As the phenomenon picks up speed, more and more citizen journalism projects, many with different themes, are popping up all over the Web. San Francisco Bay Area based iTalkNews is one of them. Launched in beta a few months ago, iTalkNews focuses on national news, combining user contributions with wired news from the Associated Press. Perhaps the most distinguishing feature of the site is that all articles are fact-checked before being posted on the main page, somewhat of a contradiction to other CJ sites that thrive on the rawness of their material. Elizabeth Lee, iTalkNews' co-founder and editor-in-chief explained some of the site's motives and goals through an email interview with the Editors Weblog: 1. When did you launch iTalkNews? What was your motivation for starting the site? Did you have any influences? We launched iTalkNews in the spring of 2005. Since launching, many people have drawn comparisons between iTalkNews and OhMyNews, based in South Korea. While the seminal OhMyNews was definitely an inspiration for us, we set up iTalkNews not as a counterpart to OhMyNews, but as an independent collaborative journalism site based in the U.S. What we see here in the United States, and what we’re trying to remedy, is that something is wrong in traditional journalism. In a world where information is becoming more interactive daily, in news there is still a disturbing linearity of information from top-down, with very little feedback from the people involved or being affected. For instance, in the aftermath of 9/11 and now during the Iraq War, many people are finding it difficult to find a reliable news source, or even commentary, because they suspect news sources to be politically aligned or biased, and so many stories have been either undercovered or omitted completely. People have begun to look to blogs for supplemental information, but blogs aren’t usually fact-checked and don’t have established systems of accountability. We’re not looking to replace big media. However, what we want to provide is an alternative source of news for people to have their voices heard, and create a more reciprocal flow of information.

2. What has been the reaction to the project? How many contributors have signed on? How many articles of original material are received per week? Overall there has been very positive reaction. We have nearly 1000 contributors, and receive anywhere between fifteen to thirty new contributions per week. 3. Could you explain the difference between the ?guerrilla news? that OhmyNews represents and the idea of ?democratic journalism? behind iTalkNews? I think it may be just a question of semantics. We don?t frame ourselves in competition with OhMyNews. Right now the field of citizen journalism is so new that we view all of the CJ sites as pioneers in a new world, and we?re trying to share what we?re learning with each other in a grand experiment. 4. There are many stories from the Associated Press posted on the site. Do you have an agreement with the news agency? Do you have any partnerships with other news organizations, be they national or local? We have a license with the Associated Press. Like I said, we?re not looking to replace ?big media?, and we?d like to be a ?one stop shop? for news readers who want their AP fix but also would like to read citizen articles about recent events. We don?t currently have any partnerships with other news organizations, in the U.S. or internationally, but are definitely open to the possibility. It would be amazing to have an international network of collaborative journalism sites. 5. Many citizen journalism sites focus on local news but yours concentrates on national news. Could you explain the differences and additional challenges in making a citizen journalism site work on a national level. Though I?ve never worked on a local CJ site myself, what I?ve noticed is that with local sites, people tend to naturally gravitate towards local issues, etc. that creates a sense of immediacy and relevancy. With a national site, that immediacy can be somewhat diluted. In addition, there is a danger that articles generally become lengthy op-ed pieces instead of informative pieces about what?s happening in a smaller community. However, national collaborative journalism sites don?t operate under the same constraints that traditional national media does of time, space, budget, and being spoon fed news from sources like the White House and corporate America. Its common knowledge that often you won?t get access unless you report what ?they? want. National collaborative platforms like iTalkNews allow for a wider and varied view of stories as long as they are backed up by facts. 6. As of now, your staff of three does all of the editing for the site and all articles are fact-checked before being placed on the main page. Has this proved to be a daunting task for such a small editorial staff? Do citizen journalist contributors have to provide you with their notes and sources as well? It?s really amazing what a staff of three, a small army of interns, and an endless supply of coffee can do. So far, editing has not been a major issue because we don?t have more than five stories submitted on the site daily. Writing is an arduous process, and since we don?t have a compensation model I imagine many feel it to be even more of a labor. For the stories that we decide to publish on the main, we will ask for notes and sources from the contributors. 7. You have been quoted as hoping to eventually turn your site completely over to contributors. What is your vision of how the editing process would work on such a site? Would it be in the spirit of a Wiki? In the spirit of a Wiki, yes. However, there are several differences from a Wiki. Firstly, not all members can edit. We would only allow our senior iTalk members to edit stories, chosen from a story queue. We?re currently in the process of developing a set of iTalkNews Editors? Guidelines for this purpose. However, all iTalkers would be encouraged to vote on stories and leave comments. The stories with the most votes would be posted on the website, with the stories with the most votes ?lifting? towards the top of the page. Secondly, unlike a Wiki which relies on ?publish, then filter? philosophy, the content of iTalk stories selected for the front page would be verified and fact checked before being posted. In that sense we?re definitely still part of the old guard. 8. You took a trip along the West Coast this summer to introduce your site and to seek suggestions from everyday citizens. Could you give us some examples of suggestions you received that you plan on implementing? I think mostly people were impressed with the vision of our project. People generally wanted more photo and video journalism, as well as podcasting. Citizen generated audio video media may eventually pose new ?citizen editing? difficulties, i.e. verifying whether a video taken on the fly from a cell phone is accurate. However, we eventually plan to be able to implement all of these new technologies on our website, so that we can create a citizen journalists? ?toolkit?. Source: iTalkNews