A few months ago Ryan Sholin detailed his idea for ReportingOn.
"In short, ReportingOn.com would be a social network for reporters looking for others on the same beat (in different towns)."
In that sense – I suggest he take a close look at Scott Karp’s Publish2.com, a social news site for journalists-by-journalists.
In a BeatBlogging.org post I described it…
"Publish2.com is set up so that you could use it as a regular social
bookmarking tool (think Del.icio.us) or as a way to network with other
journalists interested in the same topic."
But Ryan’s idea is a little more subtle than Publish2.com, he is relying on a network that is already built, active and growing – Twitter. That move is a stroke of genius. Don’t try to build a network from the ground up: Go where the people already are.
In the last 3-4 months two social networks have been adopted
by a disperse community of journalists. Facebook is now the de-facto personal social
networking site and Twitter (to my surprise and excitement) is being picked up by more
and more net-savvy journalists as a way to do quick broadcasts out to
your online group of friends.
Twitter has a lot of potential for journalists. When I had an on-the-spot interview, I relied on Twitter to quickly broadcast my request for questions to ask.
Ryan’s idea, as I understand it, is to take the new found obsession with instant conversation (and gratification) and aggregate these conversations in order to improve local reporting.
ie: I’m writing a story on large dogs (off the top of my head) so I tweet it and next thing you know, an animal reporter from the discovery channel can chime in to help me out.
How is this different from Twitter? It’s about finding the people you don’t already know, but who have critical information for you. This is still the most difficult part about social networking. Twitter is great for keeping track of people you know or have met online, but how can we compartmentalize the conversations in a way that people who you don’t know can track the conversations easily and chime in with relevant information? That’s no easy task – Ryan has a tall order to fill.
The other elephant in the room, which Ryan hints at, is how readers could be part of the process too. ReportingOn seems first and foremost a way to tap into the collective wisdom of a small group – your journalism colleagues, but if the mantra "my readers know more than I do," holds true – then ReportingOn should also find a way to let Readers discuss issues that they are experts in as well.
That’s where Ryan hints at the idea of turning ReportingOn into a Digg-esque site as well. Readers can vote on the stories they find most important. My warning here: Don’t lose focus. Either the readers are contributing information or they are evaluating which stories are the most important (deserve the most attention). But not both. These are two different acts and they require two different mindsets. If I’m giving a journalist information, then I’m probably an expert in that area and I already regard it as incredible important and worthy of a story.
Pro-am journalism is most successful when readers can contribute in 10 minutes or 10 hours. The lower the threshold of participation the better. But if you are looking for two criteria of participation (evaluating and adding information) you’ve already doubled the minimum requirements.
Example: Here are three ways that readers could contribute to professional journalism in 10 minutes and the corresponding sites that enable those actions. I don’t think any site would benefit from trying to encompass the goals of any of the others.
Money: SpotJournalism (my Knight News Challenge proposal – still in the running).
This is still in the idea stage – but the idea is to take crowdfunding, seen in SellaBand, Kiva.org, and Fundable and apply it to independent investigative journalism.
Information: ReportingOn.com.
If you are an expert in large dogs or a veterinarian I would definitly want you to
Evaluation: NewsTrust.net (disclosure: I will be working with NewsTrust soon).
Readers take a look at the headlines of the day and evaluate it based on journalistic integrity, not just how "diggable" it is.
More I’m sure.
ReportingOn could fill an incredibly important niche in the pro-am model. A way for journalists to communicate with each other but also for readers to watch the conversation unfold so they can contribute their knowledge in real time.
Thanks, Dave!
I’m still trying to flesh out what the divisions will be between the ‘reading’ and ‘reporting’ pieces of the puzzle.
My focus right now is on building the pieces of the site that will connect reporters to each other, using Twitter at the start a la foamee.com and hoosgot.com
I like the idea that the ‘reader’ side of things should involve just a few minutes of participation at a time. As simple as checking the site or a feed, hitting a ‘Digg this’ type button on a few things, adding a comment here and there, and moving on.
David, you might be interested in Hoosgot.com — “Hoosgot (pronounced â??whoâ??s gotâ?) is a simple way to ask whoâ??s got what youâ??re looking for. Just put â??hoosgotâ? in a blog post or a Twitter tweet and itâ??ll show up here in Hoosgot.”
Hi Dave,
“Don’t try to build a network from the ground up: Go where the people already are”
I agree that this is compelling on the face of it, and certainly your experience with web-savvy early adopter journalists is encouraging. The problem is that most journalists aren’t on Twitter, Facebook, or any other network, i.e. the AREN’T already somewhere. And one of the reasons is that none of the networks is designed for journalists.
So why not build something that is optimized for journalists rather than force them to make due with applications that clearly aren’t designed to suit their needs, and where the application service providers aren’t focused on serving the needs of journalists as a user base?
It’s like asking journalists to use a big hardcover notebook, because that’s what students use, and they can still manage to write in it. Better than no notebook, sure, but not better than a notebook that fits in a journalist’s pocket since journalists are always on the go.
Web application technology isn’t difficult — why not provide EXACTLY what journalists need? It seems that this is what Ryan aims to do with ReportingOn — if Twitter already provided exactly what journalists needed, there would be no need for additional development. Publish2 is based on the same principle of optimizing the application for the user, rather than forcing the user to adapt.
It’s hard enough for journalists to adapt to a rapidly changing new media landscape — why not use technology to make life a little easier?
That said, since this is all about collaboration, I’ve reached out to Ryan to see if we can find a way for Publish2 and ReportingOn to collaborate.
Cheers,
Scott