Here is an example of the way the Seattle Times embraced citizen journalism. 

As Vikki Porter says, the motto for the Bakersfield Californian: blogging first and print later. They also have a 10 years worth of state and district campaign contributions database. Click here.

During Matthew Waite’s presentation on visualizing your reporting, he urged reporters and editors to do something that sounds simple - think visual. Yet, he warned that it’s not easy. His advice: think about interactive elements first. This wisdom boils down to starting backwards for most print journalists. Don’t wait until the story is done to figure out how to visually present it. You’ll frustrate yourself and your graphics department. Begin with the end in mind. Think interactive first.

Marc Cooper, when talking about The Huffington’s “Off the Bus” project, said he didn’t see why more traditional media outlets couldn’t turn to “regular folk” for reporting and then have trained editors churn out a story from the information gathered.  This suggestion raised quite a commotion.  Unfortunately, the conversation was cut short.  So let’s continue it here on-line.  What do folks think?  Will citizen journalism continue to grow?  And what does that mean for the future of reporters?  And what of Marc’s suggestion?  Why aren’t newspapers doing more projects like “Off the Bus”?

During Marc Cooper’s discussion of citizen journalism today, he asked, “Why aren’t mainstream newspapers taking advantage of citizen journalists or cyber sourcing for national political stories?” To many newspaper professionals, his question may have sounded like, “Hey, why not get free labor to help your reporting team?” This statement prompted a discussion that was cut short. Yet, it made me think about a couple of things. If newspapers hire free writers to cover political campaigns, where does that leave staff reporters? And if stories from citizen journalists like Mayhill Fowler of HuffingtonPost.com’s Off the Bus (who broke the story about Obama’s use of the word “bitter” and more) become more popular, do you have to be a “professional” journalist to have a “credible” story? Hey, by the way, what part does credibility play in this new and evolving world of modern journalism? I thought we were going to get some answers to this shifting online media world not more questions. Interested in provoking yourself even more? Cooper reminded the audience to take a look at Jay Rosen’s blog entry on “The Unchartered”

Political reporting is getting easier and easier thanks to supporting digital novelty sites that group statistics and numbers, and list interest groups’ involvement in legislature. MAPLight.org is non-profit organization whose idea behind the technology is to connect the inputs and outputs, that is to say, to publicly post politician’s every move from fund raising, to campaign contribution to lobbying contributions. This is heaven for an investigative journalist. Dan Newman, co-founder and executive director of MAPLight.org said that the staff and research interns (free hire?) collect and put together the numbers for us, journalists, to interpret. Journalists, in turn, can utilize these resources to craft complex reports, stories, exposes in the spirit of the true watchdog journalist.

Marc Cooper has said that what the public and what he personally values is transparency rather than this illusion of “truth” presented by the media.  Is this the direction media is heading?  Openly bias? 

During today’s session on “Cyber Sleuthing” led by Margot Williams from The New York Times, I realized that I must “go deep.” No, I am not referring to a psychology state, being reflective or even improving my meditation abilities. And “going deep” doesn’t refer to thinking deeper philosophically. Williams advised journalists that a Google search for story research isn’t enough. And we must use various online sources to mine the internet and discover the real nuggets we’ll need for our stories. According to Williams, Google only indexes about 10 percent of the web and “doesn’t give us a leg up on anybody.” There is a whole world of information out there on the world wide web (pun intended) because the it has multiple layers: surface and deep. Williams provided some helpful information to access the “deep web” and several valuable web sites to find information on just about anything. Stay tuned because Knight Digital promised to post the information to help our online research and stories go deeper.

Sitting here listening to Margot Williams talk about how she and other reporters have tracked the Clintons’ finances brings to mind the recent reports about the couples’ tax filing.  No matter how the media might attempt to detail just how much money the Clintons make, how they get it and the way they are spending it, questions always remain.  This is due in part, I think, to the Clintons’ shrewd maneuvering of their financial records.  But it’s also due to the limited amount of information available to the public, even when one does know all the ins and outs of the kind of web stalking we’ve been learning about in the seminar.  This information, however, is important.  And now especially.  Clinton has taken the role of the underdog, repeatedly referring to Obama’s more abundant campaign funds but one continues to wonder, is her campaign really in as much financial trouble as she is claiming?   

Citizen journalism is what the future is all about. Yet the question remains: how do we know if what we get is legitimate? The Huffington Post’s Off the Bus project directed by Marc Cooper is trying to break out of the illegitimacy mold. The simple purpose of the project is to cover politics in the digital age. And that’s no easy task. “What we are finding is that we can do journalism with crowd sourcing,” said Cooper. The Post distributed research among crowds of users in ‘loosely defined communities,’ in an efforts to get to the real people. Old rules are broken in this new era of online journalism. In essence, everyone can be a journalist, but, as Cooper points out, the importance of having bodies on the ground transcends the slightly anxious task of editing self-defined citizen reports. Heated discussions ensue on the point of the traditional values of journalism. Are the strict guidelines and standard structure of current mainstream journalism hurting the core of reporting?
The Post prides itself with an understated notion of transparency as opposed to the claim of solid and inalienable truth. What is, then, the level of transparency? Open bias?