Citizen Paine | Citizen Journalism

No citizen journalism story about CitJ site

The thorny question of when to allow businesses to post material about themselves on citizen journalism sites is getting some attention (here and here) after The Star Press, a Gannett paper, nixed an article about community web site Muncie Free Press. When I was at GetLocalNews.com, we crafted a policy intended to address such situations.

Here's what it says:

We allow businesses to use Readers Write to inform readers about their businesses if their articles are labeled "PRESS RELEASE" in the headline. The articles also must provide specific information about the business's expansion, relocation, release of a new product, etc. -- in other words providing news, not just promotional content. For instance, a submission about a new business opening would be appropriate if it said specifically when and where the new store or office is opening.

If you submit an article with Readers Write that does not meet these standards, we will remove it. For promotional material that does not meet our press release standards, please consider our advertising options ... .

As ePluribus Media points out, in The Star Press' GetPublished! section, a note from online community editor Phil Beebe includes the following:

We also encourage businesses to post personnel news, information about new product lines and new businesses (but we will not accept material that is promotional in nature).

ePluribus then asks "where the dividing line exists between informational and promotional when it comes to announcing new products and/or businesses." I don't know where it exists for The Star Press. At GetLocalNews, we would delete submissions that didn't have any news -- posts that simply told people to buy a particular product or use a particular service or announced a sale.

Whether we would have allowed a submission by a Muncie Free Press would have depended on whether it contained news about the business. Thing is, with a little effort, it isn't that hard for a business to come up with something newsworthy about itself. We were OK with that at GetLocalNews because we knew that by allowing readers to comment directly on every submission, a business would be held accountable for what it had to say.

Citizen journalists get scoop on school violence threat

In today's climate, when a threat of school violence prompts a two-week police investigation, the public expects to hear about it. So, when parents in my hometown Benicia, Calif., didn't hear a peep til an anonymous citizen journalist posted an article online three weeks after the threat surfaced, some people in the community were upset.

Perhaps the police news release and media coverage would have occurred anyhow. But some Benicians have their doubts. "If this hadn't been posted, would we ever have heard?" a parent asked at a school board meeting Thursday, according to the Benicia Herald.

Not only did the story first surface in an anonymous posting on BeniciaNews.com, but confirmation by another person was posted on the site before the story surfaced in the mainstream media. It's a good example of how citizen reporters provide checks and balances on one another. Not a perfect system -- as the person posting verifying information also was anonymous -- but in this case it worked. (Full disclosure: I was the founding editor of GetLocalNews.com, the company that launched BeniciaNews.com as its pilot site in 2000.)

Here's the sequence of events:

The threatening note was discovered on a Benicia High School computer Oct. 4, and police investigated over the next two weeks, according to a story Thursday in the Vallejo Times Herald.

The first publicity came Friday, Oct. 27, when someone identified only as "Jade" posted a story on BeniciaNews.com:

Bomb Threats At Benicia High
A credible threat to students at Benicia High School has occurred and is being concealed by authorities. ... More

That posting triggered discussion on the web site. Readers first were incredulous, doubting the veracity of the anonymous posting. Then on Monday, Oct. 30, someone identified as a parent posted a comment titled "I asked police" that said, "Parents, pay attention. I have spoken to the police department and they indicated there was such a list and that the police department has completed its investigation and the issue is now with the administration of the school district. ..."

The Benicia Herald first reported the threat on Tuesday, Oct. 31, and followed up with coverage on Thursday, Nov. 2, the same day the Vallejo Times Herald first reported the story.

The citizen journalism-mainstream media synergy worked in this case: Citizens aired what they thought was an important uncovered story. Mainstream media verified, providing the public with a more-credible report (in that the newspapers were not anonymous). I have a hunch the mainstream media probably would have reported this story eventually, but it's likely that the web site postings gave the newspapers a greater sense of urgency.

(Also for full disclosure: I now work for the Contra Costa Times, which is owned by Media News Group, the same company that owns the Vallejo Times Herald.)

One final note: I've noted here before instances in which the mainstream media have avoided mentioning the names of community web sites like BeniciaNews.com. That occurred again on this story. In its coverage, the Vallejo Times Herald said:

The note reached a higher audience last Friday after an online community news site posted an unsigned message alleging that the "hit list" contained specific targets and dates, and that "none of the people on the list have been informed that their lives have been threatened."

Further, the online posting said that "one student, who claims to know who made the threats, is refusing to cooperate with the police. She is supported by her parents, one of whom is a school board member."

The Benicia Herald story refers to "Jade," who, the paper said, had contacted its offices and had "written various online posts about the topic."

Not naming an online publication in this context is akin to not naming a source. It seems odd to me that papers still do this.

Wikipedia: To cite or not to cite

CyberJournalist.net hones in on an excellent point that Jimmy Wales makes in an interview with BusinessWeek.

In response to a question about whether students and researchers should cite Wikipedia, Wales says:

No, I don't think people should cite it, and I don't think people should cite Britannica, either -- the error rate there isn't very good. People shouldn't be citing encyclopedias in the first place. Wikipedia and other encyclopedias should be solid enough to give good, solid background information to inform your studies for a deeper level. And really, it's more reliable to read Wikipedia for background than to read random Web pages on the Internet.

It's really a key point: Some people put down Wikipedia for its inaccuracies. (Although Nature just came out with a report saying it is almost on par with Britannica on science entries.) But that misses what Wikipedia is all about. It's a place to start your research. Don't count on it as being correct, but realize that more often than not it is.

The internet is full of misinformation. At least Wikipedia has built a system that has a degree of accountability -- anyone can correct others' errors -- unlike most of what we run across on the web.

Guardian survey shows prevalence of teen blogging

The Guardian reviews the findings of a suvey of 14- to 21-year-olds in Young blog their way to a publishing revolution:

[A]mong those with a web connection at home, 31% said that they had launched their own personal site or blog. Those aged 16 to 17 have taken most avidly to personal online publishing, with a female bias.

No huge surprises in this survey. However, it's noteworthy that of the young people with internet access at home, eight in 10 reported having broadband:

The explosion in cheaper high-speed internet access, which allows quicker access to music and video files and is typically charged at a flat monthly rate, has led to an upsurge in the time web users spend online.

Some previous comments on young people as tomorrow's publishers.

Blogging again

Let's see if I can revive this puppy. Been more than busy at the job. So, no promises on how often I'll post or what form this revival will take. Let's just get on with it and see how it goes.

Even the good coupons have vaporized

At the Daily Grit, blogger Wes Thorp has some serious things to say about the role citizen journalism could play in Lansing, Michigan's mayoral and city council election campaigns. But some MSM folks probably may chafe most at this comment, a shot at the local paper:

At one time, you could at least get good coupons on Sunday.  We don't even get that now.

Thorp, citing inspiration from Amy Gahran and her I, Reporter project, is talking about holding a meet-up to organize a citizen journalism initiative:

We have troves of motivated citizens in the area who could and maybe would cover the issues of the day, like city council and township board meetings, stuff local media used to cover. ... Is it time to have a Meet-Up in our area to talk about citizen journalism and give it a whirl?

Being upfront would muffle the critics

A Milwaukee blogger was put on the defensive after a USA Today article reported that the city of Milwaukee had provided her with internet access and computer equipment. Had Erin Leffelman made that relationship clear on the blog, she wouldn't have become the target of other bloggers and critical comments on her Play in the City blog.

This isn't anything new. The state of Pennsylvania also fails to mention that it's covering the expenses of visitPA.com's Roadtripper bloggers, which I noted last month.

Leffelman and her defenders point to the level of compensation and argue that it's not significant. "I would hardly classify $1,700 of 'in-kind' support to do her job -high speed internet, a gift certificate for technology improvements at Dell or a $200 camera as the type of compensation that would sway anyone’s opinion," Dave Fantle of VISIT Milwaukee writes in a comment on The Blog Herald.

He misses the point, which is really very simple: Be transparent, be honest about your relationships. Otherwise it looks like you're trying to hide something even if you're not.

To Fantle's credit, VISIT Milwaukee's June 20 news release, which he posted on The Blog Herald, did explain the relationship. It also noted, regarding blogs, "Their impact lies largely in their credibility and growing awareness among an increasingly computer-literate world."

Rich irony in newspaper's warning about blogs

K. Paul Mallasch's take on a Missouri Valley Times editorial titled Reader beware of the truthfulness in blogs exposes the irony of the newspaper's critique of blogs. It's too bad the editorial resorts to broad generalities because its core message -- don't trust everything you read, consider the source -- is a worthwhile one.

The editorial says (emphasis mine):

[Mainstream media] maintain policies designed to minimize errors and to guard against the perpetration of libel or slander. Bloggers and their fans never worry about those constraints. There is a glorious freedom in their ability to simply "publish" whatever they please with no regard for accuracy or whether their diatribes cause pain and suffering. We of the mainstream media do not have that luxury.

While we work within the First Amendment rights to a free press, our feet are held to the fire by libel laws and the lawyers who rightly apply them to our work. Bloggers-so far-seem to be unfettered by such considerations.

Blogs, unlike the MV Times article, usually let readers make comments directly on their posts, holding them accountable.

Peoria blogger aims to shame

An anoymous blog has its sites set on those people who bring shame to Peoria, Illinois. The Shame on Peoria site launched over the weekend and appears to be affiliated with a second site, Peoria Crack House.

Describing its purpose, Shame on Peoria says:

Peoria and Pekin Illinois recently determined to go after property owners with blighted property, in "shaming" campaigns. Turnabout being fair play some citizens felt the Politicians and Bureaucrats also needed some shaming for their blight on the body politic.

And on Peoria Crack House:

Dedicated to the Buyers and Sellers of Crack Cocaine, who we hope to remove from our community.

As with the Dog Poop Girl incident, here's another example of the public using the internet as a tool for exposing perceived wrongs. Whether this exposure corrects bad behavior, I'm not sure. If it does, it probably will occur indirectly. Someone running a crack house may not shut down just because a blog has mentioned it. But the blog could spur police to act.

Link props: Peoria Pundit and PollyPeoria

When you capture breaking news, who ya gonna call?

Paul Grabowicz and Steve Outing, both posting on Poynter Online's E-Media Tidbits last week, note that it's not just the news media asking citizens to send in their eyewitness images: Law enforcement is doing the same.

Of course, it's nothing new for the police to ask citizens to provide information. What's different in the two examples cited here is that law enforcement is setting up web sites specifically for this purpose.

After the second London bombings, British police solicited citizen photos and videos, and in Malaysia, the government wants people who witness traffic offenders to post to a Hall of Shame web site.

Outing writes:

In this blog we focus on media, where grassroots-media/citizen-journalism activity is high right now. It's interesting to see how the concept can apply to other sectors of society.

Responding to Outing's post, Brendan Watson questions whether that term should be applied to what the police are seeking:

Citizen snitching, perhaps. Community watch, perhaps. But journalism? We usually call people who do this type of work either police (or in the case of citizens assisting in police work informants). Aren't you concerned that we're throwing this term around way too much to the point that it will soon be absolutely meaningless? Perhaps better term to sum up this current digital movement is personal media. ...

Another debate over terminology. In each case, citizens are being asked to report what they observe. The difference, as Watson says in the rest of his comment:

But journalism seems to envoke an intent to communicate with a mass audience, a committment to public service, and hopefully to some basic journalistic values that aren't present in much of what is currently being called citizen journalism.

What the citizen eyewitness does with the image will be much more interesting than what we call it. It won't matter much for events with multiple witnesses with cameras; some will submit to police, others to citizen journalism web sites. But what happens when one person has the key photo or video? Does he or she post to a personal blog, submit it to large media web site, go through a middleman like Scoopt, or send it to the police? My guess is that we'll see all of the above, though if citizens come to expect payment for high-demand images -- and why wouldn't they? -- the police may wind up near the bottom of the list.