This report from NPR’s Morning Edition Wednesday hopefully will jump-start the slow and painful evolution of newsgathering in the United States. It talks about how two newspapers are using crowdsourcing for stories.
Crowdsourcing is nothing new. In fact, that link takes you to the crowdsourced site, Wikipedia. The content there can be generated by anyone. Wikipedia is not perfect by any means, but we’ll get into that later. Let’s get back to what The New York Times and Washington Post are doing.
They are asking for the public’s help to decipher and report on the information contained in the recently released documents outlining interrogation techniques by the CIA. (Warning, the download is 10 megabytes.) Some can say what the papers are doing is reflective of the media’s drastic job cuts necessitating a “call for help” from readers with knowledge. My hope is that it encourages engagement.
Newspapers — while a print medium — are broadcasters. They decide what’s news. They decide when you get it. They decide how to present it. The work by the Times and Post to engage readers is reflective of the interactivity that is vital to the growth of the social Web. Granted, some of the comments are by idiots and d-bags, but there is some wheat within that chaff.
Which brings me back to Wikipedia. As a reporter, we were forbidden from using Wikipedia as a source. You never knew how reliable the information was. That is more than fair. Now Wikipedia is exerting a little more control over its posts. Entries on living people will have to be approved by an editor. This adds to the reliability of Wikipedia as a source and helps build credibility.
Papers are opening up. Wikipedia is tightening up. This can only make the content better.
