When my colleague in the Columbia School of Journalism Sulzberger program graciously invited me to give the keynote address at the Wisconsin Associated Press Editors Annual Meeting, I recognized that these editors had done one better than Keith Jenkins' suggestion. Jenkins, the Washington Post picture editor, wrote in his January 2007 Poynteronline column that traditional media who wanted to tap into the dynamism of news on the net should “take a blogger to lunch." My colleague, Randolph Brandt of Racine County’s Journal Times, and the other Wisconsin AP editors bested that: they treated me to dinner.

As a practitioner, not as a theorist such as Jay Rosen of New Assignment or Dan Gillmor -- author of We the Media or even ePluribus Media’s Aaron Barlow, author of The Rise of the Blogosphere, I focused in my Racine talk on my day-to-day work and observations: Starting with a quick look at the over-hyped term “citizen journalism” itself and its current flavors, I then gave a verbal tour and behind the scenes look at ePluribus Media, the citizen journalism collaborative of which I am a part. After that, I provided a brief description of challenges facing volunteers and professionals alike in this new “wild west” of news making and dissemination. The talk wrapped up by looking at what is needed to move forward.

What follows is a recap of my address – sprinkled, only lightly I hope, with what I wish I had also included.

Citizen Journalism

Steve Outing in his June 2005 PoynterOnline article identifies 11 phases of citizen journalism, moving from the “one to many” to the “many to many” model of news. The 11 phases go from a simple dabble one’s toes in the water to a full scale, powered-by-the-people journalism effort. His article seeks to give advice to the traditional media trying to understand and harness the energy and dynamism of online citizen- produced news. Two years later, a recent google on the search string citizen journalism produced over 1,280,000 hits. Clearly, it is a term with many connotations and flavors, but the common element is the so-called non professional contributing to the news (and some say the noise) in the public sphere. My talk identified the five types most commonly known.

Hyperlocal Journalism concentrates on a specific, often under-served, demographic whether it be a geographic or special interest group. One such example is the online Westport Now!, started by 30-year United Press International (UPI) veteran Gordon Joseloff, which serves Westport, CT.

Participatory Journalism provides avenues for the non-professionals to “participate.” Jay Rosen’s project New Assignment pairs paid professional journalists with un-paid, non-professionals to write, edit, and help shape the amateurs’ ideas into stories. Many of the traditional newspapers’ online components, such as the Houston Chronicle and the Journal Times are experimenting with forums that allow the readers to add material to a news report, such as a photo or additional details that create a richer story.

Activist Journalism advocates for an issue, but is not limited to politics, though the most commonly known are. Two such examples are the work of Ilona Meagher and Susie Dow who research, document and advocate for their issues: for Meagher (another Media Giraffe alum), PSTD in returning veterans resulting in her recent book Moving a Nation to Care and for Susie Dow, the missing details about civilian contractors in theaters of war (Iraq Contingency Contracting and Iraq Contractors: Raw Data From CENTCOM).

The term Bloggers is sometimes used interchangeably with that of citizen journalists – but more and more “blogger” is becoming the pejorative to refer to the pajama clad, wild-eyed rantist who, working in solitude, cuts and pastes material from traditional media publications and keyboards a screed. Despite that perception, within the ranks of the solo blogger are many outstanding experts – several of whom are far more well-informed in their area of expertise than the Washington beltway pundits. These bloggers provide an often untapped wealth of information about their subject matter. One well-known example is Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor, who through his blog Informed Comment – is now regarded as one of the leading experts on the Middle East.

Finally, looming on the horizon, Aggregators threaten to take the place of online news outlets – traditional or citizen. For example, to many on the net, Google News (without benefit of editors or news staff) is an online newspaper, even though there is no editorial staff making decisions about newsworthiness or credibility or ethics of a particular story. The material on its “front page” comes from anywhere on the internet – ePluribus Media can and has had stories featured above the fold, right next to or above a piece from The New York Times. It’s a co-mingling of news from all sources. What is considered newsworthy is determined by software algorithms … based on the Google programmers’ design …and those who know how to game the system. The opportunities for abuse are clear.

Some citizen journalist sites, such as ePluribus Media, combine many of the above types.

One Citizen Journalism Collaborative

ePluribus Media, according to Outings’ 11 phases would be considered the full bore, plunge in the water, volunteer powered and operated stand-alone citizen journalism site. It is messy, sometimes downright ugly, at times unbelievably chaotic, but it’s “us.” Unlike blogs that are usually the product of one individual with drive and determination, ePluribus Media is the product of many volunteers, most of whom have never met in “real time,” but who somehow managed to self-organize and work together to build its parts:

The ePluribus Media Journal – an online news magazine which hosts articles, columns, interviews and reviews that have been researched, edited, fact-checked and proofed.

The ePluribus Media Community– a scoop software powered site, akin to a typical blog but with somewhat atypical interest in the nuts and bolts of citizen journalism, including such topics as avoiding plagiarism, conducting and recording interviews, fact checking an article, as well as providing such information as photographers’ rights and copyright guidelines.

The searchable Timelines databases – a dadabik software powered site, currently displaying Katrina, Rita, PTSD incidences of violence involving returning Iraq and Afghanistan vets, and our latest, deaths and kidnappings of Civilian Contractors timelines -- have been referenced by writers, J-schools, major media outlets and congressional offices.

The Investigates site – a Drupal software powered site where vetted ePluribus Media members share notes, tips, and information behind a firewall as they work to develop leads and research into stories for the Journal. A crew of individuals whose unique IDs belie their seriousness -- wanderindiana, kfred, intranets, luaptifer, avahome, heythereitseric, bronxdem, zan, txj and standingup, just name a few -- dig deep into publically available records, issue FOIA requests, and doublecheck research methodologies as well as facts.

This is just a brief overview, but for more about ePluribus Media, our structure and history, see Aaron Barlow’s The Rise of ePluribus Media: A Horizontal Network of Journalists. Background information is also available in the About links on the Journal and the Community site.

Though ePluribus Media is just one citizen journalism site, it faces challenges common to others as well as to those in traditional media trying to incorporate elements of the “many to many” model of news generation and dissemination.

Challenges

Obviously, for practitioners of citizen journalism who have no affiliation with established media companies, the challenges of net-neutrality and liability loom large. However, on a smaller scale, there are challenges of the day-to-day variety that face the volunteer and the paid professionals alike as they work to tap the energy and raw talent of those venturing into the wild west.

First of all: Who are these people?
Often, they are the ones who have the time. Some of them are similar to stringers, but since the financial remuneration in a citizen journalism effort is often non-existent, there are also those who are what my news reporter dad in his day would call “cranks” – or those who I, as a long-time participant in basketball forums, would call “rant-ready.” Some others are those filled with passionate concerns about their communities or their field of expertise. Many come to the table already with internet skills – A fair number of those who build the more collaborative sites are contractors or consultants with their own web design, programming or internet communications businesses. They represent a mother lode of talent for newspapers or traditional news organizations looking for knowledge, internet skill sets, and an understanding of the internet language and culture.

The challenge: An endeavor that relies solely on the peripatetic contributions of volunteers needs more resources (no one is “full time”), a wider variety of skill sets, processes with built-in redundancies, and strategies to reduce cycle time. From the perspective of ePluribus Media, reducing dependencies has been paramount. We most always have a plan b, and often a plan c.

Unless an organization is able to devote considerable time or staff to organizing every discrete task, it needs an established structure and set of processes to let volunteers come in and contribute as much or as little as they want. Working with volunteers is a new ball game for many of us. Gordon Joseloff says he constantly has to remind his volunteers that it is the Westport Now! not the Westport Later! For the ePluribus Media Journal, we use parallel development techniques to reduce cycle time (for example, sometimes fact-checking and copy-editing are done simultaneously) and accept the tradeoffs – such as that we may have to make substantial editing changes during layout, or even kill the story.

What drives them?
I can only speak for myself, but I came to citizen journalism from a deep need to know. Primarily in the run up to the Iraq war, I was desperate for information. I was reading the British press and alternative sources on the internet, so by the time of President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union speech and the infamous 16 words, I was aghast at the ease and speed with which the untruths were assimilated… even today, folks are comfortable suggesting “if we knew then what we know now.” But the information was there, and many of us did know, but it was just not available in the celebrity media and arena known as punditopia.

In 2002 and 2003, many of the posters and commentators on the political blogs have mentioned the same sort of impetus – the “news” they were reading in their local papers and seeing on TV was discordant. Some started reading the foreign press, others congregated in blogs – all driven by the need to know. All wanted the truth and it was clear (and most recently documented by Bill Moyers) that the Washington press, with the sole exception of Knight Ridder Washington Bureau (now McClatchy) had abrogated their first amendment responsibilities.

Many others have a passion to write. Anecdotally it is said that 80% of blogs are opinion editorials. Still others see citizen journalism as a career step -- odd, since according to Charles Lewis’s 2007 working paper on the future of Independent Journalism, between 2000 and 2006, more than 3500 news and editorial positions have simply evaporated.

The challenge: Such fervor without other incentives is not sustainable -- traditional media can more readily provide financial and status incentives which volunteer citizen journalism groups cannot. Citizen Journalism sites need other, innovative methods to reward and incent the volunteer participants. For us, the ePluribus Media Journal is one such incentive for our collaborative; publication there means the work has passed muster. Authors and researchers have to submit their work to fact-checkers, editors, production people in order for the piece to be published on the Journal and promoted to various news and media by our Public Relations volunteers. We also have a “fact-checked by ePluribus Media” seal … that will indicate an article has met the fact checking criteria posted on our site. As we grow both in size and financial stability, we hope to introduce some financial incentives, but do so in keeping with our collaborative spirit.

Finally, although much headway has been made in even the last year, there’s the challenge of encouraging citizen journalists to employ solid journalistic values of ethics and credible data. From collaboratives such as ePluribus Media to single bloggers to the bigger sites like DailyKos – to judge from the comments about fact-checking, there’s a new awareness and a self-policing in regards to making sure the details are accurate, and there’s a budding awareness about ethical considerations.

Moving forward

Bridging the gap…
Already, many in the traditional media, such as the AP editors in Racine or those involved with the Media Giraffe, are seeking out the many fresh voices of the public.

Citizen journalists are also readily taking advantage of the many opportunities offered by the Poynter Institute, the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), and various continuing education programs to learn the craft. Some end up enrolling in Journalism school as Ilona Meagher has done, or joining any of the journalism professional organizations.

One concrete step the non-professionals can take is to read the excellent Breaking News: How the Associated Press Has Covered War, Peace, and Everything Else by the reporters of the Associated Press. In those pages novices will learn much about news-making, but also about the adrenalin frenzy and dangers of a career dedicated to covering the news.

Confronting the salacious…
We need to confront information that is ‘shallow, inaccurate, and sensationalistic’ whether it is government propaganda produced to look like actual news reports, a blogger cherry-picking quotes in order to make titillating conclusions, or a novice writer making allegations that the facts do not support.

Promoting Journalistic Values…
All of us venturing into the wild west of the many-to-many news making and dissemination will be well-served by acquainting ourselves with or revisiting the Project for Excellence in Journalism's (PEJ) nine tenants:

• Journalism's first obligation is to the truth.
• Its first loyalty is to citizens.
• Its essence is a discipline of verification.
• Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover.
• It must serve as an independent monitor of power.
• It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise.
• It must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant.
• It must keep the news comprehensive and proportional.
• Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience.

Facing the possible future of an Evolving Personal Information Construct (EPIC)…
The 2004 Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) study revealed that 80% of Fox News viewers held at least 1 of three misperceptions about Saddam Hussein and Iraqi involvement with al Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks. The initial analysis suggested that Fox misinformed their viewers, who, the reasoning went, had they been given factual reporting, would have known the truth. Recent speculation, however, has suggested that perhaps these 80% turn to Fox because they seek confirmation of their existing biases.

This possibility – that we chose the news that confirms what we already believe, coupled with the aggregators with their emerging marriages with powerful commercial interests – presents a dangerous future, where each news reader is fed stories tailored to his or her demographics and established consuming history… and so instead of a public sphere of discourse and information, we have instead the Amazon approach, with millions of silo’d individuals, primed to buy.

The business of news is serious.

I actually started my talk in Racine telling my hosts a little about myself. I come from a multi-generation newspaper family. My great granddad worked in the Detroit papers. My grandfather did too, and then was the first editor of The Arizona Daily Star when Pulitizer bought it from Phelps-Dodge. My dad was a thirty-year veteran of The Arizona Republic as a reporter, columnist, and as section, copydesk and makeup editor; he was a traditional newsman. My brother worked summers cleaning presses and I did stints in the proofroom, including during the Watergate summer. Because I worked the swing shift, my dad let me use his parking space, as I remember, kitty-corner and about 5 down from Don Bolles’ spot, in the chained 20-space lot right across from the plant. Later, Bolles’ murder in a downtown Phoenix restaurant parking lot car bombing pretty much sealed the deal for my dad. He didn’t want either of his kids working for a newspaper.

I share this information now because it is very much the vogue in the blogosphere to attack traditional journalists as evil incarnate. Yet, over 200 journalists and media people have died in the Iraq war. And since WWII, over 2000 journalists have lost their lives in armed conflicts. And the murder of journalists is not limited to the war zone, Bolles' death underscores that. June 13th, 2007 was the 31st anniversary of Don Bolles’ death from the mortal injuries he sustained in that June 2nd car bombing. As the doctors tried to save his life, they amputated both legs and an arm.

What struck me the most in talking to the reporters and editors attending the Wisconsin AP Editors Annual Meeting is how committed they are to their First Amendment responsibilities. The night before I gave my talk, a Racine area Kenosha County Sheriff's deputy had been shot and killed when he pulled a driver over. Several of those attending had been up late, literally in a "stop the presses" moment, making room on their respective front pages for the news.