Systems like Swara and the Jharkhand mobile news service represent a new paradigm in journalism, which is low-cost and citizen-centric, and has the potential to expand media access to the disenfranchised in India’s rural areas. In the first forty days since our launch in Jharkhand, we logged sixty thousand phone calls, and the number of unique callers exceeded six thousand. These numbers indicate the need for systems like these that provide citizens a platform to voice their concerns.
Many mainstream journalists are taking an interest in these systems because of the urgent stories they release from conflict-hit zones. Unfortunately, many journalists who use these systems to get their leads to big stories hardly acknowledge their original source.
Sadly, while journalists are willing to use these systems to get their stories, no mainstream media organization is willing to help such initiatives sustain themselves. Unless and until business models are developed to sustain these systems, such initiatives will not survive in the long run. Once donor funds run out, the project will get pushed to the side. Sustaining such projects requires a paradigm shift in the way news organizations are structured and operate.
Vidya Venkat
London, UK
I received my alumni magazine in the mail today, and there on the first page was an article extolling the virtues of John B. Bremner, the great editing professor. And his name was misspelled in a cutline. I could hear his voice thundering, "This is the sort of nonsense up with which I shall not put!" I miss John Bremner. Even more, I miss the excellence that he insisted his students maintain. I find it in few places today, not even in the alumni magazine article honoring his work. The Columbia Journalism Review, however, maintains these standards of excellence. It is a pleasure and a privilege to see that there is one place left in the world where Bremner Brats can be safe from continual assault on aesthetic and editorial sensibilities. For fifty years of ongoing commitment to the craft and art of journalism, I thank you.
#1 Posted by Kiesa Kay, CJR on Sat 10 Dec 2011 at 05:20 PM