New changes in India's participatory journalism landscape

A few new faces -- and some disappearing ones -- since I last looked at PJ developments in India.

Merinews is thriving wonderfully, with a lot of content and contributions. A purely participatory site, Merinews has finally gotten some well-deserved traction and shows some great commitment to social change, as in their special initiative Citizen's Manifesto 2067.

In the page outlining the project, Merinews CEO and Editor-in-Chief Vipul Kant Upadhyay identifies still-outstanding major social and economic issues in India even has the country booms ahead in progress. Upadhyay states:

"It's time that citizens of India came forward to identify the challenges ahead, line up solutions to tackle them and then charge forward towards making that very critical difference by creating the blueprint for the next 60 years of India’s growth."

Towards this goal, Team merinews has taken up the challenge to create the 'Citizens' Manifesto - a people defined roadmap of India till 2067.'

We call upon every Indian to come forward and join this initiative. Your fire of patriotism and the passion to realise a dream for yourself, your society and in turn your country is what is needed to make this happen. You can submit your suggestions, thoughts, views, ideas, issues and their solutions."

He imparts some focus:

"We are putting together a team of concerned Indians hailing from various walks of life to steer this campaign and invite you to join this campaign.

You can contribute by writing about issues that go unnoticed. In case you are finding it difficult, let us know. We will write it together.

Identify the challenges the country faces today and write to us about them. Share your thoughts about the probable solutions or let us find it out together with fellow citizens.

Your suggestions are valuable. Please write your views and thoughts to make this campaign more meaningful click here to send your suggestions."

Merinews will have to not lose grip on this focus and steer the discussions to be very solutions - oriented, as we learned from our DWI project.



Citizenxpress.com seems to have vanished, and its founding organization, Citizen Research Foundation, still has a web presence but on a very unstable platform ( most links to other articles within the site don't work) and a last update of Nov. 25, 2007. Ive emailed the proprietor for an update.


One project that's new to me -- but that also needs a bit of updating -- is by Sweta Singh, Program Coordinator at Apeejay Institute of Mass Communication. Her post at the newassignment.net site details an initiative empowering women village council leaders in Bihar to do a video blog:

"Citizen Journalism is new to India and professionals are still grappling with its theoretical and practical framework. But if it is anything ‘for, by and of’ the people’, then it is sure to bring about a sea change if not a revolution in the Indian mediascape.

There are quite a few initiatives that are being experimented to listen to citizens and talk to them about them so that it helps them better their lives. I have also undertaken one such initiatives, ‘MYOWN’ to train women panchayat leaders in Bihar, one of the most backward states of India to talk about their issues and assist them in publishing a video blog so that their concerns are highlighted.

This project is experimental and as of now self-funded. The project is of tremendous importance and holds promises for the citizens, the people of Bihar who live in villages."

While the assignment.net post is quite recent, the link to the project itself isn't as current. I'd love an update and to see some of the video results of this very important work.

MyNews.in is also a strong presence, and has a Hindi language counterpart at http://www.merikhabar.com/ . The platforms remind me somewhat of citzenxpress, but I can't confirm if its the same organization or not at this time. They have a full compliment of citizen reports, blogs, live chat, forums, and contributor profiles. I was particularly impressed by their detailed guidelines on their faq page, which includes a Reporter's Code of Ethics and Citizen Reporter's Agreement. Not many PJ initiatives set forth expectations or standards, so it's nice to see.

There are a few new PJ startups as well, mainly CPlash! , whitedrums.com and also calcuttacentral.com ; I'll be watching these as they develop.


Turning to mainstream news organizations, Times Of India keeps its hand in with its My Times, My Voice page, but currently doesnt have anything quite as robust as last year's India Poised initiative, detailed in a previous post below.

My favorite Indian mainstream site for PJ integration is IBN Live. IBN's greatest strength is in making PJ initiatives matter and relevant. As I often state, its in the doing -- and in the understanding of that doing -- that makes PJ work.

A quick glance throughout IBN's site shows how pervasive their focus on providing users with relevant interactivity is. As India prepares for its annual budget, IBN has a whole series of online pre Budget chats with leaders, budget blogs, and an online poll where you can "Tell us which tax the Finance Minister should do away with in this Union Budget. CNN-IBN will present your wishlist to the FM on your behalf."

They've also launched a new initiative for student blogs, starting in Pune with plans to expand.

Their true spotlight is on their CJ Page , where you can submit video, photo, or text, or fill out an information form in one of four categories:

What can you do?

Fight back
If you are fighting for a cause - corruption, bureaucratic delay or simple high-handedness - CNN-IBN will help you.

Campus CJ
Inviting the youth of the country to come forward and fight for their issues

Save your city
Potholed roads, liquor shop in your locality - are these troubling residents? CNN-IBN will help face the authorities.

Green CJ
A simple green initiative and you could be our Green CJ.

Thats the most direct, open -armed invitation to close the gap and be a public partner that Ive found.

Also check out their weekly video series Citizen Journalism Impact, where they showcase what other viewers have accomplished in their neighborhood.

Closing the gap indeed.

Its sobering and inspiring to look at how seriously people around the world are taking the opportunities provided by information, technology and social use, and making it their own to empower themselves and effect change. In some ways its embarassing that America is so complacent about whatever social ills we have that our profession gets excited by more innocuous forms of viewer engagement like pet photos. Are we lazy , fortunate, complacent, thankful? All of that?

There's a lot we could galvanize our communities around, with the proper application of the proper tools.