OpenFile: Dahlia's First Published Article on the Site and Your Chance to Suggest News Stories!

Hi Everyone!

Here's the link (http://ottawa.openfile.ca/ottawa/file/2010/11/cupcakes-conquer-capital) to my first OpenFile article, which was published yesterday.

OpenFile is a collaborative community news site in the capital.

If readers believe there is a local issue that should be covered, they can make their suggestions by visiting openfile.ca (surprise surprise), signing up and opening a file. A journalist will then be assigned to write the story. After all, journalists are meant to be "the voice of the people," right?


I attended OpenFile's launch party at the Spin Bar & Kitchen (at the bottom of The Marriott at 100 Kent) last night and spoke with founder Wilf Dinnick (a former CCN correspondent who has also worked at news outlets such as ABC News and CBC) who said that while 10% of Torontonians were suggesting stories at one point, that number has now risen to 40%! Wilf is hoping the number will go up to 80%, so his freelancers will suggest the remaining 20% of ideas.

I wholeheartedly agree with him: we, as journalists, SHOULD be covering stories that aren't being told and doing so from angles that haven't yet been thought of! And what better way to do that than with the help of you, our dear readers and fellow Ottawans?!

I'm so happy that OpenFile has arrived in the Capital and look forward to penning more stories that matter for the site.

I also think that my editor Nick Taylor-Vaisey's business card sums it up best: "Your story is the news"!

Power to the people!