Endlessly....

(Published in Ohmynews International, Monday 10 Dec 2007)

One and a half years have passed since my colleagues and I launched Panyingkul! (www.panyingkul.com)-- the first Indonesian Citizen Journalism Web site. From the beginning, we wanted to have an independent, city-based online media outlet powered by citizens who send in their new stories and pictures. From the beginning, we also wanted to promote first-hand reporting by citizens.

Why did we go local? Indonesia is such a big country, consisting of thousands of islands and hundreds of cultures, customs and languages, that we wanted to put forward the many different local voices and not simplify various issues and events as just "Indonesian." We wanted to give voice to our locality -- the city of Makassar, in eastern Indonesia.

Why we are so fussy about first-hand reports? Because we want to send a message to our citizen reporters that in the Internet era, creativity in reporting on your local community is a fascinating experience, while just copying other people's words and ideas is quite shameful. We also believe that citizen reporters need to achieve their own quality and credibility. If we want to promote the under-reported issues around us, we must conduct our own observations and reporting.

Of course, some citizen reporters may choose an easier way, such as summarizing the latest news from mainstream media outlets or even copying-and-pasting articles from someone else's blog. But we never encourage such practices in our mailing list distributions and discussions. We encourage citizen reporters to come up with their own ideas and original reports despite the various obstacles in adhering to our journalism standard. If we believe that citizens can more-actively raise awareness of under-reported issues, they must do so with original stories from their neighborhoods or from places rarely visited by reporters from the mainstream media.

Since the first anniversary of our Web site last July, I have been trying to make a clear definition of our journalism standard and to survey our citizen reporters. The result is quite interesting. As of November, we have more than 200 members in our mailing list, 40 percent of whom have shown their commitment to sending in reports. For the mid-2006 to mid-2007 period, we selected the outstanding reports and published a compilation of citizen reporters' works.

One can appreciate this compilation not only for the journalism standard that we have introduced since we began this experiment, but also for the very down to earth topics covered by our citizen reporters. When I realized that in the first year we had published so many first-hand reports I couldn't help but think: "We did it! Our reporters have provided the best reports from the remote areas, the real condition of rural villagers; they disclosed the real stories of our deep blue sea, and they also sent their reports from the mountains. In short, they brought the mass reality, the public's concerns, using their own perspectives and also learned how to present the issues using journalism standard."

I am so proud to present the works of our citizen reporters. Their works remind me of the golden era of journalism in the 1960s, when journalists worked so hard to provide us with quality stories in order to raise public awareness and wrote public discussions in their newspapers. No doubt, today we are sadly witnessing the rise of corporate journalism, with the media operated as a money-machine to reach maximum profit. Today we are also witnessing elitism in the news, where a limited number of people with power and popularity dominate the media. Marginal people, citizens living in the periphery, remain unheard until we begin to seek the possibilities of citizen reporting making the headlines in our independent media.

So, here we are, a citizen media initiative emphasizing the voices of ordinary citizens. In our Web site we are confident in turning stories by ordinary people into our headlines, as we believe they are our representatives in mass reality. While the local mainstream media expands their entertainment sections to provide more reports about celebrities and their glamorous lifestyles, we encourage our citizen reporters to report more on art and literature activities, book discussions, small-scale businesses, environmental issues and so on. We don't cover celebrities or gossip. We also don't echo the statements of politicians. We believe those people have monopolized the headlines in the mainstream media. In our project, we are very keen to report on ordinary people.

Who will report on them? Our citizen reporters, of course. They are people who believe that they can share their knowledge, experiences and expertise through citizen journalism. Reporting and writing skills are taught from our editors' desk, through discussions, online workshops and classes. Many of our citizen reporters are young professional workers who later find that "assuming the title of citizen reporter" is a somewhat fascinating way to play an active role in society. Let's hear what Syaifullah, one of our citizen reporters, has to say:

"To be honest, I used to have lack of attention on what is going around me. Later, when I started to send my reports as a citizen reporter, then receiving feedbacks or comments, I considered that there are so many things happening around me that need to be reported. Now, I'd love to continue this mission, as a citizen reporter, to report the phenomena in my community and surroundings."

Syaifullah works for a real estate company in Makassar. He loves football, writing and reading books. He blogs his ordinary life and hobbies, but when it comes to the mission of citizen journalism he challenges himself to provide a comprehensive report just like a professional journalist would do. He provided a thorough observation and critical commentary when a new shopping center opened by the riverbank of our city, referring to the fact that there was a serious environmental issue related to the construction site. He also provided a reflective analysis and interviews about the first direct election for governor in our province, South Sulawesi, and even a live report of the debate by the candidates for governor, which hours later was read by our readers from overseas and other cities.

Syaifullah is typical of citizen reporters in our community; they are young professional workers who dedicate their time to listening to what people around them are talking about, and then report on it. Indeed, they are concerned citizens practicing what it means to be a citizen through citizen journalism. In Panyingkul! we share a belief that our small but independent media outlet is an important element in the media ecosystem in our city, where our readers will find different headlines and perspectives and learn about different issues.

I share this story as a kind of progress report for OhmyNews, the Citizen Journalism Web site that inspired me to start my own venture in Makassar, my hometown. I'd also like to share my belief to other citizen media practitioners around the world that we, as citizen reporters, have to adhere to a high-quality journalism standard and carry out the idealism of journalism because we are not controlled by the corporate media. As long as our journalism is not regarded as a greedy profit machine, we have enough room to build our credibility and reputation.
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