Demotix, a website for user generated news, has just launched. Think of it like Flickr or YouTube, but only for original photo/video news taken by freelancers or the man on the street. You tell Demotix what is going on, we tell the worldwide web and the world's mainstream media.
Why are we doing it?
* Only four US newspapers have foreign news desks (the NY Times, LA Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal), and there are only 141 US foreign correspondents currently working today (in print /and/ broadcast media)
* In the UK, a 2006 study of the broadsheets showed that more than 50% of the news was directly attributable to press releases
* The world's media (over 90%) relies on the wire services – the Associated Press and Reuters – for their news. But some 80 countries, or 40% of the world's nations, have no bureau from either agency.
The news is shrinking daily. We hope Demotix can plug that gap, and more. We hope Demotix will bring Web 2.0 to journalism. We hope to give a megaphone to the man and woman in the street with a story to tell.
Eventually we hope that Demotix will be THE place where anyone in the world can go, in safety, to upload news – major, minor, local, cultural, political, whatever. Even before launch, we have agreements with the Daily Telegraph, Newsweek, La Repubblica, and others – and will now supply them with a daily wire and picture feed of 'citizen' news. We care about the safety and security of our contributors and have built partnerships with Reporters Sans Frontieres, Witness, Global Voices, Committee to Protect Journalists, Committee to Protect Bloggers, Index on Censorship, OpenDemocracy and others.
Please visit our site and let your friends and colleagues know that we exist (even better, pass this email on to everyone in your address book). Ideally, ask your friends who have interesting photographs and videos of great stories to upload them. And bear us in mind for whatever you witness. We need all the help we can get, so if you know anyone we should speak to or anyone who might be of help to us as we launch the start-up, please put us in touch.
Thank you for your help and please: UPLOAD, UPLOAD, UPLOAD.
The Demotix Team