Mainstream Citizen Journalism
Blogger gal vs. Newspaper guy!
Well, not quite, but it makes a great lede, eh?
Sue, Lex and I met over lunch yesterday to discuss potential strategies for evolving the News & Record’s citizen journalism efforts. And no, we didn’t have a stare off.
Man… Lex is in a tough position; he’s completely open to forward-thinking ideas (I mean, his title is Citizen Journalism Coordinator), but he also seems to be up against a bottom line business that’s very adverse to risk. Apparently, changing the approach to meeting a historically profitable bottom line is a tough sell, even within an industry that’s on shaky ground.
It’s amazing how palpable sand can become to the heads of industry during innovative times.
That’s not to say that the N&R hasn’t been progressive with their citizen journalism efforts to date — they have — but Lex knows that in just a few years the N&R (both print and online) will have to directly compete with new forms of dynamic, community-based, participatory, online news applications (e.g. Newsvine), which will be free of legacy organizational overhead and be able to react with agility.
And you can’t forget those pesky bloggers.
The N&R needs to step up their game.
So we chatted. And ate. And chatted some more. And by the time our conversation came to a close, we had a number of interesting ideas on the table:
- Personal Relationships - Lex is looking to develop relationships with members of the Greensboro community, offering them the opportunity to use N&R resources (legal, photography, journalist feedback, etc.) to craft substantive citizen journalism. To me, this approach perfectly fits the future of print newspapers, as time-based news is dead on paper. They’ll have to compete as daily magazines (more depth, less coverage).
- Real-time Blogging Input - I suggested promoting a tagging schema that matched the classification structure of both the paper and the site:
For example, identify and promote a unique set of “greensboro[xxxx]” tags, for anyone to use on blog posts, flickr images, etc. when generating Greensboro specific news, events, opinions, etc.
Internally, the N&R editorial staff would then set up RSS aggregators with subscriptions of each tag search result.
The real-time input of potential stories and assets would increase exponentially, while the N&R would continue to have editorial control, as the aggregator would serve as the queue into the publishing process
- Representation Across The Community - Sue focused on the concept of encouraging participation along the lines of community diversity (her connections with Uplifter is right along the lines of my focus with The People, Yes!). We talked about ideas ranging from developing blogging 101 material to share with a non-computer literate demographic to grass roots representation within sub-communities (e.g. school board meetings) to encourage live-blogging with the unique tag identifiers
An interesting start, but there’s still one major component that we’re skirting: Revenue incentives.
Lex made it clear that creating a participatory revenue model doesn’t fall under his charge, but the N&R is open to ideas. My perspective is that without incentive, participation will be lighter, with less quality and dedication. Any revenue generated out of these relationships should be viewed as found money, so share and share alike:
- To tap into the wisdom of the blogosphere by republishing the original post or an edited version, a buisness needs to develop a revenue model that fairly represents such a relationship.
- To partner with individuals from the community to generate community-based journalism, a business needs to develop a revenue model to encourage such a partnership.
It comes down to this: Pony up or we, the citizens, will simply get together and form collaborative blogs, creating relevant identities, gain a better footprint in Google over a 3 month period of time and, eventually, sign up with BlogAds to support our own voice.
That’s not a threat. ;-) I’m looking forward to our next conversation, folks.
UPDATE: Six months after the fact, in the NORG session at ConvergeSouth, Ed Cone backs up my philosophy regarding partnering with local bloggers/writers in a revenue share program.
Tags: Adam Smith Problem, BlogAds, blogging, brand, business, capitalism, change, citizen media, collaboration, community, diversity, editorial, empowerment, experience design, fear, folksonomy, Greensboro, information architecture, innovation, journalism, Lex Alexander, media 2.0, news, News and Record, RSS, Sue Polinsky, tagging, The People Yes, Uplifter, World 2.0.
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Nice post, Sean, and some very relevant points. I agree that some sort of financial compensation is important, even just on principle, let alone from an incentive angle. When the N&R was first floating the idea around, it seemed as though they might have been angling for some free content, and attempting to take advantage of bloggers. I was encouraged to hear Lex say that they are considering paying their contributers from the blogosphere. After all, columnists get paid for their work, and in many cases the bloggers would be providing essentially the same function for the paper.
Some good deep thinking, as always, Sean.
A reminder, there already exist a revenue opportunity for Greensboro bloggers. Learn more and sign up here.
very close to solicitation there, roch ;-)
@potatostew - we’re quickly reach a tipping point of participatory culture (especially online) and as these service are birthed and evolve, investors will want a greater piece of the action. i mean, the current cost of gaining the intelligence, wisdom and creativity of the crowd, post implementation, is close to nothing, and it will remain so as long as the individuals in the crowd are amped about the experience the service provides.
big business minds will take advantage of individual’s passion for creation, so we *must* ensure that revenue models change as drastically as the experiences themselves. if the experiences become social, then the revenue must as well. otherwise, no one is empowered, we begin to feel used and manipulated and the money lines continue on in perpetuity.
i’m not calling for a bus strike; i’m calling for entrepreneurs and businesses to think along the lines of mike davidson, owner and ceo of newsvine:
Close? I thought it was blatant.
You are articulating a need for something that exists right here in Greensboro.
Altmedia101:
- pays 50% of ad revenue to participating bloggers.
- That 50% is apportioned among participating bloggers based on the share of ad views they generate (the more you are read, the more you get paid).
- 20% commission is paid to bloggers who refer a paid advertiser.
- We pay monthly.
Furthrmore, bloggers’ revenue opportunitites are not tied to a single site. Greensboro101 exists to help bring readers to bloggers, but your revenue isn’t dependent on publishing to Greensboro101 — you do your own thing, on your own platform. Unlike Newsvine, you can earn money by bringing readers to your blog from whatever means possible. You don’t have to publish your content to our site to participate.
actually, this one was blatant. you’re banned!!! haha. thanks for the details, roch. if i ever muck up my site with ads, you’ll be the guy i turn to… that was a compliment, btw.
Roch’s pitch notwithstanding (or that picture!), revenue incentives became the elephant in the room (or the bar) that we didn’t look at or address. Lex is right; it’s not his to promise, but it’s also the jumping off point we had in GSO before you moved back here. The question of paying bloggers for their stories created a huge comment thread on more than one blog.
This effort moves us one step beyond getting stories from bloggers. It makes citizens into professional journalists without portfolio. There’s a line between cooperation and indentured servitude (no, Lex, I’m not accusing, I’m speaking metaphorically) and the effort to use the talents and time of citizens for free may be a flawed model.
OTOH, it’s a resume builder for young ‘uns, it’s cool to see your name in print, it’d be fascinating to read a whistleblower’s account with N&R support, and it’s a good way to attract a diverse crowd into a too-white industry (the N&R points its own finger; I’m just reiterating).
One of the problems of Sean’s mind is that it leaps many steps ahead to find the simplest solution. He’s macro; I tend to get micro real fast. After our two and a half hour meeting and then lunch, I am beginning to realize that tags are the answer to a lot of challenges Web-wise, and now that I know CSS enough, I’m going to learn tags. There are things I don’t know and want to. Web 2.0 may be citizen-driven, but knowledge is going to be tag driven, methinks.
I think step 1 might be for the N&R to decide if and what a salary scale should be for this effort. If the answer is “none,” then at least that’s decided and things will go where they will go. If the answer is >0, then we’ll learn one aspect of the value of the effort. There are multiple values to this program; price is merely one, albeit an important one.
Numbers sometimes talk, however micro they may be.
sue, did you just point out *one* of my mind’s problem*s*?
hahaha..