RioONWire Goes Public!
June 19, 2015–RioONWire goes public today!
On April 1 2015, CatComm launched RioONWire, the world’s first favela news wire service. We have now tweeted over 1,700 times with breaking news, events, features, and background and context on all subjects, as well as key image and video resources, all carefully crafted and focused on Rio’s favelas.
We’ve been listening to you! Taking in all the feedback from collaborators, journalists and other NGOs has led us to move RioONWire from a private subscription service to a fully public platform, open to all. We will be launching a crowdfunding campaign shortly to guarantee the service and RioOnWatch through the 2016 Olympics.
This year leading up to the Games we have a one-of-a-kind opportunity to make real change in Rio on behalf of favelas. By growing awareness of these communities and destigmatizing them via nuanced media content, taking advantage of this unique window of international attention, we can more effectively influence policies towards favelas and push the participatory planning, social justice and human rights debates forward at a time when Rio is in the public spotlight.