“Who Will Tell Us?” Not the Columbia Journalism Review.
May 17th, 2008 | by Brad King |
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It’s a lovely Saturday afternoon, the perfect type of day for browsing my RSS feeds.
That joy was short-lived, though, as I started reading Who Will Tell Us, an op-ed piece in the Columbia Journalism Review decrying the state of traditional journalism. Ironically, the very editorial itself is the answer to the question posed by the author (which as journalists we know is a weak way to get a point across, but we’ll leave that for another time, won’t we?)
Now I received my Masters from the University of California Graduate School of Journalism so I may have an inherent bias towards the East Coast; however, it was really hard for me to choke down this line:
Is the HuffPost, or most any other new-media operation, ready to produce the kinds of stories that dominated the Pulitzers this year—painstaking investigations done in the public interest, not in service of a partisan agenda or a need to “be in the conversation”?
The news industry must be in dire shape because even the CJR, a publication from a top-four graduate school, is unable to see exactly how technology and news fit together. The author’s definition of new media is the Huffington Post, which is simply a new news organization, instead of an operation that is using software tools to enhance what we do.
The simple fact is this: with two interns, a good programmer and a strong beat writer, I’d bet I could produce Pulitzer Prize winning journalism that would far exceed what we do today.
Anyone with any sense could. Here’s how:
Let’s just choose politics for what it’s worth since Hillary is speaking four blocks from my house later today.
If you have a solid reporter, we could lay out all of the information we would want to gather on people — particularly that information that is publicly available.
Then you set those interns out to gather everything with the watchful eye of a manager (me in this scenario), while working with the programmer to create the right kind of databases and using the APIs from the technologies we need.
Then, as I’ve laid out in Newspaper 2.0, it’s simply a matter of making sure those databases are filled properly, while also engaging with the community at large to gather citizen work (as described by the Citizen Logistics post).
Meanwhile, the reporter keeps doing what he’s doing (he for the sake of brevity) and the interns continue to collect information and the programmer continues to build the tools to make our information available to everyone.
If you don’t believe systemic stories could be build from here — the types of stories that win Pulitzer Prizes — you’re bonkers. In fact, I would argue that we’d have much more in-depth and insightful stories because it would remove the human factor from the beginning — I have a hunch this is a story so let’s investigate.
WIth data at hand, reporters can quickly ascertain whether a systemic patter exists — and by opening up the information and data to the community, while also managing the types of information you get, you will give your reporter MORE data than he (for the sake of brevity) could ever collect on his own.
Of course, none of that will happen as long as we decry the decline of the reporter position while doing nothing to stave it off. I mean, it’s probably better to just write editorials about how bad this technology is.
10 Responses to ““Who Will Tell Us?” Not the Columbia Journalism Review.”
By dwillis on May 20, 2008 | Reply
The trouble with your example is that you neglected to mention one tiny thing: the actual story that would yield a Pulitzer Prize. You can talk about building APIs all you want, but you gotta find the story, too. Your formula for success reads a little like this:
1. Gather data
2. Truth magically reveals itself
3. Pulitzer!
Look, I’m about as much of a technology guy as you’ll find in a newsroom, but if you think that you can “far exceed” the work of, for example, the Washington Post on Walter Reed with two interns, a programmer and a single beat reporter, you’re fooling yourself.
Yes, there are many available datasets that deserve scrutiny and could yield excellent, even prize-worthy, stories. But some stories have no data (or little data) associated with them, or the data is unavailable to journalists.
I’ve worked at an organization that employed your description of the ideal team (the Center for Public Integrity), and we did quite a few excellent stories. But I wouldn’t say that our work “far exceeded” the best investigative projects of the day. Is it possible? Sure. But show me, don’t tell me.
And removing the human factor? I’m sorry, but some - many - excellent stories only exist because of the human factor (somebody hears a tip, somebody with experience and knowledge knows how to put the dots together, somebody has a good lawyer to press public records requests).
You want to make your point? Don’t talk about how easily you could do it. Just do it. I’ll be happy to pay off on your bet if you do.
Derek Willis
By Brad King on May 21, 2008 | Reply
Hey Derek:
Thanks for the comment. My response about the Pulitzer isn’t that anyone can win one or that it’s easy to win one — it was in response to the comment in the original story which said (and I have to paraphrase because the site is down right now) that new media folks wouldn’t win a Pulitzer because “real” reporting would always trump.
Here’s my point: two good interns and a programmer can create a database of information that shows long-term, systemic patterns that a person wouldn’t see — or know. Your assumption in the response is that I think that’s the ONLY kind of story. That’s a flaw in the major premise.
My assertion, based upon the argument from Columbia, is that there are stories newspapers are not telling because when you rely on the “human factor”, you will never see the entire picture because we can’t.
Your other assumption — that I need to show you — assumes that there are news organizations using these tools. If that was the case, my book and my blog would be worthless.
But if you’d like to see databases that I think far outshine anything that a news organization is doing, you can check these out. Imagine if just for a week some intrepid newspaper decided had companion data locally that could yield stories:
Find any child sex offender anywhere in the nation: http://www.familywatchdog.us/
Find the financial information of politics in state, local and county levels: http://www.followthemoney.org/
My favorite is Thomas, which to be truly effective would need a local paper to have a database of what city and county government is doing: http://www.thomas.gov/
With the last two databases, for instance, you could create an interactive map of legislation proposed/passed on a national and local level, along with an overlay of the money from campaign funding.
Then imagine looking for a pattern from a site like: http://www.journalismnet.com/people/uscrime.htm which tracks criminal statistics, along with a local database built.
This is the type of story that a “human” subject can’t possibly give you because nobody has a list of donors, a list of crime statistics and list of legislation in their head.
Do you need human sources? Absolutely. If you thought I was arguing otherwise, I apologize for not being clear. I’ve been a reporter since 1994 and I’ve yet to write a story without talking to people.
However, I know I’ve missed more systemic stories than I’ve ever told because there’s no way to “see” that story without the aid of computers to crunch and display lots of unrelated information.
By dwillis on May 21, 2008 | Reply
Ah, that’s a bit clearer. But I strongly disagree with the idea that no news organizations are using databases for reporting. This is, quite simply, false. The paper I left recently, the Washington Post, has used databases over and over again for stories. The paper I joined, the NY Times, has 8 database editors dedicated to building these resources and using them to find stories. Indeed, database reporting has existed for awhile (I maintain a non-exhaustive database of CAR stories).
Not saying that your efforts aren’t worthwhile, but there are news organizations who have been using databases for years. Should we be doing more? Sure. But I hope you can see how saying that you and a couple of interns plus a programmer can do better than people who have already done great database work for newspapers is could be perceived in a bad light.
By dwillis on May 21, 2008 | Reply
I should add that many newsrooms use these databases but don’t publish them. But that’s changing. Here are a few examples:
* Congressional Votes Database, Washington Post
* Hillary Clinton White House Schedules, NY Times
* Fixing DC Schools, Washington Post
And many more. As far as campaign finance data is concerned, newspapers have been using that data longer than the NIMSP has existed. A little perspective is in order before you claim that no news organizations use these tools.
By Brad King on May 21, 2008 | Reply
Hey Derek:
My point isn’t that no news organization is using them. I have been a reporter since 1994. I’m aware of that. My point is that news organizations aren’t:
building local databases with this type of information and making it available — and encouraging its use — to the general public in a way that changes how we do reporting.
Taking a few interns and a programmer to build these databases is all that it takes (we used to call them news aides, not sure what they call them anymore).
When you say perspective, I agree that my initial point may not have been entirely clear. But having worked in this field — and worked with technology for going on a decade in this field — I would argue that reporters and editors should gain some understanding of how these can be used to both enhance reporting and engage the community.
If that wasn’t an issue, newspapers wouldn’t be struggling — and online news operations wouldn’t be treated as second-class citizens within the newsroom.
As for CAR (which I took for years), my point is that there shouldn’t be a department for that. It should be a part of every story. Not its own entity.
But I appreciate the conversation and hope that it continues. I enjoy speaking with smart people who have good ideas.
By dwillis on May 21, 2008 | Reply
No disagreement on your goals, Brad. Just your method of describing them.
If your point wasn’t that no news organizations use these tools, why did you write this: “Your other assumption — that I need to show you — assumes that there are news organizations using these tools. If that was the case, my book and my blog would be worthless.”
The way I read that, my assumption that news organizations do use those tools is not the case. Just some hyperbole to make a point? It’s not clear.
Your initial post didn’t mention CAR at all, or the fact that database editors who could help with your ideas might exist. That would have been helpful, because otherwise it looks like you’re dismissive of what they do (with the “far exceeded” stuff) or just plain ignorant of it.
The way to eliminate the “second-class citizen” status, which certainly exists, isn’t to denigrate the work of your colleagues, however unintentional. Because that’s how I read your post. The fact that you didn’t cite a single instance of a newspaper-built local database published online, when there are many, undercuts your post, imho.
By Brad King on May 21, 2008 | Reply
The local databases that are shared and contributed by the community — I know of none, but if you know of some at major (or small newspapers) that include that community aspect, I would honestly love to know about them.
As for my tone — that’s just me. I would ask that you read the initial post from Columbia that states that this type of technology isn’t worth much.
My tone is a response to that.
It’s also my tone in general. I blame my parents.
By dwillis on May 21, 2008 | Reply
I’m no CJR fanboy myself, but I don’t see them saying that the technology itself isn’t worth much. I read that as saying that technology alone won’t entirely replace the act of reporting stories, particularly those that do not exist in a database. I’m not sure how you could disagree with, say, the example of the Walter Reed story, which was expensive to do and required a lot of staff time and effort. Technology helped with that story - I had an extremely small role in setting up a wiki to help the reporters - but technology alone could not replace what they did.
As for local databases, I’m not sure that the ones you cited previously, like the National Institute, have a community contribution component, either. Again, it wasn’t clear to me from your posts that it was the community participation (ability to edit? ability to suggest?) that was the key element in your reasoning. I thought it was the database. Or maybe the interns. Or just Web 2.0 something.
So I can give you plenty of examples of local databases that are shared by newspapers, but yeah, community-edited ones are pretty rare. Because they involve additional staff time which, to borrow CJR’s line, costs money.
By Brad King on May 21, 2008 | Reply
No, those aren’t. You are correct. We are actually building a prototype one here incorporating national databases — and using one programmer and some interns to create something local.
I don’t mean to keep this short (I am heading to lunch) but
1) I appreciate your comments
2) I hope I can use this exchange in the book I’m writing. It is good — and I love feedback from people who challenge me. I would love to learn more
3) I will post more on this later.
It has been — and I hope it continues to be — fun.
I am enjoying this thoroughly.