You Decide

It’s the Brisbane Writers Festival and the Valley Fiesta this weekend - just as the weather looks like warming up for good this time. I actually can’t find much I’d like to go to at either, but I’ll be heading to the Crikey session this afternoon to support discussion of alternative publishing. I noticed last night a couple of dear readers have been experimenting with some citizen journalism of their own in the past week as part of the You Decide project: Kiley and Barry have taken to the streets to ask West End locals how they feel about having their State member as the first female Premier of Queensland and their Federal member potentially poised to become Prime Minister.

If you haven’t seen it yet, the You Decide website is recruiting ‘ordinary Australians’ to send in their own coverage of the imminent election campaign. Kiley and Barry’s video shows pretty clearly that the range of views we normally get from the general public in the mainstream media is quite limited. The website overall looks like offering a fascinating contrast to the agenda of the established news outlets, as well as an interesting way to hear about regional issues that struggle to be canvassed outside the local area. They are still looking for reporters, so why not offer your services?