A New Citizen Reporting Platform
Sunrise: Local news useful to the community
What is News?
We are discussing this fundamental question in the CUNY Graduate School’s entrepreneurial journalism program. To me, NEWS is a compass pointing to North, East, West and South. I think it also plays the role of map and guide.
I climb mountains. A map and a compass are indispensable when climbing a mountain. I’ve already climbed two of the seven summits, the highest mountains on each continent, and a guide is also indispensable. An excellent guide is sometimes just as important in life. Isn’t news equivalent to this excellent guide, map, compass? And if this guide leads to the summit with accurate judgment, the guide’s quality and value will increase.
The quality of the news is also like this excellent guide. The news provides facts to the reader and indicates a path. Whether to climb, or not to climb. The guide offers judgment but leaves the decision to the reader. It is the reader who judges.
I have worked for one of Japan’s largest newspaper companies for almost 17 years. A few years ago, I went to graduate school at night. There I was blessed with colleagues — professionals, though not professional writers — who wrote excellent papers based on their experience. Through my own reporting experience, I knew a lot of citizen reporters took pictures and videos at the scene of news incidents. We live in an era when anyone can do that. Based on these two observations I feel that opportunities are ripe for citizen reporters to provide the news. So I’m exploring launching a news network platform for citizen reporters and I’ve joined CUNY’s entrepreneurial journalism program, where I am developing the business model.
The answer now that I’m at CUNY is to create Sunrise, a high-quality editorial agency.
My business approach is simple.
Citizen reporters first pay a registration fee and an editing fee. Then they send their manuscripts, photos and videos to a professional editor within the agency. (They will not be charged an editing fee for any work that is rejected). Articles, photos and videos that we can edit will be posted as news on the web. If their pieces attract a lot of readers on the web, the citizen reporters will be paid a fee.
In articles and posts published on blogs, Facebook and Twitter, questions often remain about objectivity and accuracy. Therefore, professional editors will consider the articles, photos and videos as products. However, this editing work is very difficult. At first, we may have to teach the citizen reporters the ABCs. For that effort, we charge an article-editing fee. We consider editing manuscripts a service in the same way that language translation in business is a service. Although this process evaluates posted articles, photos and videos, editors are also assessed by citizen reporters as to whether their editing work is accurate, just as Uber passengers evaluate drivers’ service.
I would like to set up a high-quality editorial agency that aggregates articles, pictures and videos of citizen reporters, has this content edited by professional editors, and provides them to newspaper companies and news websites. The agency will be readers’ guide in climbing the Everest we call democracy. Every citizen can climb that mountain, and the guide and the public can help each other.
The agency will aggregate and distribute articles, photos and videos by citizen reporters.
A newspaper company, TV station, or web news site may also request from the agency, for example, a video of a major disaster. Sometimes these traditional media organizations will want to look for citizen reporters to do reporting for them. This is another flow. The agency will immediately search for a citizen reporter and ask for manuscripts, photographs and videos. This agency will edit them and distribute them to the media outlets. In this case, the fees for manuscripts and photos will be higher than usual.
The amount of the citizen reporter registration fee is currently under consideration — perhaps $5, I’m thinking now. The editing fee will be proportional to the time the professional editor takes, between $5 and $20 an hour. For photos and manuscripts, we will pay citizen reporters between $30 and $100. I would like to hear your thoughts on the fees.
In mountain-climbing, we train in reading maps, using a compass and climbing skills. Similarly, the editorial agency will implement training: lectures and workshops on writing articles and covering news.
At first the agency will focus on events in the small local areas of community organizers or community collaborators. I want Sunrise to play the role of information platform in the local community as the community organizer or collaborator.
The ultimate goal is to become a community platform, to share more accurate and reliable information, and to enrich residents’ relationships.
At the same time, if possible, I would like registered citizen reporters to be shareholders and share in dividends. In too many companies, only the executives divide the profits, which do not trickle down. With Sunrise, the whole community will be well-paid. And I want both citizen reporters and their readers to feel happy by being present, happy and proud in the community, both economically and mentally. Is this a fantasy?
I would be delighted to hear your opinions on Sunrise. I would appreciate hearing your opinions at my email: ayuzawa0427@gmail.com.
Thank you.
