Citizens Eye is always encouraging people to start blogs that allow them to be Citizen Reporters and report what they see happening in the city or county.

This interesting piece was written by Jason Lee Miller on WebProNews in the US:

“The threats to print and long-form journalism are these: market saturation, which dilutes not just audiences, but advertisers; high overhead; craigslist; local search; babies being born right now.

The question, then, is about how to adapt. Some are cutting staff and other costs. Some are closing their print face and going online exclusively. Some are using their online income to supplement their print side. Some are cutting just how investigative they’re going to get about news. Some are selling out to conglomerates who are better at adapting, have the resources to adapt, and who have lessened the competition for ad sales by buying up the competition.”

For the full story click here 

If you would like to start your own blog, why not try Novalet - this system was built by a local DMU student and its very straight forward to use and fun!

I found the above story on a great blog called ‘CitizenPress‘ written by Bob Toovey on Citizen Journalism - check it out.

To do Citizens Journalism right we must create a team of citizen reporters who are typically excluded from or misrepresented by the local media: Low-income women, minorities and youth.

These demographic and lifestyle groups have little access to the media and advertisers typically don’t want them.

Click here to see what Bob Toovey of CitizenPress said about Citizens Eye.

Citizens Eye will be announcing the dates shortly for the first Citizen Reporter training session. If you are interested in attending this free workshop please drop me an email. Email: john@citizenseye.org

JC

We would like to thank everybody for their kind words of support and its always good to meet people ‘out & about’ who like the idea of Citizens Eye.

Mohamed is the IT guru who somehow manages to make the whole thing function and without his training and support all the 100 posts would still be on a memory stick. Thanks!

Special thanks to Christopher Isa Ellis of the Black Future Network for picking up and developing this idea that came originally out of the BME Citizens Jury in 2006.

A special mention of thanks to Julian Harrison at Leicestershire County Council for all his support and guidance from day 1.

Finally, I would like to apologize for not posting an ‘Out & About’ for week 2 or 3 but for those of you who have seen me moving at pace between the launch of the Parenting Strategy at the Tigers Stadium, the launch of the Leicester City of Sanctuary at VAL and the Jobs Fair 4 U in Humberstone, at least you know I don’t sit behind a desk all day!

Editor

PS. If you do want to buy an Easter Egg - please make it one of the fantastic looking Fair Trade one’s in the Just Fair Trade shop on Bishop Street.

From the initial reaction I think we are going to be very busy over the coming weeks and months, telling people about the Community News Agency and why we set it up.

Its now about getting out into the community and encouraging people to join us as Citizen Reporters, informing us of what’s important to them and sharing their views.

Anyone can be a Citizens Reporter because everyone is a Citizen.

Its Reporting by the People for the People….its the community news through the Citizens Eye!

Here comes week two……. JC