What is a Citizen Reporter?

It has been a while (actually years...hehehe...) that I did not write in this blog. I wrote in Retty's Life Journey for some time. Yet, the spirit to write was a bit low. There are too many voices in the digital world these days. Sometimes we could not tell which one is the real story, which one is fake...or even made to confuse people.

Being a citizen reporter was actually fun and rewarding. Rewarding? Yes...rewarding! I am not actually talking about the reward I got to visit Seoul from OhmyNews International (which is of course still very much appreciated). I am talking about the reward of having my thoughts written online. Joined the euphoria of blogging was nice, but being the citizen reporter prompted me to write varieties of blog posts in several online medias.

I was frustrated with the closure of wikimu.com that buried all my writings with the site. OhmyNews International (OMNI) was also closing its door for the international site. Fortunately the old articles are still archived. This is the link to my writings in the late OMNI.

As a citizen reporter I tried to write for the other websites, not only in my own blog. That is why I also wrote for Kompasiana and Indonesiana. Yet, writing for others while working full time is not as easy as I thought. The more activities I had in the real world, the less I wrote. During the era of wikimu and OMNI, there was a feeling of an obligation to write. Writing to Wikimu was usually after a prompt of comments or personal message from friends. Writing to OhMyNews was more into sharing the news from Indonesia to the global world.

Indonesian audience is mostly the auditory audience. It was the reason why legends were alive from storytellers, but we could not find a lot of written evidence.

One of the new type of citizen reportage is the vlog in Youtube. I think it consumes more dedication as one is willing to go anywhere talking to the camera. One Korean vlogger is very famous in Indonesia these days. I find his vlog attractive. His name is Jang Hansol. The most attractive part of his vlog is his Javanese accent. A Korean with a real Javenese accent (medok pol hehehe...). His youtube channel Korea Roemit attracted a lot of Indonesian viewers.

Hansol is a very good storyteller. He is also creative in finding a topic to interest his (vlog) subscribers and viewers. Yet, I think the most interesting thing that attract people to his channel is his personal story. How he lived in Malang, how he likes Indonesian food, etc.

Like Pepih Nugraha, founder of Kompasiana, once said, "The most important thing for a citizen reporter is to write the things that they like." At that time some people were demanding citizen reporter to present more news than opinion, more news than personal story. Yet, being personal is the way to differentiate a blogger to a professional journalist. And now youtube is more attractive for the young generation. I think this is a new way of citizen reporting. Yet, writing is my style, and I will keep writing.

Why I come back to write in this blog? May be because this blog is my citizen reporter's blog. Retty's Life Journey is not really my citizen reporter's blog.

What prompt me to write today? It's been a long time.... I was buried under my works. Yesterday, as I was working on another part-time job, I came across Jo March in a  retold story of Little Women. I loved reading Little Women and the other two books in Louisa May Alcott's trilogy.

I was also asked by a university student to write a pre-event article of their musical drama performance, Sanskerta 2019 "Arjuna: Sebuah Kisah Perjuangan Mengungkap Makna." I think I never wrote any pre-event article. As a blogger I wrote things that I'd like to write. As a citizen reporter I reported the things that I have seen. A pre-event with only a piece of press release is not my call. But, it revived my citizen reporter spirit... So, I will be watching the show tonight and will try my best to write one or two articles (Thanks God I still have my annual leave).

Another thing that revived my blogging spirit is a Facebook post (actually posted some time ago, yet I was still very occupied with works). It is a new chunk of Nora Suryanti's story. I got that story shortly in Oma Nora's Ama Saga. I think I should write the second part of the puzzle.The first part was written here. So, here I am....hopefully ready to venture into the next puzzle.