In last week’s paper, Northfield News Publisher and Editor Sam Gett’s announced a volunteer citizen-journalist panel called Team Watchdog in a column titled: Wanna be a watchdog? Join us.
The philosophy behind Team Watchdog is simple. Community members with specific expertise partner with newspaper reporters to help us fulfill our First Amendment mission. We’re looking for people who are interested in exposing waste and corruption or just want to be part of finding better solutions. All are encouraged to apply, but experience in accounting, law and public service is especially helpful.
Our RepJ colleague Len Witt blogged about the Fort Meyers, Florida launch of a project by the same name about a year ago: Team Watchdog: Civic Journalism in Florida. Also see this Gannett story: Fort Myers’ Team Watchdog taps community expertise.
I’m delighted to see the paper engaging the citizenry more in its reporting. I’ve heard from others that they’ve had a ‘citizen advisory board’ for a while so maybe this is an evolutionary step. I don’t have any details on it but maybe our LoGroNo readers can help enlighten me? Or maybe Managing Editor Jaci Smith will post to her blog about it.
Oh hey Paul, I see you were commenting while I was commenting. Good points
Ok, I read all the way back to Kiffi/Victor’s post #7.
I think there should be no group, and Kiffi/Victor is already getting the group to do work! To discuss/evaluate the idea of anonymous comments.
Holly, I am on the citizen advisory group with Paul. I’m not on the watchdog group. And as far as I know there is no watchdog group, as such, just a network of people who can be resources for the paper, much as newspapers have used since they started. It’s an effort to reach out to the community and make the newspaper more connected, not an effort to create a posse of vigilantes. Minnesota Public Radio launched a similar effort a long while ago and there have been no giant corruption reports that I’ve seen.
Realistically, there’s just not a lot of corruption here to expose.
I think it’s odd that people are here discussing the watchdog group and condemning it without talking to the people at the News and finding out what it is first. How can you be against something based on speculation and rumor? Why not talk to the editor and publisher and ask them what they’re planning? What has been described here is nothing like any newspaper operation I’ve ever known, but I can’t speak for the paper because I haven’t discussed with them and I’m not worried about their intentions.
They aren’t going to join this conversation because this is the competition, so if you want to engage them, go to their site, contact them and start a dialogue.
As for your earlier comments and those of Paul, what you are describing is nothing like any newspaper operation I’ve known or any watchdog process I’ve ever seen.
To compare anonymous comments to cross burning is insulting to those who have really dealt with the Klan. The Star Tribune and the Pioneer Press and many reputable family newspapers have used anonymous comments for years online without a breakdown in morality.
As for your final comment, perhaps you can clarify. Who is forming a group about what?
Thank you, Martha, that was a beautiful thing to say, and i just now got myself back up off the floor, after having read your post #40, six hours ago!
Anne: You write, “To compare anonymous comments to cross burning is insulting to those who have really dealt with the Klan.”
I agree. But that was not my comparison. (You seem to be misdirecting a bit again. Is that on purpose?)
To compare anonymous threats (joking or not) to the safety of a reader to the anonymous acts of the Klan, this is a different comparison.
Not the same as comparing all anonymous comments (even benevolent ones — keep your eye on the ball here) to the Klan.
I agree with you regarding your judgment of the more general comparison. That would not apply. That would be like comparing an armed police man (honest, good, or otherwise, but unspecified) to a murderer who whose weapon of choice was a gun. Poor comparison. Not helpful. We agree on that.
The devil’s in the details.
Paul, I apolgize for the inaccuracy of my comparison. We got a second cat and it has triggered a severe allergic reaction and I’m just tired and foggy right now. (Anyone who wants an adorable little tuxedo cat, just let me know).
I am not deliberately misdirecting now, nor was I earlier. After reading Holly’s comments and yours and others in this thread I was just really overwhelmed by all the hostility and misunderstanding about a profession I love and respect.
I know it’s hard for many to believe, but I am simply speechless…
Holly: Your april3, 1:24 post (#50?) You ask about Rudolph the Red……..
Rudolph has been posting on the NFNews site since the first week of March. There, for a while seem to be two distinct “voices”. Anne Bretts commented to that point. Sometimes there seems to be a third voice. At any rate, the news’s editor , Sam Gett , has said that they have not been able to verify any e-mail address, which would give me pause; I guess they are feeling that maybe they are only drawing questionable (Un- verifiable) comments, because Mr. Gett said they are changing their “platform provider”.
What will Rudolph do then, given the seeming need to issue agressive comments, threats, often without any factual background. Will this exacerbate Rudolph’s aggression?
Victor and I have been the main targets of Rudolph’s comments, although he has taken off on others, also.
The concern re:libel , which no one seemed to caRe to address, well here’s an example…….Rudolph seems to think that Victor “bought” his seat on the EDA, and on the Charter Commission. Now, let’s just deal with the Charter commission. If a person bought their seat on the Chart/comm, that would be an illegal act, since it would involve paying off a public official, so that is a serious/libelous thing to say. However, it gets really serious when you make that accusation in the situation of a charter seat, since they’re appointed by the chief district judge……therefore you are not only libeling the applicant by saying the seat was “bought”, but also making the same accusation against the judge who would have “sold”/ filled it.
Gets serious, doesn’t it?
I don’t know if you can see all of Rudolph’s many comments by going back in the News archives; most of them are political doggerel IMHO, some are hysterical rants, I can’t recall any with facts; a few have very serious implications.
Again, I wonder: What will Rudolph do if the News requires verification in the future?
Hi Kiffi,
I did go look for Rudolph on the News site. I found irritating comments about Dave Maroney.
Did you ask the News to remove the comments about you two? I think they should have a policy which would include removing comments that are offensive, or could cause any type of litigous action, etc.
I’ve never talked with anyone who didn’t like the Summas. And so, who the heck is Rudolph the Red? Nosed reindeer? He probably lives in another town and is messing with us Northfielders.
Paul, now I understand your thoughts on this issue.
I wonder what constitutes ‘hate crime”? Does that include deragatory remarks of a certain nature?
On the News site: I can’t find any comments by Rudolph the Red other than the annoying comment I found before. I’m sorry you have to deal with that, Victor and Kiffi.
Hey Rudolph-- this situation goes beyond 50 lashes of a wet noodle. Why are you so purposefully unkind, and why can’t you use your name?
Holly: I did ask the News to remove comments that were purely personal attacks and were attached to news articles that they had no content relationship to, and they wanted to do that and did.
Many other comments remained if they bore some content relationship to the article. I have copies of them , others have copies of them, but I have no idea what remains in the archived articles.
As I have said before, I believe Rudolph(s) can’t use his/ their name because of their connections with city hall. I could easily be wrong about that; it may just be what I refer to as cowardly behavior which cannot make a factual argument, but only write personal rants.
I still wonder/speculate…..what will Rudolph do if the News’s new policy insists on verifiable return address? Will he surface here, with a name; it’s obvious he monitors this site all the time from the comments on the News site. He wrote about the comments I made about the DARE table at the grocery, criticizing me for not getting out there and getting involved. Many people know that I worked with Youth Plus for it’s entire existence , have been on the adult board at the key for 60r eight years, and a constant voice in support of youth.
Rudolph just doesn’t “fight” with facts, neither do some others. Vilification without facts is easier to do. Occasionally Rudolph writes with a”council voice”……. I think Rudolph probably knows quite a few facts,but it does not serve his purpose to use them.
Kiffi-- as to looking around wondering who Rudolph is:
Hopefully several people will offer you support, and tell you “It wasn’t me!” Better to focus on those people. You can’t please everyone… right.
And so, really, what is the point of knowing who Rudolph is? We know his/her views, and many have judged the comments’ value accordingly. The comments aren’t illegal, aren’t libelous, and so there is no action to be taken. People have said if you use you own your comments, it’s OK to make them.
So, if Rudolph comes forward, the matter ends? There’s no attempt to retaliate?
There is no point in knowing more. If you want to respond, post a comment to him. If you don’t value the comments, ignore them.
This is where the demand for a name seems not like a concern for accountability but control and intimidation, the very reasons people would choose to be anonymous.
Anne, you said in your comment #53,
I’m genuinely curious. The Northfield News thinks Locally Grown is “the competition”? In what sense? We don’t do news or journalism in any sort of systematic or professional way, and we don’t solicit or take advertising. In what way are we competing?
Tracy, I’d agree with you that we don’t compete on content and advertising, but I think LG does compete with both the Northfield News and Northfield.org for web traffic/eyeballs because that’s part of what enables any given site to have influence in the community.
Griff, how many times I gotta tell you: Influence, schminfluence. People want money.
Anne, the comments may be considered libelous…
Tracy, you’re kidding, right?
Of course you’re the competition. Every site on the web is competing for users’ eyeballs and attention. And advertisers want users. So why would the News come here and help build your traffic? They’d be crazy to ever make a comment, though they read you and follow the issues.
The News would love to have your eyeballs and comments, and they fully intend to fight for them when they get a new website platform that better supports comments and forums.
I don’t comment on their operations and intent because the only contact I have is through the advisory board, where we give feedback. We all agree to keep the discussions informal and they don’t publish our comments, so I wouldn’t share them here. There’s no big vow of secrecy, just respect for the private comments of individuals. I am happy to repeat my own remarks, but not those of others. As for policy, Sam and Jaci have to answer. I can just guess based on my experience in the news business.
Well, Griff, you seem to have hit the jackpot with this one!
In the first three days, there were only two comments; now in the last three you’ve jumped from 21 to 69 and day three isn’t over yet!
Rudolph is probably loving all the attention.
And look what they’re starting here in my other home! Citizen Journalism:
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080405/NEWS/80404055/1006
I’m curious to know why a journalist of twenty+ years experience would not recognize as libel an accusation, with absolutely no proof, of the commission of a crime both by a citizen and an officer of the court?
The reason why it is important to ascertain who the Rudolphs are, is that by their use of anonymity in the accusations they make, they are exercising “control and intimidation”.
Anne (and Griff), positioning LG and the NN as competitors is like saying the Muni and Kwik-Trip are competing with each other because they both sell beverages.
When I find a new blog that I like, I don’t stop reading another one. I add the new one and follow it for awhile to see if it holds my interest. It’s not a zero-sum game. And part of the beauty of the internet is this novel little thing called “hyperlinks”, which (in terms of building traffic) can be seen as part of the rising tide that lift all boats.
In my not-so-humble opinion, the News would do better to differentiate their product, not try to duplicate what’s already being done on LG. I know farming is more work than poaching, but there it is…
So why do liquor stores fight so hard to keep grocery stores from selling liquor? After all, liquor would only be a part of what they sell. In other states, groceries and drug stores sell liquor at a loss just to get people in the door to buy other items.
And yes, the liquor store would be more competition for the convenience stores if it were on the highway and expanded its merchandise.
IMHO, Locally Grown using the Northfield News content as the basis for most of your threads, even with the fig leaf of links, is like me bringing a group of friends and my own wine to a restaurant and ordering an appetizer and spending three hours listening to the band. Technically, I have supported the restaurant. Of course, that’s just my opinion.
Some communities have partnerships between the newspaper and other sites. Perhaps your journalism experts from the foundation can weigh in on this.
And perhaps they can weigh in on the libel issue and anonymous comments as well.
WOW, Anne…. I can’t believe you’re serious in your assertion that the Northfield News content is the basis for most of our threads. No, civic issues and events provide the basis for most of our threads; they happen to be the basis for most News articles too.
At least half the time while posting or commenting, I try to find things on the News site to link to, and the News simply hasn’t covered it.
In short, if the News had been doing what they now say they want to do, Locally Grown probably wouldn’t even exist. Neither would Northfield.org. Both grew to fill a niche that wasn’t being addressed. The News has certainly had the chance; it’s tried various incarnations of “community portal” and has made major attempts at “interactive” or “discussion” on their website at least four times since 1995 and it’s tanked each time.
Again, it’s not a zero-sum thing; adding readers to LG doesn’t diminish readership of the NN site… unless they’re trying to do the same thing we are, but not as well.
The Northfield News’s position, if I understand it correctly from what you’ve said, is a clear demonstration of how “turf wars” develop in this town. The Northfield News doesn’t own the time, attention and advertising dollars of every person and business in Northfield by default. They need to earn it.
I believe there’s room in the blogosphere for both Locally Grown and the Northfield News. And, as a business person, it seems to me to be a better model, especially in a small market, to find something that ISN’T being done rather than copy something that is. If you’re not doing something adequately, and someone steps in to fill the gap, why not collaborate rather than compete?
I should also mention that Griff and Ross and I had a very good meeting with the News editor Sam Gett a few months ago…. Sam seemed genuinely open-minded and I had a brief glimmer of hope that some of that might rub off on the Higher Powers at the NN. I left that meeting with a lot of ideas about ways LG and the News could work together to build something that would benefit both entities (and the entire community). It’s too bad the news seems to take an adversarial stance with anyone they, in their monopolistic delusion, deem to be “competition”.
Tracy: hasn’t it been evidenced on this thread, many times, that opinion is opinion, except for when it has been evidenced that opinion which cannot be supported by fact is just as valid, for its own sake, as fact?
(A demonstrable fact, Griff, not sarcasm)
Surely only a factual observer of the parallel , concurrent worlds of quantum mechanics could think that each news site might have a discrete world of news events on which to report.
Who, and how, would each player stake out their subject matter, never to be explored by another thought process? Flags on the moon, so to speak.
I get an instant mental picture of a world composed of islands, each with one shipwrecked person sitting under a lone straggly palm tree, talking loudly to her/his self.
Gee, Tracy, I wish we had met you when we first came to town. My dh and I came up here to work on the USPS website, and we also wanted to start a business of our own up here.
The encouragement we got from local business promoters was ( and we went to every offering, did the whole gamut of research on the whereabouts and so on), “Oh, we already have a computer guy in town.” without knowing what my dh’s experience and expertise were in his field, and oh, the one I like the best was, “Why don’t you contact the government’s Small Business Administration?” Which of course we had done way before we ever came here.
So, since my dh’s USPS contract is up now, we are working for companies
in Colorado, Virginia, North Carolina, and St. Cloud. It seems like we are welcomed to work with anyone as long as they are not from here. Oh, well, my dh did set up the flight scheduler for http://www.Stantonairfield.com, ah, but that’s only next to Northfield.
Anne is right, and Sam acknowledges, that in some ways, LoGroNo and NNews are competitors (“No one likes to be scooped”). But I think both often see themselves as complimentary.
Certainly, if NNews had started a successful web log and community discussion forum long ago — and it increased interest in their products, and helped their ad revenue, even indirectly — this would have been great.
But the current situation accomplishes much of the same. Yes, sometimes LoGroNo starts discussions based on NNews stories. But discussion here often sends readers back, more informed and watchful, when they read NNews.
There will always be some NNews readers who don’t visit LoGroNo, so even if they’re scooped, sometimes you can be late, but better prepared with a print story. Both promote awareness of stories and issues, and, I’d say, this results in a good synergy.
But this is thread drift. Tracy, maybe you should start a thread asking for ideas about how LoGroNo and NNews can improve the synergy and build on the best of what’s already happening. This is getting a bit far from watchdogs and reader panels….
Wait a minute, Tracy, talk about miscommunication… You seem to think I speak for the newspaper and I don’t. I have never pretended to speak for ‘the public’ or the News or all journalists or anyone but myself.
I’m an observer and no more. You should base your relationship with the News on your discussions with Sam, not my opinions. And you seem to be jumping from one observation to a broad assertion that the News thinks you should pay to mention their stories or not use them….so not true….
I don’t have a problem with competition. If I were opposed to your existence I wouldn’t comment here or read you. (For example, I support the right to make anonymous comments online but use my name at the News because I believe that’s what I should do.) I think you’re strong competition, but I think the News owners are perfectly capable of dealing with competition.
Let me start over. I would never have brought this up, but you asked a direct question and then got insulted at my answer. I believe you are competition. I factored the prices a little high, so let me change my analogy. To me LG’s use of the News is more like paying for a movie ticket and popcorn and bringing in your own candy bar. It’s not the end of the world, but it affects the theater’s bottom line. IMHO, if you truly wanted to support the News and avoid competition, you’d mention the story, turn off the comments and encourage people to go to the News site and comment. But your goal is to have the conversation here. Take a look at your monthly stats thread…you’re counting viewers just as much as the newspaper is.
You asked what I thought, and that’s it. I don’t know how much competition the News considers you. I find it fascinating that everyone assumes the newspaper’s position on things when you can just pick up the phone and ask them directly. Maybe you should have Sam and Jaci on a podcast. I’ve asked many times for all of you guys to have a panel discussion on these issues, but everyone seems to prefer speculation.
It’s easy to take shots at the News. You started up online with three well-connected people volunteering your time and controling the operation without having to account to readers or advertisers or employees.
You don’t carry the weight of living wages, health insurance, buildings, utilities, and a print edition that you know will be obsolete but can’t be abandoned. You don’t cover sports, or government or the courts or the county or school menus or honor rolls or all the other things that cost a lot of money to prepare and a lot of paper to print. So while you’re picking off interesting stories and having fun (and working), the News is supporting both a print and online edition, neither of which is a really thriving financial venture. (Sure print makes money today, but when you factor in downward spiral, it’s not something you want to depend on. And online advertising usually sucks money from the print side instead of generating lots of new advertising. (My observation, with no access to the News finances).
As I said before, these are great topics for your new partners in journalism, so please tap them as a resource.
IMHO, there is way too much drama about all this stuff. Threats, intimidation, competition, libel, sarcasm. It’s just paper — and keystrokes.
You know what your friends think and what other people think doesn’t really matter.
Anne -
I wonder if you’re reading the same paper that I’ve been, because the News that I know has run staged “news” stunts planted by political hacks, run a false subheadline about me that their attorney read and said, “It made me cringe when I saw it.” The paper has refused to print truthful and substantiated editorials about local violations of campaign law and put writers through contortions trying to satisfy their editorial demands while at the same time printing some pretty slanderous stuff from others on the opposite side. Through history they’ve fired reporters who worked hard to fully cover stories that they didn’t want fully covered. I like to see improvements and public responsiveness, but there’s a lot to criticize, and fairly, and this is why so many in Northfield would roll their eyes even where the paper has new leadership and is truly working on problems and trying to increase their responsiveness and get “civic journalists” involved. Among people I know (NOT a representative sample) there’s always rumblings that another paper is needed, though I’d prefer a community radio station with local news and live broadcasts of meetings with play by play commentary like golf or Mystery Science Theater. LoGroNo and N.org are filling the vacuum. The passion expressed in negative comments about the News is from longstanding problems, and earned skepticism that nothing’s really going to change. It’ll take a while, and substantial work, to turn those of us around who have been dealing with the News as it has been. It’s sort of like hearing a claim that the Mesabi Daily News wants input on coverage from those fighting the Mesaba Project — we’d all snort, keep sending information as we have been, and expect it to be business as usual.
Well, Carol, I’m not defending the news or mainline newspapers. I’ve only been here three years. I didn’t like the attitude when I came, but I think Sam and Jaci have been making amazing progress, based on what I have observed and my limited contact with them. IMHO, as usual.
You can work with the new people at the News to make things better or you can ignore them and stay on LoGroNo and Northfield.org or you can hang on to the past and continue to fight battles that are over against people who are no longer there. I guess I’d give them a fair shot and attack them when they give me some new ammunition.
Papers reflect the society they serve. If enough people demand a change, it would happen. I have seen it happen.
As I said in earlier posts, I have no illusions about mainline newspapers. I have worked at racist papers and papers where editors favored the Catholic Church or hated women or native Americans or poor people.
That’s why there have been alternative papers and special interest papers and ethnic newspapers and neighborhood papers and trade publications — all filling voids in mainline coverage.
And I’m not saying that Northfield.org and LoGroNo shouldn’t exist…I think they all serve some purpose, and even if they didn’t free speech/press principles guarantee their right to exist.
Griff: Could you please enter here as you sometimes do, in a moderation mode?
It has been terribly difficult , on this thread, to get people to address the issue rather than engage in personal or defensive invective.
How is one supposed to respond to a comment like: “You know what your friends think and what other people think doesn’t really matter” #79 (?) april 5. 7:49 pm ?
My initial response wouldn’t be allowed………
To the issue of the Nf News “position”………. is it not accurate that readers must ascertain what the position of the Newspaper is by their editorials, by the reporting that they do, whether or not they report from an unbiased position, whether or not they seek to ask, and answer, the questions that their stories raise……….. in other words by everything they write , and the positions they take by their own written word?
I can easily sympathize with the failing position that print news finds itself in, at all levels, in all cities, large and small. Deplorable for a valued and honored profession.
Maybe the saving, distinguishing, and financially reclaiming position would be to become the most journalistic pure, ethically strong, small newspaper around, one that sets a standard for the small town newspaper that cannot be RESISTED, in the sense that everyone wants to see what they have to say, and MUST subscribe, or pick it up at a kiosk, because it is what is generating the discussion “on the street”. That will never happen if there is a free accessible website that draws irresponsible comment , for the most part.
If the present model is “doomed” to failure, be bold; strike out in a new direction. A “niche” newspaper would succeed in NF; a broadsheet that you saw in peoples hands, in the coffeehouse and on the street.
Carol: Thanks for your explanation of your view in #79 regarding previous management and refusal to write certain stories. I didn’t know David or Ray when I came to town, and I had a good relationship with the paper; they’d run a number of my guest columns a number of years in a row — until I submitted a guest column looking into Ray’s signs at businesses. Stone wall. I wrote many drafts, which they passed on to their lawyers. Stalling. Finally I revised the piece, taking the angle that local businesses should know the law, and that, if they put up candidate signs, they risk tens of thousands of dollars in fines, and maybe jail time (all true). When the column was friendly and helpful to advertisers, they finally agreed to run it (very quickly, as compared to all their stalling on previous drafts).
KiffI: I’m not sure that Anne’s comments need Griff to step in as a moderator. Anne (in comment 78) wrote,
“Threats, intimidation, competition, libel, sarcasm. It’s just paper — and keystrokes.
You know what your friends think and what other people think doesn’t really matter.”
Anne is free to have her opinion. There are laws against libel. A good lawyer might disagree with her. Sometimes she comes off as a Neocon of journalism (ends justify means?) She may disagree with that impression, but it’s easy from the above quote to get that impression.
Bush says similar stuff: “Constitution? It’s just a piece of paper!” Why moderate or censor when folks say stuff like that? It’s kind of refreshing to know right where people stand.
Kiffi, I don’t respond because Griff asked us months ago not to address or respond to each other directly. I also don’t respond because we don’t agree, so once each of us has stated our position, there’s no real point in tearing each other down to prove who’s ‘right,’ making everyone else uncomfortable and bored.
So, you state your position, I state mine. The others evaluate them. Griff moderates. I’m fine with that.
I’m fine with taking potshots from anonymous or identified writers on Northfield News, although even the editor worried that some against me crossed the line. I feel they are the price of a free press, just as the Klan marches and neo-Nazi demonstrations are the price of free speech. I’d rather see hateful anonymous comments against me than not know what people were thinking because someone else decided I didn’t have the right to see them.
And thanks, Paul, but I’m hardly a neocon (The photo of my grandfather shaking JFK’s hand just fell off the wall). This is just my opinion. My point was that there is so much drama over all this when you think of the real issues in journalism. I remember my colleagues covering the riots when union and non-union forces collided over non-union construction at the Boise Cascade plant in International Falls. I remember colleagues covering violent confrontations at the lakes of northern Wisconsin when Ojibwe band members tried to revive their spearfishing tradition. There are journalists all over the world being shot and jailed and newspaper offices being bombed over government interference.
I have had death threats (pretty lame ones) and all of us in this field have had threats from people trying to get us fired for what we wrote (or didn’t write) about one thing or another. We’ve all had editors who kept us from writing something we thought was important.
And yes, journalism is a real calling but newspapers are a business. The newspaper office is not City Hall and you don’t have an inherent right to make someone publish something they don’t want to publish. Anyone can do journalism. If you’re not happy with what a newspaper is doing, you can demonstrate, organize a campaign to contact advertisers, you can get people to cancel subscriptions, or start and e-mail or letter campaign or start your own blog or newspaper. Freedom of the press means you have the right to have a printing press, not that you have a right to control someone else’s press. And you have the right to sit around and complain and do nothing.
I don’t see anyone furious because the radio station doesn’t do investigative reporting or because Northfield.org doesn’t do it or that the Entertainment Guide doesn’t do it. All sell ads and all provide information. There is nothing magic about being a newspaper.
Rudolph’s comments are no closer to libel than the months of accusations against Mr. Roder. (The newspaper has a very good media lawyer to make sure.) Rudolph is no danger to Victor and Kiffi. Victor and Kiffi driving around outside someone’s home are no more a threat than prayer ladies sitting silently in City Hall were a threat to my religious beliefs or my access to government.
Yes, these issues in Northield are tied to important principles, but let’s get some perspective here. You are all neighbors and friends in a city you all say you love. You brag constantly about how special this town is and how open it is and how everyone is welcome. This is just a discussion. Whether you write anonymously or not isn’t something you get to decide, it’s a matter of preference by the ones who control the websites. But by all means, you have the right to gripe about it.
Finally, we don’t agree. It’s OK. I don’t care what you think. By that I mean, I’m OK with you disagreeing. I don’t care that you think differently. I don’t care that you think I’m nuts (I’ve probably felt that way about one or two of you from time to time, but we don’t have to work together or have Thanksgiving together, so it truly doesn’t matter what we think of each other.)
There are people who matter to me and I do care what they think, but in the end I answer to my conscience and my God.
Now, perhaps you can get back to the original topic and discuss the News’ plan for watchdog journalism, or what you’d suggest in its place.
Anne: Sounds like rich professional history, but while you may feel that way as a seasoned journalist, that may be (and perhaps should be) very different from the view of the average citizen. I might like my journalists to have a hard skin, but I’m not sure I want to live in a neighborhood where, as a norm, the residents all say, “Threats, intimidation, competition, libel, sarcasm. It’s just paper — and keystrokes.”
Paul, as I explained in my last post, I was talking about the level of danger in all those areas as they exist in Northfield. I think there’s a difference between having a thick skin and being able to put all this in some perspective. I’m not a world-weary cynic; all those things happened at relatively small papers in Minnesota and Indiana. You just have to read the Star Tribune or the New York Times — or the headlines on Yahoo — to see there might be a bit too much drama here. To do my part in ending the drama — and thread drift, I’m going to quit responding to comments about my comments.
This is about what ideas people have to improve things in your town.
Please move back to the thread topic.
“If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck”… looks like a response.
Personal rehash, or on topic? Some of both.
Here’s my two cents:
So, the bad blood from the News comments has spilled over to here. But let’s remember that the two sources of information (LoGroNo and the News) are separate. It’s my feeling that LoGroNo does a better job when they don’t allow anonymous posters, and it should be the the News having discussion about Rudolph.
I don’t like watchdog groups. Citizen participation is good, however, if the intent is noble and not pompous, too judgemental, or exclusive.
As for the News and LoGroNo having similar content: Wow, that’s a new one. I see “same content” all over the place. Strib runs a story that TV Channels 4 and 5 cover for lunch. It would be fun to figure out who owns the news, but mostly no one cares about that, they just want to be connected. The News and LoGroNo don’t have the same take on stories, either, and that is what makes this site interesting.
Anne, it’s not nice to write “I don’t care what you think.” You usually are more elegant than that… although many times it just seems like you are stirring the pot for the sake of stirring.
Kiffi and Victor-- chin up and maybe don’t take the bait.
Happy Monday!
Holly: I don’t meant to speak for Anne, especially since she is no longer commenting on comments about her comments, but to some extent, the way I read “I don’t care what you think” was at least in part in this sense: There are those situations where we sometimes take a stand based on our own values, and to that extent, sometimes our own choice of conscience matters more than others’ opinions of us. We may not agree on anonymous discussion and where the black/white or grey are related to libel or threats, but “I don’t care what you think” is always an option, not necessarily meant as an insult or to be uncaring.
(Hey, contact me if you still want to borrow that movie….)
(Now that’s thread drift….)
Maybe I can straighten this out for you all. Where I come from and where Anne comes from not too far away from where I come from, when we say,
“I don’t care.” it means we don’t care if you bring your friend over for dinner…it’s fine…we don’t have a problem with it….good bring ‘er over.
When other people say, “I don’t care.” it means I don’t care what you do, don’t bother me with it, it’s nothing to me, I want no part of it.
So what I am saying is that this is one of those, it’s English, but it’s local
jargon that differs from county to county or state to state.
Thanks, Paul and Bright! Nicely said.
I do marvel over all this concern about my comments, but the thread topic is so much more interesting….What do you people think about the topic?
What would the role of the “watchdog” be?
Why is there a need for “watchdogs” when there are professional reporters?
What if the newspaper didn’t CARE to follow up the “watchdogs’ tip(S)?
What if a “watchdog” “watchdogged” the paper?
Would a reporter be assigned to follow up on a “watchdog” tip, do the investigating , or just write up the concern?
Would the “watchdog” write a “watchdog” opinion?
Would the “watchdog” have the same protections that reporters have?
Would the “watchdog” have access to the legal advice of the News?
Would the “watchdog” be able to be involved in editorial content discussion?
Would the “watchdog” join the Reader Advisory Team?
What would happen when (not if) there were diametrically opposed positions of “watchdogs”?
I think that’s enough: I have to do my reading for my CVEC class, “The Age of Enlightenment”.
P.S. It’s not about Northfield; it could be… but it’s not.
Kiffi: All good questions! Who’s watching the watchers? Nothing like checks and balances, with a large helping of constant vigilance. You and Victor are good wtinesses to that.
I think Sam’s idea was to get leads, not to have so-called watchdogs do the work independent of the NNews, and not to give them access to the NNews’ lawyer (shared with other small-town newspapers). Self-appointed watchdogs can already write letters to the editor, or comment here or at the NNews site (sometimes anonymously, for good or ill).
Instead of having folks argue for or against watchdogs, I think it may be more productive (if the thread continues) to discuss how to make them work well and avoid the troubles that occur when it’s abused.
Just to be clear, which I may not have been when I posted last night…I am certainly NOT against “watchdogs”.
But I wonder what is the practical outcome or result, and how would the process actually work?
Kiffi- Just tongue in cheek, here, but your post #92 demonstrates something I’ve suspected for a long time- the news media is going to the dogs. I had a watchdog, once. At least he had a lot of tics.
Concerning Rudolph the Red, that reminds me of a story I heard one time about the couple from Minnesota touring Russia. Their tour guide was named Rudolph, and by the third or fourth day, they were getting to know him pretty well. They were touring Red Square when it started to sleet. The wife exclaimed, “Oh, look! It’s starting to snow!”
Rudolf replied, “No, that is rain.”
The wife replied, ” I’m from Minnesota, and I know what snow looks like. It is snow.”
“No, it is rain.”
“Snow!”
“Rain!”
The husband turned to his wife and said, “Stop arguing! Rudolph the Red knows rain, dear!”
After that one, I’m sure everyone is willing to go back to the thread!
Nfld News publisher Sam Gett comments about Team Watchdog in his column today:
Well, here’s an interesting coincidence. MnSpeak.com is having a discussion about comment guidelines, specifically about new guidelines on another site, Jezebel. So you can follow the link to MnSpeak, then follow again to Jezebel, to get some different perspectives.
http://www.mnspeak.com/mnspeak/archive/post-5146.cfm
I find Gett’s rewording interesting.
Thanks for the link, Anne. Fun.
“First!” And bacon-flavored ice cream?
Hey, do you people try to read all comments before you comment?
Do you read the comments from the top down, or from the bottom up? Just wondering.
#96- I call that ‘unpaid consultants’
#95-JG-doggedly after the true facts, as usual.
#98-I usually start at the middle and then I jump around until I find one that agrees with my own viewpoint.
#97-Jezebel? huh, alright I’ll try it for kicks.
I think LoGroNo has to look a different set of guidelines than any other
type of site because people here actually know each other and vote or
act in some way that can actually oppose and therefore undermine
one another’s activity or property or whatever as well as help and assist
in many ways.
Although Jezebel has as good of guidelines as any other site might have,
I don’t care much for the star system. If you are a regular, and eventually,
when you find a good site for your tastes, you will become one, you can
star up your own favorite posters. If the Jezebel wants to do that sort of thing in a different area so that others can choose to research, fine, but I don’t like them trying to influence my decision to take certain people seriously and others not.