Westport Now: Citizen Correspondent

I'm still on the east coast. Right now, Adam and I are preparing for a meeting with Gordon Joseloff, editor of Westport Now -- an intriguing citizen journalism venture featuring news by and about the people of Westport, CT. We're both looking forward to it.

Since I had a couple of minutes before we head out, I stopped by the Westport Now site to see what they have up there today. Actually, the site's lead story at the moment is a good example something I've been wanting to discuss here: the citizen correspondent story...

See: "Report from Pascagoula: It Should Never Happen to Westport," by Dan Goodgame. This is a first-person account from a Westport, CT resident who recently returned from a visit to his Katrina-ravaged hometown of Pascagoula, MS.

Correspondent reports are one of the earliest forms of journalism, dating back about as long as written history recalls. This is one of the most basic forms of sharing news. It's also one of the most compelling forms of reporting the news, and offering analysis and storytelling. It is fundamentally human, regardless of the technology used to share such correspondence.

It seems to me that professional journalism (especially for mass media) has been gradually edging away from first-person accounts over the last few decades. That's just my perception, I'll have to research it to see how well-grounded that perception is.

Anyway, it's nice to see citizen journalists stepping into this growing void of correspondence. And many of them, including Goodgame, are demonstrating considerable talent for this artful approach to the news.

Check out his lead:

"On the face of things, Westport would seem to have little in common with Pascagoula, Miss., the hurricane-wrecked coastal town that it just agreed to informally adopt and aid.

One is an enclave of prosperous professionals and business owners; the other a home to blue-collar workers in shipyards, seafood packers and an oil refinery, appended to the nation’s poorest state. Yet the two towns share some important traits. They’re about the same size, and are blessed with picturesque locations where a river meets a sound.

Both take great pride in their football teams and in public schools that rank among the best in their states. And both towns encourage a high level of citizen involvement: in charitable work through religious groups, the PTA, youth sports coaching, and so forth.

I am fortunate both to live in Westport and to have grown up in Pascagoula, from which I just returned after two weeks of hurricane cleanup work at my mother’s home and those of friends and relatives."

...That is a brilliant bit of setting context. Rather than launch straight into the facts of his immediate experience, he took a moment to connect the people in two very different parts of a very large country. In this case, that context needs to be in the lead, because it's what makes the rest of this eloquent story work so well.

Anyway, it's time for us to go. But I just wanted to point out this example. More later...

Comments

[Wes Thorp]

Amy--You're right about Goodgame's piece and I appreciate you pointing out the Westport effort. Is this the same Dan Goodgame who is a pretty well-known Time magazine reporter? That could explain why he did such a great job on a citizen reporting effort--Wes Thorp

[A. Adam Glenn]

Wes, that's a good catch. Actually Gordon told us over lunch that he'd ID'd Dan as such in an earlier posting on the site.

For the record, Dan Goodgame is a former Time magazine assistant managing editor who is now managing editor of Fortune Small Business magazine. He also spent years at the Miami Herald as a foreign correspondent and before that was at the Tampa Tribune. He's a former Rhodes Scholar to boot.

Now, the question is, in his capacity as a volunteer correspondent from the scene for Westportnow.com (that is, as a resident of that city, and a former resident of Pascagoula), was he practicing "citizen journalism"? Or is just a good old-fashioned professional journalist filing a freebie for a friend?

[Benjamin Smith]

A freebie for a friend? I think not. Goodgame was writing from the heart about a disaster, "citizen journlism." And I think the stroy is fine the way it is. The lead? It's perfect. I worked with Goodgame at The Daily Mississpian at Ole Miss and he was way ahead of everyone..from Day One in the journalism dept and at the newspaper. And he was the editor in no time. And the paper rocked with news and graphics. Back in the cool days, without the fluff.