Report: The MyTown Seminar

This morning I attended a one-hour seminar offered by my local newspaper, the Boulder, CO Daily Camera, to explain its MyTown community news site and encourage public participation. I was pleasantly surprised that about 25 people attended at 9am on a Thursday morning -- I think that actually indicates a fair amount of public interest.

More about the session...

MyTown editor Kevin Kaufman gave a thorough guided tour of the site -- which was a good idea since MyTown has so many sections, options and features. I assume that many members of the audience are not expert internet users, so that sort of practical guidance can be helpful.

The thing to keep in mind about MyTown is that it is a work in progress, and it was built in a major hurry. Kaufman admits the site has some problems -- for instance, the site's content is not searchable yet. (They'll be working on that, he said.) This is understandable, and it explains several aspects of that site which irk me when I try to use it. I do believe Kaufman's heart is in the right place for this project, and that counts for a lot.

That said, I reiterate my earlier contention that MyTown is mainly a community site. Although Camera staff toss around the term "citizen journalism" when promoting MyTown, that mission seems incidental to the site's actual focus. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against community sites. They can be valuable, and they can make business sense.

However, I do think it's important that news organizations have a responsibility to be very clear about what citizen journalism is and what it can do. Without such clarity, citJ doesn't really happen. And it needs to happen -- especially in the era of ubiquitous one-paper towns and continuously shrinking newsrooms.  The day is coming where the only way communities will be covered is if they do that coverage themselves. News organizations simply won't have the time, staff, or available newshole to do it.

Kevin graciously included me in the discussion, and I mentioned I, Reporter to attendees. Who knows, maybe we'll be hearing from some of them here at some point.

Kevin did provide handouts, including a 3/4 page item entitled: News -- A primer. He intends to post that primer online, and I'll link to it then. At this point, MyTown has no specific plans to offer journalistic training or mentoring for would-be citizen journalists. Therefore, my I, Reporter efforts would be very complementary to MyTown. Kevin and I intend to meet sometime in July and brainstorm ways to support each other.

A few highlights:

• MyTown launched in April 2005. So far it has only about 400 registered users, most of whom post little or no content. Very few contributed postings are news articles -- most are simple announcements or photos.

• MyTown is homegrown, built by Camera web staff. It was created in a major hurry, I believe Kevin said about 10 days. (Correct me if I'm wrong on that, Kevin). It's impressive to get any news project launched in such a tight time frame, so I applaud this accomplishment. I'm not sure what the big rush was about, though. I think the site could have benefitted from a bit more consideration -- especially in terms of usability, ad-to-content display ratio, and overall focus. But it can certain evolve in a postive direction, given care, resources, and attention.

• Several of the attendees were from local businesses and organizations seeking to publicize their activities. Usually these people send press releases to the Camera and hope that editors will call them back. Kevin correctly pointed out that posting their own announcements and stories via MyTown might actually be a more timely and effective way to not just get the word out, but to get the attention of Camera editors and reporters. He said many Camera editorial staffers check MyTown periodically, or subscribe to its feeds. This is further evidence of a bigger trend I'm seeing: Press releases are nearly dead.

• Citizen journalists can complement mainstream news in terms of scale and reach. For instance, the development controversy my citizen reporting team will be covering concerns the 24-acre Hogan-Pancost parcel on the edge of town, near open space. The Camera hasn't touched this story yet. However, Kevin correctly pointed out that the Camera has limited news staff. Right now, the huge downtown Twenty Ninth Street development project is consuming development reporters' time and attention. I can understand those priorities. Mainstream news venues should focus first on the biggest stories affecting the most people. However, that doesn't mean that smaller stories don't count. Citizen journalists can make them count.

• MyTown contributors share rights to their content with the Camera, said Kaufman. This means that contributors are free to post their Mytown content elsewhere -- on their own site, on another service, or even on a competing site like YourHub from the Rocky Mountain News. I haven't been able to locate MyTown's terms of service statement to verify this, and Kaufman wasn't clear on whether content rights are shared only with the Camera or also with the paper's parent company,  EW Scripps (which owns about 20 papers -- including the Rocky -- and 9 TV stations nationwide). Still, not giving up rights to your content is crucial to citizen journalists. Personally, I don't like the way MyTown  currently drowns its content in a haphazard sea of postage-stamp ads. Unless Mytown's design significantly improves, I'd rather have my reporting team publish their content on I, Reporter or create a site to give a decent presentation, and then republish on MyTown or elsewhere as appropriate.

I hope MyTown continues to evolve, and continues to work to engage and motivate the local public. The Boulder-area population comprises a significant breadth of expertise, and a strong sense of community. It's the most civic-minded place I've ever lived. Our local media should reflect that -- and leverage it. We'll see how it goes.

Comments

[Anna Haynes]

(I tried to send this via email but it bounced - "64.246.32.88 does not like recipient...")

Subject: alternative blog format, for ireporter?

Hello Amy -

I know Crooked Timber has an alternate URL that readers can use, to see the whole posts (rather than just first para.) on the 'front page'.

Any chance you could do likewise for ireporter?

thanks (and the blog is a great idea) -
Anna

[Amy Gahran]

Hi, Anna

Well, I don't know whether Typepad offers alternate displays for a blog. After I'm finished tweaking the main display, I'll see whether we can offer alternates.

Sorry about the bounced mail. We're fixing it. It had to do with some recent changes we had to make regarding the settings for our domain.

Don't you just love technology... it's so seamless...

- Amy Gahran

[Jack Krupansky]

Boulder is rather different than a lot of so-called "communities." In fact, I wouldn't say that Boulder is *a* community at all, since it is *many* commmunities that hacan ppen to share the same physical space. There is a community for every interest. I always have to stifle a laugh when I hear someone on the Boulder City Council refer to "The Dog Community" of Boulder. Also, there are a number of neighborhoods, which have a stronger sense of "community" than the city overall.

The other thing I like to say is that Boulder is not so much a place as a state of mind. I've been in and out of Boulder for over 22 years now, but I've been "in" Boulder since that first day in 1983, regardless of where I've actually had my residence.

One big challenge for CJ is how to simultaneously provide the local focus without making it uninteresting or unuseful to non-locals. More importantly, one of the whole points of local CJ should be to provide a mechanism for people in distant locales to learn from people in other locales. For example, people in Fort Collins can snoop on Boulder's approaches to "The Prairie Dog Problem", and vice versa. Coping with development issues is certainly an area where lessons from one locale can provide insight to other locales.

-- Jack Krupansky

[Amy Gahran]

Hi, Jack

Well, any community is basically comprised of overlapping communities. That's not unique to Boulder. Also, every community is its own 'state of mind.'

Personally, I think there's room for citJ that is of purely local interest, as well as broader geographic appeal. It doesn't have to be either/or. Any given story could be spun both ways, as a matter of fact.

- Amy Gahran

[Hannu]

“Citizenship also often implies working towards the betterment of the community one lives in through participation, volunteer work and efforts to improve life for all citizens.” (from wikipedia).

Community is important for citizen journalism, but what is a community? Can the community be a virtual one? Can we have citizen journalism in virtual communities? Can one be a citizen of a virtual community?