Hyperlocal Journalism Connecting Global Communities

Here’s another thing that blogs are great at: uniting communities that are an ocean apart. Today on the mediabistro.com Morning Media Menu podcast, hosts Jason Boog of GalleyCat and AgencySpy‘s Matt Van Hoven welcomed Ruthie Ackerman, who founded the blog Ceasefire Liberia to report stories from Liberia and ex-pat Liberian communities around the world, including one right here in New York in Staten Island.

“The idea for me was that I wanted to dispel the myth of the single story,” Ackerman said. “So I didn’t like this idea from journalism that you have one person, the journalist, the authority that comes and tells the world about an individual or a community and I wanted the people within the communities that I was writing about to share their stories and share their voices as well.”

Since its inception in May, Ceasefire Liberia has drawn notice of Liberians around the world and had helped them start a dialogue about topics and ideas that are important to them. Check it out and listen in to today’s menu to see how hyperlocal journalism and community involvement can start a movement.

You can listen to all the past podcasts at BlogTalkRadio.com/mediabistro and call in at 646-929-0321.

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