OhmyNews closes international citizen journalism site

Pioneering citizen journalism venture OhmyNews has closed its international news site, relaunching it as a cit-j blog.

The original OhmyNews Korea site, the company's base which launched in 2000, will continue but the new blog site will focus on debate and discussion of citizen journalism and not news.

In a post on the OhmyNews International Site, which will remain online as an inactive archive, OMN suggests its international arm, which launched in 2005, was a victim of its own success.

"We lacked a specific focus. With citizen reporters from every corner of the world writing on every topic imaginable, it became increasingly difficult to cover stories consistently. The broad array and frequency of topics was also intimately tied to our second problem: editing difficulties. With stories coming from places like Afghanistan, Brazil, Zimbabwe and everywhere in-between, it was impossible for our editors to accurately check each story. Fact-checking is one of our core principles," says the post.

"Due to these issues, and the existence of many new and thriving citizen journalism sites around the world, we felt it was time to refocus OMNI. As noted above, the new OMNI is designed to cover citizen journalism itself. It will be the hub of a global conversation."

The new blog site will commission original content looking at citizen journalism across the globe, as well as aggregating news through a team of curators, says the post.

According to OMN, its Korean site receives around 150 stories a day from more than 63,000 contributors. The organisation as a whole employs 70 full-time editors and reporters and celebrated its tenth birthday in February.

But despite the success of its Korean edition, OhmyNews International stopped paying contributors to its website in February last year, introducing a prize system for articles recommended by other contributors and editors.

The site also launched a fundraising drive, its 100,000 member club, last year to offset losses.

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