Things I wrote, Photographed

Preface

These are the articles I wrote, the photographs I took mostly during I was a contributing writer, photographer and an editor for Yokoso Sapporo (City of Sapporo's tourism site) and Web City Sapporo (the City's regional site). In those sites, I was the managing editor from its start in 2003 to 2007.

Those works had been done under the operation of NPO Civic Media, which was an organization bearing the mission of getting regional news and information out by regular citizens and the residents of the region. I was the head of that organization.

The NPO started in 2003. Then there was no such thing as social media. The members were all somehow frustrated with the portrayal of our community by mass media.

We had a strong belief that the local residents should be responsible for getting the communication information out. We had a zest for finding stories.

We stayed our from media events, local big-shots, and many things that the mass media had already covered.

The funding had been always a problem but we were able to made our stories out by the support from the local government since we were making their sites

Correction. No, not "their" sites, but those were "our" sites. "We" including all people in our community meaning meaning rich and poor, Japanese and foreigners, local government officials and ordinary people. That's why we named our organization "Civic Media."

Very intriguing stories had been produced. Some of them, even mass media followed.
It was rational then that people unite in the same site under the flag. The NPO was closed in 2009 after considering the reality that its role as a factor of disseminating information had been widely replaced by the emergence of blogs, twitters, and other social media.

I owe a lot to the people who had taught me the things about Sapporo and Hokkaido since I was born in Tokyo area. I owe a lot to the then staff of Civic Media who made these articles form into reality.
People in the community and the virture of its land made me wrote the articles and took the pictures.
Media is just a mediator.