One day, many years from now, an old man will stand before a high school journalism 101 class and he’ll tell the students to open their e-books to chapter 4 - Citizen Journalism. This chapter will tell the story of what citizen journalism meant back when it really took flight via the internet, with little vignettes featuring innovative journalists that left their mark on the movement and the wider-world. One of those little boxes will include video samples of one of the first video journalists ever to set off alone to the continent of Africa, with the goal of reporting stories from around the continent, using video. That video sample will be from Ruud Elmendorp of Videoreporter.nl.
I’ve been following Ruud’s work for the past 3/4 years and he remains among the most dedicated citizen journalists on the internet. Whats more, being located in East Africa, he makes it a priority to produce content using the most basic and readily available tools for producing video; this means lots of mobile phone videos and small file sizes to address the limited bandwidth.
Purists will point out that Ruud comes from an old media background, having worked for traditional media in the Netherlands before setting off on his own. Like most of us citizen journalists, he does his best to earn a living wage while producing content and reports he is passionate about. That delicate balance means that his client list runs the gambit of big name corporate media and little known collective journalism websites.
In that high school classroom somewhere in the future, perhaps a student will raise a hand and question his role as a citizen journalist, depending on what definition the teacher is using. Perhaps a nice debate will be sparked, fuel for a homework assignment or two. Yet when all is said and done, anyone paying attention in the present or future will have to acknowledge Ruud’s ground breaking work and the special place in citizen journalism history for videojournalist.nl.
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