Wall Street Journal and MySpace Recognizing Citizen Journalists

The Wall Street Journal, MySpace and the World Economic Forum are teaming up to send one lucky MySpace user to Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum's annual meeting-- as a member of the PRESS CORPS!! This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and one of our own, Olga Belogolova, is competing for this honor.

Olga is a recent graduate of Boston University, but that hasn't stopped her from being incredibly prolific in her limited time in the real world of Journalism. If you view her Web page you will be impressed by the design, content and her overall style-- she's funny, she's intelligent and she knows how to get the job done. Now, you may think I'm just saying these things because she's one of my colleagues, but you know I don't lie, so I wouldn't say it if it wasn't true.

Having been selected as one of the ten student journalists for the Embassy of Jordan: Sixty Years of Friendship Press Trip in May/June 2009 allowed Olga to gain a better idea of world reporting and blogging. Her blog--A'broad in Amman-- has been picked up by Lonely Planet as it accurately details her journey not only as Journalist, but as someone learning a new culture and land. She has been searching for opportunities like the Jordan trip ever since it ended and recently found this opportunity on Mashable, a social media site. According to Olga, despite the fact this seemed like a "really cool opportunity" she almost didn't apply. "I finally got over my hesitations though, and applied...even if I don't win, I'm happy I applied."

Why even try? Well, Olga believes that "it is really important for young people to get involved in where the decisions of the global community. As media and information is getting more globalized every single day,we are more responsible for knowing what is going on and for contributing to the conversation. We may be young and sometimes naive or even idealistic, but we have a say in what goes on in the world and perhaps we have an alternate perspective."

The Wall Street Journal, in both our opinions, has finally taken a step in the right direction. They are teaming up with a social networking site, a site that may just be driving traffic away for their paid site, but by doing so they are recognizing the importance of social networks and of citizen (and Web) journalists.

Check out Olga's entry here, and remember to retweet (and follow Olga), share on Facebook and any other network you might be plugged into. Remember to stay connected, because someday we will be the news providers-- trained and citizen journalists alike-- and it's contests like these that get big media organizations to remember that our future is one of social networking and community journalism.

Best of Luck to Olga, and I'll be sure to update you Tuesday when the winners will be announced, NOW GO VOTE!!

Davos Video Submission - Olga B.

Olga | MySpace Video