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HiviSasa (or "HiviSasa.com") is an online, local, county-level Kenyan newspaper tailored for the mobile web. It sources all its news stories from local citizen reporters (i.e. anyone who wants to report the news) who are paid via mobile-money for each article they publish. HiviSasa.com is the most far-reaching and cost-effective news model available in Kenya. Funded by the internet startup seed fund 88mph, HiviSasa.com has been running since early 2014. "Hivi sasa" can be translated into "right now" in Kiswahili.
Contents
As of January 2015, HiviSasa publishes more than 80 articles daily written by more than 1340 citizen reporters.
Accessibility
HiviSasa.com can be accessed from all internet-enabled phones, ranging from low-end camera phones to high-end smartphones.
Content
All content on HiviSasa.com is written by local citizen reporters and all topics are accepted. The most prominent topics are crime, politics and social justice. For someone to write for HiviSasa.com, they need no previous qualifications - only a camera phone and basic writing skills. After signing up on the webpage, citizen reporters can then write articles with a 500-word limit. Professional journalists/editors curate the incoming articles and choose the best ones for publishing. If a citizen reporter's article is published, the reporter is paid via the mobile money system M-Pesa. Payment is weekly.
Current state
In 2014, HiviSasa.com saw fast increasing numbers in both page views and citizen reporters. In August, HiviSasa expanded from Nakuru County to Kiambu County and through August–October 2014, the team was expanded and operations begun in Kisumu, Kisii and Machakos Counties as well.