Citizen Journalist Awards cheers proactive citizen journalists

The first edition of the Citizen Journalist Awards, instituted by the news channels CNN-IBN and IBN 7, is all set to felicitate enthusiastic citizen journalists at a much awaited function in New Delhi on October 16.

Talking to afaqs!, Ashutosh, managing editor, IBN 7, shares the purpose behind the awards and explains the concept of citizen journalism. He says, “By and large, journalism is related and defined by an imagery of professional journalists alone. But this initiative has proved to be a process that has successfully extended this definition by involving commoners to come forward and report on issues affecting them.”

Ashutosh lists out the various categories of awards, saying, “We have received nominations under various categories such as Fight Back, Save Your City, Green CJ, Be the Change and Best CJ. Besides these awards, we will also have other categories such as Best Pictures and Best Videos.”

The CJ award has been specially instituted to recognise the worthy efforts of individuals whose work cannot be slotted in any particular category, but at the same time, have contributed immensely to the concept of citizen journalism.

The Fight Back award honours individuals who have taken up the fight for their rights. It could be a fight of a commoner to seek his pension. The Save Your City award recognises brave hearts who took up significant city-centric problems and took pains to get them addressed. The Be the Change honour will go to an individual who has experienced a given problem and took up the challenge of setting things right.

The CNN-IBN and IBN 7 led citizen journalist award is being presented by Idea. Nokia is the co-presenter and real estate player, Amrapali, is the associate sponsor. Sony and IBN Lokmat are the acting media partners. Other entities on board are radio partner Big 92.7 FM, captive media partner Live Media, and outdoor partner Bright Media.