Open CitJ Sites: Why not require transparency?

Wherever there's an open forum where people can post citizen journalism or other kinds of stories or announcements, you'll find plenty of promotion and agendas. This is inevitable, and it's not necessarily a bad thing, I think -- as long as there's transparency.

And that's the problem...  Too many open citJ sites (especially those sponsored by news organizations) don't require or even facilitate transparency. That is, they generally don't require the people who post content to clarify how they're related to or involved in the story. This makes it difficult for the audience to put citJ and other contributed content into perspective.

Fortunately, I think this problem could be fairly easy to address...

Here are my ideas:

• Have separate categories for "news" and "announcements." I mean, it seems odd to list announcements of flu shot availability, or compost bin availability, or a gallery show opening as "news." The first step in posting content to the venue would be to select a story type. That would then call an appropriate form for the next step in the process.

• Require a bio for each news story author. The first time someone tries to post a news story, you can require her to fill out a brief bio form.  This form would ask things like what her job is (such as "public relations"), who she's employed by, which organizations or efforts she volunteers for (including school boards, political campaigns, etc.), where she resides (city and state only should suffice), and in which local issues she's actively involved. Then, when she posts content to the site, her byline hyperlinks to her bio (as well as a list of her past articles contributed, if possible).

• Add a required "full disclosure" field to the news story posting form. For each contributed news story (less important for announcements), authors must offer some information about whether/how they're involved in that particular story. For instance: "county commissioner," "parent of two Smith School students," "local coordinator for Clean Water Action," "home healthcare nurse with many elderly patients in East Austin," or "Whittier neighborhood resident." Publish this information at the end of each news story.

• Enable comments for news stories. These can be moderated, of course. However, comments allow the community to self-police transparency, as well as discuss issues and raise questions. For instance, say Jane Jones posts a news story criticizing neighborhood resistance to a development project. In the full disclosure field for that story, she writes only "Boulder resident." Someone reading that story who is familiar with the issues and players might comment: "Jane Jones is also the developer's lead attorney, and so has a direct interest in ensuring that this development project moves forward." The news organization has a variety of options on how to handle such disputes, including doing nothing. However, allowing comments is an easy way to not only encourage self-policing among the venue's readers and contributors, but also to discourage dishonesty.

None of this is a perfect solution to the transparency dilemma, of course -- but I think it's much better than ignoring the issue. The point of transparency is not to judge or exclude, but to make context clear. Without clear context, the value of any news story is diminished.

Comments

[Jeff Hess]

Shalom Amy,

I agree. Everyone has a Point Of View and that’s fine as long as we do our best to be transparent about that POV. At The Writing On The Wal, I, and the other organizers continue to wrestle with how best to do that.

For instance, I’ve collected bios from all the writers, but have not yet gotten the computer code written that will allow all readers to associate those bios with each post.

I also like your idea of separating news from announcements. It’s not as easy a task to do so as some might think -- as in all things, there’s plenty of gray involved -- but it’s worthy of the time and energy necessary to make the attempt.

On the idea of full disclosure, why not publish caveats at the top of the story? Shouldn’t the reader know the bias of the writer before they read?

Comments, unfiltered by an editor, are changing the way all journalists work. When a story can be fisked and eviscerated in a matter of minutes after posting, you have to think differently about the way you work.

In many ways we’re all moving into glass houses.

B’shalom,

Jeff Hess