KoreaCrunch

Ohmynews.com is very famous news media in the world, but stories are from thousands of “citizen reporters” across South Korea. The 150 or so stories posted on the site each day range from breaking news about huge protests to sophisticated political analysis, from hit pieces to tales of the daily ups and downs of people who feel ignored by established media.

OhmyNews readers can offer instant feedback online and — if they really like a piece — monetary tips. Readers poured nearly 30 million won ($30,000) into columnist Kim Young Ok’s account in increments of $10 or less in one week after he criticized the constitutional court of South Korea last year. The privately held Web site has been profitable since September 2003 and is projected to pull in $10 million this year, Min said. By contrast, Salon.com in San Francisco pulled in $6.6 million in fiscal year 2005 and had 1.1 million average daily page views in July, according to market research firm comScore Media Metrix. The DailyKos, a popular liberal blog written in Berkeley, had 96,774 average daily page views, and conservative blog Instapundit had 32,258 in July.

The success of OhmyNews can be attributed in part to the high level of public engagement in this heavily wired, young democracy, where less than two decades have passed since military ruleended. Street protests are common, and citizens are eager to speak out online. So ohmynews has made online public opinion for polictic issues with many korean internet users. You can see this story at the glance of Ohmynews in english.

Also ohmynews began an English-language edition in May 2005, at english.ohmynews.com, and now has its sights set overseas. Several hundred citizen reporters have already signed up. So far, about 36 percent of English-language edition readers are from North America, 38.5 percent from Europe, and 16.7 percent from Asia outside South Korea.