Busybee
Norgdom
Perth MusicDon’t be afraid of your voice
It has been drawn to my attention that some people feel this blog does not have enough of my own voice. Part of that reason has been my reluctance about stamping PerthNorg with ‘me’ because it really is about its users - and I am just one of those.
But I think the more we all share with each other, the better PerthNorg will become and hopefully the more I write about myself here, the more our Cit Js will write about their own experiences as well. I suppose I thought by hovering in the background people will feel more inclined to make their mark on the norg. But I realise it’s not just a case of every person having a story, but every story having a person behind it and hence my small foray into writing about me.
The story of how I dreamt up what is now PerthNorg only started at the beginning of this year. I had been hanging around the fringes of the blogosphere for about a year through my work as a freelance journalist, but my participation was somewhat limited by the fact that we have four young children. I have four unfinished and neglected blogs to prove it!
My interest in blogging was probably really born from the role it played in disseminating what was happening during the Iraq war while most of the MSM (mainstream media) were holed up in hotels.
I originally envisaged an international norg (you can read here where I came across the word) and still hope to launch that one day, but the more I looked in to the role of citizen journalism, the more I realised that it had real value in local news, that was at that point not being undertaken in any serious way. I think I could lay claim to a first, but I won’t incase …
One of the first times I made contact with the Perth blogging scene, was when I arrived at a bloggers meetup back in April and was voted mystery participant of the evening by Duncan Riley. I think that had partly to do with the fact that I knew so much about everyone there from having spent the last few months reading their blogs.
It was meeting this great bunch of people and really learning so much from them that made me think that I had to go for it. Obviously there is so more to the story - but that’s the beginning in a nutshell.
So don’t be afraid of your voice (I’m a trained journalist and I just did it, so anyone can).
PS. I found a great overseas citizen journalist type site called orato - that encourages first person reporting. Have a look, it might spark off some ideas for this local news site - PerthNorg - it is your news, your views after all.
