The following post comes to us from Sameer Bhuchar, who is helping Spot.Us from Austin.

It has been said a thousand times before: The landscape of the modern media is changing. With today’s more complex, active Internet ecosystem, the accepted norms of journalism are constantly being rewritten or tossed out all together. The Internet has bypassed the once highly regarded norms of gatekeepers at a news desk, and it now it seems to be challenging the long held model of objectivity in journalism.

If there is an underlying theme to Spot.Us it is the idea that we expect our community to tell us what is important in journalism, rather than dictate it ourselves. With that in mind, several weeks ago, thanks to a generous sponsorship from Clay Shirky, we asked for your honest feedback about objectivity and journalism. We let the 500 users who took the survey decide where the sponsorship dollars should go. In other words, we handed over a part of our budget to community members who let us figure out what the ethos is around objectivity in journalism. Community-focused sponsorship for the win! (Try our newest CFS. Let us know about important story ideas in your region and fund a story on Spot.Us for free).

Survey Results

Is there a clear divide between those who support the traditional idea of objectivity and those who take a different stance? Are there exceptions to the standard? How should journalism work for you? Some believe objectivity means reporting facts without bias, and that an article must be balanced and include multiple points of view. To many, objectivity in journalism is the most important standard of the profession. It was once considered the glue of the business, the one aim that let media consumers decide for themselves what was right and wrong.

Increasingly, however, the idea of traditional objectivity is being challenged by this new, proactive age of media consumers. To those who challenge the ideal, it is an outdated standard that has crippled journalists from digging deep into stories.

Keep in mind the survey results are not scientific and, as the political leanings graph shows, there was perhaps a self-selecting audience (the Spot.Us community). Nonetheless, with 500 respondents there was a diverse set of answers.

First and foremost it is important to note that about 52 percent of the survey takers were female and 48 percent male.

Also, close to 60 percent of the respondents identified themselves as liberals, with only 10.8 percent identifying as conservative. Close to 30 percent said they were independents. This could be reflective of where Spot.Us’ traffic comes from (heavy in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and New York).

Responses to the question, “Is objectivity even possible?” show there are a large percentage of people with a changing idea about objectivity. Of the survey questions, perhaps this one and the responses associated with it were the most telling when it comes to attitudes towards objectivity. Only 13.5 percent (60 respondents) very clearly identified “objectivity” as being what journalism is all about.

This view point can best be explained through Spot.Us member Craig Gaines‘ extended response. “I define an objective piece as one that represents all viewpoints in a piece and allows readers to make up their minds about those viewpoints,” Gaines said. “To do anything less is a disservice to, and disrespectful of, the reader.”

A staggering 44.6 percent (199) people agreed with the answer, “Objectivity is possible but difficult. It separates wheat from chaff.” In essence the answer implies that objectivity should be seen more as a quest for honest, factual reporting. Spot.Us member (and NewsTrust executive director) Fabrice Florin summed up this viewpoint well.

While objectivity is difficult to achieve, it is an important journalistic quality to strive for, particularly for factual news reporting, not for opinion pieces,” Florin said. “For news reports, a neutral perspective helps present views from different sides without interjecting the author’s personal opinions. Authors are welcome to post their own perspectives in their own opinion pieces, as long as they are clearly labeled as such. But journalists who want to serve society as neutral observers and referees should continue to report objectively on public issues they cover.

Of the respondents, 27.6 percent (123 people) chose the answer “transparency is the new objectivity,” implying that it is the reporting of truth that is most important, rather than a detached account of a scene.

“I think that reporters ought to reveal their biases in each story as part of the narrative so as to partially disarm whatever criticism of bias they may receive,” said member Paul Balcerak. “Doing so will provide a better service to the public and will create better journalism.”

There were also 55 people who believed objectivity was impossible, and 9 people went as far to answer that objectivity “is a crutch to prop old media up.”

This is all just the tip of the iceberg. Other questions sought to discover the community’s view of how important objectivity is (always required, sometimes, never, etc.), and to help gauge the respondents’ relationship to journalism (a professor or as an avid news reader, for example). We believe that in aggregate this survey provides unique insight into what people from the Spot.Us community want and expect from the media.

To drive the point home, we’ve included anecdotal responses from our insightful community members who gave us permission to publish their answers. (These were used to create the above Wordle.)

Perhaps what we can learn from all of this is that objectivity, while important as an ideal of fairness, should not be seen as a way of achieving “detached-ness,” if you will. But heck, this blog post is by no means unbiased, so even that assumption may not be accurate, or apply to you personally. One thing the respondents did uniformly agree upon is that reporters should unabashedly seek truth. While pure objectivity may be impossible, being honest isn’t.

Community Views

Below is a selection of comments from the wisest people we know — our community. Here’s what they had to say about objectivity:

“In journalism school I was very swayed by the ‘Transparency IS the new objectivity’ school of thinking, and the notion that everyone has bias and perspective, and so any attempt to avoid that is foolhardy. From my insider perspective, my own biases and opinions seemed magnified and huge. However, since I haven’t been working as a journalist and have been, instead, consuming local media (increasingly independent and citizen/blog driven, as the local establishment journalism withers away) I’ve longed for the ideal of objectivity while recognizing it might never have been truly practiced. I’ve grown to strongly dislike the strongly and biased opinionated citizen journalism I am now surrounded by, because it so often willfully refuses to dig deeper and more broadly and is so very proud of its ‘perspective’. I am often left with a long list of simple questions I think *I* would have asked just to get the whole story.” — Saheli Datta

“I don’t believe what we’ve traditionally defined as objectivity in the media is actually objectivity–it’s more like perceived impartiality. I think that reporters ought to reveal their biases in each story as part of the narrative (writing in first-person would make the process a lot less awkward, by the way) so as to partially disarm whatever criticism of bias they may receive. Doing so will provide a better service to the public and will create better journalism.” – Paul Balcerak

“Objectivity was a marketing technique invented by the AP 100 + years ago. It’s well suited for monopoly style newspaper production but shits the bed when media representation of similar events increases… Debunking objectivity as a concept is as easy as shooting ducks in duck hunt, but fact of the matter is that if *we didn’t* believe in objectivity our lives would be intolerable.

“Therefore the question isn’t about whether objectivity in journalism is possible, it’s how does a person come to see media as objective? That’s where things get interesting and where a lot is getting disrupted. The meaning of an event doesn’t happen until it’s represented and what we are seeing is an explosion in meaning at the sign of *any event*. See Stuart Hall, he’s pre-Twitter but his points are just as valid.” — Cody Brown

“Transparency means more than understanding where the journalist’s bias lies; it means that the journalist or reporter does things like crowdsource some questions, work in partnership with community journalism initiatives already underway, blog about the progress on a story and explain what the next steps are (unless it’s a super-secret undercover investigation), record interviews and give public access to the full transcript as well as the audio file, etc. Transparency means addressing reader concerns and input about pieces and continuing the conversation after one story is published.” — Suzi Steffen

“A journalist’s background certainly matters in how they interpret subjects, but the job is to look close, ask questions, and get the details right. More and more, unfortunately, it’s also about checking out sources and making sure none of them are lying. With more and more resources dedicated to “spin” this part is important and often accounts for why a lot of people reject a good story as objective or biased – because they’ve been dished the spin in other platforms. But objectivity really is the name of the game.” — Lee van der Voo

“In most mainstream news reports I hear, including a good number on NPR, there’s an annoying trend toward presenting one side and then the other, while completely evading the question of which side might be right! This is a perverted effect of the mania that journalism has for supposedly unbiased an objective reporting. Too often in the name of objectivity journalists avoid taking principled stands on anything; too often monied interests can distract the public’s attention from their own dubious business practices by trotting out a voice of dissent rationalizing their stand — which, of course, will get equal air-time.” — Anneke Toomey

“There is a saying somewhere: Objectivity is not possible, but fairness is. That is to say: are all sides, all points of view represented honestly and with the same weight? Ultimately, I’d say objectivity is a personal trait, fairness is a professional trait that pertains to our profession as journalists. Strive for fairness.” –  Barbara Gref

“No journalist is truly objective, if that term is meant to mean someone who has no opinions about the subjects he or she covers. Subjectivity starts right from the point at which a journalist chooses a subject to cover and goes right on through to who is interviewed, what quotations are selected, how the headline is written, and on and on. But what makes journalism different from other practices with which it is sometimes confused, such as PR or politics, is that journalists are in the business of *independent* verification of fact.” — Robert McClure

“No one is truly unbiased or objective but that doesn’t mean that a good reporter doesn’t look for the truth behind everyone’s agenda. Objectivity means not sitting on a story that would make someone look bad just because you’re invested in their success. I almost said “Transparency is the new objectivity” only because it is the latest and most fabulous word to throw around. Transparency only helps identify lapses in objectivity, it doesn’t replace it. As for transparency, it certainly helps identify lapses in objectivity, but it doesn’t replace it.” — Amanda Hickman

“Objectivity often means portraying both sides of the story but without considering power & privilege, you can never get both sides of story. It would be like looking at African Americans & crime in inner cities without looking at the effects of institutional racism and how poverty/availability of drugs/housing blight/welfare policies etc contributes to crime. Journalism needs to put more emphasis on telling the stories of the underserved and marginalized and those most impacted the those who have power.” — Micky Duxbury

“No one is objective. The best we can do (instead of  pretending to be objective) is being transparent about our biases so readers are aware and can judge our content as they feel is appropriate. That said, it doesn’t mean we should turn every article into a ranting, biased blog post, or even take a side on an issue we’re covering. We just need to stop pretending true “Objectivism” exists.” — Lauren Rabaino

“While objectivity is difficult to achieve, it is an important journalistic quality to strive for, particularly for factual news reporting (not for opinion pieces). For news reports, a neutral perspective helps present views from different sides without interjecting the author’s personal opinions. Authors are welcome to post their own perspectives in their own opinion pieces, as long as they are clearly labeled as such. But journalists who want to serve society as neutral observers and referees should continue to report objectively on public issues they cover.” – Fabrice Florin

“I find writing by people who disclose and discuss their biases/backgrounds dramatically more compelling than sterile I-refuse-to-take-sides-so-decide-for-yourself writing. I think it’s possible to explain and analyze both sides of a story and fulfill a journalistic purpose without sitting on the fence.” – Katie Lohrenz

“Everyone has opinions, and we are all entitled to have them. Journalists are no different. I like it when a journalist tells me how he/she arrived at an opinion, and any part of his/her backstory that will help me to assess credibility. Transparency is certainly part of the picture. What isn’t helpful is a journalist who simply reports the sound bite from one side and then gathers the sound bite from another side and calls it a story – without stopping to investigate whether the facts can back up either side.” — Laurie Pumper

“I don’t think it is absolutely necessary to be objective, but if you aren’t going to be objective, it is absolutely necessary to be honest about it.” — Luke Gies

“Objectivity should be the goal for journalism. Reporting all sides of the story without bias is ideal. Unfortunately we live in a very polarized climate. Shock value, knee jerk reactions and stubborn opinion rule the day. I really appreciate news sources that don’t resort to playing to that audience.” — Marie Rafalko

“Basically, ‘objectivity’ in journalism began post WWII as a strategy to make news content more palatable to a broader advertiser base. That worked — and it helped enable newspaper consolidation in many cities. But the strategy took on a life of its own — and while it yielded some benefits, it’s a fundamentally not credible premise. Journalism is created by people, and people are not objective. As media has become multidirectional, it’s become ridiculous to try to ignore that reality. News organizations that choose a veneer of objectivity over the practice of transparency undermine their own credibility. The sad thing is, many news orgs cling to their veneer of objectivity because they think it builds credibility. They’re eating their own dog food.” — Amy Gahran

“I chose my answer by eliminating the others. I know it’s not always possible. It’s really tough. But transparency is absolutely not an alternative to objectivity. Fox News is transparent. It’s not good journalism. Saying transparency can replace objectivity basically says that journalism can be produced by interest groups, as long as they’re honest about who they are. That’s no good for anyone, except for the interest groups.” — Molly Samuel

“The U.S. journalism establishment has determined that they are smarter than consumer sand therefore must talk down, water down, simplify news stories. Their fear was that no one would read the paper. Really.

“If all the facts were reported AND an effort was made to make media literacy an elementary school requirement we might have real journalism again in this country in a generation or so. Or promote and support online platforms that present facts and commentary separately. Then let traditional media fend for themselves.” – Todd O’Neill

“It’s never possible, but always desirable. That is, complete objectivity is probably impossible, because we aren’t always aware of our prejudices. But, it is what we should strive for, regardless. So, it is very important to attempt, but also to be aware that we may have blind spots, in order to avoid the arrogance of believing you are able to step completely out of your own biases.” — Rebecca Church

“To an extent, I agree with ‘Transparency is the new objectivity,’ but I don’t think it’s sufficient. I think pursuing objectivity while being transparent is crucial. Journalists should make every effort to escape their biases, explore other perspectives, and challenge their assumptions of what are and are not significant/authoritative voices, but they shouldn’t do so at the cost of reporting and storytelling. However, they should acknowledge where they can where they are coming from, what perspectives they might take into the discussion, and what assumptions they are starting with so readers/audiences are able to make an informed analysis of the journalist’s credibility.” — Bill Lascher

“‘Transparency is the new objectivity’ is a fun riff, and it’s close, but I think we (in the media business) grossly overstate the public’s interest in our affiliations and conflicts.” — Ryan Sholin

“Science, going back to the Heisenberg principle in the 1920s has proven that observation has an effect on the thing observed. Also, you can play ‘he said-she said’ journalism, but one statement has to come before the other. Determining the order is the reporter or editor’s subjective choice and determines the slant of the story.” — Kellia Ramares

“Objectivity is not rewarded by anyone, not the public and not the corporate new organizations. It’s become like Don Quixote chasing windmills.” — Shari Brandhoy

“Objectivity is impossible. There is no such thing as a human or institution without opinion. Therefore, it’s best for us to know the bias of the reporters. That said, a statement of bias doesn’t give license to lie or omit facts. Transparency is twofold:
• a statement of bias
• a commitment to releasing all information in an honest manner.” — Joey Baker

“Shirky has made me bias on the topic – journalist was a special class of citizen when you needed a press. Now every resident has a responsibility to be a journalist. Who is going to write about neighborhoods – when crime is not the topic? Newspapers and other media outlets have always done a poor job covering my home. So who does that responsibility fall to – someone with a stake in the future of that neighborhood. And while I want accuracy and independence, I want the reporter, journalist, or citizen to offer their educated take on what this all means for the future of the area.” – Eddie North-Hager

“The very definition of dialectic is pastiche. How can anyone be objective while still being informed? Transparency at least offers honesty and a path for the reader to follow.” — Clarisa Morales Roberts

“I define an objective piece as one that represents all viewpoints in a piece and allows readers to make up their minds about those viewpoints. To do anything less is a disservice to, and disrespectful of, the reader.” — Craig Gaines

“There is fairness but not objectivity. Everyone decides where to look, what facts to portray, how to frame what they’re seeing. Even a pointed camera is not objective — where the lens is pointed, how the zoom is set … these all determine what’s seen and how.” — Dorian Benkoil

“Debating object/subject is an endless philosophical waste of time. Facts, and trends, data, information, systems analysis all are much more relevant to discourse around solving the complex problems we face today and in the future.” — Stephen Antonaros

“I believe that objectivity is the single most dangerous goal journalism can work towards. It is impossible for a human being to produce a genuinely non-biased piece of writing, but it is simple for a writer to mimic the tone of authority that a member of society is educated to frame as truth. Journalism should strive for transparency – not as a new objectivity, but as a drastically different and more democratic concept of media’s responsibility to present and portray information.” — Rebecca Glaser

“Objectivity is impossible, it’s an illusion and a myth often used to maintain flat, two-dimensional reporting that implies there are simply “two sides.” What’s far more important is accuracy, vigorous inquiry and story dimension–looking for texture and layers of debate, and letting the facts tell the story; two ‘sides’ are not ‘equal’ if one is heavily fact-based and the other is just opinion.” — Christopher Cook

Related posts:

1. Improving the Spot.Us platform and Improving the Pitch
2. LA Spot.Us Announces Managing Editor, Ramps Up for Community Funded Journalism
3. Launching The Spot.Us Ship: Community Funded Reporting

This person will supervise a blogger as well as produce 10 stories on his or her own, one a month. Each story pitch will be posted on LA.Spot.Us so that the individual, while guaranteed a base fee of $1,500 per month, could earn more by raising funds through our crowdsourcing model.

The successful candidate will be a balanced, thorough writer with deep community connections and the ability to gracefully multitask while meeting deadline. Speaking Spanish is an advantage. To apply, please email writing samples, resume with contact information for two references and a list of story ideas to info@spot.us.

We will also be looking for freelancers to propose projects for this project.

Spot.us is an equal opportunity employer.

Related posts:

1. Hiring: Chief Technology Officer to be an Operations Research Analysts
2. Spot.Us is Hiring, Sorta: Time to Find Some Reporters
3. We Are Hiring – Community Organizer

After the Minnesota primaries earlier this month the three candidates still remaining are Tom Emmer, representing the Republican Party; Mark Dayton, representing the DFL Party; and Tom Horner, representing the Independence Party.

Doug Grow sums up each candidates main message after a more generic forum sponsored by St. Paul Business Journal and the University of St. Thomas on Tuesday.

• Dayton: Fair taxes and investment, especially in education.
• Emmer: Get government off our backs.
• Horner: Get some government off our backs but invest some in education.

But how does Horner plan to invest in education?  This was revealed all when he announced his budget outline Monday. But he may have revealed too much.

Both the Republicans and DFL found fault in Horner’s outline and quickly took the opportunity to oppose it.

Republican Tom Emmer has received his fair share of criticism as well. DFL candidate Dayton started complaining about the Republican Party trackers known as GOP (Grand Old Party) Trackers and called a press conference to discuss the “disruptive” and “unprecedented” behavior of political trackers as well as attack ads.

GOP Spokesman: Polite, Courteous and Has A Problem With The Press.

Emmer did not seem to take the complaint seriously, and made a rebuttal by pointing out more questionable ties Dayton has to an organization called Alliance for a Better Minnesota (ABM), which sponsored attack ads and is funded by Dayton’s family.

Candidate Emmer released a new ad last Monday all about his family titled “work” as he tries to put his best foot forward and appeal to the suburban family.

Things have also been turning around for candidate Dayton. The Service Employees Union in Minnesota (SEIU) are now endorsing Dayton and his campaign.

While the candidates did have a debate at General Mills

There is one thing they agree on – JOBZ didn’t work.

The three candidates have one more battle to win for the position as Minnesota’s governor on Election Day November 2nd, 2010.  But recent studies show that voting may not be as simply as the best candidate wins. A report came out suggesting where you vote and your physical polling place can impact how you vote.

MINNPOST fact check

Emmer misspoke on Minneapolis dropout rate he was also misquoted when referring to Arizona’s immigration law.

More on the three candidates budget proposals and debates.
Governor candidates say yes to more gambling and Vikings stadium.

Dayton and Horner are putting pressure on Emmer to get specific with programs he plans to cut in order to achieve his plan to reduce the $6 billion deficit.

Dayton Urges Pawlenty To Accept $263 Million In Federal Funding.

Related posts:

1. November Ballot Initiatives in the Media
2. Changing Locomotion in Midstream – The Full Report
3. Update: Bay Area Hospitals and Alternative Treatement – Getting Treatment for Autism is a Full-Time Job

Guess Who’s popular?

Stories published on Spot.us funded by you!

In the last two weeks stories funded by the Spot.Us community have continued to generate buzz with a number of media outlets throughout the country, proving once again that the public, when given the chance, can help set a strong news agenda.

Highlight
In Seattle, our partners at Investigate West finished their story on the environmental impact of cruise liners. The pledges ranged from $5 to $100, and most totaled $20. In the end we learned of the detrimental activities and rule-dodging some of these cruise liners engage in that are continually harming the oceans. The story was so strong that 10 other media organizations (SeattlePI.com, Spokesman Review, The Tyee, Daily Casserole and others) republished it. Also check out the project’s final update “Investigate West and the grassroots model: It works!”

Witness LA
Our Los Angeles social justice partners, Witness LA, finished the first in a two-part series on the prominence of L.A. gangs and the significance of their growing capital. The report hit the internet and was immediately mentioned and recognized by  powerful players in the media world. Who? Try LA Times, LAist, LA Weekly, LA Observed and MediaFishbowl, just to name a few.

Solar Power Story
And finally, the Erica Gies story on Solar Waste Recycling, produced with the SF Public Press, was recycled by 12 publications! You can read the final version of it here. If you scroll down to the bottom you’ll see the list of republishing sites which includes The Bay Citizen, Way Out West News, The Daily Green, KALW – Crosscurrents and eight others.

Publishing this week
It’s a busy week here at Spot.Us. Every day we are publishing part of the investigation into the Centinela School District. The first part, released Monday, includes a heart-tugging tale of a teacher transferred to another school in front of her classroom. Also published is a classic story of “follow the trash” in partnership with Champaign-Urbana publication Smile Politely. Finally – a look at why Los Angeles leads in drive-by shootings, and soon with our friends at Oakland Local, an investigation into the new Oakland Chief of Police.

PHEW….. Did you get all that?

NEW PITCHES!

Out with the old and in with the new. We have a slew of new pitches at Spot.Us that range from homelessness in LA and SF and attempts to create no-kill shelters in Los Angeles, all the way to troubled high-rises in Minnesota and gang issues along Lake Michigan. We’ve also redesigned how we present our pitches on Spot.Us. If you haven’t browsed them in a while please take a moment to do so now. Let us know what you think of the new layout. We are literally approving four new pitches today. Are you going to be the first members of the public to see value and boost their chances for local coverage?

COMING SOON.
As you can see, there isn’t a shortage of things happening at Spot.Us. There will be more coming soon, including the results from our last community-focused sponsorship where we will present what the Spot.Us community thinks about objectivty in journalism. We also hope to sign up new sponsorships soon. Until then – we work for you!

Related posts:

1. Spot.Us: Show Me the Money
2. Spot.Us is hiring!
3. Spot.Us and On Earth Magazine Refund Original Donors

Our friend Amy Gahran chronicled how this project came to fruition. You can see the entire project at NewsDesk.org or Spot.Us.

From Quill:

The project incorporates text articles, video, audio and picture slide shows to show in stark detail that ship pollution from the port has health consequences for local residents. But as the presentation showed, local regulations are mostly ineffective against vessels governed by international maritime law.

…
More than just a multimedia journalism venture, the work of Komenich, Booth and Wilson is notable for its truly grassroots effort — from the appeal of the content to the way it was funded. By using Spot.Us, a Knight Foundation News Challenge project pioneering and enabling crowd-funded journalism, Newsdesk.org raised nearly $1,800 to cover the project’s expenses — including hiring freelancers Komenich and Booth.

Spot.Us is honored to play our part. But the real kudos goes to NewsDesk.org, Kwan Booth and Kim Komenich. Our hat is off!

Related posts:

1. “Toxic Tour” wins SPJ award, shows creative ways to do great journalism
2. LA Spot.Us Announces Managing Editor, Ramps Up for Community Funded Journalism
3. Launching The Spot.Us Ship: Community Funded Reporting

In Los Angeles: Suspensions, scores and struggles at Centinela Valley School District

You can see some of the great reporting John Sakata has done for this piece in his blog posts. His posts have not held punches either: “Centinela should look int hiring BP’s PR team for this mess.” Our editor has told us that it is going to be a very good story that really holds the school district accountable for what is a very high suspension rate.

Is your (Champaign-Urbana) recylcing being dumped in a landfill?

The title here says it all. In partnership with Smile Politely this pitch is just $60 (12 people taking a survey) away from being fully funded. The background on this pitch can be deciphered from the first part in this series: Wasted Management.

Related posts:

1. The Public-Press Gets a Push from Spot.Us
2. Our Budget – Your Decision
3. Union St. Vacancies, State Park Uncertainties & Environmental Projects Galore Around (and in) the Bay

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…..

• The LA Times imitates Spot.Us reporting:

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.

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Tanja Aitamurto, a Ph.D. student studying collective intelligence in journalism, suggests that the marketing a journalist must do in the future will end up being more aligned with cause marketing than anything else.  Cause marketing allows a company to promote a certain cause in hopes the cause will reach the public more than the company name could.  Therefore what people focus on is the cause being supported not necessarily the supporters.

“Because the public donates for a cause, and not necessarily for journalism,” writes Aitamurto, “the pitches on crowdfunded journalistic platforms such as Spot.Us should be more aligned with the features of cause marketing.”

Aitamurto also points out that the readers benefit by becoming more involved and their donations go to helping a cause rather then a story.  When the Huffington Post, for example, reports on hunger at school the donor may not even read the story or follow with the updates.  The donation is more about contributing to a cause and helping solve a problem then it is about the story or journalist themselves.

A journalist, therefore, must learn to adapt and learn to take on this role as marketer and promoter.  It is an exciting time for journalism as we are given opportunities to experiment and develop into a more effective and more engaging industry.

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Pitching in public is one of them. In the traditional journalistic process journalists pitch to editors, not to readers.

According to my study, the Spot.Us reporters find pitching in public intriguing, yet challenging in many ways. One of the reporters describes his experience with pitching in public:

“I don’t like pitching in public. Yeah, hell, it is scary to pitch in public. I didn’t reveal everything in the pitch – I know more than I wrote in the pitch, and have learnt more too since the pitch was published.”

The reporters are concerned about exposing their story in public because there is a risk that a competitor might use their idea. Investigative reporters identify the risk that the publicity might affect their sources, and the actions of the people the reporters are investigating.

However, the reporters think experimenting with the new level of transparency and publicity is worth it.

“If this story was easy to cover, somebody would have done it already. You need to have the experience and resources to do this story. And if I don’t try crowdfunding now, when will I try it?”, one reporter says.

I have interviewed Spot.Us reporters and donors for my study about crowdfunding in journalism. The study is a part of my Ph.D. project, in which I’m studying collective intelligence in journalism. More about my findings on the PBS MediaShift, and a SlideShare presentation based on my paper here.

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This isn’t a win for Spot.Us – it’s a win for any news organization that might want to use Spot.Us. Soon the power of “community funded reporting” will be in your hand!

Jake Shapiro from Knight Foundation on Vimeo.

Building on the software created by 2008 challenge winner Spot.us, this project will allow anyone to pitch and help pay to produce a story for a local public radio station. When the amount is raised (in small contributions), the station will hire a professional journalist to do the report. The project provides a new way for public radio stations to raise money, produce more local content and engage listeners.

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