Posts Tagged citizen journalism

Date: July 24th, 2010
Cate: My Work
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Missteps, Success and Pivoting at Spot.Us

Anyone that has followed Spot.Us from the beginning knows we’ve tried to remain iterative and agile. In the earlier stages of Spot.Us I thought this was one of the larger lessons for journalism-entrepreneurs. I went through the iterative and agile process and tried to document it so others could repeat. I hope to continue this tradition as I get ready for an academic fellowship at the Reynolds Institute. Indeed the heart of this post addresses two features of Spot.Us (expansion and community-focused sponsorships) which will be my focus while at Missouri.

Inherent to this mindset is the ability to acknowledge missteps and pivot. There are countless things I believe we’ve done right (pats self on back) but there are other things where we made the best guesses we could and upon failure have to pivot. Recently Spot.Us made one big pivot and is openly thinking about how to dance around two remaining problems. Before we analyze those, let’s get to the good news (pats self on back again, rewards reader with cute kitten photo).

Community-focused sponsorship continues.

We have another community-focused sponsorship, this one made possible by Clay Shirky (how cool is that!).

In this sponsorship we are asking the community questions about objectivity and journalism. Not only do we reward your time by giving you control over a part of our budget, but we will release answers to these questions so that we all may become smarter and learn about what the Spot.Us community thinks about this subject.

Community-focused sponsorships was also a notable entry at the Knight-Batten awards and we’ve created a sponsorship package to help spread the word. Next step is an affiliate program. If you help us sell a sponsorship, you’ll get the commission. Interested? Contact David at spot dot us.

Editorial highlights

Just about every week we complete a reporting project and publish a handful of blog posts. Some of the recent victories include…..

They say imitation is the best form of flattery. If that is true, then the LA Times gave Spot.Us a huge kudos recently. Our ongoing investigation into the UC Regents found that one regent has invested lots of money into private educational institutions. The LA Times followed up our reporting, giving a small nod to the original investigation – without really giving full credit. In a separate email the LA Times reporter did admit that our reporting inspired his column. The Spot.Us community can collectively pat itself on the back for that one.

  • Our most dynamic collaboration ever – covering the Johannes Mehserle trial

This week we published the 40th post in our coverage of the Johannes Mehserle trial. Mehserle, a former Bart police officer, was found guilty of the involuntary manslaughter of Oscar Grant. What was unique and interesting for Spot.Us about this project was the number of partners that participated. Our pitch  had seven different organizations taking part including, Oakland Local, New American Media, California Beat, KALW and The Bay Citizen. In another era each organization would have hired its own reporter and provided competitive (and perhaps overlapping coverage). Through Spot.Us we were able to create a ethos of Co-opetition. We hope to see more pitches like this in the future and our hat is off to these organizations who were able to pull it off

  • The Treasure Island Investigation

Our partners in crime the SF Public Press put out a print product recently with an exhaustive spread on Treasure Island. It’s a fantastic look at development in SF from several angels and will be adapted and republished by Shareable.Net this week.

  • Tons of new pitches.

There are more new pitches than we can highlight. They range in topic from Native American issues in Minnesota to recycling in Champaign-Urbana, homelessness in California and beyond. Check out all the new pitches. You can fund them through our community-focused sponsorships. Taking a quick questionnaire can create $5 for the pitch of your choice!

Lessons Learned and Missteps

  • Expansion isn’t clean

A careful observer of Spot.Us would have seen this coming and may have even noticed the change last week. We have removed the networks on Spot.Us. Where we used to say we were based in SF, LA, Seattle, Minnesota and expanding – we are now open to anyone with a good local/regional pitch in the United States.

As I noted in a previous post in June:

From the start, I thought Spot.Us would expand a la Craigslist: Pick locations, create sub-domains and let people aggregate around them. Certainly San Francisco and Los Angeles have worked like this. We always have about five active pitches in both locations at any given time. Seattle however, might not be that way. I fear I’m viewed as an outsider ….

But that shouldn’t stop me from expanding. Especially not when I am getting very solid pitches from around the country.

Related – it makes little sense for me to tell a good pitch from Illinois or Alamo Texas that they can’t put their pitch up until we find a handful of other pitches in their region (which might be mediocre).

As of last week the sub-domains at Spot.Us have been removed. Trying to convince people in a specific region to use the site, while stopping others from using it because they aren’t in the right region is not the best use of our time or energy.

So the lesson here is really one about internal expectations and external realities. While in my minds’ eye it still makes sense for Spot.Us to expand region-by-region I don’t see this happening anytime soon. This is not the end of the world. In some respects I find it freeing. In the end Spot.Us is a platform, not a news organization. Opening up the platform is a positive endeavor, especially considering the vast majority of pitches so far have been successful. The major misstep then is not making this change sooner. The challenge going forward is finding a different organizing mechanism so that people can find pitches that are relevant to them as quickly as possible on our search page without expecting those pitches to be grouped geographically.

  • Letting go isn’t easy

Related to the misstep above is a larger phenomena. Put bluntly I was a smothering Jewish mother (trust me, I know what these are like). I think I clung to the “babyness” of the Spot.Us project instead of letting it go free. It’s natural for anybody who starts something to hold onto it and fear releasing it into the wild. I’ve tried to avoid that – but  I’m afraid I’ve put Spot.Us into a tough position of wanting it to expand but also being protective over the pitches that are uploaded into the site.

There are some pitches I felt very comfortable rejecting. The best example was a pitch from a Seattle fortune teller that was going to read people’s future via the Internet and published on Spot.Us. I feel justified in saying “that’s not for us.” As a nonprofit – we have a mission to fund local/regional reporting.

At the same time – this tension hasn’t always been easy to negotiate. Some pitches we get exist in a much more difficult space. The tension exist between a site where the founder (David Cohn) should have authority over what pitches are included and a site that is truly open, but still filters out pitches that don’t meet our mission (like fortune telling). I am not 100% sure how we will negotiate that tension. For the immediate future it will be a site where I filter pitches. I will not be filtering pitches based on “credentials” but rather the topic of the reporting and the earnestness and eagerness of the reporter. Ideally Spot.Us and its community board members will be able to come up with a system whereby pitches can be accepted and/or rejected not at the whim of my decision but that of the community and its representatives.

In conclusion

Spot.Us continues to push forward.  We’ve had some missteps and some beautiful moments. I suspect both will happen in the future as well. The beauty of all this continues to be that we do both in public and that it is only with the public’s participation that either can happen. This remains an experiment in transparency and public control over the process of journalism. It will continue to be such an experiment as we move forward.

Date: July 22nd, 2010
Cate: Journalism Theory/Analysis, Uncategorized
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An Ethical Argument for Transparency – Part II

In a recent post on my website I examined an ethical argument for transparency. I will continue this internal dialogue with the caveat that I am not a journalism academic. I do not prescribe my beliefs to anyone but myself. This is a disgustingly theoretical post (I promise the next one will be practical up the wahzoo). I should also note the inspiration behind these two posts was a discussion at FOO Camp: Philosophy and Technology – Tim O’Reilly and Damon Horowitz.

The First Chapter

The first post on this topic hinged on the idea that transparency is necessary for public participation in journalism.

This Wikipedia quote puts it bluntly. The argument for transparency then isn’t ethical so much as practical. It’s a second order argument. The process of journalism must be transparent if we expect people to participate in a meaningful way. This assumes, however, that we want people to participate.

If we can reason that participation in journalism is ethical and transparency is necessary for participation to occur, it follows that there is an ethical argument for transparency.

Which means the next step is to examine the base of this syllogism: There is an ethical argument for participation in journalism.

The Goal of Journalism

What is the purpose or goal of journalism? In philosophy I might pose this as, what is journalism’s Telos — its purpose, aim, end and/or design.

The reason this question (and blog post) is important is that if you look at the current understanding of ethics in journalism you can see that it is more along the lines of a professional code than an ethical debate or analysis. Public accountability is mentioned in many of the existing code of ethics. As is the rightful dissemination of information to the public. But in almost all of these cannons of journalism the public is acted upon and is rarely an actor.

When I ask what is the goal of journalism I am not interested in the journalism industry or a journalism company. The goal for both of which would be the same for any industry (protecting itself as an economic good) or company (increasing revenue).

The tagline for my blog is “journalism is a process, not a product,” and that continues to be my rallying cry. Too often our ethics, ideas of success and end goals are determined by journalism as a product, industry or company. I am more interested in the process of journalism. What is the end goal for an act of journalism?

Now here I have to posit a question: If an act of journalism is committed but never published, is it an act of journalism?

Many people don’t know this, but I used to be a musician. I’ve actually recorded at least two albums. But I never promoted my work. So if a work of art is not shared, is it art? What is the distinction between art and hobby? Related: If an act of reporting occurs but is not shared, is it journalism? What is the distinction between journalism and journaling?

I ask this question because it gives me the platform to pose a possible end goal of journalism — to inform. Journalism, which is a tricky thing to define, is the process of collecting, filtering and distributing information that has meaning. One caveat of course is that the information is non-fiction (true and accurate).

If we take away the “distributing” of information we no longer have the process of journalism. It is the final step in the process because it is the final Telos of journalism — to inform our fellow human beings. Size of the audience aside, journalism is fundamentally a process of education. But when we look at the conversation about journalism, those two words are most often coupled around journalism education (journalism schools) and rarely about how the two endeavors are intimately tied.

Informing is Participatory


So the goal of journalism is to inform people about events in the world. This is fundamentally a social act and would remain the goal of journalism if we lived in a democracy, republic or any other kind of society.

Historically speaking, the “participation” of journalism consumers was to consume. That is a form of participation, but not necessarily the kind that I wan to justify. If it were, this blog post could have been much shorter: “We can justify transparency in journalism because people need to be able to read it!”

The kind of participation that I want to argue for is more engaging. Members of the public are not participating by the sheer act of be informed, but they are self-informing. It’s the difference between roads that make public transportation possible and roads that make all forms of transportation possible.

Why Individual Participation is Ethical

And herein lies the base of this whole thought process. It comes down to the individual. It is the individual, as part of a collective, that journalism seeks to inform. The individual should be actively participating in the dissemination of information for several reasons:

1. On a utilitarian level, they will become more informed and help inform more people. If the good of journalism is to inform, then letting more people participate will inform more people. Similarly, the mission of roads is to enable travel/transportation, not to safeguard public transportation. (There could be unintended consequences, of source, such as pollution.) The mission of journalism is to inform, not to safeguard journalism companies. A network has infinity more connections and that requires active participation and self-informed informants.

2. They have a moral right as an individual to participate to the extent that they do not hinder others from participating. (See individualism).

Anti-climactic?

So, to review:

  • Transparency is required for well-informed participation to happen.
  • Participation is needed because….
  • Journalism’s end goal is to inform other people.
  • More people participating in the process of journalism means more people being informed.
  • Combine this with individual rights and …

The journalism industry has a moral obligation to make the practices and processes of journalism more transparent so that the larger citizenry can participate.

Behind the lack of climax

Perhaps I could have shortened this blog post. I made every attempt to go step-by-step and lay out my line or reasoning.

Why?

Too often our discussion of participatory journalism, citizen journalism, etc takes an industry or company view. Either citizen journalism is good or bad because of its relationship to a bottom line.

Slighter better arguments are that participatory journalism is good/bad because of its quality (or lack of).

What I’m suggesting is that participation in the media is a net positive because of its intrinsic value.

Date: July 14th, 2010
Cate: Journalism Theory/Analysis
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The Ethical Argument for Transparency in Journalism – Part I

If one can make an ethical argument for participation in journalism and that transparency is necessary for participation to occur, then it follows that there is an ethical argument for transparency.

For a long time I’ve had a post inside of me dying to get out. A few months ago I was invited to speak at the International Symposium of Journalism with Dan Gillmor, Ethan Zuckerman and Jan Schaffer. The presentation I gave is here. I got a great chuckle from the second and third slides.

International Symposium

But there was one slide which almost made me re-do the entire presentation. Because it struck me as something worth exploring. It was slide seventeen on “Transparency” seen below.
This quote comes from Wikipedia.

“For well-informed participation to occur, it is argued that some version of transparency, e.g. radical transparency, is necessary, but not sufficient.”

Perhaps it stood out to me because of the “necessary, but not sufficient” which flashed me back to logic class when I was a philosophy undergrad. For whatever reason – I dwelled on it.

I’ve dedicated the majority of my career to two things in this order: Increasing participation in journalism and increasing transparency in the process of journalism. Something I’ve zenned out on recently is how connected the two are and how we often treat them as mutually exclusive.

I’d argue that we need transparency in order for journalism to become more participatory. How can we expect people to participate in the process of journalism if that process is opaque? Only a fool dives into muddy water.

If one can make an ethical argument for participation in journalism and that transparency is necessary for well-informed participation to occur, then it follows that there is an ethical argument for transparency.

Which means the next topic should be “An Ethical Argument for Participation in Journalism.”

Now a confession: It’s late at night and I’m tired. In fact, the only reason I started this post is because I can’t sleep. Perhaps now that I’ve started this thread, I’ll count some ZZ’s. But you, dear reader, can help me. What is the ethical argument for participation in journalism as you see it?

Date: June 10th, 2009
Cate: Crowdsourcing, Journalism Practice, Social News, Web/Tech
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Citizen Journalism Networks Stepping Up Editorial Standards

A post I did for MediaShift’s IdeaLabl blog.

I tend to avoid the “professional vs. amateur journalism” debate, saying “I have constructive criticisms for both sides.” As we’ve hit a flash point for traditional news organizations, the evolution of citizen journalism networks like NowPublic, AllVoices and others may shed light on how the media space will resolve. Perhaps the two “opposites” will meet somewhere in the middle or, as I suspect, find out that they are more alike than they ever thought.

Recent news in the space has included Orato and Ground Report making shifts to require higher editorial standards in the submissions they accept and publish.

Alfred Hermida wrote a post on Reportr.net titled “Orato turns its back on citizen journalism,” in which he notes that the site used to focus on first person narratives of events but….

Instead the focus is on “concrete and trustworthy information that is objective and under-reported.” The owner and founder of Orato, Sam Yehia, said the changes were made to “further professionalize the site, focus its newsworthy content, create and enforce a viable business model and keep pace with Web 2.0 standards.”

When I met up with longtime friend Rachel Sterne, founder of Ground Report, at the Beyond Broadcast conference she explained that her network was making a similar change. While I’m one example shy of a trend, I think these two shifts warrant
some thought.

Rachel Sterne explains the changes happening at Ground Report:

What is the shift on Ground Report?

From what I gathered, there are four main shifts in Ground Report’s editorial policy.

  1. Content from new users goes through a longer vetting period. Ground Report is trading speed for accountability.
  2. Content from a trusted user or source skips this vetting period — but only because the contributor has proven themselves.
  3. Expanding the powers of volunteer editors, who can now edit anything on the site. Again, these are trusted contributors.
  4. A part-time managing editor who is in the process of writing editorial guidelines. This is a tough line to walk because they want to preserve the uniqueness of the writers’ voice but also make sure they are up to the higher editorial standards.

The reasoning

Sterne explained the logic behind the new system: “It is something that in the commercial world has just started to enter the dialogue while it seems obvious in an academic world.” There are several reasons why the policy change makes sense to me:

  1. Trading speed and accountability seems like a no brainer to me. Twitter has come on the scene to dominate the speed world, which means citizen journalism networks can offer an added value of accountability.
  2. Ground Report, Now Public, All Voices and others are looking to syndicate their content to larger distributors. To do that, they must provide a sense of trustworthiness.
  3. iReport, YouTube and other large user-generated sites have begun highlighting well produced work from dedicated contributors while making the larger mass of content they host harder to find.

Even more interesting, according to Sterne, contributions on Ground Report have dropped 50 percent in the month since the site began implementing the changes, but traffic has increased 10 percent. That seems to be a trade off that most publishers would take — giving them a more streamlined workflow and process along with higher traffic.

Some things to note

According to the Wikipedia page on Citizen Journalism:

Allvoices was also the first citizen journalism site to measure the credibility of contributed reports and their authors, providing readers with a gauge launched in March 2009 for assessing the accuracy of news accounts.

I am friends with several of the folk at AllVoices and hope to follow up with them next time we speak.

Most people don’t know, but I am the editor in chief of citizen journalism network Broowaha. We have had similar conversations with our own members and internal team. Not surprisingly, some of the most dedicated contributors have voiced a preference towards structure, guidelines and policy.

Where are we left?

I don’t claim to have a crystal ball, but I wouldn’t be surprised if more citizen journalism networks make this shift. I think it is perfectly possible for these networks to be picky about what they publish without being exclusive. This will be a fine line to walk so as not to lose their citizen journalism souls as they try and up their game.

Date: May 12th, 2009
Cate: Journalism Theory/Analysis, Weblogs
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Can Professional Journalism Ever Replace Citizen Journalism?

The headline of this blog post says it all – a quick contrarian post.

I am often asked if “right now citizen journalism could replace professional journalism.” My response is…. no.

There are certain characteristics of news organizations or “professional” journalism that if it were to stop tomorrow wouldn’t be easily replaced – if replaceable at all.

Since I’m often viewed as a poster-child for participatory journalism I can imagine some old-school journalists giving each other a hi-five, walking a littler taller, and feeling a sense of victory from a response like that.

But what I want to point out is the silliness of that question and pose its opposite.

The silliness of that question: If Major League Baseball stopped tomorrow would all the little leagues in the country be able to replace it? If industrial sweater factories shut down tomorrow would knitting hobbyists be able to replace them?

Nobody would ever ask these questions because the goal of little leagues and knitting groups isn’t to replace their professional counterparts. Instead, they are to create a sense of community, a positive activity for children and if they were to disappear there is no way their professional counterparts could replace them.

So I ask: If citizen journalism activities were to stop tomorrow could professional journalists replace them? My answer is no – and that will be part of my response to this question from now on.

In truth, however, that is the tit-for-tat response. So what is the real lesson here?

It is not an either/or question and what spawned this post is really just being tired of framing the question as such.

What I want to know isn’t if one can replace the other – but how the two might work together.