With a diminishing number of foreign news correspondents from the US; a heavy reliance from UK Broadsheets on press releases; 40% of the world’s nations having no bureau from Associated Press or Reuters, Demotix hopes to plug a gap in the market.
Demotix, created by Turi Munthe and Jonathan Tepper, was launched just over a week ago. They call for freelancers and “the man on the street” to upload original photo and video news of broad content and appeal. They like to see themselves as Flickr or YouTube for news. In the words of Turi Munthe:
“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 be giving 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 have also built partnerships with Reporters Sans Frontieres, Witness, Global Voices, Committee to Protect Journalists, Committee to Protect Bloggers, Index on Censorship, Open Democracy and others.”
Sounds like they’re off to a great start, and we’re confident that this will grow and flourish, and that their content will be found in more and more online and printed publications. Best of luck guys! Bring the news back to the people!
Go to Demotix to upload your own news. Go on!
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