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Citizen journalism gives an alternative voice to Israel

Posted: 09/02/06 By: Jemima Kiss

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Citizen journalism gives a voice to alternative Israel

Citizen reporting is about to democratise Israeli media, according to the founders of a new website designed to give a voice to those outside the mainstream press.

Scoop.co.il was launched by former Maariv journalist Michael Weiss with funding from venture capitalist Michael Eisenberg. Both were inspired to start the site after attending the OhMyNews citizen journalism conference in Seoul, June 2005 and have already recruited 400 citizen reporters.

Mr Weiss told journalism.co.uk the site is exploiting a common public mistrust of the Israeli media. He is sceptical about the value of an industry operating with a high level of cross-ownership and what he says is homogenous news content with a heavy public relations influence.

"The majority of the Israelis don't trust the media coverage in Israel," he told journalism.co.uk.

"Two or three key players have control more than 80 per cent of Israel's media - and that gives a lot of people the feeling they read only what serves the interest of these players.

"The news seems very similar from one media organisation to another - as if reporters have stopped doing their jobs and are just sitting in their offices, taking press releases and publishing them in the papers."

He says that Scoop will not compete directly with traditional media because it will be a platform for experiences and information that they do not cover. Scepticism has contributed to a huge appetite for grassroots media because people feel they need a voice.

"We define news in a different way: news is anything people find interesting - not only what the editor-in-chief thinks news is."

Israel has a high proportion of web users - 2.5 million out of a population of 7 million. Scoop is aiming for a big share of that news-hungry usership - even 0.5 per cent would give them a significant base to develop the site as a commercial, advertising-based business.

"I think we have a huge advantage: everyone can write about everything, so if you were actually there and don't think that's the way it was, then you can write your own perspective about the issue," said Mr Weiss.

"More and more people will do that - writing their own point of view and adding comment to other stories - and this will be the best tool for bringing 'reality' to the stage."

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