Citizen Journalism: The Experiment of OhmyNews

Wednesday, October 10, 2007
3:00 PM - 4:15 PM
(Pacific)
Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room
Speaker: 
  • Yeon Ho Oh

The talk will explore the seven years of OhmyNews in its effort to popularize what its founder, Mr. Yeon Ho Oh, calls "citizen journalism." Oh will discuss his vision to increase citizen participation in news reporting with the launch of OhmyNews 2.0, a radically revamped on-line news platform.

Oh's long-dreamed media experiment OhmyNews was launched in February 2000. Since June 2007, the on-line based news outlet boasts nearly 60,000 "citizen reporters" worldwide and 65 full-time staff reporters. Citizen journalism gained mainstream recognition during the 2002 presidential election in Korea.

Oh says, "Every citizen can be a reporter. Journalists aren't some exotic species, they're everyone who seeks to take new developments, put them into writing, and share them with others."

After finishing college, Oh joined a liberal Korean monthly magazine as a staff reporter and continued his work until 1999 as the magazine's chief of staff. Six years before Associated Press correspondents were awarded a Pulitzer Prize for their report on No Gun Ri massacre by American soldiers during the Korean War, Oh conducted comprehensive interviews with the survivors and reported an in-depth story. Oh received a doctoral degree in journalism from Sogang University in Korea in 2005.