Now it is time to be responsible for what we read and what we trust

South Korea is one of the most mystic countries in the world in terms of the political changes that happened suddenly and turned the country to the completely different way. The geographical location (closeness to North Korea) and political differences between those countries make South Korea unique. As in many other countries all over the world, independent media played a great role in initiating the social and political changes in the state and since that time “indy” media outlets has been the primary source for citizens to read news and share information. OhmyNews is one of the biggest and most influential media outlets in South Korea that was a pioneer of citizen journalism in the country. It played an important role in the 2002 election of Roh Moohyun, but since then the popularity of the web site has never reached the same number of viewers. And this problem exists not only in the OhmyNews site, many other indy outlets become less popular or even completely disappear after one big issue, which was covered in this particular outlet and made it popular. Because at the particular moment particular outlet post the story, that was not covered before or give a platform for citizens to share thoughts about prohibited on the broadcast network topic and in this way the outlet becomes popular and reaches the audience of several millions of people. But after the issue is gone, the platform becomes less popular as people loose the need of the platform itself. But with OhmyNews the situation is a little different and even though the platform lost many of its viewers it is still very popular among South Korean’s citizens. A considerable amount of its writers as in many other indy media outlets are not “real” journalists (they don’t have a degree in journalism or never had a journalism experience). For example, Kim Hye-won, as was mentioned in the Don Lee’s article “Citizens are media in Korea” (http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jun/18/business/fi-ohmynews18) , started her career in OhmyNews just because age wanted to share her concerns about her son’s relationships with his father. And even though she still doesn’t consider herself as a journalist, the Tyme magazine selected her as a “person f the year” for her contribution in the development of changes in media. Kim is just one of millions bloggers, who start their career just to share thoughts and get some peace of advice from the audience, not even thinking about becoming a “citizen journalists.” Probably that is the reason why the company’s motto, posted outside the office is a sigh “Every citizen can be a reporter.”
But independent media outlets also have problems, connected not only with money and revenue, but also with a bias and doubtful information. Along with all the advantages that you can find in indy media, such as freedom of speech and sharing opinions, citizen journalists are however the same human beings, sometimes bias and sometimes liars. OhmyNews also experienced the problems with credibility, when an advertising agent and a citizen reporter wrote a story promoting a company, connected with a client, who was promoting Oh to issue a public apology. And I am sure the OhmyNews is not the only one example. After all, how can anyone be sure that citizen journalists are not connected with political parties, agencies or business? How can anyone be sure that the information they provide on the Web is just their own opinions and facts? Well, the question is rhetorical. But in fact, there is a way to make sure everything you read is true and this way makes the biggest difference between “old” and “new” media. And this difference is that every reader of the blog can not only add comment and correct the information in this way, but also check all the provided facts in the article using links and internet. New technologies give us an opportunity to be active, to participate in journalism, but at the same time they make us responsible for what we read instead of journalists in newspapers and TV, who were responsible to provide us with information they consider to be truthful or important. Now we decide what information is truthful, what is important for us and which journalists deserve to be read. Now the time of changes has come and if we want to know the truth we have to make an effort to make sure the facts are reliable and use the opportunity to check everything on the Web.