Demotix - True reporting without borders

Thursday last week was the first ever Demotix meet. The evening started slowly, with various contributors converging on the Distillers near Barbican in London, queue much waving and staring at other bemused drinkers in the bar as everyone tried to work out who was who.

The task was made all the more difficult by the diverse types of people that make up the Demotix membership. Looking at the motley crew that assembled and started to mingle in the bar, it was impossible to work out any sort of distinct profile for your average Demotix contributor. Seemingly from all walks of life and with extremely varied lives; the only uniting factor was that everyone there wanted to take part in citizen journalism.

With the arrival of the Demotix staff, the discussion turned to the site, what's happening and the way forward. Listening to Turi and the rest of his team talking about their baby it's hard not to get caught up in their enthusiasm for the project.
The concept and ethos for Demotix really does challenge the way stories are reported, giving a platform to disseminate stories that would, although interesting, otherwise go untold due to a lack of regular media in place at that time. The stories are presented to the world, via Demotix, by people who often have an intimate knowledge of the situation they are reporting on - providing an angle that a 'rushed in' non-local journalist/TV crew/photographer would easily miss without the local savvy represented on the site.

Looking at the front of the site, you can see how serious they are. Recent achievements include Le Monde using Demotix picture feed, the Guardian recently ran a front page with picture showing the last moments of Ian Tomlinson by a Demotix contributorr, to name but a few.
I would definitely urge anyone interested to join the site and give it a whirl, it looks like the start of a bright future for Demotix - Truly reporting without borders.

It was great to put names to faces and meet some of the others I've been talking to for a few weeks now on Twitter and email. GTVONE published some images from the evening here, luckily my anonymity is mostly preserved!
I would like to apologise for anyone I may have bored the pants off that evening - I really don't get out enough at the moment and I fear I may have made a bit of a Pollock of myself!