--- On Mon, 3/16/09, Ross Williams <rosswi...@advocacytechnologies.org> wrote:
>
> Any time a journalist spends interacting with their
> "audience" is time
> taken away from reporting.
=====
They are not an audience.
They are collaborators.
Doesn't mean they're doing the heavy lifting but they have great questions and information to offer ... and their prism on the story can lead it in a much more insightful direction.
This is so much better a world than when story tips and "letters to the editor" were "submitted" and reviewed and perhaps round-filed. Than the day when the phone rang at the assignment desk in the newsroom and the overworked assignment editor rolled her eyes at yet another "member of the public" calling.
One-way media was wrong. And "letters to the editor" didn't make it two-way. I look back on how pompous we were in conventional media to think that we knew best, and that our opinion was something so important that it needed to be shared in editorials and endorsements. I'm pretty radical about that. We seldom editorialize. The opinion on our site comes from our ... not audience ... collaborators.
And it's not about "building" an audience. It's about TRULY COLLABORATING WITH YOUR COMMUNITY, WORKING WITH AND FOR THEM. Nothing less. Not broadcasting "at" them, etc. I have been hugely passionate about this for years .. even to the point of coaching writing and speaking styles once I became a manager ... telling broadcasters I supervised, don't ever say "Good evening, EVERYONE" - people listen and watch and think as individuals, even if they are in a room with a group of people or an audience with thousands. You are speaking to/with ONE person. Think of it that way.
And now, they can speak to/with US, the media, in a timely way they never could before. So glad to be alive at this time and can't wait to see what the coming years/decades bring. (I'm no spring chicken btw, 50 this fall. Summer chicken, maybe.)
TR in W. Seattle
That's five ... Many more aren't. And those five are all unique and
they all appear a lot closer to drive time radio than a newspaper.
There is nothing wrong with that, but it is not a model for people
trying to create news gathering organizations.
My understanding of Barista,net was that no one was actually making a
living doing journalism for it. They have four part time employees,
including ad sales, and pay other people to do stories. But that
information may be out of date.
There are a lot of successful models out there that are foundation
funded. Our Community Supported Journalism project is paying a full
time news editor and stringers to do stories. But that is grant funded
and tied to a successful community radio station. www.MinnPost.com is
very successful, with a large startup fund and lots of underwriting
support from foundations. There is the community supported journalism
model in Northfield Minnesota. You can find a lot of temporary
successes out there, but none that have really established themselves.
"I'm sorry your experiences haven't been as positive and expansive as
mine or Tracy's, or many of the other jurnos who are working this way."
From your resume, your online journalism experience appears to be from
the perspective of a Bay Area academic, not a full time online
journalist or successful entrepreneur. Where you seem to be
"expansive" is with your definition of making a living. I appreciate
the cheerleading for community journalists. But I doubt there are any
established institutional models out there at this point. We ought to
acknowledge that everything is an experiment to be learned from and
pick it apart for ideas rather than holding it up as finished product
to be emulated. Unless you are in the consulting business.
But the larger point I was making, was that journalists for newspapers
have a job to do that is not significantly enhanced by interacting
with people who comment on the newspaper's web site. It might be
interesting, but it doesn't help them do their job which is to produce
news for a newspaper where the readers may or may not ever see that
online discussion. Most online "journalists" have a different job,
which includes building an audience for their web site.
You can tell newspapers that they ought to pay their reporters to
spend time building the online audience, but that implies spending
less time on producing stories for both the print and online products.
I suspect that reporter is going to be more productive spending that
time out in the community reporting, rather than building an online
community. And It certainly is not "insane" to think that.
--- On Mon, 3/16/09, Barry Parr <ba...@parr.org> wrote:
> I've been advocating the use of strong moderation and
> real identities on
> news sites for quite a while now. My sense is that most
> publishers are happy
> to abandon the comments to the crazies....
I'm real big on moderation as well (not as much on people using real identities except for at registration--anonymity can be important) And over the past year or so I've been talking with various editors who either do moderation or are connected to policies made about moderation....
what it comes down to is this; moderation doesn't scale. It takes a lot of staff to be able to moderate properly, even with filters. And most newspapers (and magazines) simply cannot afford the requisite amount of staff to comments in order to moderate properly....
So, we hear all sorts of stuff about how moderation doesn't work, or that if they moderate they're stifling free speech (I love that one) or that holding a comment for moderation would squash the immediate gratification that commenters need (how weird!)
Here's a novel idea though: pay to be part of the community. If you value the conversation and want to be part of it, you have to pay a subscription. This does make things more civil. Who's going to pay to insult others?? Another way is to have strict screening by community memebers, including email conversations first before being allowd to post. But if there's inadequate money for moderation, I don't see this latter suggestion happening either.
So, conversation on news sites--esp. big ones connected to newspapers--will continue to lack in quality until moderation can be increased.
Tish
--- On Mon, 3/16/09, Ross Williams <rosswi...@advocacytechnologies.org> wrote:
> I haven't talked to Debbie Galant, but from what I have
> read,
> Baristanet has 0 full time journalists on staff and
> Debbie's primary
> role is selling advertising. They do pay for stories, but
> they don't
> have anyone who is making a living as a journalist on
> staff. If that
> is accurate, then its fair to say they have learned some
> important
> lessons about what the priorities should be for staffing a
> startup
> site. Perhaps experience with advertising sales is more
> important than
> journalism skills.
Do some research, Ross, rather than just continue making the same point on speculation. While I don't know if Debbie takes a salary (she has income from her books), Liz George does make a salary, and they now have another full-time staffer. They've also expanded the site to include a couple of other special sections (food is one of them). They've grown considerably since launch, and the money to do so isn't coming out of their own pockets.
>
> I think the larger problem is that a hyper-local website of
> any kind
> is not about technology or journalism, its about community
> organizing
> or small business development, depending on the model.
> There are going
> to be viral exceptions to that, but those are completely
> unrepeatable.
> So someone who starts out enamored of playing with the
> latest
> technology or focused on being a journalist is going to
> have a rough
> go of it and are going to have to adapt a lot to be
> successful.
that's pretty much what I said--it's about community building and small business development. Many folks starting hyperlocals these days are bringing a business sense into it. Hyperlocal is growing considerably, and folks coming into it now are very different than a couple of years ago.
Models are different, often based on the business climate of the region. If there are a lot of local businesses who understand the value of the Internet, it's somewhat easier to get advertising. If one lives in a region dominated by chain stores and malls, getting advertising is almost impossible. As it is in areas where business owners do not understand where customer attention is shifting.
>
> > And then they need a good scoop or two....."
>
> Where is the evidence that is an essential ingredient?
Something I learned from Debbie, and have seen first hand. If a hyperlocal can get something over on the local dailies, then it begins to make a name for itself.
> That is a
> genuine question. Should people be focusing their
> journalism efforts
> on breaking one big impressive story? I have not seen
> anything that
> would make that a general rule. To the contrary, most blogs
> and
> websites that are attracting audiences seem to put out a
> steady stream
> of useful stories that brings their audience back over and
> over again.
> Rather than hitting a home run, they are getting lots of
> hits.
>
Nope. As I've seen on my own blog, sometimes you have to get that one entry that puts you on the map. then, you continue to put out content, and grow the audience you want. I've been very strategic in the audience I've cultivated on my blog. It may not be big, but it's pretty influential. And has helped me build a pretty solid career.
>
> Gladly. But where are your credentials? :)
>
Well, you know what community developers sometimes have to tell communities: Don't feed the trolls ;-)
T.
tish
And then they need a good scoop or two....."Where is the evidence that is an essential ingredient?
I thought I might provide a little evidence to back up the notion that scoops - NEWS - makes a difference. I'll simply recall the first year of Paulding.com's history and annotate the results. Note specifically April and May of 04.
I recognize my role as an early adopter and understand that many people
don't currently approach the news the way I do. However, I wanted to
present my approach to news to question some underlying assumptions.
For example, one underlying assumption that seems to be embedded in the
discussion is that while the style of reporting used for hyperlocal online
sites might be a viable model for hyperlocal news, it isn't viable for
covering large cities, states or foreign news. I question that assumption.
It seems as if you are questioning another set of assumptions about the
writing and editting process itself. I think it these are some other good
assumptions that should be questioned and explored.
I wonder what other assumptions people have about the news process that
should also be questioned.
Aldon
> The journalism community loves to kvetch about the inaccuracies, bad
> spelling, and awful grammar of bloggers, but never bothers to admit to
> an army of support folks who make their work look professional.
Bothers? Admit? As a buck private in that army, I'd love for them to
brag about my work, but I knew when I enlisted that only my mistakes
would be noticed. The powers that be might ignore my good work, but
they would not go out their way to pretend it does not happen. That
professional look is a selling point, and readers care even less than
my bosses do what happens behind the scenes to effect that
professionalism.
>
> It's the tremendous level of support staff (12 editors for one article
> in WaPo!) that, for better or worse, needs to be leaner and meaner.
It is leaner, for better or for worse, but mostly for worse.
I don't know about meaner, but I can do my part.
WaPo aside, one article aside, out in the wider world, two dozen eyes
on a story was a luxury even in the good old days. Will readers notice
stories getting two reads rather than four or six? We shall see.
John Campbell
Copy editor