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Student Journalism: Exclusive Interview with the CEO of Woord

The Rock have been given an exclusive interview about an up and coming new student media platform, Woord.

The founder and CEO of Woord, Niki Ram, and the Rebel Hack team had a chance to talk to the Rock about what to expect from the operation.

L-R Guillaume, CEO Niki and Carly. Guillaume and Carly are part of the Rebel Hack team helping Niki.

So far, over 300 student journalists have signed up for the website that allows them to publish their work online. oon the company will be able to start testing the platform with these participants.

CEO Niki has said they have “overshot” their expectations.

Word started to take shape in the last three years Niki said, “I was frankly really sick and tired of how the news was being disseminated and being in places where news was breaking its nothing like what was being reported. This saddened me greatly and I decided to do something about it.”

Rebel Hack are a marketing company who help start up companies and have been helping Niki promote and engage people about the new platform, “I found them online and we just clicked. They could totally see what I wanted to create. One of team actually studied multi-media journalism at Bournemouth university so completely understood the problem that needed to be fixed and they got behind the project 100%.”

The company are promoting their new website through mainly social media especially Twitter.

They are also travelling to universities and speaking to student journalists and journalism lecturers.

The platform plans to be different from news networks and global organisations by allowing people to report the news and involved the local community in the issue.

CEO Niki worked at a major news network and the Houses of Parliament prior to creating the Woord company. This helped Niki shaped the idea of the platform, “It made me realise that everything is not what it seems. News was being reported by people with agendas or far removed from the story, and not all the facts were being presented. When I was in the Houses of Parliament I felt that many people were definitely spinning stories to show themselves in the best light possible.”

The platform will have a structured approach but it is more to do with student journalists getting their stories out there: “We felt they had the skills to write great stories, but were not yet encumbered by the expectations of an outside news organisation. We think student journalists like those at BU are looking for the best ways to get great stories published and do good in the community and get recognised for their work. There’s no other agenda.”

Niki believe passionately in making sure that every journalist has a shot to engage people in their local communities, “The way I look at it I have always felt that journalism was the bastion of keeping the public interests at heart. You could say they are the watch dogs on behalf of the public. They raise awareness on issues that would otherwise would be swept under the rug. I believe Woord will not only be a platform that allows people to advocate change but to make significant impact on their local community as a whole. It’s a sad truth that some of our greatest reporters have had to bail out in search of a saner or more impactful job thanks to the new media ecosystem. Woord will change all of that. Woorders or change agents will transform every local transformation into a global one. News from being controlled by a few to being created by many owned by everyone and controlled and distorted by no one.

“It’s not a belief it’s our conviction.”

The company plan to move out of the London area and spread the news of Woord to the rest of the UK. The website is to be released later this year after testing and final touches have been made.

Here’s Bournemouth University’s individual link to join Woord