According to a strong article in Wired News, Gannett is trying to transform its newspapers by changing their newsrooms to ‘information centers,’ which will
Prioritize local news over national news; publish more user-generated content; become 24-7 news operations, in which the newspapers do less and the websites do much more; and finally, use crowdsourcing methods to put readers to work as watchdogs, whistle-blowers and researchers in large, investigative features.
Very interesting, very positive move by Gannett, which understands that locals want local news, and that if you give people the tools to get involved, they’ll get involved. Might not be so good for professional newspaper workers – Seth and Tim, among others, have pointed out that this could be a cost-cutting measure, although a Gannett VP in the Wired article did stress that no one would be losing their job over this. But for me and other amateurs, this just opens up a new area we can potentially poke at and influence.
Maybe it’s my nature, but whenever I hear about a new initiative I start thinking about ways to game it. Evil exists, and will happily use your project for its own ends. I found myself wondering how easily a new ‘information center’ reliant on ‘crowdsourcing’ could be manipulated. Say I’m a member of a political party – call it the Republicrats – and I want to dig up dirt on a politican for a rival party – let’s call them the Demolicans. I get ten of my friends together and start calling the paper, asking for an investigation into the local Demolican councilman. Can I influence the news? Now imagine the local Demolican party gets wind of this, and they start paying some inclined members to counteract this with their own stories and investigations. How much could they in turn influence the news? Is this better or worse than existing media bias?
I don’t know the answers to these questions. Hopefully competing biases will balance each other out and bring a wider array of perspectives to each paper, but crowdsourcing could just as easily go the other way, with each paper’s local news dominated by a like-minded social network of local citizen-activists. I suppose we’ll learn through doing.
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“Maybe it’s my nature, but whenever I hear about a new initiative I start thinking about ways to game it.”
Actually, it’s not just you. I think this is a fundamental law of the internet, similar to say, the 1st law of thermodynamics.
The law would be something like:
Anything created on the internet simultaneously creates proportional efforts to exploit it.
Pithy corollarys include (I’m quoting myself from back around 2002): “He who corrupts the blogosphere fastest and hardest will become very rich.”
Who did that? Why Google, of course (via AdSense).
(PS. I’m still hoping this new skin for yardley.ca is a nightmare from which I will soon awake. A sidebar heading called “Social Media”?!? AAAGGHHH!!!).
Now, now, Seth invited me into this social media network and I’m curious to see what it does. Apparently there’s a feed out there with my entries, a bunch of other people’s entries, and some ads. I’m interested in seeing if they make any money – my guess is ‘no’ but who knows?
As for the latest skin, I’m going to keep the general style, I think, but rejig it so it doesn’t look like ass on lower resolutions than my 1200 x 800. Maybe that means I’ll chop a sidebar.
I do like the law.
OK – some good news: It looks better here on my glorious big screens at work.
I do think the typography hurts you (can I get some more line spacing please). (And yes, my own blog ain’t so great either…) Here’s an idea:
A CONTEST!
Yes. Let’s put on a contest to get you a design worth loving. I volunteer … $50. You could sell some space on your blogroll to raise funds. Maybe get the pool up to $1000, and have a contest to redesign your CSS.
News of that would RULE IN LINKBAIT as well… if you cared about that sorta thing.
Thank you.