PBS/MediaShift
In June 2006, Ignacio Escribano, a freelance writer and musician with very little web experience came up with the idea of creating a site where people could freely express themselves online. He wanted to let them share and tell stories that don’t normally get covered in traditional media.
“We wanted encouraging, positive stories that promote human values in our society,” Escribano said. He told me that the project began with his disillusionment with traditional press “which has the need to tell stories with a journalistic agenda” that he found “narrow-minded and primitive.” On igooh.com, citizen journalists don’t just share news, but also share essays on topics like the meaning of death, poetry and even images of their favorite things.
Escribano says the keys for a great citizen journalism project are inclusion and mutual respect. The site publishes content and comments instantly without editor moderation.
“Even with over 300,000 visits per month, we’ve only seen one or two cases of abuse in the community,” he said. “The community itself is who decides what is published and what isn’t.”