Citizen Paine | Citizen Journalism

Carroll: Journalists getting too apologetic

Jon Carroll has an entertaining piece in today's San Francisco Chronicle about how journalists in general are well-intentioned, hard-working and, as humans, fallible. No problem with most of his points but I sure wish he hadn't lumped Mitch Albom's missteps along with examples of more innocent mistakes.

Taking distributed reporting beyond the usual suspects

The idea of harnessing an army of citizen journalists continues to generate buzz. The concept of "distributed reporting" seems ripe with potential, not just as a way to send out troops of researchers after typical government targets but as a way to go after more elusive prey.

For instance: Nonprofit organizations always have been undercovered by MSM. It's a resource issue. It takes a great deal of time to penetrate organizations that have limited public reporting requirements. But what if an investigative reporter or editor who is experienced in covering nonprofits could devise a litmus test. It might start with a call to the army of citizen journalists to take a set of standards, as Jeff Jarvis suggests here, and methodically gather information from nonprofit groups nationwide.

That first test could result in a report simply on how well the organizations are complying with requests to provide documents that are considered public records, such as IRS tax filings. Then, based on certain criteria, red flags would come up for some of those nonprofits, and the lead journalist on the project could send the citizen army back out for more digging.

Not only do I believe these kinds of efforts are possible, I think they are inevitable. Is anyone doing anything like this yet?

Crossing boundaries in scandal coverage

Accuracy in Media reports about a U.S. blogger who was able to do what the Canadian media couldn't on the Adscam case.

On his Captain's Quarters blog, Ed Morrissey published information about the testimony of key witnesses after the judge in the corruption case banned the Canadian media from doing just that.

One more example of going beyond Citizen Journalism 1.0.

Curley shares LJWorld.com's strategies

Rob Curley of the Lawrence Journal-World presents "Let's Quit Building Crappy Newspaper Sites" at the New Media Summer Public Lecture Series at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

I'm there via webcast because there was no way I was going to get onto I-80 on the Friday kicking off Memorial Day weekend.

Curley's talking fast. I'll try to keep up.

He says the web site has had great success with searchable public databases. Examples:

• Donations to local election campaigns, so people can look up who's giving to whom.
• All homes' appraised values. "Just type in your boss' name to see if he has a cool crib," Curley says.
• All salaries of University of Kansas employees.

Curley said the next project, which will go online in June, will be a database of all tickets given in Lawrence since 1997. It'll provide information on racial profiling, and you'll be able to find out where in town you're likely to get different types of tickets. "Type in Dolph Simon's name to see if he's ever sped; he has," Curley says, referring to the Journal-World chairman, who Curley also says has provided the vision for the site's success.

LJWorld.com's live chats, which are hosted three or four times a week, have regularly broken news. Sources find, "It's a lot easier to say no comment to a reporter than to a constituent than a fan," Curley says.

The governor wouldn't declare her position on gay marriage but when some guy named Bob asked her in the chat, she fessed up. The University of Kansas basketball coach, responding to a fan in a chat, announced the team's starting lineup. The newspaper story wound up becoming a lead item on ESPN.com because a freshman was going to be a starter.

Other tidbits:

• How do they manage to do such a great job at a 20,000-circulation newspaper? It's not just that they own a TV station. The answer, at least in part: internology. Curley's phrase for the young people he's able to recruit, some paid, some not.
• All reporters have camera phones, and some of their images even appear in print. One column, but still, wow!
• Only with internology could they have produced a section like Game about local youth baseball and softball. The newspaper rejected a chance to publish a print version, so Curley arranged for online to produce it. "The advertising director couldn't believe how easy it was to monetize it," he said.

LATimes.com looking at ways to engage the reader

The LA Times is starting to make some noise about citizen journalism. Rob Barrett, the GM of LATimes.com, tells the Online Journalism Review that they're "thinking very hard about a community infrastructure that involves members of the public and interesting figures from various walks of life in the larger conversation ... ."

The OJR article references the launch of five new blogs since the site's redesign two weeks ago, but they're not getting much play on the home page. At least not when I checked today. I found one blog-like creature, "Postcards From Paris." It's referred to on the site as a "Web Journal." It solicits reader comments, but they're routed to author Susan Spano and not posted directly.

If LATimes.com intends to invite readers to the conversation, it isn't doing so with its blogs -- at least not as aggressively as MSM sites that have enabled typical blog comment functionality.

Barrett's comments to OJR show that they're being cautious about opening the gate to readers. At least it's on his radar.

Despite flaws, Ventura makes progress with new comment system

Although there are some weaknesses in the Ventura County Star's new system for allowing reader comments on articles, the newspaper deserves credit for moving so quickly to restore the comments feature after turning it off last week.

The new set-up forces visitors to go through the paper's online registration system in order to post on a story, requiring use of an email address. If inappropriate comments are posted, the site can warn the person via email and then can block the user both through the registration and through IP addresses. They're also using a profanity filter. And users are encouraged to report inappropriate posts with a feedback email.

Assistant Managing Editor John Moore says, "By forcing people to use registered names (which should be their real names), we invoke the "Mama's listening" rule: Don't say anything you wouldn't want your mother to hear."

Allowing reader comments on articles will help the Star solidify its connection with visitors. And I'm glad to see the Star reinstate the comments function even though this system isn't perfect.

The problems:

• Online registration doesn't force people to use their real names or for using shared logins via services like Bugmenot.com. Was that really "Seymour But" and "Neil Diamond" commenting on "Assembly dumps 147 bills for this year"? My problem isn't with the anonymous comments but with the Star giving the impression that it has taken a significant step to thwart anonymity. Be upfront: Encourage people to use their real names, but acknowledge that you can't stop people from using pseudonym.
• The method for reporting abuse -- sending an email to the web site -- is cumbersome. Readers should have a simpler, one-click option. The Star's method means that few abuses will be reported, so either the paper will have to accept the presence of some inappropriate posts or they'll have to monitor closely.
• Profanity filter? I'm sure people will find creative ways to curse it if they're determined.
• I wonder whether IP blocking will result in over-blocking, freezing out people who have done nothing wrong.
• Finally, posts are not shown on the article page but are linked and displayed in a separate window. I suppose that's a safeguard of sorts, ensuring that inappropriate posts won't immediately be displayed to everyone who reads an article but it also means legit posts are buried also.

Despite my criticisms, I'm impressed with the Star's ability to move quickly and all three of the articles I spot-checked today had comments. So, they're doing something right.

The citizen journalist lunch

Had lunch today with another citizen journalist, a fellow regular on BeniciaNews.com. After the routine greeting, I asked whether he wanted an on-the-record or off-the-record meal?

Unlike me, he doesn't have a journalism background and was a little taken aback -- which I expected. I was having a little fun with him. But the question was serious, and I explained that in today's world of bloggers and citizen journalists -- where anyone can publish what another person says -- it's worth agreeing on the ground rules up front.

Neither of us wanted to worry that some off-hand remark might show up on the web, so we kept the conversation off the record. Now we just have to hope that the two women at the next table weren't taking notes.

Getting beyond Citizen Journalism 1.0

The following is a copy of a comment I made on the Reflections of a Newsosaur blog, in which he laments the current state of Citizen Journalism 1.0. Blogger Alan Mutter makes some legitimate gripes about CJ that is "too inconsequential, too scattered, too opinionated and/or too poorly edited." I've tried to point out that there are signs of intelligence and some movement beyond CJ 1.0.

Take a look at a heated discussion going on this week at BeniciaNews.com about the ugly state of teacher contract talks in a 5,000-student K-12 district. It has some of the flaws of Citizen Journalism 1.0 that Alan mentions, such as people making irrelevant personal attacks and so many posts (94 as I write this) that it's difficult to wade through it all.

Still, the thread, which started ironically when a group of parents posted a citizen journalism article titled "BUSD Parents Plea for an end to the Divisiveness," gets beyond the "new babies and puppies" that Alan is getting tired of. It is raising community awareness that the school district's financial problems -- a large budget shortfall -- are unresolved despite a wrenching decision this spring to close an elementary school. The vitriol is showing how deep the divide is growing between the union and citizens who want the teachers to make concessions. The more the community focuses on the issues, the greater its chance of finding solutions.

This happens on BeniciaNews in part because the site has been around for five years and has a large following, but these sorts of discussions have occurred on the site since shortly after we launched. Yesterday, as this thread was beginning to really bubble, a reporter from a local newspaper called me to get some help accessing the message board. If she does a story in response to the message board discussion, providing an authoritative account of the issues affecting negotiations, then we're getting beyond Citizen Journalism 1.0. That's where I'd like to see CJ go: Citizen journalists use these new channels to float local issues and debate them, helping important matters bubble to the point that mainstream media pays attention and then filters through the noise to produce an authoritative account.

Full disclosure: I live in Benicia, a San Francisco suburb, have children in the schools, occasionally post citizen journalism articles myself, and now have a seat on the board of a foundation trying to raise money for the local public schools.

UPDATE:

The Vallejo Times Herald on Thursday published a story in response to the discussion on the BeniciaNews.com message board.

Greensboro to enable reader comments

Just as the Ventura County Star announced it will mothball reader comments on articles, the Greensboro News-Record says it will -- with some trepidation -- allow readers to post directly on articles.

News-Record Editor John Robinson says the feature will be part of the site's new publishing system.

The N-R wants to go to the next level of reader interactivity even though, as Robinson acknowledges, the site's blogs have received posts that "border on the obscene and the abusive." Only with a willingness to experiment will news web sites figure out the best practices that raise the level of discourse.

At morph: The Media Center Blog, Ken Sands of the Spokesman Review, responding to the Ventura decision, suggests that reader comments shouldn't be enabled unless you've got a system that will promote quality.

I agree with Sands to a point. Do some research so you know what successes and pitfalls others have experienced. But don't let a quest for a perfect system create paralysis. You won't know what level of moderation will be required for your community until you invite the readers to the discussion. Whatever you try at first will require modifications because it either will be too restrictive or too loose. So, try to start with a comment-moderation system that can be changed without much difficulty.

In his blog, the N-R's Robinson points to The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.) as another news site that has seen inappropriate comments on articles. The paper has a cautious approach to the display of comments: The home page has a box of  "Recent Comments," a good way of letting readers know which articles are attracting discussion. The "Recent Comments" box also appears on article pages in the News section. Rather than display any text from the comments themselves, the box shows the headlines of the articles. Clicking the headlines in the box takes you to the article. At the bottom of each article page is a link to "View Comments," which pops up the reader remarks in a new window, rather than displaying them directly on the article page. Each post has options to "Ignore User" and "Report Post."

So, on the one hand, the site is making an effort to drive readers to articles with comments, but on the other hand is making the reader really work to get to those comments.

One other sign that The Morning Call is making an effort to be transparent: The site had a page that describes the philosophy of the paper's editorial board and includes links to bios on all the board members.

Ventura paper turns off comments on articles

The Ventura County Star, which has been making strong strides toward interactivity, has disabled reader comments on articles.

According to an article on the site, the comments function was turned on in January and was largely successful at engaging readers. However, "there have also been those who abused the system. Their comments were full of profanity. They personally attacked individuals, both persons related to news stories and others who were commenting on the website."

Fortunately, the editors recognize the value of direct reader input on articles and they're looking for ways to bring it back. They want a system with "controls that our readers need and don't require us to hire a fulltime babysitter to monitor the comments," according to a blog post by John Moore, AME for new media and technology.

It's not clear to me what level of moderation existed before, such as whether readers had to register before posting. As Leonard Witt suggests at the Public Journalism Network, using some form of citizen moderators may be at least part of the solution.

Meanwhile, the site still is running its forums for reader discussion that are independent from articles.