Presentation on Sri Lanka\'s first citizen journalism website, Groudnviews, for the Manthan Awards in October 2008

1. Groundviews
Sanjana Hattotuwa

2. Context
3rd most dangerous country in the world for
journalists
Over 14 media workers killed since 2005
7 abducted, 15 arrested
Self-censorship rife
Hate speech, racism and violence against journalists by
all parties to the conflict
Culture of impunity

3. Context
First journalist charged under Prevention of Terrorism
Act this year. Initial charge by Attorney General
included “seeking to embarrass the government”
Reports of torture and psychological abuse of those
arrested by TID
No meaningful investigation into any attack against
journalists
Telcos out of fear or for favour are subservient to the
government

4. Groundviews

5. Groundviews
Started in 2006. First citizen journalism initiative in Sri
Lanka.
700+ avg. readers a day
Over 600 submissions, almost all original, including text,
photos, videos
Won SNCR Award of Excellence in 2007. The first ever
international award won by any news website in Sri Lanka.
No funding since February 2007
Working journalists, civil servants, NGO workers, HR
activists, diaspora, civil servants, students, lawyers,
diplomatic corps, political parties and more contribute and
comment

6. Outreach
quot;For ongoing analysis of the conflict, the citizen journalism
site groundviews.org provides interesting and often tragic
reporting” Freedom House
Groundviews got over 144,280 page views and close to a
million hits in 2007.
Already 169,817 page views in 2008.
Groundviews is currently referenced on 39 other blogs
globally and has a Technorati rank of 131,962 out of
the over 70 million blogs.

7. Outreach
Groundviews is the only citizen journalism website in Sri
Lanka to be directly indexed on Google News and
ranked Number 1 on Google by keyword.
Articles on the site are regularly republished in other
local media, including media websites such as
InfoLanka News, Tamil Canadian and Tamilnet
Article regularly republished in mainstream print
media – Daily Mirror in particular

8. Guidelines on Groundviews
Please treat others with respect. Flaming and trolling will
not be accepted on Groundviews. Attack the issue, not the
person. Comments containing hate speech, obscenity, and
personal attacks will not be approved. Comments that seek
to inflame tensions on the ground, or are of a defamatory
nature, will not be approved, or will be taken off the website
as soon as possible.
Groundviews is a place for original and creative writing, not
repetition or regurgitation.
No NGO statements
Creative Commons 3 Sharealike with attribution license

9. Challenges
Dealing with hate speech psychologically draining
Increasingly dangerous – “providing solace and relief to
terrorists” / Deteriorating security context
Time consuming and generally thankless
Transference of skills problematic
English knowledge ESSENTIAL even if blogging in the
vernacular (interfaces, tags, content management)
Personal risk profile
Scaling up

10. Importance
Citizens are empowered to bear witness, to speak out
Issues highlighted that mainstream media cannot, or
will not
Information as a public good
Contestation of policies including war, debunking
black and white notions of patriot vs. terrorist
Content

11. The future
Ashoka Fellowship will help take the initiative(s) to the
global stage in the next 3 years
Scaling up and expanding within the country
A working definition of citizen journalism as an idea
central and integral to peacebuilding and conflict
resolution
Citizen journalism as bearing witness to violence
promoted as a vehicle of strengthening democracy /
adapting the model of Groundviews

12. Old media waking up

13. Hope
“I don’t agree with what you say, but I see why Groundviews
is there. Keep it up!”

14. Thank you!