Oh Look, Citizen Journalists Can Do Real Investigative Reporting

from the i-thought-that-was-impossible? dept

The newspaper people will tell you that if they are obliterated by the evil internets one of the big loses will be investigative journalism. If it hadn’t been for those gritty investigative journalists the newspaper hires there’d be no Watergate, no Whitewater Gate, no ‘Gates of any kind.

Of course, that’s just plain silly. Newspapers didn’t invent investigative journalism any more than they invented news or reporting news.

In fact, in this digital age where anyone willing to do the work can spill the beans to a massive audience, there is more reason than ever for independent investigators to step up to the plate. The folks at QuarryGirl, a blog dedicated to animal rights, have done just that.

Having been given a great deal of anecdotal proof that some food at Vegan restaurants around LA contained animal by-products, they decided to see if they could prove it. One might assume, as a bunch of bloggers with, potentially, no J-school experience whatsoever, they might make a hash of things. Instead, they made a plan:

Here's an outline of the plan:

• Locate a facility that has no traces of egg, casein or shellfish in which to perform the advanced tests
• Purchase anti-contamination equipment including industrial sterilization supplies, lab coats, uncontaminated bags, swabs, razor blades, gloves and floor coverings
• Obtain highly restricted industrial food testing "kits" only available to the food manufacturing industry
• Develop a regimented process to test each food item with the highest standards of inter-test cleanliness, ensuring that absolutely no food particles from one food item contaminate another
• Select a diverse set of menu items from 100% vegan-only restaurants throughout LA (with one exception, see later)
• Order the food for carry-out, and seal it in an airtight bag in its original packaging either inside, or very close to the point of purchase
• Transport the food items to the testing facility intact and sealed, and perform the tests within 48 hours of purchase, keeping them refrigerated until immediately before the test
• Develop a strict bracketing control, with a thorough analysis of the testing facility and equipment before testing: A negative control to ensure no pre-existing contamination, and a positive control test on a known-positive food product (containing all three target non-vegan items) to ensure that the tests do indicate positive results
• Conduct the test in absolute secrecy to ensure that no restaurant would know they were providing samples, and pose as regular customers ordering take-out food in a normal way, with no disclosure that the items would be used for a test.

So, we divided up the work between us, and dedicated a Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday as well as over $1,000 of our collective money to pulling off the most extensive scientific test that we know of to find out, once and for all, if samples of restaurant food are vegan or not.

Not sure about you, but that sounds like a pretty sound plan. Find out what happened here.

This is just one example of how the inevitable death of newspapers will simply not be the information apocalypse they’d like you to think it will be.

Filed Under: citizen journalists, investigative reporting, reporting, vegans

Tehran Bureau Shows That If There's A Need, Reporting Will Get Done

from the it-happens dept

The rallying cry of newspaper old timers who insist that "reporting" will die off if newspapers go away, but that ignores the fact that, if there's a true need, reporting will find a way. Andy Roon points us to a story about The Tehran Bureau, a news publication about events in Iran... that is published out of a small house in suburban Massachusetts. It's a mostly volunteer effort, to be sure, but it has tremendously accurate and detailed info about what's going on in Iran from people who care about these things -- and the information is being quoted and referred to by major media organizations who don't actually have Tehran bureaus themselves. I'm not saying (even though some will falsely claim this) that this volunteer model is "the model" for news. I'm just pointing out -- once again -- that if there's a real need for reporting on a certain topic, it's amazing that motivated people will find a way to make it happen.

Filed Under: demand, journalism, reporting, tehran
Companies: tehran bureau

Wait, Wasn't The Internet Killing Journalism?

from the apparently-not... dept

Yet another data point to suggest the predicted "death of journalism" that we keep hearing from the old school newspaper guys is a bit overblown, online news publisher Talking Points Memo has just announced that it's hiring seven new editorial staff. No, of course that doesn't replace all of the jobs lost at newspapers, but it does suggest that online news organizations are figuring out ways to make money and to grow.

Filed Under: jobs, journalism, reporting
Companies: talking points memo

News? Or A Violation Of Privacy?

from the questions-all-around dept

Two separate stories crossed my desk recently, that both raise some interesting questions in today's internet age. The first was concerned about whether or not a newspaper in South Carolina violated any laws in publishing emails between South Carolina governor Mark Sanford and his supposed mistress in Argentina. The second story involves blog network Gawker which apparently published the private profile of an 11-year-old boy who supposedly was "snubbed" by actress Megan Fox, when trying to deliver a flower to her.

Both raise a lot of questions about definitions of "privacy" when it comes to today's socially networked and internet-connected world. It seems like there are numerous questions (and different jurisdictions and laws) that come into play in determining what is or is not a legal violation of privacy -- but if you're a lawyer who practices in this area, I would imagine that the next few years are going to be very busy ones. I'm not about to make a judgment call on either one at this point, but it would be fascinating for lawyers (and others) to chime in both on what they think from a legal standpoint and what they think from a "reasonable" standpoint.

Filed Under: journalism, mark sanford, megan fox, privacy, reporting

French Court Orders P2P News Site To Report On File Sharing Convictions

from the freedom-of-the-press? dept

Here's an odd one. Apparently a French news site that focuses on file sharing/BitTorrent/P2P news has been ordered by a court to report on the convictions of file sharers in France. It's not entirely clear under what laws, but perhaps it's a "fairness doctrine" type of thing. Apparently, the big entertainment companies took the site to court over its failure to report on the convictions. The site is more well known for pushing back against things like three strikes laws or the typical propaganda from the industry -- so the industry pushed it to also publish news of the convictions. What's weird is that these "conviction reports" include lots of personal information on those who were convicted, including names, addresses, and birth dates. I'm somewhat surprised the site didn't try to put these convictions into a bit more "context" to show how silly or unreasonable they might be -- but perhaps the court order forbids that.

Filed Under: convictions, file sharing, france, reporting

The Problem With Newspapers: Lack Of Innovation, Lack Of Engagement... And Lack Of Reporting

from the it-doesn't-look-pretty dept

And here we go again, with yet another post about the troubled business of the newspapers, but this time I've got three separate articles that, combined, give a pretty good explanation for why the newspaper business has been in trouble. Basically, the newspapers failed to innovate, they failed to engage with their communities -- and worst of all, they failed to actually do much reporting.

First up is Frank Rich's column on how the American mainstream press is on "suicide watch." He does a decent job describing the problem, in discussing the industry's fear (or outright disgust) towards any sort of innovation, while others did the innovating for them. He compares how the newspapers have acted to how the movie studios acted when TV first became popular.

But... then, he falls into the same old fallacy. Assuming that those who are talking about new models mean "citizen journalists" with no business model:

Reporting the news can be expensive. Some of it -- monitoring the local school board, say -- can and is being done by voluntary "citizen journalists" with time on their hands, integrity and a Web site. But we can't have serious opinions about America's role in combating the Taliban in Pakistan unless brave and knowledgeable correspondents (with security to protect them) tell us in real time what is actually going on there. We can't know what is happening behind closed doors at corrupt, hard-to-penetrate institutions in Washington or Wall Street unless teams of reporters armed with the appropriate technical expertise and assiduously developed contacts are digging night and day. Those reporters have to eat and pay rent, whether they work for print, a TV network, a Web operation or some new bottom-up news organism we can't yet imagine.

Indeed. But no one has ever said otherwise. No one has said that "unpaid" reporters will replace all of the paid ones. We're just saying that the paid reporters may end up doing their jobs in a different way and getting paid via other business models. And, Rich also seems to be underestimating the ability of the people who are already in those places to be a part of the journalism process -- not necessarily the core component of it, but certainly a part of it.

The second article worth reading is Robert Niles discussion of how the ruling in the 1995 lawsuit Stratton Okamont v. Prodigy scared newspapers away from engaging in online conversations. The ruling effectively found Prodigy liable for anonymous comments on its message board because it had hired a moderator for those boards. While the passage of the CDA the following year -- and specifically section 230 of the CDA granting safe harbors -- effectively erased that decision, "risk averse" newspaper feared to actually engage with readers in comments or forums for fear that it would suddenly make them liable for the content written by the community. Thus, they ignored their own communities and did little to really interact with them.

The final piece may be the most interesting. Walter Pincus talks about how so many newspaper reporters have stopped reporting and really started repeating the messages being handed to them. For all the talk of "investigative reporting," there's very little of that being done. Most reporting isn't reporting. It's not digging up the details and presenting an informed piece that gets at the facts. It's simply parroting what someone told them, and then perhaps presenting an alternate point of view (what Jay Rosen has referred to as "he said, she said" journalism) without any effort whatsoever to actually determine who's right. It's as if journalists have figured that "balanced" reporting is to present two sides to any story, and then leave it up to you to do the actual work. Pincus seems to be one of the first we've seen in this ongoing debate to make the point that we've been focusing on for a while: the newspapers aren't adding value.

Pincus also highlights another point that we've mentioned, but which is almost always ignored in these discussions: the big newspapers put themselves into massive debt over the past two decades. Many are still profitable, but not profitable enough to service the debt. And when they top that off by not innovating, not engaging with their community (which is their most valuable asset) and not actually doing real reporting, but just acting as stenographers, is it really any surprise the business is struggling?

Filed Under: engagement, innovation, journalism, reporting

Newspaper Stands Up For Its Right To Report Sporting Events Without Restrictions

from the good-going dept

Last year, we were dismayed that newspapers seemed to be willing to agree to certain rules placed on how they could report on sporting events, as per the National Football League and Major League Baseball. In both cases, these involved significant restrictions on what and how they could report. At the time, we suggested that newspapers stop accepting the restrictions, even if it meant they were no longer granted a press pass -- but every newspaper we know of gave in. Covering baseball and football was just too important -- even though these newspapers could easily still report on games without the benefit of a press pass. You don't need a press pass to report on an event.

That said, while it's on a much smaller scale, it's nice to see the Redding Record Searchlight stop covering the local rodeo over this same issue (found via Romenesko). The rodeo decided that it would only give press passes to those who were "willing to work with us," which meant covering things in a way that was favorable to the rodeo. Good for the Redding Record Searchlight. Hopefully some other newspapers will get up enough courage to tell other (bigger) sports what they can do with their restrictions as well.

Filed Under: journalism, redding, reporting, restrictions, rodeo, sports

How To Create A Moral Panic: Ask A Question, Get Opinions, But Ignore Facts

from the neat-tricks-for-journalists dept

Well, here's a fun one. Despite study after study after study after study after study, all showing that various text messaging and "txt speak" hasn't harmed kids reading or writing skills in the slightest (and, in fact, kids today read and write significantly more than in the past), how would you go about creating a moral panic around the idea that the internet is harming kids language skills?

It's easy.

1. Ignore all the evidence.
2. Send out a survey to parents asking them if they think the internet harms the ability of kids to write well
3. Report the results of that survey of what parents think without actually backing it up with facts or evidence.

Bingo. You're done. Forget push polling, this is push reporting. The reporting itself is designed to plant the idea that kids are having trouble writing well, due to the internet, despite a near total lack of supporting evidence (and plenty of evidence to the contrary).

Filed Under: moral panic, reporting, writing skills

David Simon Whines About The State Of Journalism While Undermining His Own Point

from the oops dept

A year ago, David Simon, a former Baltimore Sun reporter, who is now much more well known as the executive producer of the TV show The Wire, complained in the pages of the Washington Post about how awful it was that newspapers were giving away their content for free online. He was confusing value and price -- something that many people do these days. And now he's back with another editorial, where he is again quite confused. The editorial picks up on similar complaints that the newspaper industry's current troubles make it much more difficult to hold public officials accountable. In this case, he's complaining about attempts by the Baltimore Police Department to keep the names of officers involved in violent altercations secret.

It's an interesting opinion piece, but it pretty easily undermines its own reason for being. He's talking about a specific story involving a specific police officer, where the police has refused to give out the information identifying the officer. As Simon points out, however, by law that information needs to be made available to everyone, not just reporters. And, in fact, Simon did get the information -- and Simon is not a reporter any more. You know who didn't get the information? The reporters at the Baltimore Sun. So... Simon is complaining that without a strong newspaper business, this information will remain hidden, even though he admits that legally the information needs to be available to non-reporters (like himself) which enabled him to get the information, and that the supposedly necessary newspaper reporters failed in getting the info.

In other words, he just totally debunked his own point. In this case, he was acting as a "citizen journalist," digging up a piece of information because it was of great concern to him. Other citizen journalists could and would do the same thing. Yet, the supposedly very important "newspaper journalists" didn't care enough to follow through and get the info. I'd say he just made a really strong point for why a concerned citizenry is a lot more effective at getting this particular bit of information and publicizing it than the press that he wishes would do it.

Filed Under: david simon, journalism, reporting

How Reporters Contribute To Misconceptions About Patent Lawsuits

from the we-need-more-accuracy-in-reporting dept

Joe Mullin has another fantastic post, discussing how way too many reporters, in covering patent disputes, mislead the public into thinking that the patent holder is accusing another company of copying its invention. The truth is that it's very, very rare for a patent infringement lawsuit to actually involve a company that copied (or, as the patent system supporters would falsely claim, "stole") someone else's invention. Usually, it's about companies coming up with a similar offering independently. Yet, as Mullin points out, in the recent reporting on Picsel suing Apple for infringement, reporters, such as those at CNN wrote that Picsel claims "Apple's hot-selling iPhone and iPod Touch devices incorporate Picsel-patented technology."

That implies much more than the lawsuit really says. It implies that Apple actually took or copied a specific "Picsel-patented technology" and placed it in the iPhone. But the truth is that no such claims are actually made in the lawsuit. Mullin suggests that reporters covering such patent lawsuits should make this much clearer, even suggesting something along the lines of the following:

"Picsel, which does not claim that Apple copied its patent or products, is asking for a royalty to be paid on all iPhones sold in the United States."

While that exact wording may not make sense, it does seem important to get more people to realize that patent lawsuits are almost never about the actual copying of inventions, despite what patent supporters and lazy reporters might tell you.

Filed Under: journalism, patents, reporting
Companies: apple, picsel