Pro-Am Website Aims To Supply MSM

A new pro-am journalism website says it can provide the mainstream media (MSM) with stories from hard-to-reach places.

Demotix features international news reports from both professional freelancers and citizen journalists and aims to fill a perceived gap in foreign coverage by traditional news providers.

Chief executive Turi Munthe told Journalism.co.uk that the website will provide mainstream reporters with access to on-the-ground news from countries with strict censorship rules.

He said: “By creating a website that everyone can access in many ways we give a megaphone to the person on the street where ever they are.”

And Munthe denied the charge that the site could pose a threat to standard media groups: “We are categorically not a death to professional media.

“They [professional journalists] can’t disappear, on the contrary they’re the ones with the opinions and with the particular points of view.

“What we want to do is supply them with raw and original data from places they can’t reach.”