Watershed in Bristol began running citizen journalism (CJ) workshops for young people in March 2010 in collaboration with writer, educator and broadcaster David Goldblatt. The workshops were part of the four-year long 'RELAYS at Watershed' programme that led up to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Over 18 months we ran eight CJ projects with 70 young people who used smartphones to report on topics ranging from Paralympian athletes training in Bath to a unique cultural quarter in Bristol - and all things Olympic in Weymouth.
'RELAYS at Watershed' has come to an end now but we're continuing with the citizen journalism strand of work under the name of News from Elsewhere and are about to start 2013 with a new action research project supported by the University of Bristol and working with Ujima Radio, David Goldblatt and staff from the University.
This follows on from a pilot scheme 'Bristol Mayor Watch' where a group of young people used smart phones to cover several aspects of the first election for a Mayor in Bristol and concluded the process with a live broadcast on Ujima interviewing several of the Mayoral candidates.
This new blog is a continuation of the 'RELAYS at Watershed' citizen journalism blog and is for documenting the progress of the new citizen journalism work we're planning. This is where we'll report on our future projects - who was was involved, how we ran the workshops, successes, and what might change next time.
Additional blogs by the citizen journalist participants will be created for each of the projects we work on and links to those will be added to this blog.
