Olympic citizen journalists given home in Vancouver

By Robert Matas
The Globe and Mail
Monday, December 14

VANCOUVER - A media centre for bloggers and cellphone videographers without official press credentials for the 2010 Winter Olympics will be open throughout the Games in the heart of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside neighbourhood.

W2 Culture and Media House, an updated heritage building across the street from the Woodward's redevelopment project, will provide fully wired editing suites and free wireless connection to the Internet (WiFi) for "citizen journalists" working with online media outlets from around the world as well as anyone else who wants to post video, photos and commentaries on their own homepages or on sites found on YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and MySpace.

VANOC, the city's Olympics organizing committee, set up media centres on the Vancouver waterfront for those who have exclusive rights to broadcast live in their own country and for a limited number of additional media outlets.

The B.C. government has put together a second media centre at Robson Square in downtown Vancouver for broadcast and print media that could not be accommodated in the official media centre. Both centres require journalists to register and receive appropriate credentials before using the facilities.

The social-media centre on West Hastings Street will be for those who cannot go into the Olympics-sanctioned media centres, Irwin Oostindie, executive director of W2 Community Media Arts, said in an interview. Even some athletes with blogs who may not have the appropriate press credentials could use the centre, he said.

"We'll pick up people who are unable to access those services but have a story to tell. They'll likely tend to be more prominent bloggers and independent journalists, independent columnists that want a bit more of the real story and are not so embedded with VANOC," Mr. Oostindie said.

The centre will promote the "democratization of storytelling" by providing a place for citizen journalists to work, he said. Citizen journalists are members of the public who produce their own content for media reports on events.

W2 Culture and Media House will operate in a similar fashion to a hotel business centre, with free space for journalists to come and go as they like or just to park with their laptops. A separate area with computers and editing software will be available for $25 a day, he said. The building can accommodate about 125 people at one time in the open area, where a daily press briefing will be held. Dedicated infrastructure to upload video and blogs will be available at 25 stations.

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