Citizen Journalism Blog

Here is an interesting article citizen journalists may want to read. But don’t get your hopes high on making money with your videos.

It is taken from Malaysian Insider :

News channels like Al Jazeera, CNN and BBC are always looking for contributors from around the world and they pay fairly well too. There are also other television channels from different countries that are willing to buy stories from specific parts of the world. For example, I also contribute to several European channels that focus on Asian content. Then there are local channels too that are always on the lookout for stringers for their newsdesks.

Websites are another good source of revenue. Heard of Kevin Sites? He’s one of the first solo-journalists to be hired by a website (it was Yahoo! In case you’re wondering).

Lot’s of news sites are popping out internationally (such as VJMovement, Current TV, BeamUp, etc) and locally (The Malaysian Insider, Malaysiakini, The Malaysian Mirror, etc) that utilise multimedia to the max. Heck, if you’re really desperate, there are even websites that help you sell stock footage.

For me, I love the smug look I can afford to give people when I tell them, “Nay, I don’t get a salary nor am I paid for my videos. I do it because I believe in the issue.” That is priceless. No amount of money can get that kind of satisfaction.

Of course, if you are an expert and has played the field enough, you can be a stringer. Grab videos and sell it to our local TV stations. But then, your work will be greatly edited and what you video-ed may not appear at all.

So, it is back to ‘I don’t get paid for this.” Priceless.