After a morning of discussions about hyper-local at the Online Journalism Symposium, on comes Georgia Popplewell, the managing director of GlobalVoicesOnline.org to talk about the role of this non-profit in the media environment.
She talks about Global Voices as the leading newsroom for citizen media content and its relationship with mainstream media, particularly one of its funders, Reuters.
But she admits that it has not been as aggressive as it could have been in promoting its content to mainstream media organsations.
This is an interesting point at a time when most news outlets are cutting back on their foreign correspondents. But Popplewell makes the point that there are many ethnic communities throughout the US who have an interest in keeping up with what is happening in their homeland.
This runs counter to much of the discourse at this conference, that newspapers should simply focus on what is happening in their backyard, nevermind thousands of miles away.
One of the ideas Global Voices is considering is launching a professional news wire based on its best stories. The material would be freely available to anyone who wants to use it.
The non-profit is also looking to develop a database of journalists and mainstream publications to promote stories, as well as a future news events service.
These free services might well appeal to many US newspapers who are moving away from doing any of their own foreign coverage. But it could take some effort to persuade mainstream editors to accept material from bloggers from across the world.
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