Entrevista a Jean K. Min, Responsable de Comunicación de OhMyNews Internacional

Jean K. Min, es el Responsable de Comunicación de OhMyNews Internacional, una de las primeras webs de periodismo ciudadano y mano derecha de Oh Yeon Oh, creador de la web. Esta es la entrevista que me concedió a través de la red para entender un poco mejor qué es OhMyNews y por qué fue creada. Está en inglés, así que ruego disculpen las molestias y las posibles faltas.

Miriam Sánchez

1. You select the news that are going to be published in Oh My News, what the selection process consists exactly?

=> Please refer to the attached slide for my answer.

2. Sometimes OMN has published a history that results false? Do you think that this could get to happen?

=> As the first Internet news media that successfully realized a news model that relies on citizen participation, we understand the danger of unbridled publication of user created content in the name of "news." In fact, citizen reporters could put themselves in grave danger if they publish their stories without sufficient editorial review and screening process.

That is why OhmyNews keeps stressing "responsible participation." No news is published in OhmyNews unless they are first fact checked and screened by professional copy editors. We understand that no news media is perfect but it needs to rectify mistake as soon as it finds one.

Despite the concerns about citizen journalism, barely about four cases involving stories written by OhmyNews citizen reporters were legally challenged for the past seven years and we lost none. I'd say that is rather impressive performance considering the fact that we have been publishing hundreds of stories every day since 2000.

3. You say in the "Niemas Reporter" that Oh Yeon Oh say "we have a real imbalance in our media -80 percent conservative and 20 percent liberal" and "My goals is 50-50", Do you think that Oh My News will obtain or are obtaining this objective?

=> As OhmyNews evolved as one of the influential news media, the liberal voice has been gaining more ground in Korea. However, according to Mr. Oh's recent observation, the liberal voice has inched up its share baerly to occupy about 30% of Korean opinion market. We still need to work harder.

4. Recently OMN opened a new service for voting the favourites writers or stories, agree more the voted news with the most outstanding subjects in the traditional press? What is the reason?

=> By allowing them to vote for their favorite news, we wanted to give more voice to our readers in deciding the day's important issues. However it does not necessarily mean that we put more value on Netizens' editorial decision than those made by the traditional media. We aimed to balance the overall decision making process in Korean news sphere, hence making news consumption much more interesting and immersive experience for our readers than before.

5. You affirm that the OMN model is totally different that the one from the traditional media. Do you think that the traditional media would have to evolve towards a model like the one of OMN?

=> It is up to them whether they want copy OhmyNews model or not. Furthermore, the OhmyNews model is not a single only news model available on the Net for citizen participation. However we believe our concept of "responsible participation" will be useful lesson for any news media that wants to replicate citizen participation on the Net. In any case, it is evident that Netizens want to participate in the national conversation and political decision making process. It is up to the traditional media if and how they want to embrace them.

6. Do you think that the citizen journalism threat to conventional means? Which will be the paper of the professional journalist in the future?

=> I want to quote one paragraph in my paper published in Harvard Nieman Report;

A recurring fear among journalists is that the coming age of citizen journalism would signal the end of "journalism as a serious profession." On the contrary, the OhmyNews experience shows that trained journalists will be in greater demand as an increasing number of "citizen journalists" start to produce explosive amounts of news themselves. Alas, if only journalists would understand how to reinvent themselves in this age of citizen journalism!

7. At this moment you are creating OMN in Japan, it thinks that it will be he himself successful that in Korea? why?

=> We don't believe that the citizen journalism OhmyNews has pioneered is an isolated phenomenon in Korea . OhmyNews Japan was launched barely about four months ago, but it already boasts over 2,600 Japanese citizen reporters writing about 50 stories a day. Each published story could easily draw hundreds of readers' comments. Considering the repeated warnings we heard before the launch of OhmyNews Japan that Japanese people would not speak up in the public domain, this is a truly astounding discovery. We are convinced that there really is a universal desire of participation on the Web with blog as one of the prominent such examples.

8. What do you think about the Time magazine has chosen to the internauts like personage of the year?

=> Citizen participation on the Net has been around for so many years already but I think TIME has finally realized that it reached a critical mass in 2006. We have just found last week in the leaked phone cam video of hanging of Saddam Hussein how a single UCC footage can shatter the entire world.

9. In China there is a great censorship on pages like Google, YouTube or MySpace, What do you think on it? Do you think that a space as OMN could be developed there?
=> We know Chinese government is still wary about external influence on its people but I don't think they can truly control the vast Chinese Net space given the sophisticated web tools that allow them to bypass such censorship. As China evolves into a more open society, I believe they will inevitably enjoy greater freedom on the Net in the future.