I’ve been having a great time over the past few months writing for what's known as a “citizen newspaper” called BrooWaha. It's a fairly new phenomenon -- an online newspaper that is written completely by everyday people like you and me. They have BrooWaha publications in New York and Los Angeles, and they just recently started one here in San Francisco. It’s a wonderful idea – a paper where the common man can comment on politics, culture, entertainment and sports and broadcast his or her opinions to the world. The person who started it – his name is Ariel – acts as the editor and approves or rejects the articles as they come in. You can’t publish anything you want on BrooWaha, which is good, because it keeps the quality of the content up and discourages crazies from getting on the pages of BrooWaha (in most cases). Then, once your submission has been approved and appears on BrooWaha, other people can read your article and rate it. They have a rating system based on how the readers respond. If they like your stuff, you gain in popularity. If they don’t like what you’ve written, your rating will suffer. It’s a utopian concept where the readers dictate the content. I think it’s an awesome idea. I’ve been writing for SF BrooWaha almost every day since I found out about it. I encourage other writers and journalists to do the same.
