According to the Citizen’s Media Law Project, there were over 250 lawsuits filed against bloggers for defamation and another 150 lawsuits filed dealing with copyright issues. Though the number of lawsuits is still fairly small compared to the number of people blogging, there has definitely been an upward trend in recent years (link PDF).

At the same time, bloggers have been striving to gain equal footing with mainstream media representatives in obtaining access to both people and events. However, they have typically had an uphill struggle in obtaining such access for reasons that are not always clear.

Though bloggers have begun to act more and more in the same capacity as the mainstream media, they have typically not had the legal training and information nor the access of journalists. Few come from mass media or law backgrounds and thus often struggle with the legal issues surrounding blogging and even fewer have the connections and knowledge to obtain critical access to important events.

This is where the Media Bloggers Association steps in. It seeks to help grow citizen journalism by providing it with some of the same training and access that journalists in newspapers or television have. The goal is to promote blogging and citizen journalism as its own form of media and give bloggers equal footing, both in the courts and on the streets, to other journalists. read more

Helium is one of those citizen journalism sites, where people can submit stories on various topics, and hopefully be read. At first glance, it reminds me of Instablogs, one of the stronger voices for citizen journalism.

What really got me interested in Helium, however, is the Marketplace. Basically, it’s a way for writers to earn a little money on the stories they publish on Helium, because other media outlets can buy publication rights through the Marketplace. That’s a pretty cool concept, and a way for citizen journalists to, possibly, reach the more traditional journalistic publications. That is, if the content is good enough, and if Helium can push the Marketplace as a solid place for getting in on a story for other publications.

Mark Ranalli, CEO of Helium, was gracious enough to do a short interview on Helium, the Marketplace, and citizen journalism in general. read more

Blog World Expo is in Las Vegas this weekend, September 20-21, 2008. I’m going to be there with Woopra, Layered Tech, and WordPress, and from the look of the Conference Schedule, so is everyone else.

The list of Exhibitors in the Exhibition Hall at the Las Vegas Convention Center this year is incredibly diverse. So many companies want to reach out to bloggers, and so many blog, social media, and web technologies are popping up everywhere - it’s going to be interesting to learn what’s hot, what’s not, and what will be the future of the web.

Some of the exhibitors I hope to meet up with include: read more

Citizen journalism focused blog network Instablogs has opened up their network to independent blogs, as CEO Ankit Maheshwari said they would in a BloggerTalks interview. They’re calling it the Instablogs Club, with benefits for bloggers including traffic and revenues.

Ankit said the following in a press release:

“The Instablogs Club consists of those who host and maintain independent blogs and would like to avail our platform and showcase their content to millions of Instablogs readers each month. Our aim is to showcase the best blogs on a variety of topics and help bloggers get more exposure”

Check it out for yourself. You’ll need an Instablogs account, which is free.

The news-focused blog network Instablogs, which recently started to tailor content based on where in the world you are (or want to read about), is set to start including content from outside blogs as well. Ankit Maheshwari says so in an interview with BloggerTalks, published today:

We would also be opening our network to external blogs by next month, so that they can also enjoy some of network benefits which includes but are not limited to traffic, ad sales, technology, hardware, and meeting great new people working in similar fields.

This content will be called Instablogs Club, and will expose content from outside Instablogs, inside the network.
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The blogosphere is ever in motion, one could write Yoda haiku on that topic. The swift turns means that anyone not wanting to end up second or third (or worse!) on a story need to make quick calls on whether to jump on it or not.

That could have been an explanation, had I or one of my dear writers here at The Blog Herald screwed up and reported something phony.

Which we have, in a way. We reposted the news that Twitter was testing ads, a story that TechCrunch broke, and have been denied by the Twitter folks. Sure, it is a denial that would make sense even if the story was true, but in this case I do believe that it is a sincere “no, we’re not doing ads on Twitter” due to the fact that the source have admitted that it was a mistake.

That’s not the point of this post.
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A few days back Lorelle asked what one would not blog about. People had varied responses. Some would not write profanities. Some would not offend other people with their writing. And others would not blog about work. Generally, it’s about doing others no harm.

What if blogging can bring you harm? We do know that restrictive regimes have jailed or imprisoned bloggers, or at the very least blocking access to blog hosting providers. People have been fired for what they have written on their blogs. It can be worse. There are a handful of arguments against blogging.

Here’s one example of something I would rather not blog about. When I was new to the blogging world, someone close to me witnessed a murder in broad daylight. Standing in line at a fastfood counter, a man was shot in the head and died on the spot. There were dozens of other witnesses, but no one dared move for fear of being shot themselves.

At first I thought that it was blog-worthy, that it was a good case of citizen journalism. I had finished drafting the post and was almost at the point of publishing the entry. But then at the last minute I changed my mind. I thought that I would rather not endanger myself and that person with that potentially dangerous blog post. I have several reasons.

First, I don’t personally know the nature of the incident, and the background of the perpetrators. For all I know those people could be members of organized crime. And they could perhaps come after me and my family.

Secondly, I’m not sure I can trust our authorities here 100%. In my country, while there are perhaps a good number of honest civil servants, hoodlums in uniform are aplenty. And in these cases I would rather not be involved lest I become involved in a very complicated and potentially dangerous way.

Some things are best kept private. Or at least anonymous. In hindsight, perhaps I could have posted about the incident, but somewhere not directly attributable to me or my friend.

Put simply, I like the freedom that blogging gives me, in terms of expressing myself. Both in writing opinions and reporting observations and facts (even news, where applicable). I can even go to the extent of writing negatively about people and companies. But when my life and those of the people close to me are potentially at risk, then that’s when I’ll keep my mouth (and my blog) shut.

PBS and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation announced te launch of MediaShift Idea Lab Blog, a group blog featuring 36 wide-ranging innovators reinventing community news for the digital age.

Each Idea Lab blogger won a grant in the Knight News Challenge to help fund a startup idea or to blog on a topic related to reshaping community news. The writers will use the Idea Lab to explain their projects, share intelligence and interact with the online community. Knight Foundation’s News Challenge contest awards up to $5 million annually to individuals who innovate community news using digital technology.

Among Knight Foundation projects to be featured on Idea Lab:

- From MIT, an endeavor to create the “Center for Future Civic Media,” designed to build stronger communities through innovation in digital media applied to journalism.

- MTV will be putting a ‘Knight Mobile Youth Journalist’ in every state. These young people will create video news reports for distribution on cell phones. Viewers will rate the videos and those with the highest ratings will be broadcast on MTV.

- In New York, the “Gotham Gazette” will develop games to inform and engage players about key issues confronting New York City. The games report what solutions the players developed and relay those ideas to city officials.

- The “Playing the News” project is a news simulation environment letting citizens play through a complex, evolving news story through
interaction with the newsmakers.

- Seven academic ‘incubators’ will foster creative thinking about solutions to digital news problems. The schools are: Michigan State,
University of Kansas, Kansas State, Western Kentucky University, Ithaca College, University of Nevada-Las Vegas and St. Michael’s College.

Knight Foundation provided a grant to MediaShift to produce Idea Lab and to enhance the original MediaShift blog with audio, video and citizen
journalism projects. Idea Lab is produced by MediaShift and hosted by PBS.

The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) has named Egyptian blogger Wael Abbas and Burmese investigative reporter May Thingyan Hein as the 2007 Knight International Journalism Award winners.

They will be honored at the 10th annual ICFJ Awards Dinner at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, DC, on November 13. The dinner also will feature Keynote Speaker Bob Woodruff and Master of Ceremonies George Stephanopoulos.

Abbas, 32, is the first blogger to win the award. His blog, Misr Digital (Egyptian Awareness,) regularly breaks stories on subjects generally avoided by local media, such as protests, corruption, and police brutality. His vivid first-hand reports, videos and photographs have attracted thousands of readers and the attention of mainstream news outlets, which have begun to pick up his hard-hitting stories.

Abbas has been arrested, interrogated, and beaten, but remains undaunted. “The bloggers in Egypt are the last independent voice,” he recently wrote. “If we are silenced, no protests will be heard in Egypt… And so the choice to blog is not only serious, but necessary.”

“Wael Abbas and May Thingyan Hein are blazing the path in their countries with extremely bold coverage,” says ICFJ President Joyce Barnathan. “We want to honor them for exposing issues no one else will cover and encourage others to follow their example.”

The award, given by the Knight International Journalism Fellowships Program, recognizes individuals who have raised the standards of media excellence in their countries. Funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Knight International Fellows lead high-impact projects that help news media make societies more accountable to their citizens.

The Caribbean Institute of Media and Communication has announced the launch of an Internet-based course for journalists who have at least two years of professional working experience behind them.

The course, open to broadcast, online, and print journalists, will focus upon the writing and visual skills required to publish blogs for a Caribbean audience, and will lead to a Certificate in Online Journalism qualification.

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