is constantly changing, every hour, every minute.

NewsMeBack: Can you describe media in your country?

Naveen Naqvi: Pakistan has seen a media boom. Due to frequent breaking news events, there has been a surge in 24-hour news channels. Entertainment channels as a result have not done so well lately. Even so, the television and radio industries, mobile technology and the internet are industries that are growing at a remarkably rapid rate given how poor a country this is. If there’s one investment to make right now in Pakistan, it’s in the media. But as we know, booms don’t last so let’s see.

NewsMeBack: Do you think that newspaper have real problem with “old” news, because of printing process, unlike social media where news go live?

Naveen Naqvi: Newspapers are in trouble in Pakistan as they are everywhere in the world. Given that, we have just seen a new newspaper launched just last month. The print medium is looking increasingly toward broadcast and online to rescue it. As people have access to breaking news through many channels that also show constant news analysis, people are spending less money on buying papers. Internet access is limited so the social media are less influential here than TV.

NewsMeBack: Is citizen journalism serious competition to traditional media?

Naveen Naqvi: I think it is and should be. People-powered news is the best thing to have happened in my opinion. You can see from the ban on facebook and youtube that social media really challenge the state. This is a good thing.

NewsMeBack: Is there a difference between citizen journalism in democratic and non democratic countries?

Naveen Naqvi: The ‘traditional’ or ‘mainstream’ media are biased everywhere in the world. The US is supposed to be the standard of democracy but their media from print to broadcast and so on all have editorial biases. Citizen journalism offers an opportunity to break those restrictions. However, it is true that it would not be possible to ban a website like Pakistan has done with Facebook and Youtube in privileged countries.

NewsMeBack: Positive and negative sides of citizen journalism.

Naveen Naqvi: On the positive side, it gives people, citizens who are mostly disempowered a voice, a platform to be heard. In criticism I can say that citizen journalists are more vulnerable than professionals. The downside of the internet is that it gives states a tool to monitor everyone. Critics can be found and sometimes, arrested as in Russia and Iran.

NewsMeBack: What do you think are the biggest citizen journalism problems and can they be fixed?

Naveen Naqvi: One of the first things you’re taught as a professional journalist is the importance of ethics. In order to give credible news, you must check your story with two sources. It’s best if those two sources are opposing sides of the story. As a journalist, it is your responsibility to give all angles. Of course, this is not always true, but ideally that is how it should be. Maybe there can be a way of training citizen journalists to keep that in mind when presenting a report or analysis.

NewsMeBack: What is the best example of citizen journalism until now?

Naveen Naqvi: Michael Tippett of NowPublic brought to my attention a story out of Canada. Corruption cases in the police and other state tools are often overlooked by the mainstream media (as I said, everywhere in the world) because of editorial biases. A citizen journalist exposed a corrupt police officer on the internet, and eventually, there was action against him.
Also in Pakistan where I live, a young girl lost her life to medical negligence. Through a campaign by her family on the internet, phone and billboards, it was possible for them to find justice for the death of their daughter.

NewsMeBack: Where do you see future of citizen journalism?

Naveen Naqvi: I think and hope that there will be more of it as the mainstream media seems to have no option but to turn to internet content and people-powered news.

For more details about Naveen Naqvi and her carrier visit her blog naveenaqvi.com