What is ……
breakthrough journalism?

Linda Fantin Brant Houston Sharon Waxman Chris Barr Teresa Puente Vera Chan Dennis Burgierman Stephen Silha Olga Loma Marty Steffens

Exploring Public Insight Reporting, which brings citizens into the newsgathering process tapping their expertise, comments and insights to find better stories. How do you harness the intelligence of your audience to do better journalism?

How do we define breakthrough journalism? How do we use technology to enrich and enhance journalism?

Some thoughts:

• It’s creating new knowledge. The context helps us shape our understanding and THAT’s how it turns into knowledge. Why is it meaningful?

• How is connecting the dots (or an Aha! Moments) – the New York Times story on Pentagon Pundits is an good example of an Aha! Moments, in legacy media.
• Lesson moment: Giving us the back story…

• Unique methods of reaching the audience.

• Jules Verne more than a century ago felt there was a way for citizens to ask questions directly of newsmakers, taking off the journalist filter. One might ask, doesn’t the internet do this now? In a way, yes, and we’re seeing legacy media do this, with response to stories. Do these responses to stories lead us to a new paradigm for a stronger conversation?

• On these responses, we want to ask bloggers and responders: How do you know that? What is your credibility?

Questions to ponder:
Has journalism really changed? Or has just the packaging changed? What are we breaking through?
Is conversation really journalism?
Is crowd-sourcing and other methods being pushed by declining newsrooms?
How do we get democracy to serve journalism? How do we make citizens part of the news process where we just aren’t asking for opinions?

How do we preserve the sense-making role of journalism? How do we have a constantly updated nutgraf?

How do we ensure great stories get wide distribution? A new way to disseminate information to allow for impact and prioritization of news would be breakthrough journalism.

If the Center for Public Integrity produces great journalism, but no one hears it, is it great journalism? There is INTEREST vs. RELEVANCE, and CURIOSITY vs ESSENTIALITY

We used to call things that were relevant, NEWS YOU CAN USE.

How can you take the “Britney Spears” user – and use that audience to do more useful journalism? That would be breakthrough.

There are part of communities that no journalism serves – those communities aren’t served because of lack of advertising support. There was no connection of relevance.
If we build bridge, we can reach these island communities.

In the age of the Internet, there’s no excuse for fragmentation.

We need to create a business model for community based news organizations. Create a space where citizens can create their own news. There are not enough reporters to follow every tip. (One example of who’s doing this is Northwest Voice (the Bakersfield Californian at Bakersfield.com)

The New York Times is perceived as monolithic, it represents the elite and liberal. WE DECIDE, we might ask you, but we decide. This type of arrogance leads us down paths where some stories unfairly dominate, such as Jeremiah Wright, Monica Lewinsky, etc.

We can put information out there, but is it our job to make people act on it? We’re trying to move from a priesthood to a partnership. WE TRY TO CONNECT THE DOTS, SEE THE TRENDS.
How do we go from being priesthood model. How do we have a checklist? Make a built-in accountability for citizens to act on things of public interest? Can you create a tool for that?

Meaningful tools: Hand people voice recorders/video recorders. Match journalists with citizens. Are there media who give citizens a partial byline?

The good thing about sources is that you know their biases and background. Journalists do have value as experts in spotting expertise and bias. Columbia College (Chicago) students are partnering with community members to find stories. FINDING real stories has been lost.

Talking heads doesn’t give you meaningful journalism. That’s a great idea, but what do you mean by that? Would that be creating an unmanageable time suck for journalists? How can we make sure comments from knowledgeable people?

Struggling with niche vs. mass audience? Are things relevant on a personal level? Meida is still sitting the agenda by ASKING the questions? What isn’t breakthrough journalism is REACTIONARY journalism. In the blogosphere, you’re just reacting. It’s NOT helping me have a more meaningful lives?


Chicken and egg: Did we lose audiences because we lost relevance? Or did the lost audiences cut our staffs and we became less relevant? Or did the audience just go elsewhere, like to our website?

How can we find stories instead of sources?

By finding the Be-spot: The intersection of Knowledge, Relevance and Audience