Citizen Journalism and Community Media
I am excited to announce that the second year of NeighborMedia (a New Voices Grantee) is getting started next week. We’re having an orientation at CCTV next Wednesday to welcome this year’s group of up and coming citizen journalists who will be sharing their stories about issues that matter to them and others in Cambridge.
Some of the individuals in the program come from professional journalism backgrounds and others do not have any experience producing media at all. This is why I am most excited about this group. They also share a common trait. They care passionately about local issues and want to express their views with others in Cambridge. All of them live, or have lived, in the community and can speak about their experiences in a way that uniquely separates them from many of the freelance journalists employed by our regional media conglomerates.
At a time when news organizations are investing large sums of money to retrain their staff to do more with social media tools, community media centers such as CCTV are uniquely positioned to help ordinary people have a voice using new and traditional media tools.
That’s why I feel so privileged to have the opportunity to help lead this important effort. I am thankful for the foundation that Julie Adler and my other co-workers established during the first year of the program. The evaluations conducted at the end of the first year (over this summer) were invaluable towards the planning and coordination of this year’s program. We’re excited to get started next week, and I hope you will follow their progress at NeighborMedia.org.
Cambridge Community Television, Citizen Journalism, Citizen Media, Civic Engagement, Community Media, Public Access TV
