Among the 350 members of the news media sent to cover the most-infamous murder trial in Canadian history — the trial of Robert Pickton, the 57 year old pig butcher accused of the murders of 26 Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside sex trade workers — are two citizen correspondents. Pauline VanKoll and Trisha Baptie are covering the trial for the Vancouver-based citizen journalism site Orato.
Orato (which bears the tagline: “True Stories from Real People” put out a call earlier this month for “sex trade workers to help us cover the Pickton trial,” because, according to Orato’s editor-in-chief Paul Sullivan, they wanted “somebody who may have lived the story in some way” and could offer “a unique voice specific to this piece.”
VanKoll and Baptie answered the ad by e-mail, were interviewed, and chosen. They have received press credentials and are attending the trial, along with everyone else, in the overflow room for B.C. Superior Court. (There are only 16 seats for media in the main courtroom.)
Orato officially launched as a citizen journalism site in 2006, but it has been online in some form or another since 1999. Sullivan, who met Vancouver businessman Sam Yehia in 1999, said that Yehia “was enthusiastic about a site featuring first-person, eyewitness reporting from people involved (intentionally or otherwise) in stories.”
Yehia’s vision wasn’t limited to citizen contributors. “Back in the early days, no one had yet coined the term citizen journalism,” Sullivan adds. “Our vision was (and is) broader than that — anyone can post on Orato, even if they’re a pro. Pros often do, even if they don’t get paid, just to get the story online.”
Sullivan prefers to refer to people who submit or cover stories for Orato as “citizen correspondents.”
Orato has two staffers: Heather Wallace (a graduate of Langara College’s journalism program) and Cecilia Jamasmie (who has a masters in journalism from the of University of British Columbia). They work with citizen correspondents, edit submissions, field story pitches, and interact with commenters. “We love it whenever conversation breaks out over a story, and neither Heather nor Cecilia (nor I for that matter) can resist engaging the correspondents in conversation.”
Sullivan said that Orato’s goal is “to create and sustain a quality environment so our visitors find the site and its content accessible and readable, and our correspondents feel some pride of authorship when they see the finished product.”
