Citizen journalism, old school

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A friend of Jay Gabler sent him a reminiscence about “old school” citizen journalism from the 1960s. Ed Johnson remembers a radio show – I remember weekly newspapers with the same kind of news, and “correspondents” from Mannanah and Forest City who probably got paid fifty cents a week for their reports. Here’s the radio story:

Our family always had the radio on and from noon to 12:30 on KAYL radio, Andy Statz would give us the news, weather, and sports. Then at 12:30, earnest volunteers from neighboring towns and villages would call in with news of the day. Of course these announcers were on their own in terms of writing the script and it was Lawrence Welk Wunnerful. Most of the news came from women chroniclers, who each would have something to say, no doubt about the weather, wedding anniversaries, a car accident, an influx of mosquitoes or something. Continue Reading

Crowdsourcing and the news

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Crowdsourcing the news – gathering information from anyone who chooses to contribute – has some obvious possibilities and problems, starting with:
Possibilities:

more information from more sources
empowering people to share their knowledge
opportunity for participation by people whose voices are excluded by traditional media
Problems:

misinformation, and lack of fact-checking
the usual suspects – well-funded propaganda machines – can grab a large part in process
people with grudges or political agendas can use platform for attack
Wikipedia, the prime example of crowdsourcing, recognizes these problems:
It is in the nature of an ever-changing work like Wikipedia that, while some articles are of the highest quality of scholarship, others are admittedly complete rubbish. We are fully aware of this. We work hard to keep the ratio of the greatest to the worst as high as possible, of course, and to find helpful ways to tell you in what state an article currently is. Even at its best, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, with all the limitations that entails. It is not a primary source. Continue Reading

Who writes for the Daily Planet?

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I just compiled a list of writers who contributed to the TC Daily Planet during the first part of 2010. From January 1 to March 22, some 27 writers contributed work that was published as TC Daily Planet original writing. Here are some facts about those writers: Eight are new to the Daily Planet this year; Nine are or have been professional journalists; Fourteen are male and 13 are female; Six are people of color – Asian, African, African American, Latin American. If you’d like to meet some of them, join them, or get more information about writing for the TC Daily Planet, you’re invited to our weekly writers’ groups. Attendance varies greatly, so I can’t tell you who or how many people to expect. Continue Reading

Teaching kids the wrong lesson

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This time it’s not a parent or a teacher, but the news media who are teaching kids the wrong lesson – about politics, about protest, and about civic participation. After a negative news report by KSTP 5 and an even more negative blog post by KARE 11’s Gordon Severson, Southside Family School started getting telephone and email threats. Why? Because 6th-8th grade students at the school participated in a protest against Governor Pawlenty’s proposed welfare cuts. Severson’s long blog post was titled “5-year-old pawns in the chess game of politics,”  said in part: 

The planning for all of this was nearly flawless, but among those chanting about budget cuts dealing death, were children that probably don’t understand what the word “welfare” means. Continue Reading

Blogging on the TC Daily Planet

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Every TC Daily Planet reader is a potential blogger. If you’re a registered member, you just need to sign in and click on “post a blog entry” in the blue welcome box or at Planet Café. (Not yet a registered member? Click here to start.)
What happens when you write a blog post? Because we moderate content, you won’t see it published right away. Continue Reading

Twin Cities Homeless Man Walking – and writing

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He calls himself “Twin Cities White Collar Homeless Man Walking,” and he describes himself as “a 54 [year-old] white collar professional with over 27 years of mkt. experience, but am now two plus years jobless, now homeless and living out of my car.” His blog is articulate and well-written – take a look at it here. Last week, he asked that his blog be featured as one of our featured blogs, and I had to say no. Understandably, he wants to remain anonymous. Continue Reading

New media follows history on the Hill

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I couldn’t get to the 5 a.m. news opportunity on Saturday, so I have no video of the busloads of Minnesotans embarking from El Colegio in South Minneapolis to take part in the March for America on Sunday, March 21. The march for comprehensive immigration reform came on the same day that the House of Representatives voted on health care reform, and the day after anti-war protests in Minneapolis and in DC marked the anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.Today’s new media made it virtually possible to be “there” at all of these events. Here’s an account of just a few ways that the news came in across my (computer) desk. Before the March for America began, I heard via text message that three busloads of Minnesotans had gone to Washington – one from Centro Campesino, one sponsored by SEIU, and one by the Minnesota Immigrant Freedom Network. Before the march had even ended, Patrick Ness had posted a photo of the crowds on Facebook (above.). Continue Reading

Now THAT’S citizen journalism!

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From covering the Academy Awards to suing for access to court records, TC Daily Planet citizen journalists are on the front lines. Citizen journalism is about covering news in our communities, but it’s also about offering people a space and assistance to report on what they find fascinating. That’s how writer Barb Teed and her photographer daughter Lindsey Teed got to the front row and red carpet at the Academy Awards Sunday night, and how their original reporting and up-close photos ended up on the front pages of the TC Daily Planet. Of course, we can’t afford to send writers to the Academy Awards (or to Sundance or SXSW), but we are happy to provide press credentials and a place to publish the reports they send back – especially when they find local angles, such as Bloomington’s Pete Docter, who sent a shout out to the City of Bloomington and Kennedy High School after collecting his Oscar. Sheila Regan’s tenacious pursuit of the story of two high school sweethearts pursued by federal authorities under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act led her to file a lawsuit to open court records, normally public, but sealed by the prosecutor in the case of  now-20-year-old Carrie Feldman, now serving an indefinite jail sentence for refusing to testify before a grand jury. Continue Reading

Blog around the world

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If you read the TC Daily Planet, you would probably like some of the blogs and bloggers that I met today at the USC Annenberg conference on Community Health and the Blogosphere. (I was invited because of my article, “Five tips for training citizen journalists,” published last year by the Knight Digital Media Center.) Among the interesting folks here were Mark Horvath, who went from TV production to blogging about homelessness, and Anh Do, vice president of Nguoi Viet Daily News, the largest Vietnamese-language newspaper in the United States, and a news entrepreneur with LA.Spot.Us. The evening continues, so I’ll just leave you with this list of blogs to check out:
Invisible People – video stories of the homeless, on camera in their own words
WitnessLA.com, a Los Angeles-based social justice news site
Just a Random Hero, the life and times of an undocumented college student/resident
  Continue Reading

My inbox

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Many news stories go untold every day, judging by the overload of news releases and notices that arrive in my inbox every day. I get at least a hundred real messages daily (in addition to almost as many spam messages that slide right on through the filters). As I scan these, I look for stories that we can assign to freelance writers, and wish for more community reporters to write about what is happening in their communities. Here’s what 24 hours looks like: Best of the day: Don Fraser weighs in with some interesting reading on five keys to urban school success, as well as a notice of an upcoming science-and-math-education event. The election season has started, so there’s lots of political mail: Sen. Tom Bakk announces a new endorsement in his gubernatorial bid. Continue Reading