Thanks to the training and support received through the Media for All project portal Onogošt, a small news website from Nikšić, developed into the embodiment of community media.
By implementing the Engaged Citizens Reporting (ECR) tool the portal established a direct link with their audience becoming intermediary between the citizens, their problems and the local Government. ECR tool gives citizens the opportunity to suggest topics, provide documents, testimonials or other evidence.
“The ECR tool is a true revelation to our outlet. Earlier in our work we used different types of surveys, but it has never been so easy to select and organize the collected data, nor the results were so clear and descriptive like now,” said from portal Onogošt.
The Portal published three surveys, one general callout and produced 18 related articles and three videos on Facebook.
“The long-term goal is for the citizens to become aware of the importance of their role in solving problems in the community they live in,” pointed out from Onogošt.
So far, the citizens pointed to the problems such as neglected neighbourhoods/streets, traffic jams at the crossroad near a primary school, and more than 30 illegal waste disposal sites in the town.
This, together with capacity building training on data visualisation, investigative and mobile journalism, resulted in a series of highly professional and visually appealing articles that provoked local Government to tackle the problems. Onogošt pointed out that in 20 days in August 15 illegal dumps were removed. The activities continued in the following months and until now 34 illegal dumps have been cleaned.
Portal Onogošt is a small outlet established in 2015. The editorial office employs two journalists and they are mainly focused on covering topics like sports, culture, politics, entertainment, that are relevant and related to Nikšić.
