In one of my earlier blogs I rejoiced over the success of open source movement in the field of information technology and the help it brought to this site. Now I have more reasons to be happy. Recently I read an article titled ‘Nightly News, Not-For-Profit’ in the Time magazine. While it is not open source, I believe the initiative is praiseworthy and may encourage open source journalism. The moment we hear not-for-profit news, we expect some unbiased, credible news.

Despite the initiatives such as Wikinews, Indymedia etc. the open source journalism has not yet gone mainstream. Probably because it has to contend with ourselves, the readers. First of all we have stopped reading. Secondly, while we don’t suspect open source’s profit motives, we are concerned how good the presentation would be vis a vis that from professional journalism. If you read John Dvorak’s column (www.pcmag.com) titled Losing Perspective you will understand what I mean.

(We had similar doubts about Wikipedia’s success and authenticity. In the early days some of the articles that I read in Wikipedia were so poor in content and presentation and made me wonder if I am wasting time reading them. But in due course, we see how the iterative correction to the contents from contributors all over the world does wonders. Oxford University even conducted a thorough study of the accuracy of Wikipedia’s contents and compared it against those from Encyclopedia Britannica and came out with the conclusion both had equal number(though not many) of errors!

But it is my firm conviction that my readers know more than I do and is echoed in this page. It is just that all along we lacked the medium to put and link together all that we know. The Internet perfectly closes this gap. And it has another advantage. A democratic setup like the Internet will vote out those bloggers who remain second grade or have vested interests and the cream always come to the top.)

Thirdly, as the article says, “investigative reporting” an expensive enterprise that can consume months of a writer’s time and often yield few results” is as applicable for open source journalism as it is for professional. While open source journalists may be passionate, they may lack the resources of a for-profit, seasoned organization. As you can see from the Time’s article, a seed capital of $ 10 million was required to bring this project into fruition.

And it is not always the money. Ramnath Goenka the newspaper magnate who owned Indian Express was dependant on the Indian government to grant him licenses to import newsprint. His prolific editor in chief Arun Shourie’s extensive coverage and columns were thorny and unwelcome by Mrs. Gandhi’s government. So he had to let go its editor, just so the newspaper can continue to present ‘unbiased’ news.

And to give an example from recent times, the clout enjoyed by CNN in the coverage of Gulf war II was enviable. But it left some doubts in the minds of the viewer of its authenticity. Was CNN compromised due to pressure from Pentagon?

Luckily in the Internet age we don’t need the newsprint or even the television to get our news, but still the government can thwart what we can see and hear by selectively blocking out some sites that don’t serve its interest. We will to have to wait and see how neutral Beijing
will to have to wait and see how neutral Beijing Olympics coverage is going to be. In the mean time we should do all that we can to promote open source journalism.