Write About What? Thoughts on Citizen Journalism

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Well, you do like to participate at Orato.com, but how many times you feel like, "What do I write about?" The challenges I found inside Orato are just great; there are many ideas to inspire you. I have never seen so many ideas in other websites for citizen journalism. But still I think I have some experience to share with you.

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Write about anything that comes to your mind.

I pick up themes from day-to-day experiences and I dig on them. The mind is funny; the more you worry, the less it seems to work. So don’t worry just start. Like the other day I went to a speech given by Dr. Flávio Gikovate. He spoke on being happy and leading a good life.

It was great.

Dr Gikovate is a great Brazilian writer and philosopher. I decided I’d interview [1] him for OhmyNews.

A couple of days later I was astonished reading about the overload of taxes in Brazil, then I proceeded to look up what was been done about this slaughter of Brazilian people’s pockets and I found out a Brazilian Senator who was agaist it and interviewed [2] him to make him stand for his announcement. Ricardo and Rita [3], my friends, got married and I wrote about their marriage.

Now what do the world wants to know about taxes in Brazil?

Well many, many people have investments in Brazil - many Korean companies are in Brazil and many Asians have interests in the country. How about how about the Brazilian philosopher and the friends wedding?

Well, human interest: what is a wedding like in Brazil, many visited that story at OhmyNews to know. What is it that South Americans think about been happy and leading a good life? The doctors interview could have answered that, right?

Now the two interviews mentioned above were not published immediately. Maybe they eventually would, maybe not, I did not know at the time, but I did what I wanted to do. I did what I thought was important and that is what matters… the rest is the editors problem, maybe he/she already had a lot on that subject, maybe he/she thought it was not enough elaborated to be published.

Well, when the editor gives you the necessary feedback you will know and learn with it. At the end, It did take two weeks but they were published as you could see by the above links.

But if you don’t write… like they say: you do nothing nothing happens!

So finilly, I decide on what to write about as I go, as I do, as it happens or is happening.

Go on my friend, move/write!!!

P.S.: After you get a good amount of texts published you can start writing about them too, check it here: New Fire for Modern Men and Women: Cit-J [4]