By Jamal Elabiad
Recently, I had the opportunity to discuss with a famous Moroccan blogger a number of questions related to Moroccan blogosphere. The discussion lasted more than two hours. And the question that took the lion’s share was whether citizen journalists should be rewarded for their work. I really do not know how I forgot to point to this question in the article I wrote on Moroccan citizen media.
The blogger has never received any reward from the newspaper that usually posts his articles, many of which were published on the front-page. He has been publishing in the newspaper for almost three years. “Why don’t you ask the newspaper director for a reward?” I asked. “He may get me wrong.” replied the blogger. “He may think I am asking him to pay me for all the articles I have published so far simply because it was the newspaper director who sent an email asking me to think of publishing my pieces in his newspaper.” He explained. This, perhaps, is the reason why the blogger asked me not to mention his name when I promised to write a piece on the subject.
“For me, a reward is not necessarily money. It can be, for instance, a certificate that will bear witness to the fact that the blogger is a contributing writer of the newspaper. No doubt, the blogger’s CV is in dire need of such a document, and I think it’s the least reward bloggers can receive from the newspapers that frequently publish their articles.” replied the blogger when I asked him what kind of reward citizen journalists can receive from the newspapers or magazines they regularly publish in.
The blogger is not an isolated case. Most citizen journalists in Morocco get nothing from regularly sending their articles to be published in different magazines and newspapers, some of which are widely read. Not only this, bloggers receive no rewards even when it’s the newspaper editors who sometimes ask them to write on a particular topic. Add to this that newspapers sometimes publish some bloggers’ articles without even asking for their permission.
It’s really a pity that blogger Mohamed Erraji did not start to receive rewards in return for the articles he publishes regularly on Hespress till he was sentenced to two years in prison due to a “disrespectful” article on the monarchy. Possibly, shining light on taboo subjects is the sole criterion for rewarding citizen journalists in Morocco!