I think much of its basic presumption (That true journalism cannot survive in its existing form) is incorrect. If we no longer care about the structures that govern us, our “rule of law” whether it be local or national, then we live in anarchy.

Tedious or not, town/council meetings, and their outcomes, should be important to all who live in the community. The lack of interest, and the lack of reporting by a local paper are two facets which contribute to after-the-fact dissatisfaction with one’s gov’t.

Do newspapers have a responsibility inherent in the word ‘reporting’?

Do they have responsibilities inherent in the word ‘journalism’ to question and investigate, and then present a clear analysis for the public to evaluate or question further?

I say, absolutely …If they do not, and if it is all to be left to individuals to ask the questions, and do the ‘reporting’ … then why don’t we just do away with the news media that has such a hard time supporting itself with its advertising?
Obviously we would be left with a lot of opinion; everyone would have to do their own research on each issue OR accept the opinion presented by individuals not held to a journalistic standard.

We cannot let our newspapers ‘go away’; if they need to develop a new model to be bottom line successful, then so be it. But we, as citizens, must have access to the presumptive good journalism that the profession of journalism has set its own standards for, and that an informed citizenry requires.

Now we’re hearing the same thing about the blogosphere. “When enough bloggers take the leap, and start reporting on the statehouse, city council, courts, etc. firsthand, full-time, then the Big Media will take notice and the avalanche will begin,” Mr. Reynolds quotes another blogger as saying. If this avalanche ever occurs, a lot of bloggers will be found gasping for breath under piles of pure ennui. There is nothing more tedious than a public meeting.

…

The common thread here, whether the subject is foreign, national or local, is that the writer in question is performing a valuable task for the reader — one that no sane man would perform for free. He is assembling what in the business world is termed the “executive summary.” Anyone can duplicate a long and tedious report. And anyone can highlight one passage from that report and either praise or denounce it. But it takes both talent and willpower to analyze the report in its entirety and put it in a context comprehensible to the casual reader.

…

So if you want a car or a job, go to the Internet. But don’t expect that Web site to hire somebody to sit through town-council meetings and explain to you why your taxes will be going up. Soon, newspapers won’t be able to do it either.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve watched a parade of top-notch reporters leave the Star-Ledger for the last time. The old model for compensating journalists is as obsolete as the telegraph. If anyone out there in the blogosphere can tell me what the new model is, I will pronounce him the first genius I’ve ever encountered on the Internet.

I was only commenting on how successful their forum on annexation at St. Olaf was, and that they should do an expanded forum for the whole Northfield community; that’s what I was saying “Go for it” on.

I really have no opinion on how Northfield.org should structure itself… I think it’s up to that board to decide along with it’s most fervent users.

Anyway, Rob, Neither of my comments (30 or 36) was specifically about NF.org; the first(30) was general ,and the second (36) was specific to the student forum at St. Olaf. So I guess I need to apologize for ‘thread drift’…
Hope that explains your finding me inconsistent; it’s a failing of mine to write off the top of my head and not go over it.

Rob and Anne -- thanks for the clarifications. Writing a story in a journalistic style that describes the clash makes more sense for a summary on N.org than does posting an opinion that favors one side over the other. And to Rob, regarding Kiffi’s “Go for it”: I think Kiffi was encouraging me to stimulate conversation through a community meeting, rather than through a story on N.org.

I just finished reading a book about the role of ordinary Americans in shaping the Constitution in the 1780s. It was a good illustration of Anne’s point about the role of highly opinionated citizen journalism—pamphleteers, pseudonymous editorial writers (like Madison, Hamilton and Jay, who wrote The Federalist Papers under the name “Publius”)—in making America. There should be a place in the landscape of citizen journalism in Northfield where such a time-honored democratic tradition can be followed. Right now, it’s on the personal blogs of Northfield citizens.

After the meeting, I was speaking with Pete Sandburg and Gene Bakko, and we were discussing how you could ‘speak’ to a larger segment of the Northfield community who seriously need to be availed of the kind of information and perspective your group was presenting.

They were philosophically supportive of a large public meeting, possibly at an in-town venue like the Grand, where you enlarged on the areas of discussion, mapping etc., that you presented at your campus forum. Mssrs. Sandburg and Bakko felt it needed to be in town, not on campus, to attract the maximum audience… and that it should have somewhat of a town meeting atmosphere , maybe even a ‘social’ component, after the factual presentation.

Go for it! you did a good job initially; we could use a lot more…

Could N. org try out a system where a user who posts an event on N.org can post one summary of it afterwards, with no restrictions on whether opinion could be included in the summary? I’m a St. Olaf student who organized an event, advertised it on N. org beforehand, and hoped to post a summary/follow-up (with my opinions) about it afterwards -- sort of like the library article. Before submitting the summary I realized that opinions in stories weren’t allowed.

I understand the restriction, but I disagree with Anne B. in that I think I am not alone: there are others who would also like to tell about their events after the fact. In my case, the event was meant to spark a conversation between the city and the college, and posting a summary on a community website would be a great way to encourage that conversation (even if comments to such a summary were prohibited). Perhaps, if summaries were permitted, they could be placed in their own section or published at the bottom of events’ pages.?

They call it YourVoices. Former Northfielder Andrew Eklund is among the bloggers

Opinion has its place, and journalism … I hope … will never give up its place.
Why confuse the two?
Equating journalism and opinion degrades journalism, and seeks to elevate opinion.

I don’t see the benefit, except maybe for ‘wannabees’. Can’t we encourage the preservation of true, professional journalism without demanding an equal validity for opinion?

Opinion is interesting, sometimes informative, sometimes fun… but in my opinion, it is not journalism.

I’m aware that some define citizen journalism as including comments from readers, but this is spotty and often not what you could characterize as journalism. Might be a misnomer in some applications. Sometimes it’s more like fun remarks from the peanut gallery, or more like a David Letterman opening act than journalism.

One way around what Holly describes as an obstacle for news at Northfield.org might be for citizens to interview and quote people with various viewpoints. If there is balance, and if the opinions are not so much those of the journalist as they are the accurate quotes of certain people, then it’s a fact that a council member or NCC director or pastor or police officer said a certain thing. I don’t know if N.org would allow that, and I tend to think only students in a journalism class and professional journalists would want to do that kind of legwork.

But perhaps some of the untapped potential of Northfield.org would be to do more with student journalists.

At the Northfield News, you have editors and writers who decide what they think is newsworthy. Here at LoGroNo, you have Griff, Tracy and Ross deciding what they think is worth discussing, and sometimes commenters hyjacking topics via thread drift and steering them toward what the hijacker (for good or for ill) believes worthy of discussion. At Northfield.org, you have volunteers who make similar editorial decisions about whether something is objective enough, and meets the standards of the site, and these may, at times, seem like decisions about what is or is not newsworthy, when in fact, they may be more strictly about standards or guidelines.

If you get student journalists involved in writing articles, you broaden the number of voices controling the decisions about what is newsworthy, and what is worth discussing. That could be a good thing--or it could mean that Northfield.org would begin to be dominated by stories of value to students and the young. Some might prefer to ghettoize them at their school web sites so as to keep Northfield-proper safe for the rest of us. Decisions, decisions.

Jane, it’s good to have more info about what’s being planned by the NCO board. An Observer’s Report!

At our December meeting, the NCO board agreed to invite a panel, representing the various Northfield media, to talk about how Northfielders can become involved in local media. This may be a broader discussion of the issue of citizen journalism than is implied in this thread. However, I think it will be interesting to hear both the short statements of the assembled panel, and to see what questions the audience raises, and how they are answered. Put Thursday, January 22 on your calendars for the Annual Meeting of NCO at the Grand.

Another NCO development is our work with a St. Olaf journalism intern, Amy Sack, who will develop stories for northfield.org during January. I agree with Anne, that journalism is hard work. Local, non professional journalists seem to fulfill their journalistic instincts through personal blogs. For that reason, and because at the present time, at least, northfield.org doesn’t have staff to do the work necessary to produce regular content, we’ve had more events posted than stories. I’m hopeful that Amy’s work will stimulate others in the community to see northfield.org as a vehicle for reporting on things in their worlds and we can achieve a better balance.

Finally, we’re making a modest attempt to help people overcome the difficulties in posting stories on the site. We’ll have a hands-on training session in February, probably on the 13th, in the computer center at the Senior Center where people will have access to computers.

Like so much in the cyberworld, northfield.org is dynamic – has gone through changes since it was created in the ‘90s, and will continue to do so. If there is an appetite in Northfield for the kind of “citizen journalism” our mission statement calls for (“. . . We support this mission by publishing stories and event listings from any and all members of the community . . . ”), and if we can lure closet journalists to tell their stories on northfield.org, perhaps we can balance the event listings with content which many of us would enjoy reading and would enrich Northfield’s already active media world.

Griff: At a minimum, it would be good to have more opportunities to educate Northfielders on how to post to Northfield.org.

Anne: You’re right that Northfield.org could use a bit of a face-lift, and that’s something we’ve talked about on the board. For a tech semi-literate like me, it’s also difficult to figure out how the site works from the inside with all of its cryptic modules and such.

Rather, I was suggesting that the same funds used to fund NTV can be used to fund NCO activities. For example, you could hire someone to conduct community-ed type classes on how to submit content to N.org, to conduct web-forums, to run a blogger users’ group, to create community videos, to create podcasts, etc.

Why not pursue this?