Sloane Berrent Heads To World Economic Forum As Next Myspace Citizen Journalist

A few weeks ago, it seemed like there was a contest held by Myspace and the Wall Street Journal to choose a citizen journalist. It might not have seemed like it was anything important, but in fact, this person who be undertaking a trip of a lifetime – to Davos-Klosters, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting.

So what happened? Interested contestants were invited to apply and after being judged by prominent judges Robert Thomson (Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal), Adrian Monck (Managing Director & Head of Communications of the World Economic Forum), Rebekah Brooks (CEO of News International), Owen Van Natta (CEO of Myspace) and Rebecca McQuiqq (the 2009 winner of the Myspace Journal contest), five finalists were selected. In order to truly make a citizen journalist that people would be interested in reading, the contest was also open to votes by the public – crowdsourcing, anyone?

So on December 18, 2009, it was announced that Sloane Berrent (@sloane) of New Orleans was named the winner of the 2010 “Myspace Citizen Journalist” competition. Her next steps are to travel to Davos-Klosters, Switzerland to report on the happenings of the 2010 World Economic Forum. As a winner, she’ll join the press corps and use the Myspace network to report back. You’ll also be able to see her reports on The Wall Street Journal’s website. According to Berrent, “it has been a lifelong dream of mine to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos.”

You might not know this about Berrent, but she’s all about cause reporting. She’s the founder of Cause It’s My Birthday (a movement to fight Malaria), the creator of TheCausemopolitan.com and is a former Kiva fellow and philanthropist. She’s helped raise over $19,000 to help purchase Malaria nets for people in Northern Ghana and is heavily passionate about social entrepreneurship and philantrophy. So I suppose it’s no wonder that she was interested in this important position.

As the winner of the competition, Berrent will receive:

Congratulations Sloane on your success and looking forward to reading more about your adventures in Davos next week on Myspace.com and The Wall Street Journal.

Photo Credit: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid