Professional Blogging

Oh Yeon Ho has enlisted an army of "citizen reporters."

The initial premise is conventional: OhmyNews employs 25 trained reporters who cover the major news stories of the day. But the twist comes with another 10 editors who review and post as many as 200 articles written daily by nearly 33,000 “citizen journalists”—anyone who registers can submit a 750-word piece in exchange for a few dollars per story. If the article makes the “Top News” section, the payout is about $11.

“They are writing articles to change the world, not to earn money,” says Oh. His contributors must agree to a code of ethics and eschew racism or pornography. Every story is posted instantly to the site. There is, however, an editorial hierarchy to the site’s visual design. Hard news (by the site’s professional journalists) and the most carefully edited citizen pieces are front and center, followed by softer stories like entertainment, quick community updates and finally, toward the bottom, stories not yet edited by OhmyNews. Most stories are also accompanied by rich and densely populated message boards.