New network for independent Irish journalists

national | arts and media | opinion/analysis Tuesday August 23, 2011 04:01 by Colin Platt colin at dogit dot org

Nonprofit network is being developed with a focus on local news from locally-based independent reporters and citizen journalists.

Where do you get your news? How do you know who to trust? If the news you read is covered up or flanked by advertisements, how sure can you be that the content represents the common interest, and not corporate interest? If a reporter doesn't witness an event or get all sides of a story on the ground, how can you trust the accuracy of their reporting?

Indymedia is a great avenue for radical organizing, grass-roots, locally-based reporting, editorials, and impassioned debate. What we need is a better way to filter user reports based on their location, whether regional or in your own neighborhood, and to have the ability to connect and collaborate with others with similar interests in a secure way. And we need to promote and support independent journalism in every location possible.

At the moment, it seems many Indymedia sites have shut down their open publishing wire due to lack of resources or excessive spam, and many other sites are cluttered with anonymous editorials and personal attacks. Many local IMCs can't afford their hosting fees.

A new network for journalists and nonprofits is being developed at dogit.org, not to detract in any way from the hard work of Indymedia collectives around the world to face these challenges, but to help the spread of independent journalism further in places where media access is limited, corporations dominate the airwaves, or journalists themselves are in danger.

Dogit.org is in its beta phase right now, and you're invited to check it out and help us shape how we publish and view independent news. You are free to publish your media on your own terms, as long as it is a real story and is original.

Write about what you know, the places you come from, and the stories that deserve a closer look than the mainstream media has the attention span for. Positive or negative, stories must be grounded in facts; editorials can be linked to on your user profile. You can also comment on other sources and report biases, omissions and inaccuracies.

We are not for profit. We are for exposing reality. And no one can tell the truth of their reality better than the people who live it.

Colin Platt

Founder, Watchdog International