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The recent spate of flooding in the UK has proven to be a wonderful platform for citizens to feature on major news networks.

Watching Sky News this morning (yes, I watched Sky News this morning) I was astounded by the reports coming in on the channel. It seemed as though there were no employed “proffesional” journalists in the field. I’d say most, if not all of the footage from one report came solely from citizens suffering from the floods.

This makes sense since much of the country is underwater, which makes it tough for journalists, trucks, camera crews etc etc, to get to the places.

Image courtesay of SKY

Mr Maher might find some point against this, but I feel that this is where CitJ is very relevant and useful. It might even be the logical way to cover this sort of event (can one call floods an “event”). Instead of asking one journalist to try and cover and entire span of tragedy, ask the people living it to send in their footage. It’s easy in todays day and age.

This streamlines the process, allows citizens to feel important and special because they had their footage played on TV and allows for the news station to appear to be caring about what is happening from the view of the citizens.

I have been hearing some kind of rumour regarding my post yesterday about MyDigitalLife (MyDL) paying authors. Yesterday I spoke of 10c per page view, now I hear that sometime next week any author will be receiving triple the payment per page view. That means that per click/pageview on any of your posts as an Author at MyDL you will receive 30c instead of 10c.

This, as far as I know is still just a rumour. I am trying to get Townboy to speak up and make some kind of commitment either way, but nothing. If this is true that means a tidy little some of money for SA Rocks at MyDL next week.

If you aren’t an Author or even a member at MyDL yet then I suggest, just in case, you get to their site and have a look around. 30c per pageview in payment is not a bad offer at all, if it’s true.

MyDigitalLife (MyDL) has recently started a programme that allows verified authors on their website to earn 10c per page impression. This is a brilliant idea.

I don’t believe that it will be particularly lucrative to begin with, however I think that the concept is an excellent one that will promote the correct approach to citizen journalism and blogging.

Townboy is the townplanner at MyDL and says that the payment initiative is meant to incentivise people to become better bloggers and potential citizen journalists who are paid for their stories by MyDL.

Not everyone is an author on MyDL and only authors are able to receive the per page impression payment. Most of the members at MyDL are regular bloggers who blog for the enjoyment. Yet, there is a movement towards improved content from specific users who show promise in their writing skills. These users can become authors on MyDL and begin earning some pocket change!

The cash that is earned is paid back to authors in sums of R50, I am still figuring out how and when that payment is received. I have begun submitting SA Rocks content to MyDL. So keep a look out and see what you think about the concept. I have also made some suggestions to Townboy about making the process more simple to integrate between someone’s original blog and their MyDL blog or contribution area.

If you have any thoughts post them here and I will alert Townboy of them.