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Nieman Reports Spring 2008 Issue 21st Century Muckrakers Using Expertise From Outside the Newsroom After ‘crowdsourcing’ worked to expand reporting, The News-Press reached out to nearby residents to form Team Watchdog. By Betty Wells Back in 2006, The News-Press in Fort Myers, Florida, a paper owned by Gannett, got noticed not so much for what happened inside of its newsroom but for what happened outside of it, when residents became part of an investigative team.
After this endeavor, some of us in the newsroom saw the possibility of a natural evolution of this experience. We’d enlist a panel of volunteers who could bring into our newsroom a range of expertise to supplement the work of our staff of reporters and editors. As we began discussing this initiative in early 2007, we believed that by inviting inside of our newsroom this kind of informational help from citizen journalists, we would improve our investigative reporting and also extend our reach into the community by engaging (and invigorating) new audiences. As special projects editor, I was put in charge of this effort. At first I thought we’d attract a few volunteers. I figured I’d organize them and then this entity would pretty much take care of itself. At things turned out, I was either wrong or ill-prepared for much of what happened, including the following:
Within two days of putting a notice on our Web site and in the newspaper, 40 responses arrived. When we published the notice on the front page of the Sunday paper, entries flooded in until we had about 100 to sort through. Though difficult to do, we narrowed the list to 20 and, before interviewing in groups of five, I gave their resumés to reporters so we could complete background checks. After get-to-know-you interviews, we introduced these 20 people to our readers, online and in the newspaper, and to each other and our paper’s journalists at a social event. They were articulate, passionate and committed to the First Amendment and to holding government accountable. During our one-day orientation session with them, we engaged in detailed discussions about journalistic ethics and conflicts of interest and how the newspaper and newsroom work. We described our goals for the project and then we brainstormed story ideas; in all, we listed more than 200 topics or specific projects. Nearly everyone on this new team—we call it “Team Watchdog”—had a story or project he or she wanted to pursue. I didn’t want to discourage our new recruits, but most of our staff reporters had story lists a mile long. So I tried to pitch to editors the best ideas that came from these team members who were connected with a staff reporter. With orientation behind us, the project was launched. But it did not take long for a range of difficulties to arise. Despite meetings about this project, staff members’ inclusion in the process, memos about the new approach, and our editor’s message that this was a priority, pockets of resistance to Team Watchdog existed in the newsroom. I wasn’t surprised that some editors thought this collaborative approach would create more work or to learn that some didn’t trust the motives or skills of the new team members. What did surprise me was to discover the number of reporters who believed that the project was designed to eliminate jobs. “It’s just a way for you all to be able to cut the staff,” one told me. At a time when reporters in many newsrooms are losing their jobs because newsroom budgets are being cut, it was probably natural for some to see this project as a threat to their livelihood. However, this was not the case and, after about three months, we found ways to work through most of those reservations from staff members. By then, too, some of the first efforts of Team Watchdog members had developed into front-page stories. Some examples follow:
In the first six months, members of Team Watchdog made more than 70 contributions—story tips, online research, or original reporting. Among the assistance they provided was the time when a retired FBI agent accompanied a columnist on a tour of a corrections facility after inmates complained about conditions there. Or when a retired CPA worked with a reporter to help examine budgets and records on a utilities project. Over time, skepticism in the newsroom eroded and it became second nature for editors and reporters to think of ways to use the team members: When an enterprising reporter discovered that Social Security numbers were included in some county court documents, a retired lawyer on the team spent hours wading through the records looking for more; a retired Miami police detective is monitoring jury selections for our paper’s investigation of the courts and, this spring, a half-dozen team members will seek public records as part of our paper’s Sunshine Week project. Team Watchdog requires more of my time than we’d initially predicted. But the time I spend on it speaks to its success as team members have become very involved and engaged. Their infusion of energy lessens some of the tedious work our reporters need to perform as part of their investigative efforts. Their expertise from a lifetime of work in a particular area can offer our reporters—and ultimately our readers—valuable insights. Betty Wells is special projects editor at The News-Press in Fort Myers, Florida. She spent 23 years with Knight Ridder—at The Wichita (Kansas) Eagle as a reporter and editor, in the Knight Ridder Washington bureau as a reporter, and at the Post-Tribune in Gary, Indiana as managing editor and executive editor. She joined The News-Press in 2004. Next article: Brant Houston Table of contents Printer-friendly format |
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