Mike’s Points

In my newspaper reporter days, I was told to localize national stories and trends. Tell our readers how it affects them.

Here’s another example of what I said repeatedly last year — newspapers need to concentrate on reporting local news.

“I think intensely local, professionally gathered news is due for a comeback. It’s the one thing you can’t get anywhere else.”

Those sentences are from today’s column by Danny Westneat of the Seattle Times (”Local news can matter once more“).

And, unlike what Joel Stein thinks (thanks John), if newspapers can involve their readers in their revived local focus, newspapers will again become communities’ mainstay for news and information.

– Michael

(Thanks to Poynter’s Romenesko for the Westneat pointer.)

Yesterday, Robert Niles had a worth-reading post at Online Journalism Review (”The silliest, and most destructive, debate in journalism“).

Essentially, Niles said there should should be no MSV v citizen journalism. Anyone and all interested in journalism should work for better journalism.

For the most part, that is true, but like most things, the how is the problem.

First, I do disagree with one point:

“Journalism is journalism, no matter who does it, or where.”

Journalism to a professional reporter (traditional media experience) compared to journalism to Joe or Jane Reporter may not be the same. Without looking at the story, I trust the objectivity (or attempted objectivity) of the professional reporter more so than I do of the citizen reporter. But, in traditional media and CJs working together, that should not be an issue.

Back to the working together part . . .for traditional media and CJs to work together — and improve journalism — the media’s Web sites need to evolve. When a reporter wants assistance from his or her readers, why not post a call for help — like posting a query on ProfNet or ExpertSource.

Until traditional reporters can put out a blanket request for assistance — as Niles suggested in his Amazon pricing example — or even have a pool of CJ stringers, any real supporting research needed to improve a story will be up the individual reporters to obtain by his or her own means.

– Mike