Grass Roots Journalism by Mid-Missourians

The citizen journalism route to readership Clyde H. Bentley, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Missouri School of Journalism

Short circuiting the “priesthood”Technologists empowered Heretics

Johannes Gutenberg

Martin Luther

Tim Berners-Lee

Oh Yeon-ho

13th-14th centuries 20th-21st

centuries

The “other” side of journalismInformation from non-professional communicators

Bulletin boards

Civic club presentations

“News” releases

Coffee klatches

Chat rooms

Gossip

Blogs

16 months with “citizens”

A participatory project under “The Missouri Method.”

Real-world challenges, real-world solutions

Empowered students who developed management skills

http://mymissourian.com launched Oct. 1, 2004

Inspired by others OhMyNews was well known to professors

and popular with our Korean students

Launch of Northwest Voice generated a faculty discussion.

Dean Mills recognized the potential and asked us to move quickly.

Proposed in late May 2004, launched

Oct. 1.

. “Can we proceed with all deliberate speed? I'm in no hurry. Next week would be soon enough”

“”Can we proceed with all deliberate speed? I'm in no hurry. Next week would be soon enough” - Dean Mills

“”Every citizen is a journalist” - Dean Mills - Oh Yeon-Ho

A challenge to tradition

Missouri is the home of traditional newspaper journalism education

Some faculty questioned the ability to maintain credibility

Could we teach a journalism where “we” were not in control?

So why do it?

To give voice to those traditionally excluded from the media

To allow non-journalists to help set the community agenda

To test our knowledge of audience values

To train students in a new form of journalism

Oh, I forgot . . .

First three quarters, 2005

And to make money …Newspaper Print and Online Revenues

0

5000000

10000000

15000000

20000000

25000000

30000000

35000000

40000000

1 2

First three quarters, 2005

$33,934,000

$1,373,000

Print Online

4.38%

Source: NAA Quarterly Newspaper Advertising Expenditures

Online alone is not enough

A hybrid strategy

Gather content via an online citizen journalism product

Use that content to fill a printed TMC product

Use revenue gains in TMC to underwrite the online product

Which led to one more BIG goal…

End Driveway Rot!

TMC = The Money Cow

Total Market Coverage products often produce a substantial portion of a newspaper’s budget.

At the Missourian, our TMC is budgeted at about 25% of our revenue but actually brings in 33%.

Depending how you count it…

It more than adds up

“Also, we will do about $230,000 with the Real Estate This Week magazine this year. That would not be possible if we did not have the Saturday TMC for distribution purposes.”

Dan PotterMissourian GM

“What’s deceptive is that much of the daily revenue comes from the TMC agreements in a forced buy, so even more of our revenue is the result of our TMCs.

Back to print

Print edition launched Oct. 1, 2006

Allows use of the efficient advertising pattern of print

Increases readership by 23,000 households

Reverses the print-to-Web paradigm

Compelling content is the key to readership

TMC’s are often filled with old, trivial or syndicated material

Lack of reader interest can cause “pickup failure”

Citizen-generated material is unduplicated, compelling and does not compete with our own daily product

Readers reach readers

“I have seen newspaper companies spend thousand of dollars annually to determine what readers expect. Few of their findings, however, are ever implemented.

“The greatest benefit of what we have done with MyMissourian is we have given newsroom leaders an inexpensive and effective way to give readers what they truly want.”

Hans K. Meyergraduate student

Citizen journalism succeeds where others have failed.

Is there a future for journalists?

YES -- both professional and citizen journalists

Blogs pose both a threat and an opportunity

The power relationship in information is being re-negotiated

Journalists provide continuity and quality control

Story tellers become story guides

New journalism skills “As more and more news

organizations adopt community/citizen/open-source journalism ventures, they'll need to learn how to run them.

“Covering stories and collecting, cultivating, sharing stories are very different things. Helping others to share their lives is still journalism, and it needs to be taught.”

Brian Hammangraduate student

Inviting the public to our table

Many editors are concerned about errors, credibility and libel

Some fear that citizen writing quality is low

How do we know if those untrained people are lying?

WILL WE LOSE CONTROL?

Mix logic with understanding

Most participants in citizen journalism have little reason to cheat or lie.

The “WBC” category is primarily the realm of blogs.

By and large, most Americans will conform to rules that are both simple and logical.

Focus on broad concerns; keep rules simple.

The arguments

“Decency” - How do we treat profanity and adult topics?

“Commercialism” - What about the promotion of a business, organization, religion, etc.?

“Literacy” - How much editing and rewriting should we do?

“Banalism” Is anything just too stupid to appear on the site? If so, how dumb is dumb?

Logical solutions

“Decency” No profanity, no nudity - use normal newspaper standards of propriety

“Commercialism” Don’t ban businesses that self-promote, but work with them to produce copy of general interest.

“Literacy” Keep editing to a minimum, focusing on readability rather than style. Avoid jargon and cultural slang that can be misinterpreted.

“Banalism” Journalists are poor judges of the banal. Rather than say anything is too low-brow, just find an appropriate category and let the public judge it.

And… Just Four Simple Rules

No profanity

No nudity

No personal attacks

No attacks on race, religion, national origin, gender or sexual orientation

The end of “NO” “I worked in newspapers for seven years,

and as an editor most of my dealings with the public were about telling people “no” due to limited space. NO, we can't cover your event.

NO, we can't run your youth baseball photo in the newspaper.

NO, your story idea isn't good enough for publication.

“The open source format takes a medium with limitless file space and allows us to finally say ”YES" to the public.”

Jeremy Littaugraduate student

Let them write

Any subject. Everything is interesting to someone

Enlist “senior” photogs

Hobbyists are often looking for a forum for their photos

Give them disposable cameras

Example:Camera passed around at a teen dance

Go for the “gut”

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Earth Day:Natural news

Annual festival celebrates environmental awareness

Provided wireless laptops so citizens could comment on the spot

Earth Day: Picture it Loaned digital

cameras to citizens to document the festival

Unexpected reader issues

Political issues are much less popular than we predicted.

Religion is far, far more popular than we predicted.

Pictures of dogs, cats and even rats trump most other copy.

Unexpected teaching issues

Traditional journalism students want to write, not “guide.”

Many were at a loss at how to cover “non news” topics like Little League.

Few students are well prepared to work with the public.

Into the future

More teasers in the morning newspaper

Increased connection with high school journalism classes

Addition of student and citizen blogs

Establish a “Websighted” photo program.

Class in “entrepreneurial journalism”