Welcome! We're Just Getting Started

Welcome to I, Reporter - a new resource to inspire, guide, and educate citizen journalists and the news organizations that work with them.

The people in charge of this project are:

• Amy Gahran: Content strategist and "info-provocateur." I have a journalism degree and worked for several years as a reporter, editor, and managing editor. In 1997 I made the leap into independent media production and communication consulting (mostly for online media), and I never looked back. Since 1998 I've been publishing CONTENTIOUS, which covers news and musings on how we communicate in the online age.
• A. Adam Glenn: Media consultant and former senior producer with ABC News.com. A longtime journalist and editor with special expertise in covering the environment, Adam has traveled the world training people in the craft of good journalism.

Obviously, we're just getting started. I actually had to put this weblog up in a hurry to coincide with some fortuitous coverage I received in the June 20 Christian Science Monitor: Write the News Yourself!

Here's what we've got in mind...

WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?

I'll speak for myself only here, and Adam will explain his motives in a separate posting.

I’m drawn to citizen journalism because I’ve grown to realize that traditional versions of news, journalism, and journalists are no longer enough. The cult of officialdom has reached its limits. There is more than one way to gauge relevance and credibility. We need more kinds of news, from more kinds of sources, to adequately serve the information needs of our communities and the world.

After spending months watching this field sprout, I’m finally ready to dive in and help it blossom.

It seems to me that the biggest hindrances for most citizen journalists are a lack of skills and a sense of isolation. Meanwhile, many mainstream journalists have concerns about the role, credibility, and ethics of citizen journalism.  I, Reporter will direct address all of these issues and more.

I hope that we end up not just training citizen journalists, but inspiring and motivating them to create some of the best journalism of the 21st century - both independently and in collaboration with news organizations.

WHAT ARE WE DOING?

I, Reporter has an ambitious mission. Adam and I want to provide citizen journalists with the creativity, skills, experience, and insight to do a great job. Also, we want to help news professionals understand and work with citizen journalists. We believe that citizen and pro journalists can benefit and influence each other. They can produce complementary coverage that benefits society. Together, they can provide a broader, deeper answer to the perennial question, "What's news?"

This blog is the first step on that path. Here, we'll be covering:

• How is citJ being done in the US and around the world, by whom?
• How might it affect society, communities, and the media business?
• What are the ethical, legal, social, and professional issues – and how might they be approached creatively and constructively?
• What do citizen and professional journalists have in common, and where do they clash?
• What do audiences think of citJ?
• Behind-the-scenes discussion of our own citJ projects
• Tips, opportunities, pitfalls, and other practical tidbits
• CitJ questions worth pondering.

Also, we are developing a training program for citizen journalists and for news organizations that seek to nurture and leverage the efforts of citizen journalists. Our suite of services will include workshops, educational materials, publications, e-learning, mentoring, and more. We’ll also present the voices and expertise of some of our media colleagues as well as exemplary citizen journalists.

Additionally, Adam and I will occasionally be working on our own citJ projects. I, Reporter will offer a behind-the-scenes look at those efforts: what works, what doesn't, and what everyone learns in the process. Right now I'm pulling together a citizen reporter team to provide coverage of a contentious local development issue in my home town of Boulder, CO. Keep reading this blog for much more on that.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

I, Reporter is intended as a public conversation and mutual exploration. We need your participation to make this succeed. Adam and I definitely don't have all the answers - but then, good journalism mainly springs from asking good questions. We look forward to hearing you answers - and your questions, too! I expect we'll have a lot of fun finding many answers together.

Therefore, I'd like to close this first post with a question: What is "real news" to you? What criteria do you use to gauge whether informational coverage of a current topic is real news or idle chatter? How "official" does your news need to be?

Please comment below.

And let the adventure begin!

Comments

[Jack Krupansky]

I like my news as raw as possible, "Just the facts." I am also interested in what true experts have to say, "expert opinion." I'm also interested in the range of questions that everybody, down to the lowliest and most ignorant of "the common man" have to pose. Good questions have as much value as facts themselves.

What I'm less interested in is journalists who attempt to do pseudo-expert analysis or try to pass off their own opinions as some kind of expertise. That said, extra-factual "reporting" by journalists does provide plenty of grist for spirited discussion.

Not to be gruesome, but I subscribe to a Pentagon web feed which gives the names and some details for the "war dead." This is hard-core fact, beyond simply the total tally that mainstream media "reports" and that critics rally around. But just seeing the names themselves (not to mention ages and towns) gives you a more intuitive feel for "the facts." The Pentagon also puts on news-like "articles" on a web feed, that give the appearance of being journalism, but given their source, it's easy enough to apply a bias filter. The crazy thing is, I'm not so sure that the political bias of the Pentagon's mock journalism is that much more extreme than the bias of "mainstream media."

For the most part, I'm more content with the traditional wire services (Reuters, AP, etc.) than much of the novelized stories that pass for "journalism."

To summarize: Real news is just the facts, accompanied with true expert opinion that is as bias-free as possible.

-- Jack Krupansky

[Wes Thorp]

As a former journalist who was trained in the sixties at the "J-School" at Michigan State University and as somebody who really sees the value of a fully-empowered and energized news media, I am happy to see your efforts take root.

I've struggled over the years watching the news media move farther and farther away from its historical mission of keeping us informed. As somebody who once felt that being a reporter was almost a sacred calling, I was happy that neither of my kids picked journalism as a vocation.

Then, Amy, over the past year I've read your statements about how the golden age of the mainstream media is losing its luster big time. Maybe, the profession is being recreated through citizen journalism.

Regardless, what you're doing is really important. You should be applauded. I will follow it carefully and will work to spread your ideas in my part of the world.

[Amy Gahran]

Ah, Jack, I should have figured you'd be the first voice to pop up here! Nice to see you again.

I appreciate your perspective. I also appreciate that your perspective represents one data point from the journalistically traditional and conservative end of the "what is news?" spectrum. That's fine -- I simply encourage you to consider that other people have different perspectives on the issue which are equally as valid as yours. News is actually a very subjective matter.

For instance, one aspect of citJ I'm intrigued by is that it challenges the assumption of what constitutes "expert status" or a "qualified source," and why.

For instance, who would be the best-qualified expert on homelessness: A think-tank analyst, a shelter director, a resident of a street where many homeless people spend their days, or a woman who's lived homelessly for a decade? The answer, I think, is "all of the above" -- and probably in equal measure.

In contrast, people who gauge news by very traditional and conservative benchmarks (not politically conservative, but journalistically so) would probably rank those sources in descending order -- with the top of the list being most heavily weighted in terms of perceived credibility and expertise. That kind of judgement may be more subjective than many people who hold it would care to admit.

Food for thought. Thanks for contributing, Jack. I look forward to hearing more from you here. I know you care very deeply about the evolution of journalism.

- Amy Gahran
I, Reporter

[Amy Gahran]

Wes, thanks very much for your support!

You wrote, "Maybe, the profession is being recreated through citizen journalism."

Hmmmm.... It seems to me that journalism and media have been in constant evolution since the cuneiform days. I don't necessarily see this so much as a "recreation." I think it's more like an continuation of the evolutionary process. It's just hard to recognize evolution when you're right in the middle of it. I guess it always looks like a revolution, doesn't it?

We'll see...

- Amy Gahran
I, Reporter

[Barney Lerten]

As someone who's run the gamut over 30 yars, writing news for just about every medium under the sun, from wire service to print, broadcast and the Web, a good idea here. Good basic journalism works in ANY medium, and I believe (hope?) it's not a matter of competition for readers/viewers' scarce time, but collaboration to bring them a fuller sense of what's going on out there, down the street, in their backyard, etc.