Oh, blimey! Will 38,000 be emailing me?

OhmyNews International said we were 38,000 citizen reporters all over the globe. Todd Thacker had opened a Google group for us to introduce ourselves together and be able to discuss issues. This was a group where membership was by invitation. I felt grateful, as I was one of the first ones invited. Suddenly my gmail kept burning blue all the time. I was receiving emails after emails and I could not concentrate on my writing.

I went then to my profile in OMNI and shifted my email address to that of my Yahoo. I use this address for matters that I could attend to later. Gmail is reserved for urgent matters. In Yahoo, I was told to apply for gmail as our group was that of Google. I then began having second thoughts. Will I unsubscribe from this group? If not, what if the 38,000 email me? There was not much option as this was a getting-to-know-you affair. I left it at that: no return to my gmail account.

As it is, it was about Chile we were talking about. One had introduced herself saying she was from Chile and did not know English. I thought we were with the international version and had expected that everyone did. The subsequent emails from the citizen reporters revolved around that language challenge. I was writing something that had a deadline and I was beginning to hate those Chile conversations.

Then the nagging thought came back: for a formally trained journalist like me, will I be able to stand mixing with unschooled journalists which citizen journalism espouses? Right now, I am piqued even by the slow and groping stance of others who talk of things I think are non-essential.

Jay Rosen of Poynter, maybe now I’ll begin to read what you were saying about audience - all your ideas about repackaging media today. Maybe I will not throw those principles we were taught in journalism school, after all. Maybe I will join your fight.