CitJ: Is It Better to Start Small?

Yesterday I had an interesting conversation with a colleague about the apparent demise of Bayosphere, the ambitious Bay Area citizen journalism venture launched to great fanfare in May 2005.

I mentioned to my colleague that I think Bayosphere may have tried to start too big. It seems to me that citizen journalism generally has a better chance of thriving when it starts small -- either by focusing on specific neighborhoods or towns (not amorphous regions), or by choosing rather narrowly-defined topics, or by cultivating close relationships with a small core group of contributors.

It's more like growing a garden than building a factory...

My colleague, who lives in the Bay Area, observed that in that region there's virtually no awareness of the Bay Area as a community. People there, he said, tend to be more aware of and engaged with their towns or neighborhoods, not the "Bay Area."

Perhaps that might have been one factor undermining the Bayosphere project.

Anyway, this is just my current thinking on this issue. I could be wrong. I'll consider it further. For instance, I plan to look into the roots of one of the world's most successful citizen journalism venues, OhMyNews. I'm curious about its initial scope and focus.

In the meantime, what are your thoughts on this? Comment below.

Comments

[Michael]

Hi Amy,

When asked if he thought of himself as creative, Craig Newmark (of Craigslist.org) said:

"No, not really. I created the platform, and then I got out of the way. Sometimes the best thing you can do is get out of the way."

Reference:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/10/10/LVGU693SFD1.DTL

My guess is that a platform allowing people to create their own "community spaces" on-the-fly might have had more legs. People would likely use such a system in ways that the creators might never have dreamed, but in ways that are important to the users.

Just thinking at the keyboard :)

[Amy Gahran]

That's a good point, Michael. However, I still think in the specific case of citizen journalism, Dan Gillmor made a good point in his open letter: Citizen journalists need and deserve guidance and training from experienced journalists.

So while these venues probably can and will "create themselves" to a large extent, I do think the true citizen journalism component needs a bit of an extra push to work well.

- Amy Gahran
I, Reporter

[Paul Conley]

Hi Amy,
You raise an interesting question about the appropriate size for a citizen-journalism effort. Certainly baristanet (one of my favorites) took the micro-beat approach. And Lawrence, KS, where the best newspaper-based, conversational journalism takes place has the advantage of being in a small, connected community.
I'll look forward to reading what you find about the early days at ohmynews.
Also, you're absolutely right about the training of citizen journalists. Unlike commenting on someone else's blog, or even running a blog of one's own, the art and science of journalism isn't intuitive for most people. Reporting, interviewing, understanding story forms, etc. all must be taught to some degree before they can be practiced well.
Paul

[S-townMike]

My hyper-local blog focuses primarily on my urban neighborhood in the North End of Nashville, TN. I feel like I'm doing pretty well for being a hyper-local by averaging around 100 unique visitors a day. I've also networked with a number of folks on various issues for which the blog becomes a sounding board.

There is enough going on hyper-locally to write regularly if not daily, and the mainstream media has even picked up stories from the blog. But I also engage stories at the city, state, and national levels that might have an impact on many of the neighborhood interests. And information from other communities always gives me a launching pad into particular topics.

I believe that your assessment is right on, and that it is consistent with my own experience. I think that it is much more effective to start out from a particular "hyper-locale" and get broader than to start broad and hope for a wealth of particulars. Neighborhoods are well-defined, provide a previously untapped well of original stories, and give one a clear place to stand.