Earlier today I linked to and excerpted from an article in today’s Wall St. Journal (pointed out to me by Ross) titled: All I Wanted for Christmas Was a Newspaper; Bloggers are no replacement for real journalists.
Paul Mulshine, opinion columnist for the Newark Star-Ledger, misses the point when he argues that citizens aren’t likely to voluntarily ‘cover,’ for example, city council meetings for their blogs in the same way that a reporter does for a newspaper.
Yes, it’s valuable to have Suzi Rook at the Northfield News, Dusty Budd at KYMN, and RepJ’s Bonnie Obremski sitting through public meetings and then reporting on them.
But it’s more valuable for their stories to be published in an eco-system of civic engagement where the media, public officials and citizens are all involved in the effort to inform so that better public outcomes can occur.
Imagine a year from now that a version of the above chart (from last summer’s JTM New Pamphleteers conference) is happening here in Northfield. For example:
- City Hall puts up the digital video of a council meeting, complete with ‘annotated markers’ that allows citizens to view just the segments of the meeting they’re interested in.
- Two citizens post to their blogs about a Council agenda item that they viewed online.
- Locally Grown links to those blog posts and starts an online discussion about the issue.
- Two councilors and one City Hall staffer post to their own blogs about the issue and the pingbacks to Locally Grown add to the discussion. One of the councilors decides to open up comments on her blog and so now, there are two places for citizens to engage in online conversation about it.
- The RepJ reporter does an in-depth story about the issue, interviewing others, linking to the blog posts and discussions, etc. Councilor bloggers and citizen bloggers link to that story, and further discussion ensues.
- When the City Administrator and staff prepare the Council packet (digital only; printed packets ceased in Feb. 2009) for the next City Council meeting, all of the elements of the issue’s ‘eco-system’ are summarized and linked for the Councilors.
- Citizens and reporters have online access to the Councilor’s agenda packets. Further discussion about the City Administrator’s summary occurs online prior to the next Council meeting
- Some citizens show up at the Council meeting open mic to voice their opinions about the issue. Their comments are streamed live online as well as included in the next online video of the Council meeting.
- Repeat as necessary
This eco-system of civic engagement can’t easily exist in a town whose citizens don’t blog or discuss issues online, whose media reporters don’t link, whose public access cable TV station only broadcasts analog video at select times, and whose public officials aren’t regularly making an effort to be more transparent and engaged with citizens.
In Northfield, I think we’re getting closer to a civic engagement model that really works.
- In place: Bonnie Obremski’s RepJ stories, an active civic blogosphere, and vibrant online discussions here on Locally Grown, some other blogs, and at times, on Northfield.org and Northfieldnews.com
- On the horizon: a new crop of elected officials who are open to blogging and participating in online discussions
- On the horizon: streamed, archived, and annotated digital video of City Council meetings
- On the horizon: a KYMN radio station that offers more opportunities for citizen-produced shows and which selectively amplifies those participating in the local blogosphere and online discussions
(Not yet on the horizon: a Northfield News newspaper that selectively but consistently links to, excerpts from, and gives credit to local civic bloggers and online discussion participants in both the print and online versions of its stories.)
I don’t quite have the Vision Thing perfected yet but I’m getting closer.
A related blog post of mine from last summer: The press and the public: What’s the new relationship?
Griff: I would dispute your suggestion that better public outcomes occur where there is greater civic engagement, especially if the engagement comes from a narrow market segment, such as the on-line community.
Experience with issues such as the rental ordinance and the Comp Plan have convinced me that greater civic engagement usually results in poorer decision-making because most of those engaged in civic engagement have their own narrow interests at interest, not the interests of the broader community.
Griff,
I respectfully disagree with your comment that Newspapers should “selectively but consistently links to, excerpts from, and gives credit to local civic bloggers and online discussion participants in both the print and online versions of its stories”.
I do so because I firmly hold that there is a difference between professional journalism, and citizen journalism. Blogs should never be used as a single source of the news, and the BASIS OF FACT. To do so, frightens me. Many times, blogs are one persons opinion, or belief, and do not contain the fact checking, utilization and verification of multiple sources, and the discretion that a professional newspaper practices.
On several occasions over the last two years, the Star Tribune has used you for comment on local news stories, and used your comments as the single source for information on stories that you only had basic knowledge about. They did not do any further research. I do not blame you for this, I blame the reporter for not digging deeper.
Please do not get me wrong, as I really think the RepJ project is an awesome thing, and Bonnie is doing a great job with it. However, to have a newspaper quote your blog (which many such as the Star Tribune and others have) as a single source, without doing further fact checking is doing a disservice to its readers.
I like the concept of an eco-system of civic engagement, but I do have to strongly agree with Mr. Mulshine’s remarks. He comments: “is [sic] the writer in question is performing a valuable task for the reader — one that no sane man would perform for free.”
I firmly believe that you get what you pay for… what pays for Griff? Bonnie is getting paid by a grant for what she does. The NNews is getting paid for what they do… but what drives Griff and his blog? Is it purely the love of the technology?
My other point is… at what cost? What is it going to cost me as a taxpayer to have the city provide to you, and a select audience, content for your blog? You want everything in an electronic format. This should only be a benefit of another project, and not the primary reason for City hall to upgrade an existing system or process. We can already see how well our $85,000 was spent on the city website. It is faltering because it had big dreams, but poor implementation, training, and content management.
I like your dream sheet, but how can this get accomplished and still remain within the realm of complying with the public record? You will counter with the concept that the city will receive a “cost savings of going digital” and I will counter with the cost of training and labor.
I will take several newspapers, television and news magazines for a variety of sources for the news and the facts. I will utilize multiple sources to try to neutralize the bias of the source.
I will take all of the blogs for opinion and rumor.
I will take LoGroNo for its humor, fluff, and photos, as well as its commentary by the Triumvirate.
I will take Bonnie’s postings, because they are damn good.
If blogs that want to use the citizen journalism model would instill more methods utilized in professional journalism, do the fact checking, and attempt to remain neutral, I would be more comfortable with them as a news source. At this point, most blogs are opinion.
All of these have their place. How we integrate them together, while still having some clear boundaries will be interesting. I look forward to participating.
Thank you for what you do…
The only problem here is that you’re not operating in a vacuum. And so you decide to build your system of public dialog and KYMN does and the News does and NTV and Northfield.org create their own systems. Who will pay for all the City Hall staff time and technology needed to keep all these various systems going? How are part-time councilors going to manage this additional responsibility? Who decides which systems are monitored and how much discussion in one blog constitutes a breach of open meeting laws?
I’m in favor of having the council packets available online and having meeting video streamed and stored online. I am in favor of having all public discussions and e-mails with officials run through city hall’s e-mail system and website to maintain a transparent public record. I’m not opposed to having a councilor answer a question or do a podcast, but there are some real questions right now about how new technology applies to public record issues.
You are not a public or community organization but a private enterprise with an agenda and profit motive. That’s great, but you are no different from KYMN or the News in your role in community newsgathering. You don’t represent the community, you represent your vision of what the public should want.
I’m in favor of having a short-term task force of all local media to make their requests and see what kind of cooperation is possible and reasonable. The report would then be considered by the council and a budget prepared for consideration as part of an overall public information plan. That budget would be incorporated into the overall city budget.
I think Locally Grown is interesting, but I don’t think the city/school/county should be subsidizing your experiment, even in a modest way, without determining public demand or need.
Griff: Have you completely lost sight of a factual, principled based journalism which informs, not opines?
I was amazed to read your idea of an “eco-system of civic engagement”. Where is the basic fact filled, fact checked story/reportage?
You seem to have created a swirl of opinion that you claim will better inform … and yet the de-emphasized is the factual.
This is exactly my complaint with the Northfield News; the defining questions that the paper should be asking, getting the answer to, and reporting on , are seldom apparent.
Example: One of the editors writes a staff column about ‘the checks still flying out the door’ ( this being relevant to the council’s decision to pay the former administrator’s legal fees upfront)
I felt she was put in an embarrassing position in her staff column, because if the city hall reporter would have reported on all the hours and hours of discussions on this subject through the end of the summer and the early fall, and brought up the questions asked by council members who did not agree with the payment position which ultimately prevailed, the editor would have not been so amazed in her stated position.
Again,there is an absolute need for the fact based journalism which also asks the pertinent questions.
It looks to me like that’s ‘buried’ in your model.
Another problem is the council opinion in your model; you forget that that these people … striving to make a good decision for the community … are also often operating on their personal opinion, unless the issue is very, very clearcut.
Often the decision the council has to make is actually realized by their opinion, and that of the staff that has brought the issue to them for consideration, because either they(council) do not get the defining information in a completely unbiased way, or they do not define a guiding policy for the staff to implement.
We have virtually no deep policy discussion at the council level; a problem I fervently hope the new council will address.
The Comp Plan and the Transportation Plan attempt to be that, but the real guiding policy discussion for the Comp Plan occurred in the Planning Commission work sessions.
What you have described just seems like a blog with more input; not necessarily a more informative news/reporting environment. Just look at your diagram … it looks like a maelstrom!
Kiffi -- “factual, principled based journalism” always, but “not opines?” Not so fast there… Advocacy journalism has a solid place, where taking a stand is implicit.
Hi Griff:
Interesting post. Indeed the post is a reflection of what you want for the future not only in concept but in fact.
You post an idea and others come to it and deliberate around it. The more deliberation the most robust the idea becomes.
You have laid out a form of open-source journalism.
Here is something I wrote earlier as part of an op-ed piece:
We still will need professional journalists, but rather than working in isolation they will be in the community immersed in an open bazaar of ideas and opinions.
However, for this to work best you have to pay special attention to David Ludescher’s critique above and ask how can you ensure that all the voices of the community are heard, especially those unheard in the past.
David L., you said,
Saying something (over and over and over) doesn’t make it so. What evidence do you have to back up this assertion? Do you think that Northfield’s elected officials are the only people who consider the interests of the broader community ahead of their own? Are “mere” citizens incapable of doing so?
Tracy: It is human nature for people to promote their own self-interests.
Staff usually has the least bias opinion given their professional training, inability to determine the final outcome, and the possible loss of employment for poor decision-making. Elected officials, being obligated to obligated to promote other people’s interests above their own, and having the advice of professional staff should be able to make every decision without reference to the citizenry. That is the purpose of a representative democracy.
In this case, creating a more vibrant on-line community benefits those who already have the most and best access at the expense of those who don’t have on-line access or who rely on more traditional methods.
If you want an example of greater civic engagement resulting in poorer decision-making, I refer you to the new rental ordinance -- discriminatory, confusing, expensive, cumbersome, and untested -- all marks of poor legislation. The ordinance reflects the continuing pressure exerted by a relatively small number of citizens promoting their own interests.
David L, what is the self-interest for each individual who has suggested alternatives for how the city might evaluate the decision to build or license a new liquor store?
Can you list one self-interest for each contributor including yourself?
I can see how maybe one or two of the folks who have commented have clear/semi-clear self-interests, but I struggle to see the self-interest for nearly all who engaged.
Tracy is spot-on with her comment. Some people actually just care that we have a better community and want to contribute to that goal in multiple ways…one being civic engagement.
Tracy and David:
Are each you familiar with the Lippmann Dewey debates from 1922? It is often quoted in public journalism circles and mirrors each of your arguments.
Here is something I found on the web, but there is plenty more in-depth writing on the topic, which is definitely worth reading. Here are two introduction sentences from the website:
Here is more from the website about Dewey , who thought public participation was hard work and would not just happen willy-nilly:
Bruce, how about using Leonard’s post as the basis of a Politics & a Pint discussion? I’d definitely like to hear more about that.
Thanks Leonard!
David L: Given your example above in # 9 of what elected officials “should ” be able to do, with the added expertise of staff to help them, how do you account for what you seem to evaluate as a total failure in the development, and final form, of the rental ordinance?
I’m not clear why there’s a controversy.
The major media, when it’s working as it should, has paid staff who are professionally trained journalists. The power of the press to report cannot be matched by individuals. The press has an illuminated history in the U.S., something that unprofessional “citizen” journalism can’t consistently reach. Would Deep Throat have called Bonnie or the Washington Post?
In the ever-present cliché of the tendency of power to corrupt, major media and journalists sometimes neglect or forget their duty to journalism and they publish lies. This is where citizen journalism is especially important. After watching a recent documentary on the JFK assassination, I was sad to see that Peter Jennings lied about events depicted in the Zapruder film before the public had access to it. Jennings, who was reporting for CBS, said JFK’s head went forward after he was shot but the film clearly shows it going backward. This was a calculated and material lie made to assure the public that there was one shooter: Oswald. Suffice to say, Jennings’s lie would still be believed if the Zapruder film was never subpoenaed in a court case (People v. Shaw) and leaked to the pubic. Imagine if people were blogging in the 1960s. CBS wouldn’t have dared publish lies for they must have believed they had a monopoly on the information.
So I see a necessary interrelationship. We need major media for its resourcefulness and professional training. We need citizen journalism to help keep major media honest. And we never know when citizen journalism will become the next major media. Every news service had a humble beginning.
Jerry- I think you have expressed a very valid perspective on the issue. Interraction between people tends to clarify what some refer to as “facts.” Ever since I took a propaganda analysis course in college more years ago than I like to admit, it has ruined me of believing every “fact” I read in any publication. I think one of the characteristics of any communication is that it all has a bias. Some of the comments posted here seem to imply that “professional journalists” are somehow free from any bias. I just don’t believe this is true. When I find a publication that I feel is “unbiased,” if I am really honest about it, I’m just saying that I agree with the bias of that particular publication. That being the case, I think blogs like LGN are healthy in that they allow me to discuss issues with others of similar and different biases. In my opinion, the advantage of this type of venue is that it allows interraction. Publications are hard to interract with. I can send an “editorial comment,” but if it is not published, I have no way of knowing if it was in fact ever received, let alone considered, and I never get a response from the publication. The internet allows us to process newsworthy events in an entirely different way than has ever been possible. That in itself has to affect the whole landscape of reporting events.
David K: I am trying to challenge the myth that greater civic engagement always produces better public results. If that greater civic engagement consistently comes from the same segment of society, the more likely result is that those engaged citizens get their way at the expense of the less engaged.
The liquor store siting is an example. I can understand why a new downtown liquor store is appealing. But, it is not intuitively obvious that it is the only choice. Given that an offer has been made to give land valued at $0.9 million to the City, it would seem that even those interested in a downtown site should take pause, and should be ask that the matter be revisited -- in the best interest of everyone.
Greater civic involvement doesn’t mean hearing more and more from the same people (like me). It means hearing more and more of what everyone wants or needs.
Hi David L:
You write:
You are right. You have recognized a legitimate problem.
In the past, all you could do is complain about the lack of full scale involvement. Now with more interaction possible, you — and I do mean you, David — can take steps to ensure more voices are heard, more segments of the population are represented.
So what would you do to make that possible? What advice do you, and the others reading this post, have to ensure the triumvirate and Bonnie are more inclusive?
John: For the reasons you expressed, I often prefer to take college classes than read books. Classes allow interaction and easier access to questioning authority. Books don’t allow that.
David(s): I agree with David L. that greater public involvement does not *always* lead to better results, but as an expression of democracy, it is still a necessary element of government. Best case, citizens know what’s best for them. Worst case, citizens should go through the process of discovery and debate even if the result is bad.
As a former candidate for public office, I was prepared to facilitate public discussion on city projects, and to work hard to bring all of the relevant facts to these discussions. If the residents of my ward largely desire for something that I think is a bad idea after a full exposé of the facts, I would not trump their desire. (There are a few exceptions, for example I would always vote against things that offend human rights.)
I believe that government is elected for a narrow purpose, generally to facilitate society moving forward. As facilitators, government needs to learn from the people what “forward” means. Sometimes the people make mistakes, but government is not immune from mistakes and taking the people out of government decisions is not democracy.
John T (comment #3), yes, local journalists should seek out many sources, not just online ones.
But the Nfld News never allows their reporters to include anything from any local blogger in any of their stories. They never point their readers to any place online where important civic discussions are happening.
I think that’s a disservice to their readers, a betrayal of their mission to help keep the community informed, and I think it will hurt their business in the long run.
Kiffi (comment #5), you may have missed it where, in my itemized vision list, I wrote “The RepJ reporter does an in-depth story about the issue.”
That’s the “factual, principled based journalism which informs” that you mentioned.
Leonard: The problem can be approached two ways. One way is to have more voices. I have tried to do that on the Chamber’s behalf.
The more effective way, in my opinion, would be for those who are currently the most vocal to be less participatory, and/or more community-oriented in thought and deed.
For example, I don’t care for cookie-cutter houses. I live in a 98 year old house on purpose. But, it irritates me to no end to hear a deliberative body like the Planning Commission suggesting that it has any legitimate interest in telling people what their houses should look like.
When I raised my voice in protest, it felt like a hogpile on Ludescher. I have continued to try to put a different voice out there. Frankly, many of the people, especially business people, refuse to comment because of the possible ill-will created.
So, the short answer to your question is that the public debate should be more exclusive, rather than try to be more inclusive. We already have far too much debate, too many studies, and too much participation. It is interfering with the real work of government. Colleges are the places to debate, study, and participate; government is the place to act.
Griff: You might be right; but you don’t own the newspaper.
John T (#3), the City of Eden Prairie went to paperless council packets in 2004 for a number of reasons that I think are more valid now than ever, 4+ years later:
Jon Stewart had an in-depth piece on the newspaper industry’s troubles a couple of weeks ago.
So Griff, let me get this right…the Northfield News should pay a reporter to plug your site, while you have a nice grant subsidizing your reporter and are trying to raise local money to keep her on salary. You skim off the stories that interest you while they stretch to do the in-depth coverage as well as all the routine items readers demand and you wouldn’t or couldn’t do.
They would have to be crazy to subsidize the competition, and you are competition. I agree they should have been ahead of the game and led the way in online interactivity, and they are playing a weak game of catch-up now. They are interested in building their own conversations, not yours. Of course, the same few people are commenting there, so it kind of blows your idea that there’s a huge unserved audience out there dying to participate. The people who like to talk online are pretty much doing so. The people who like to write are on Northfield.org or writing guest columns or stories for the News or their own blogs or organization blogs.
And there’s nothing stopping you from being mentioned in the News. You just buy an ad.
Anne (comment #4), I don’t understand where you got the idea that I think the city/school/county should be subsidizing my ‘experiment’ as you put it, or anything that I wrote about in my vision.
The citizen engagement landscape has changed forever and public officials need to figure out how to work with it… both for their own effectiveness as well as for the common good.
Corporations of all sizes are gradually figuring out that the era of the informed/engaged/networked consumer requires a major shift in mindset and strategy. I think government at all levels needs to do likewise.
And that’s why when we launched the Northfield civic blogosphere effort back in 2004-05, we made a big effort to get leaders blogging, not just citizens.
David L, when you raised your voice in protest at the Planning Commission open house, I was the one who invited you to be on our podcast a few weeks later so that your viewpoint would get wider attention.
And we all spent considerable time discussing it (132 comments) in the subsequent weeks.
And then we had City Planner Dan Olson on another podcast a few months later.
So I don’t get why this kind of civic/citizen engagement was bad for you, the Chamber, your viewpoint, or the process.
Griff: re: your comment #20 … I didn’t miss it.
We (you/LG) may not always have a RepJ reporter to do in-depth reporting; you must be aware that I have often stated that Ms. Bonnie does a far more thorough job than the NFNews does on a comparable story, for example the 530 Ac. annexation process.
My concern is for a base of pure journalism which is factual, presents all sides of an issue, and further explores by questioning.
Then the public opinion, and perhaps add’l info is very useful … but there must be a firm and reliable base providing the underlying information.
David L: You continue to bemoan the Comp plan process and how you felt the 250 people who showed up to participate were not those whom YOU consider to be representative, and that the 250 members of the Chamber were not well enough represented … but, David, where were the Chamber members that day, if they wished to be heard?
And to both David L. and Mr. Witt : Respectfully , how would you engage those who do not wish to publicly engage?
There is a responsibility to make your opinions known when there is a public process that solicits those opinions. For those that do not wish to speak in public, there are written comments that can be submitted in most processes, but the rest of the public will never hear them, or possibly even know they have been given.
It is difficult to measure the voices of those who do not speak.
What I think you might not understand , Mr. Witt, is that there are many people in Northfield who cannot bring themselves to speak in a public venue. I don’t know why; people make jokes about Lutherans being unwilling to sit in the front pews in church.
At any rate, when you have a town that is full of opinions, but not full of people willing to voice their opinion in a public setting that solicits it … whose fault is it if those ‘silent’ opinions are not heard?
We do not count votes that are not voted. (except in my home town of Chicago, the states of Ohio and Florida, maybe?)
David L: you have been disturbed about this issue ever since the Comp Plan meeting, but I don’t recall public support from other Chamber members for your POV on this issue. Have they just been too silent?
Griff, I don’t know what there is to misunderstand.
All I and the others here are saying is that there’s a cost involved in the things you are seeking, and no demonstrated public need for some of it. It’s what you think the city should do and what you think the public should want. You may be right, but you have no constituency, no research, no broad community-driven plan. I think the city could benefit from having a public information officer and I could do the job really well, but that doesn’t mean just hiring me is a rational public decision.
Maintaining blogs, responding to comments and managing multiple staff and council discussions with the public also could jeopardize the principle of having one public record and one place for official public discussion.
It’s one thing to have the weekly staff report available online and another to have each department head maintaining a blog. Even at a couple of hours each per week, it’s time the officials don’t have. And it’s money that isn’t in the budget. Let’s face it, there are just a few people who want that level of information and their ability to demand immediate online responses from every department head and councilor could be a real drain.
I guess Scott Neal can address the costs and legal limits on these issues, since Eden Prairie is ahead of the game. Perhaps the costs aren’t that high.
As I said, I can see having agendas and public documents online and streaming council meetings, etc., using cable access money. I can see having a place for public comments and questions on the city website. Beyond that, there needs to be a ‘technology infrastructure’ discussion and budget to determine what’s needed and how much of the cost the city can subsidize. You have a list of things you want, and other media will have their lists. There needs to be a public discussion and a plan and a budget for the council to consider.
David L:
You write:
If you believe what you say about debate and participation, why are you participating here?
Griff: I will give credit where it is due. You graciously invited me onto your show so that my viewpoint could get wider attention. And, except for religious concerns, you do seem to have a much more critical approach to the issues.
Leonard- Do you suppose it is this scenario we are experiencing here that the framers of the constitution hoped to overcome when they set us up with a representative government rather that a strict Greek pattern? Just wondering what your take is. In this day and age of instant messaging and instant distribution of information, IMHO, there is a temptation to sidestep the process our framers put in place for just these scenarios. The Atheneans could have this inclusive involvement because of their small size. Now, even with the technology we have at our fingertips, size is still the stumbling block in the whole process. There still has to be one person to take responsibility for what is “official published material.” I think Anne did a good job of supporting this theory in her example.
Leonard: I participate because I haven’t found a 12 step program for bloggers.
George in #33 you wrote:
On the new technology, none of us know what it will mean to our democratic process. But in our small way that’s what we are all trying to figure out here. It’s healthy collectively and for us as individuals.
On the “officially published material,” yes someone has to take responsibility, but there is a big difference between that happening behind closed doors and it happening with full transparency.
Of course, Wikipedia is a great example of what can happen unofficially, collectively. Does it have its problems, yes, but does it have more benefits than deficits, yes.
Finally, overall with all the cacophony do you feel better informed today than you were 10 years ago? I do. Do you feel you have more input into the electoral process than you did 10 years ago? I do.
Leonard- Thanks for your reply. I agree with your conclusions, and I agree that we have yet to see how IT is going to affect our lives. One thing I sense in my own life is that the time it takes to do something seems to have been compressed. Decisions can be made more quickly, but fallout from decisions based on wrong evaluations is felt faster.
David L.- This is a 4-step program, not a 12 step. Type in your name, type in your e-mail address, type in your post, click”post comment” and you are done. Just 4 steps. And then you are hooked forever!
Hi All:
Just FYI: The Pew Internet & American Life Project just released a report on POST-ELECTION VOTER ENGAGEMENT
It might help inform this discussion --or then again it might not.
If the perfect news story, as Jon Freidman once opined, has both contradiction and conclusion, and also an ample supply of drama, surprise, controversy, irony, money, history, nostalgia, idealism, scandal and an underdog triumphing over the system, then, except for scandal, I’d say the story of Bonnie as Representative Journalist is shaping up to be a great journalism.
My daughter had an interesting comment about the value of civic engagement. She noted that the Coleman/Franken contest will likely be decided by people who can’t even color in a circle.
In my opinion, a large part of civic engagement in Northfield is what is called lobbying on the federal level. More lobbyists will make government worse, not better.
The solution to too lobbyists isn’t to engage more lobbyists from the other side. As Jerry Friedman noted, we have a lot of SAACC’s (Self-appointed associate city councilors). Many of these folks think that they, individually, should report to, and be reported to, by the City Council.
Deep Throat didn’t call the Post. He arranged to meet a specific reporter he thought he could trust. The reason Deep Throat knew about that reporter’s work is because he read his local paper, just like most other people did at the time. Now, people get their
information from many more sources than the local paper. People are perhaps more critical of those media sources, too. In some cases, the criticism could be well deserved because papers are finding it hard to maintain the old model of journalism in the current economy. Fewer people know their city or town reporters anymore, if those reporters are there at all. And those reporters have fewer resources.
Today, reporters can build their own reputations online. They’re not answering to big corporations or advertisers. They’re answering to you.
People will gravitate to reporters they can trust and find it easy to develop a personal-seeming relationship with them. (Example of the power of today’s online social networking: Raise your hand if you’re Facebook buddies with Barack Obama).
Bonnie,
With all due respect, blogger/journalists lack the one thing that made the reporting of the Watergate scandal so powerful and ultimately successful: an editor (or several). Woodward and Bernstein were not allowed to publish until *after* they had properly sourced independent confirmation of the information they received from Deep Throat and proved the reporting to the standards of their editor and the legal beagles at the Post. Only then were they allowed to take the story public. That kind of sustained investigation and the high hurdle of proof is what distinguishes journalism from speculation and from the community conversation that goes on here.
To be fair, it’s not just a problem with bloggers. You are absolutely right about the decline in reporting resources in the traditional media. Print and broadcast journalists seem to have less and less guidance from editors. That’s lead to a real loss of quality, particularly at the local level.
When I see the green text of the questions attached to a story you are developing, they strike me as markers of a job half-done, not as a valuable invitation to become part of the story. So far, the RepJ experiment has been too much rep and too little j for my taste. I suspect that others more actively engaged in the conversations on this site will feel otherwise.
As a parent, I appreciate your mother’s cheerleading (#38), just as I have appreciated the spirit of your effort to understand the quirks of this community. I particularly liked your first pieces that Prof. Witt described as more “newspaperly.” But, for the most part, what goes on here on Locally Grown is not journalism, it’s community conversation, just like you’ll find in coffeeshops, bars and church basements. To the people who follow this particular forum, that’s a valuable thing, but to the larger community, they are not the same thing.
Bonnie : I could not agree more strongly with what you say in your above post about people gravitating to reporters they can trust.
But isn’t that what it’s all about in almost every life situation, i.e.TRUST?
I often don’t ‘trust’ what I read in the NFNews because it does not match what I have actually seen and heard when I am at the meeting on which they are reporting; Not that the information is wrong per se, it is that they report so selectively that the report alters the ‘reality’ . There is also a major problem with the NFnews reporting in that they usually fail to ask the cogent question, thereby failing to illuminate a possible problem that should be addressed.
On the other hand, I’m not sure what you mean by a “personal-seeming relationship”, and the value of that? Is this again with reference to ‘trust’ ? i.e. are there council people who ‘trust’ the city hall reporter because they are favored by that reporting?
If there is a “personal seeming relationship” which actually favors what I call selective reporting, then that is a disservice to the efficacy of news.
Trust is to me the most valuable quality of any relationship, be it personal, civic, business, etc. Trust as an essential of one’s information from their gov’t, be it local or national, is the difference between …well, let’s just put it in the simplest terms … good, or bad, government.
Randy,
Thanks for your thoughtful response! What you see as “half-done” I see as transparent. No news story is ever complete. I hope that every skeptical reader still has questions after reading a story. I’m open to hearing them, and letting my readers know the questions I have so they can see where I’m headed as a story evolves. At some point, a story ends as other stories arise. But, I think we should move away from the idea that good journalism ends in a case-closed report.
I agree with the importance of editors. I do have collaborators and an editor. My scrupulous editor Linda Seebach has excellent credentials and the only way grammar mistakes slip through is when I miss one of her “red pencil” marks by accident. Linda has voiced similar concerns as you have about posting information that does not seem complete. However, this experiment is trying to develop a new way to report news and engage the community.
I am making direct contact with the sources in my stories to get primary information, just as a reporter for a newspaper or magazine would. I believe that “newspaperly” ethic is visible in my early stories and the newer ones as well. In some cases, I am even posting that primary information directly, so readers can interpret the information for themselves. That kind of presentation isn’t possible in the newspaper format, which has limited space and perhaps a limited way of thinking about how the Internet can enhance journalism, if used in the right way.
#41 -- Mr. Felt was dismayed and uncomfortable with his Washington Post juiced-up sound bite moniker, (who wouldn’t be?), despite the perceived editorial mastery at the Post, hollywood-hype, shareholder-driven political slant and editorial misconduct happens, even at the New York Times.
One difference between a RepJ reporter and a journalist, for example a Bill Moyers, is that Moyers receives twenty million annually in public funds for his work with PBS.
You are of course correct that a solitary reporter does not have the same support staff as a mass media corporation, but I disagree that integrity is the sole possession of media giants, and not of a person.
Mona : You are completely accurate in your implied statement of integrity being linked with a person, not a media giant.
And thank you very much for raising a person of integrity, one who has been of real benefit to our local journalism scene, not only for her personal integrity, but for the level of hard information she brings to the community, on those issues she has worked to address.
I often make it clear how dissatisfied I am with the level of ‘journalism’ exemplified by the political reporting of our local paper, and Bonnie’s writings have done a lot to show the difference to those who care to compare the quality of each presentation.
Bonnie: I think Randy’s descriptions are accurate. Even the “news” shows on television are more about entertainment than an unbiased presentation of the facts.
David L: Subtle correction. You attribute this statement to me:
“As Jerry Friedman noted, we have a lot of SAACC’s (Self-appointed associate city councilors).”
I coined the acronym. However, I don’t know if we have “a lot” of SAACCs or a few. I have attended too few city meetings to judge.
Bonnie: Don’t overlook the reputation and circulation of “The Washington Post”. I think it’s an incomplete analysis to consider only the journalists’ reputations and overlook the newspaper’s. Comparatively, no blog today has the reputation nor circulation of the “Post”, the “Times” (either city’s), or even “U.S. News”. If I was Deep Throat Jr., I’d look to these papers, not citizen journalists, no matter how well reputed they are.
Another consideration are the paper’s resources. Some big stories may tempt big consequences. Could an independent journalist defend herself in a massive libel suit, or could she resist a subpoena to reveal her confidential sources? Major media, for all its faults, has the resources to fight libel lawsuits and to keep on salary its unfairly jailed journalists.
The journalism industry is undeniably changing on all fronts. I am not trying to be the Washington Post. I
am trying to create a brand-new method of reporting local news. The model will hopefully be one that communities across the nation will want, especially communities that have lost other local media outlets.
When I was an intern reporter for the LA Times, television monitors in view of our cubicles continuously displayed the Tribune company’s stock. When the stock went down, cutbacks increased. Those cutbacks that all newspapers are facing are influencing the quality and quantity of content. Journalists everywhere are trying to figure out what needs to change.
I won’t debate the reputation of the Post and Times, or how many editors or how much money it takes to make a good story. My goal right now is to do the most with what I have for Northfield. What helps me is to hear how I can adapt the model I’m experimenting with to better inform and engage the community.
Bonnie, this discussion isn’t about you personally, but about the concept and the process of repJ. I have to agree with Randy that there are some problems for me in the way the stories feel unfinished, not transparent. Maybe there are some people who don’t understand how a reporter gets information, but I don’t really need to know in your main story that you went to Scott Davis’ office and had to call him back later because he was with a client. I just want to know what he said. I don’t want to read a story to find out that you went to the jail to interview someone and didn’t have a list of questions prepared and hadn’t talked to his lawyer first and so didn’t get to ask him anything. I do need to know what other cities the size of Northfield have done with their cable access fund and whether experts think technology has made cable television production obsolete. And I want to know whether our cable fees are in line with other cities.
Perhaps you can start your pieces soliciting any questions from people, write your story and then have a link into your reporter’s notes for those people who really need all the process information.
Most news bloggers tend to do a series of short pieces, each linking to the ones before, with the ability to scroll down and find them as well. This lets me read just the fresh information but catch up if I came into the story late. Perhaps it’s the type face on this site, but it makes the stories seem overly long.
As for editing, I’m not as concerned that you have someone fixing grammar as I am that you have an editor like Woodward and Bernstein’s, someone who will challenge your assumptions, make sure you have that list of questions and that every answer is verified and meaningful and really moves the story forward.
I also want to clarify that while the technology is new, community journalism isn’t. The big newsrooms may have been somewhat isolated from ‘regular people’ but beat reporters knew their areas so well they let regular people feel like insiders at the theater, the courthouse, the locker room.
And I can tell you that there’s no place more connected to the community than a small town newsroom. The News and papers like it are involved with families in every birth and death, every church supper and garage sale. The editor gets hundreds of e-mails each day and dozens of phone calls. Most are from total strangers who feel it is their paper and their right to ask the editor for a story about their mom’s salt shaker collection or why the city hasn’t plowed as neatly as they would like.
Unlike Locally Grown, where you have three online colleagues, the News has a whole office and printing plant full of ordinary people from every church and school in town who share information and opinions from the people on their bowling leagues and their kids’ daycare provider and their parent’s nursing home staff.
Jaci Smith is involved in community theater. Sam Gett, the publisher, is involved in Rotary. They are exhausted and exhilerated by the constant feedback they receive. People can comment on stories online, writer letters to the editor and guest columns to be published. They do surveys and solicit reader input.
I know the editor and publisher in Tower, MN and their office is the hub of that small town. And it was the same in the small town where I started reporting in a tiny little paper back when we typed on typewriters and edited with a red pen and developed pictures in trays of chemicals.
Let’s face it, the difference now is technology. This site is a much higher tech version of a good old party line telephone system or the beauty/barber shop or coffee hour after church.
Everything changes. Technology has destroyed record producing, but lets every garage band post its own music and videos online. Technology is killing book publishing but websites mean writers don’t have to suffer rejection letters but can publish their own books.
And universal access means that I can get 10 opinions on the liquor store issue, but there isn’t one major television news reporter covering Iraq. And why the four Twin Cities new divisions are talking about sharing one photographer and helicopter for breaking news and why big papers are making reporters carry cameras with them. I can tell you, trying to get a good photo while taking notes on what someone is saying isn’t the way to do either well.
I know technology makes my work as a reporter amazingly easier and more thorough than ever before. It also has made reporting a commodity and created a world where there so few paying jobs almost all of us are citizen reporters.