Online Publication

My online publication will never take the sheer power of citizen journalism for granted. The assigned readings detailed several problems with this style of journalism, (factual errors, biased reporting, offensive language, etc), but my publication will overcome these annoyances. We will follow the loose guidelines detailed by Jeff Howe, and march into a new era of reporting. The main problem seems to be that citizens do not want to engage in traditional journalism. This, however, is no real problem at all. I will hire traditional journalists to do traditional reporting. I will employ the use of citizen journalists to cover a wide range of more obscure topics. As Howe noted, you simply can't tell a citizen journalist what to report on. They don't want to go out on a plethora of bland assignments. They don't want to translate their work into inverted pyramid style. Basically, these citizen journalists don't want an editor dictating what they can or cannot write about. In order to effectively utilize the manpower of "the crowd," my team will rarely interfere with grass roots reporting.

We will allow these men and women to go out into the field and report on whatever interests them the most. In turn, this practice will spawn an unprecedented amount of news stories oozing with passion. Some of the stories may not qualify as actual news. Some stories might just be plain unprintable. However, every single one of these stories submitted by citizen journalists will have one common element in common: Their authors were wholeheartedly interested in the subject matter. There is no need to force members of the crowd to report on issues they don't care about. Disinterested reporters will produce dry articles bereft of any feeling. Journalists devote more time and effort to a story that means something to them.

This method will also allow citizen journalists to go out and do some hyperlocal reporting. These writers will be members of their communities first and members of our news team second. They will be able to walk back roads and hidden alleys, unearthing gold that no traditional reporter would be able to discover. They will find stories that would have been completely overlooked by professional journalists. This will engage readers and highlight fascinating issues that typically get ignored in the press. It will shine the lime light on small neighborhoods and small problems. This reporting will surely attract members of these communities, and my website will infiltrate quaint communities across the nation.

As mentioned before, my site will feature blogging capabilities. Blogs offer the interactive opportunities readers crave, and allow reporters to directly address their readership. My reporters will be able to tweak their coverage or style of writing based on their particular audience. (Our reporters will get to know the interests and desires of their audience while conversing with them through blogs and online comments). These blogs will spark a mutually beneficial relationship between author and reader. In certain cases bloggers act like proofreaders. They highlighting errors, correct factual mistakes and occasionally point out offensive jargon. In turn, bloggers offer exciting story leads and inform authors what types of issues they want to be addressed.

These blogs will be exceedingly helpful on my site. They will allow my reporters to cover issues a more casual, informal way. This style of writing will be more appealing to readers who tend to shy away from the rigid reporting of the inverted pyramid style. The informal writing will also allow reporters to work more quickly and pen more stories. Authors will not have to worry about shaving down their work to meet strict space constraints or have to spend as much time dwelling over their choice of words. The blogs will also allow my reporters to post stories that did not fit on our actual website.

We really must make our presence widely know throughout the blogosphere if we are going to stay afloat. Popularity amongst bloggers can singlehandedly boost a story into the forefront of online culture. This is exactly what happened to the article about Paris, Texas, which was detailed in the assigned readings. The article got a few thousand hits upon its initial publication, and then completely fell off of the radar during its second week of existence. But, the moment bloggers got a hold of the wonderful piece, it instantly became a must-read story, and generated over 100,000 hits. My reporters will provide links to our best stories via blogs, and try to establish a well known presence amongst avid bloggers. Doing so may save certain well-written pieces from obscurity.

As I noted, our site will pull certain story ideas and leads from blogs. At times, we may even post entire articles from some of our talented bloggers. However, we will at all costs avoid another Steve Jobs heart-attack incident. In order to do this we will employ several rigorous editors and fact checkers to sift through information on our blogs. As the assigned readings warned, bloggers are not classically trained journalists. They, unlike traditional journalists, do not have such an immense obligation to uphold the truth. This is why we plan to hire an extra line of editors to fact-check blogs and the sincerity of story leads. We will strive to make our editing and fact-checking as powerful and productive as it is in most print publications.

My site will also infiltrate social networking sites to generate buzz and public affection. My staff will brainstorm and create an alter ego for our news publication similar to the "Colonel Tribune" mentioned in "Digging into Social Media..." The face of our character will have to be instantly likable and trustworthy in the same vein as the Colonel. However, our approach will have to be slightly different, so our plan doesn't come across as a blatant rip-off of that fake soldier. We will probably document the experiences of a charming intern across several social networking sites. The intern will have to be young, somewhat awkward, enthusiastic and driven. Younger users will instantly relate to an intern becoming the face of our publication. It will be an obvious risk. However, taking this risk will immediately make our site far more appealing to the young, college-aged audience we are trying to attract. We will post his or her information across sites like Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, etc. These sites will feature photographs of the intern in daily situations throughout the office. The shots will show him or her carrying coffee, rushing around like a madman on a caffeine high, dropping papers on the floor, etc. He or she will be a caricature of every intern who ever worked in an office environment. The photographs and information may appear funny or trivial, but will definitely spark interest amongst young people who are trying to start their careers in the same way. While searching the intern's sites and reading his or her hilarious commentary, readers will come to know more about our online publication. Our office will be an open one. Our daily problems and concerns will be posted on the intern's social networking sites. It is our hope that this will make us appear more trustworthy to our readers, and stimulate interest young readers we are trying to attract. If nothing else, it will certainly make our site far more interactive than most traditional online publications.

We will of course allow our staff members to operate their own social networking pages. The assigned readings discussed several problems where members of news teams jeopardized the reputations of their respective news rooms while posting opinionated comments on Facebook, Twitter, etc. These social networking sites were created so online users would have an easy outlet to express his or her personal views. We will not limit our staff's freedom of speech, for fear that their online postings will negatively influence our publication. Instead, we will simply ask all employees to include a disclaimer on their social networking sites. The disclaimer will basically say that all views and opinions addressed on the site in no way reflect the views of our online publication.

My site must also come to terms with the fact that we don't have a colossal budget. We will not always have the money to send a reporter out to a remote site to cover a story unfolding hundreds of miles away. This is another reason why we are relying on citizen journalism. Individuals in these far-off communities can easily sit at home and write about the events unfolding outside their windows. We will save an incredible amount of time and an incredible amount of money on transportation. At times, however, citizen journalism will not come through for us. In these times we must remain open-minded and offer links to other sites that do offer information on a particular story we did not cover. We must not be stubborn, like so many online magazines, that refuse to link to other sites. Our readers will greatly benefit from this practice, and know that if we do not have certain information, we will direct them to a site that does.