Back in July 2007 I showed up at HuffPost’s Manhattan office with a suitcase packed with enough clothes to get me through the month while I looked for an apartment and started OffTheBus. Even before our official launch many of you were peppering my inbox with emails, wanting to know what you could do to help. Among that initial circle of my newfound friends and acquaintances were Mayhill Fowler — who later rocked the campaigns and campaign journalism with what we now know as “Bittergate”; Beverly Davis — a veteran reporter who provided invaluable insight into the role that citizen journalists could play on the trail; Richard Riehl — the editor of the much loved Roadkill, that tasty, daily collection of candidate gaffes; and Ethan Hova — a Shakespearean actor from Los Angeles who co-wrote our first big story, “Romney Buys Conservatives.”
Sixteen months later and our network has grown by the thousands. The staff also grew, as I was joined by Marc Cooper, Neil Nagraj, John Tomasic, and Hanna Ingber Win and intern Gabriel Beltrone. Mayhill, Beverly, Richard, and Ethan have been joined by a remarkable cast of home-makers, retired journalists, aspiring journalists, lawyers and doctors, actors and actresses, some curmudgeons and, yes, a few professional journalists. New friends are now old friends, and old friends are friends forever.
Together we have been credited with creating the genre of citizen journalism (New York Magazine). You have broken some of the election cycle’s biggest scoops. You have also been described - by none other than the New York Times - as a “force in journalism.”
We — Marc, John, Hanna, Neil, Gabriel, Amanda — couldn’t be more proud of what we have all achieved together.
For just this once we are not going to ask you to write or report anything. Celebrate! Break out that champagne, beer, or wine (or for those young enough or so inclined, a coffee or chocolate cake) and make a toast! Or two. Or three.
Journalism isn’t and never has been a monolithic craft. The profession has a rich and varied history that often gets lost in defensive justifications of the status quo. In this election cycle journalism as we know it evolved tremendously, and you played no small role in it. A unique breed of citizen journalists — at OffTheBus and elsewhere — opened up public access to information that conventional reporters attached to the Washington echo chamber cannot.
Yay!
If that toast turns you tipsy and you’re inclined to express yourself in print, make your way to this comment thread instead of submitting a piece (we want to celebrate, too! ;)).
Here’s to you!
OffTheBus — Amanda, Marc, John, Hanna, Neil, and Gabriel
Lockwood, an award-winning education and general-assignment reporter, is looking for advice on how to start a non-profit online news and community site for southeastern Wisconsin. She wants to focus on providing the context and background that dailies are being forced by economics to abandon.
One idea Lockwood is pursuing — what do we mean by “participatory democracy?” She worries that it isn’t enough to just vote anymore, that citizens “need to show up” at public meetings.
To learn more about her plans, listen to a 16-minute interview with Bill Densmore of the Media Giraffe Project and Matt Thompson, a 2008-2009 Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute fellow.
This interview is with Dan Gillmor from the Center for Citizen Media.
“For Hurricane Gustav, he has led 500 volunteers putting together the Gustav Information Center, which includes a Wiki and a site called “Voices of Gustav.” The Voices site is set up to accept calls from people who have been displaced, with the idea that volunteers would transcribe the calls and post them online in a searchable format. That effort tapped into the Utterz Web site. The effort includes three Twitter feeds including GustavAlerts, which is a breaking weather feed. GustavNews follows news stories and GustavBlogs focuses on how blogs are reporting the storm. Another another team of 50 or so volunteers is working on transcribing reports from ham radio operators and other radio scans.
There’s a great interview with NPR’s Andy Carvin over at Poynter where he talks about their coverage of Hurricane Gustav. It’s a classic example of what I’ve previously called ‘Distributed Journalism,’ and a lesson for any news organization in how news production has changed:
“For Hurricane Gustav, he has led 500 volunteers putting together the Gustav Information Center, which includes a Wiki and a site called “Voices of Gustav.” The Voices site is set up to accept calls from people who have been displaced, with the idea that volunteers would transcribe the calls and post them online in a searchable format. That effort tapped into the Utterz Web site. The effort includes three Twitter feeds including GustavAlerts, which is a breaking weather feed. GustavNews follows news stories and GustavBlogs focuses on how blogs are reporting the storm. Another another team of 50 or so volunteers is working on transcribing reports from ham radio operators and other radio scans.
Still - when the radio host at A World of Possibilities asked questions about it, old memories began to resurface. One day I would love to do a more thorough brain-dump about Assignment Zero because it was such a huge lesson for me (and I hope the larger journalism industry).
Jay Rosen, who I follow on Twitter, got me thinking about newsroom curmudgeons with his tweets last week. It got me to suggest that we compile a giant, handy-dandy guide to these curmudgeonly views and their counterpoints.
This is that guide.
And so, without further ado, here the is the ultimate guide to newspaper curmudgeon talking points:
“I’m going to try a little citizen journalism experiment for the launch of the iPhone 3G. Since a lot of the early adopters who will be buying iPhones use Twitter, I’m soliciting reports from them while they’re at Apple and AT&T stores getting an iPhone or stopping by to see what the scene is like.
Basically, I’m interested in hearing from as many people as possible what it’s like at Apple and AT&T stores around the world. So make sure you include your location in your Tweet so we know where you are.
These reports will automatically be displayed in a widget.”
The widget can be found at the bottom of the article.
“I’m going to try a little citizen journalism experiment for the launch of the iPhone 3G. Since a lot of the early adopters who will be buying iPhones use Twitter, I’m soliciting reports from them while they’re at Apple and AT&T stores getting an iPhone or stopping by to see what the scene is like.
Basically, I’m interested in hearing from as many people as possible what it’s like at Apple and AT&T stores around the world. So make sure you include your location in your Tweet so we know where you are.
These reports will automatically be displayed in a widget.”
The widget can be found at the bottom of the article.
She writes: For the first time I realized what is most obvious about the work other OffTheBus correspondents and I do. We are citizens, first. As Americans, moreover, we have the right any time any day any year to step out of our homes to inquire and to investigate. The inclination to do so, which Meena found fascinating, is certainly not exclusively American; but it is quintessentially American. Sitting in the Reuters studio on Times Square, I was proud, most proud, to be a citizen journalist.
Read more: Mayhill Fowler: On The Road Again, With Begging Bowl And Stick - Off The Bus on The Huffington Post
The mainstream media is tripping over itself to report on every last press release and campaign announcement. But do any of us REALLY know what’s going on?
With your help from the frontlines, HuffPost’s OffTheBus can change campaign coverage.
Boss Rosen on the Mayhill events. J.D. has a thoughtful writeup on his blog.
How citizen journalism is changing campaign coverage from JD Lasica on Vimeo.
More.
I still believe NowPublic is positioned to be the “OhMyNews” of North America. But positioning isn’t everything. It will be interesting to see where it goes from here.
More coverage from Mashable.
There’s a great piece in the Los Angeles Times about Mayhill Fowler, the 61-year-old “citizen journalist” who has become a lightning rod for critics of the practice, after not one but two somewhat embarrassing scoops from the U.S. campaign trail, the first of which involved Barack Obama and the second of which — just last week — involved former president Bill Clinton. Fowler is one of dozens of amateur reporters covering the campaign as part of the Off The Bus project, a joint venture between Huffington Post and Jay Rosen’s New Assignment venture.
The team is diverse and includes filmmakers, journalists, teachers, university students, a former film-industry flack and at least one Army reporter. They have written short posts introducing themselves that we’ll be including tonight in a feature on OffTheBus. All of them to various degrees have been contributors to the OTB project and are interested in seeing the evolution of a new kind of more responsive journalism. As Editor Beth Morrissey put it in her introduction: “I have followed the candidates through battleground states … and what surprised me most was how traditional media chose to cover the exact same stories [about the candidates and the campaigns] in the exact same ways… Some of the most exciting stories this election story have been broken by citizen journalists.”
The OTB project works at its best when we draw most on the various talents of our community members. So who are these new editor community members? Maybe you’ve received an email from one of them this week about a story you wrote. Beth Morrissey is an associate producer for Purple States TV and is producing a documentary called “What’s Organic About “Organic?” She’s a new resident of New Haven, an aspiring rock climber, and an ultimate frisbee player. Chris Nelsonis staff writer for popandpolitics.com and a journalism graduate student at USC. He grew up in Cairo, Egypt. Jane Wylen
worked as a New York State policy analyst in criminal justice before moving to the beach in Florida, where she became a copy editor and librarian and got serious about seaside activities such as kayaking and biking. James Freedman is a contributing editor to The Johns Hopkins News-Letterand is applying to
law schools. Jennifer Bogutis a computer geek by profession and a writer-musician-armchair talking head for “fun.” She loves g-chat and lives in New Jersey. R.T. Eby has worked at a host of local newspapers but has also worked in the carnival business and recently retired from a career in commercial kitchens. He lives in northern Tennessee near the Kentucky border where he has a house on two acres. Ruth Ferguson lives in Dallas and is the editor of the North Dallas Gazette, which focuses on issues and events of interest to the African American community in the Metroplex. She’s a former film critic and an information junkie. Kevin Sinclair, a native New Yorker, lives in Nova Scotia
where he edits the rural lifestyle journal Maritime Almanac. A University of Kentucky Law School alumnus, he was an executive editor with RIA Group, and Aspen Publishing, working on reference books and journals for their law and taxation divisions. A citizen of both the United States and Canada, he
has an avid (some would say, obsessive) interest in American politics. Just as few could have guessed the way our contributors are breaking stories and influencing the narrative of the campaign, there’s
no telling how the experience and practice of our editors will translate to content. They are already coming up with great ideas about new forms of opinion writing and commentary.
One of the many benefits the site will reap from the new team is the ability to post more material and to do it faster. So, we will also be looking to expand our pool of writers. Now is a good time to
contribute.
Send your op-ed, plus bio and a headshot to campaigntrail@huffingtonpost.com
(If you’ve already published, you don’t need the bio/headshot)
Need to brainstorm? Send an email to campaigntrail@huffingtonpost.com with
“oped idea” in the subject line.
Best,
John, Amanda, and Marc
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/off-the-bus/
Props to The UpTake which gets a special shoutout from the YouTube video.