You can earn as much as R1400 per month on reporter.co.za
Every citizen can be a reporter. So if you see it, report it! And if you don’t like the news you’re reading, write your own news.
"Will more participation and better information make us happier and more fulfilled?" This question was posed by the mastermind behind the world’s most successful citizen mediated news site, Korean based Ohmynews.com. Ohmynews now has almost 60 000 members, but other copycats and upgrades to the idea are springing up everywhere. NowPublic.com in Canada is a good example. The answer to the question is YES! But only if our participation is influential, if it presents meaningful solutions to problems.
Youtube is growing at a phenomenal rate, but of course it is not strictly a news site as it is a video page. Similar sites like Metacafe reward contributors - $5 for every 1000 views. One contributor ‘Reel Stunts’ is Metacafe’s top earner at just under $25 000.
Daytipper is another site that rewards consumers at $3 per published tip (which can cover anything from technology to cooking). FavoriteThingz involves the endorsement of anything from bands, teams or movies – displayed as sideshows on numerous blogs – with badge creators earning a commission of 1-4% based on clickrates on these sideshows.
The latest statistics also demonstrate that people are spending a lot more time online searching for content in proportion to mere communication. There has been a 37% increase in time spent viewing content online since 2003, The possible reasons underlying this trend include a host of quality sites, including blogs, that have been added to the world wide web, as well as broadband speeds allowing for greater speed and access, thus enabling more time to communicate and browse.
Moreover, citizen mediated coverage is growing. We have seen video footage of 911, the Asian tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, the London train bombings, coverage of U.S. Senator George Allen's political suicide, and recently the Virginia Tech massacre.
In South Africa, on Reporter.co.za citizens have the opportunity to get involved and have their say in the upcoming presidential elections. Citizen reporting really means that every citizen can be a reporter. In South Africa we need to know what is happening in our communities, what people are feeling and saying, and how to respond to these situations. Crime is one area citizens can play a vital role. Find out who was a victim of crime in your area. Interview them. How was the crime perpetrated? Have the police identified similar crimes (is there a pattern). Is this a crime category that the police are winning, or could they do with community support?
Corruption, AIDS, Unemployment, extreme weather, how the Zimbabwe-crisis is effecting South Africans, poverty and other personal issues – all these can be exposed and represented by citizens that live these experiences on a daily basis.
Has the latest Harry potter book been reviewed? Or the latest PC/Xbox/Playstations Games? Has anyone reviewed the movie: Becoming Jane? Even if you don’t personally own or haven’t personally experienced any of these products you can interview someone who has. At reporter.co.za you’re free to review everything – your city, the local mall, your university or your school. Just do so honestly and fairly, and balance your opinion as far as possible.
At Reporter.co.za I once earned R1400 in a single month. To achieve this you have to be consistent. You’ll work very hard. You’ve also got to submit stories in a constant stream, preferably the evening before the day you’re anticipating publication. It helps if one is not only sending stories, but also photographs. Photographs are theoretically a much easier source of income; especially if you start your own image library (keeping it updated though), and then submitting images regularly to Reporter.co.za.
Keep your stories relevant to what is happening around you. Editors like to use the most top-of-mind stories, and Reporter.co.za has an insatiable appetite for NEWS stories. They love facts, interviews, statistics, and articles backed up by research. So far, and I am implicated here too, almost all reporting on reporter.co.za is opinion pieces. If you want a job as a real journalist at a major publication, start cutting your teeth on real news. Go out and interview people, get interested in your community. Write about what matters to you, and it ought to matter to others too. If the editors at reporter.co.za like it, and other editors notice it, you could be hand plucked for plum jobs elsewhere.
The difference citizen journalists make can make all the difference. The world needs citizens everywhere to get involved in their communities, for us to record and write purposefully and meaningfully what we’re seeing in our world. We can change our world into a better world, and a world worth having, and by writing the wrongs citizen mediation can achieve great things. Get cracking!
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