Q: Can you describe how fast OhmyNews grew? A: Yes, the number of staff grew from four to 53. The citizen reporters numbered 727 people when we first published, now the figure has almost reached 27,000. During the early days, citizen reporters submitted about 10 articles a day; now they submit about 200 articles. The number of visitors when it was first published was about 600. During the general election, the peak reached 2 to 3 million, of course now, because the general election is finished, the number has fallen. About 1 million a day. But this is not very accurate. In many ways, it is true that OhmyNews grew in a short time. Q: Then did you expect such fast growth? A: I did not expect that much. I had confidence that citizen participation in journalism was something that citizens currently desired. But I could not imagine that the fire would spring into a blaze in such a short time. Q: I heard that a weekly paper of OhmyNews came out. A: Since last April, we do it as an offline complement (for readers who cannot use the Internet and) for the readers who look for some unique power or the charm of a paper newspaper. Also, because there are some advertising sponsors who say "We don't do Internet advertisements, we only do paper advertisements."
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The Internet was the space where a few people who possessed nothing could bring about results using guerrilla methods. |
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Q: What is the reason that you insisted on an Internet newspaper?A: As I said earlier, the Internet is an open space where the concept "every citizen is a reporter" can be best realized. Internet space does not have any limitations of either time or space, does it? Paper newspapers have limitations of time and space. Wherever there is a limitation of time and space, this cannot help but limit the participants, isn't it so? But where there is no limitation of time and space, anyone can participate. So it is the most proper place to realize "every citizen is a reporter." Q: How do you adapt to the rapidly changing Internet culture and technology? A: I had been ignorant of technology because I grew up in a real countryside. I was the kind of person who hated technology. Even until I was a high school student, I was the kind of person who gathered firewood carrying a coolie rack in mountains. Even now, although I use the Internet a lot, it is not that I understand technology much. I newly hired a vice president who is good at that. Q: Do you affiliate with mobile communication corporations? A: We are doing so now (distributing content to cell phones and other mobile devices). That is also one of our sources of revenue. We started this about two months ago. The readership grew to 40,000 in two months, so the reaction has been pretty good.
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The age of competing through the name card "I am a New York Times reporter" has gone. When a New York Times reporter writes an article and an ordinary citizen writes an article criticizing it splendidly, then the citizen becomes the winner. |
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Q: What is your philosophy on newspapers? What standards should good newspapers meet? What kind of newspaper do you want OhmyNews to be?A: In terms of the title of OhmyNews, the "Oh" in OhmyNews is an exclamation. "Oh!" Like when you say "Oh, my God!" When I define news, news makes reporters run. But better news makes reporters' hearts beat. So "Oh" came from that. When reporters' hearts beat, the exclamation "Oh" comes out, doesn't it? So I named OhmyNews to mean that when a situation that makes one's heart beat. "MyNews" means you write your own news. Q: In another interview, you said, "We put everything out there and people judge the truth for themselves." This seems different from the view of traditional journalism, where objective reporting is valued. A: We do not regard objective reporting as a source of pride. OhmyNews does not regard straight news articles as the standard. Articles including both facts and opinions are acceptable when they are good. Thus, we not only break the concept of "who reporters are," but also break the formula of "reporters are supposed to be like blah, blah, blah." To us, every citizen is a reporter, and citizens have no practice writing straight articles, so how could they do it? They just communicate in their own ways. If you ask a shopkeeper to communicate in the professional reporter's format, he would not be able to, would he? So we teach them to break the formula for articles because the formula for articles was made by professional reporters working for paper newspapers. Of course, I do not mean that someone should never use the article format made by the professional reporters of paper newspapers. We also use them a lot, actually. Q: Some question the quality or objectivity of OhmyNews. What do you think about that? A: Professional newspaper reporters might think like that. In some articles, some parts where the quality or objectivity is questionable do exist. Even elementary students write for us. Housewives also write.
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When a professional looks at an article by a non-professional, it is possible that he thinks the quality of the article is not good enough. Yet, for the same article, is it not possible that another reader might think it very coarse but beautiful? |
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Q: Then are there no eligibility requirements to become an OhmyNews reporter?A: We have never had that. When a professional looks at an article by a non-professional, it is possible that he thinks the quality of the article is not good enough. Yet, for the same article, is it not possible that another reader might think it very coarse but beautiful? I mean that fluency does not always make an article good. In this way, an article can be considered in a different way, and among our citizen reporters, professionals from all spheres, such as professors, lawyers, and government employees, are also citizen reporters. There is an infinite variety. Therefore, it is right to claim that the OhmyNews articles are of variable quality, but it is not right to think that the quality is not competent. Q: There is criticism that OhmyNews supports a specific party or President Roh. What would you say about that? A: During the general election, (many said) we supported the individual, Roh Moo-hyun. It is true that we reported the Roh Moo-hyun phenomenon a lot -- that is, we covered Roh Moo-hyun's popularity with young voters, and the hope many had that we would change something in the old politics through Roh Moo-hyun. If there were no OhmyNews, shaping that kind of current could be less complete. There is a perception that that kind of young people's desire, the desire for the reformation of politics, erupted through the space called OhmyNews. We evaluated the news value (of the youth political movement and of Roh Moo-hyun, and decided) they were very new and had sufficient news value, so we reported on it a great deal. The mainstream media underestimated and undervalued (these stories) quite a bit. So we never feel ashamed of or answer in the negative to this implication that OhmyNews had a definite influence on the election of Roh Moo-hyun. At first, it was not that we supported Roh Moo-hyun as a candidate, an individual, but we just reported this because it was newsworthy.
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