When the Crowd Doesn’t See the Value:

Crowdsourcing, Citizen Journalism, and the Cultural

Production of Local Online News

Two Case Studies out of Minnesota Twin Cities Daily Planet (in Minneapolis-St. Paul,

MN -- combined population of about 3.5 million) Locally Grown Northfield (in Northfield, MN --

population of about 17,000) Both working with different models of citizen

journalism combined with professional journalism Looking at questions of cultural production and

value (cultural, financial)

What is Twin Cities Daily Planet?

Publication established to give voice to those who might not have any exposure in MSM

Citizen-generated blogs Community and ethnic

member media’s stories Training for would-be

citizen journalists who do write for TC Daily Planet and elsewhere

Research Questions Related to Citizen Journalism and Value

First, how does the crowd or participant feel about the value of its contribution to a news site?

And second, how does the journalist or editor feel about the value of its contribution to a news site?

TC Daily Planet

Founded in 2006 Founded by TC Media Alliance Supported by grants and reader donations Overseen by fulltime editor Executive director/publisher A couple of fulltime editors, interns

Citizen journalism as somewhat professionalized News and feature stories are largely by reporters and

bloggers from member sites, or Citizens trained to be journalists working for TC Daily Planet Training through workshops open to the community members Do open it to comments - do not use crowdsourcing

(buzzword to be defined later) Reporters organizations see this as win-win: Daily Planet gets

important stories and content, other publications, reporters, organization get exposure

From citizen journalist whose story was published… “I was so excited to learn my story had been

published in Twin Cities Daily Planet. It was great exposure for me since I’m just starting out as a journalist and am in college planning to major in journalism. It was also great that the story could be seen by a wider audience than Engage Minnesota (the publication where it originated) has.”

What is Locally Grown Northfield?

Blog/podcast about Northfield, Minnesota, established in 2004 by community activist/former online community manager for Utne Reader

Combination of soft news (blog style writing), discussion, opinion, video clips of events

The blog grew out of a community radio show with the three of them discussing issues related to Northfield

The other two are the executive director of the Northfield Downtown Development Corporation and a local business owner

Blog started soliciting advertising in January 2009 but largely does not pay at all

Examples of a Locally Grown Blog Post What happened to SNL at Northfield Middle S

chool? Council Approves Walinksi

as City Administrator Snowpiles on Division Street Downtown Regular community of followers, many of

whom also listen to radio show and comment or contribute on the blog

What is Representative Journalism, or RepJ?

Idea from a blog written by a professor at Kennisaw State (and former employee of MN Public Radio), Len Witt

What if blogs could hire and support their own reporters to do actual reporting and newsgathering for them?

Received a $50K grant from the Harnisch Foundation, a small family foundation

How was the first RepJ set up to work?

A blogging community -- in this case LoGrowNo -- would be given a fulltime reporter

Salary paid by grant May questions: Who

should this person be?Local who already knows

Northfield?Outsider who can maintain

more of an objective stance?

Examples of RepJ reporting

Business survey reveals some needs met, others not Will be accompanied by live chat with some of the

people involved Community radio station will have Bonnie on

Saturdays -- starting with this story -- to discuss the story

She writes about it on her blog Community comments and helps with stories-in-

progress

More examples

Story in progress: Intern piece

NTV package: a more indepth story in progress

Uses the comments to follow and improve upon stories in a transparent reporting process (she notes if it is a story in progress)

Here’s the buzzword again = Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing

Facet of citizen journalism -- the act of a citizen, or group of citizens, playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information (Bowman & Willis, 2003)

The act taking on a job that is traditionally done by a professional and outsourcing it to a large group of undefined persons (Howe, 2006)

“Assignment Zero,” which used Internet users from various walks of life to work as reporters on a collaborative news project (Rosen, 2007)

The Pros and Cons

PROS The greater good and

wisdom of the crowd prevails

People can fact-check one another

Allows audience to invest in product and therefore, the product is more valuable to them

(Gillmor, 2006)

CONS Expertise, thorough

reporting, storytelling and ethical grounding is lost

A thousand monkeys with typewriters is still a thousand monkeys with typewriters (no such thing as wisdom of the crowd)

Crowd has agendas

(Keen, 2007)

How is this working with RepJ and Locally Grown Northfield? Audience actively participates,

Bonnie values contributions Audience sometimes argues

with one another and Bonnie over stories

Thorough coverage of issues and pieces not covered by local paper

Bloggers appreciate added benefit of a reporter to enhance their site (did serve as a value-add for advertisers)

Audience as Cultural Producer

Bourdieu: Cultural production - allows a person to act within a hierarchy to produce something of cultural value, elevates them

Could this translate to value within sites that use citizen journalism?

Town Hall Meeting for RepJ, Feb. 2009, in Northfield Many regular commenter/contributors were in attendance,

also ME of Northfield News, Len Witt, Bonnie the reporter By and large, feeling was their own contribution to Locally

Grown Northfield was worthless Would not pay for something citizen generated, did not see

the worth of that Would consider paying for a professional to do

newsgathering, depending on “format” (Potential models: Co-op, community garden, public radio), but would not pay for a blog

Comments

“I don’t think you should hire a whole bunch of bloggers who are just following the (whims) of the readers of Locally Grown and the people who are always commenting on the stories. It’s better to have Bonnie, or some other reporter who really knows the whole community and the important stories.”

Comments

“I definitely don’t see the collaborative reporting as important here. It’s great that we have Bonnie, who is a trained journalist who has worked in journalism as the person who we can count on to make sense of all of this.”

Cultural production/Value

In general, the feeling of everyone there seemed to be that the collaborative aspect of the reporting and ability to comment or make suggestions was dismissed.

However, people also were hesitant to discuss whether they would pay to have a fulltime reporter working for the blog

The Immediate Future

Both publications continue to maintain crucial community partnerships

Both utilize digital media technologies to tell stories (Twitter, video, podcast, etc.)

Both publications seek to remain funded Both publications seek to remain relevant to their

communities - TCDP will keep same model, Locally Grown will begin to use Spot.us tools and has offered freelancers positions

With regard to cultural production… The way the citizen journalism is practiced has

implications for the cultural production value of its users

Editors of both sites strongly value contribution of audience/citizens

Citizens themselves do not always see it, and editors also value traditional news values, adding another dimension of how not to pay for at least some aspects of journalism

Can cultural production translate into financial value in local online news?

Can crowdsourcing translate into crowdfunding?

Too soon to say with regard to two case studies here

Must pay attention to the correlation between cultural production and cultural value

Thank you

stern180@umn.edu