Panelists: Citizens scribes can help society
Asbury Park Press by Kirk Moore
November 19, 2009

WEST LONG BRANCH - Citizen journalists can help their communities demand more government accountability, but his own experience running a start-up online news organization has taught Michael Shapiro one thing.

"It's important that they be paid," said Shapiro, founder and editor of TheAlternativePress.com, which covers ten towns with freelance contributors. Like their professional counterparts, part-time online community journalists still need training, standards and accountability to build their audiences, Shapiro said at a conference on the future of local news at Monmouth University.

An information revolution is needed to counter New Jersey's culture of political corruption and special interests, and span the gap left by economic upheaval and shrinkage in mainstream news organizations, said Harry Pozycki of the Citizens' Campaign, a good-government group that's created a free online curriculum to help train citizens to report on their own communities.

Online entrepreneurs shared stories from their start-ups. "I have an apartment in Cranbury and I'm constantly chasing ambulances," said Whitney Rhodes, editor of Patch.com. "It's strange covering these towns because they're not used to being covered 24/7 . . . The reception has been very enthusiastic."

"I think when sites really start to hum is when they have original content," said Ted Mann, digital development director for Gannett New Jersey online and its InJersey.com sites. "If you're a good blogger, you can get more traffic to your blog than the newspaper site."

Newspapers "aren't going away anytime soon. We're just trying to make that transition," Mann said. For the "hyperlocal" Web sites that will make up more community news, "the key to advertising on these sites, from a scalability viewpoint, is going to be having some kind of self-service platform" where advertisers can put in their own displays, he said.

"All journalists are going to have to learn the business of their occupation," said Debra Galant, founder of Baristanet.com, a news site covering the Montclair-Glen Ridge area. "How do you pay for what you do?"

Both traditional and new online reporting are part of the New Jersey scene and "there's no distangling it," said John Ward, a former newspaper reporter who runs the local site RedBankGreen.com. But reliable community reporting is a challenge, he added.

"Ask someone to go to a town council meeting, and they'll do it. But ask them to go to 26 council meetings a year and it becomes a whole other animal," Ward said. "Then ask them to turn a story around on deadline that's accurate and fair."

"It's hard. It's a lot of work. I produce content for citizens to be activists on public policy issues," said Bill Wolfe, who says he started his environmental news blog Wolfenotes.com to help make up for the shortfall in state government news coverage.

Joe Tyrrell said the Star-Ledger alumni who staretd NewJerseyNewsRoom.com are trying to compensate too, with a statewide rather than hyperlocal perspective.

"We're a fabulous artistic success," he quipped. "In terms of finances, geez."

"We would like to be profitable, obviously," said Shyane Smith of jerseyCityIndependent.com, which he said is focusing on under-served local journalism needs of investigative reporting and arts and culture.

Traditional news gatherers "need help, and I think you people here are the help they need," said former Record and New York Times editorial writer Richard Benfield.

However it happens, "the kids are on the computer, because the computers are in school," Shapiro said. "Ten or 15 years from now those kids in middle school and high school will be adults, and they'll still be on the computer."

On the Web: Citizens' Campaign at www.jointhecampaign.com