Last week we found out there are conscious plans for journalism and crowdsourcing in the works. But instances are already taking place in newsrooms all over America intuitively. When a local reporter takes interest in a discussion thread on the newspaper’s website, then reports out what citizens are saying, this is the dawn of open source journalism.

Take the case of the Contra Costa Times and its reporter, Simon Read, which happened just 13 weeks ago when I was the executive editor of the newspaper. When almost 200 complaints about a carpet business fired up our discussion boards it led to great community reporting that was informed by the community itself.

We were accustomed to seeing robust discussions by community members on the discussion boards at ContraCostaTimes.com. So it wasn’t unusual to see this comment by a resident of the city of Antioch, who on July 13 started a discussion by posting:

“Yesterday I was scheduled to have my carpet replaced under warranty by Ultimate Floors in Antioch (they are located in Slatten Ranch). I tried to call and their phone is disconnected. I went to their store and apparently they moved out over the weekend. Does anyone have any idea how I can find out who the owner is? I spent $15K for carpet that was installed wrong and is damaged and have no idea what to do. Any ideas would be helpful. Has anyone else heard of any problems there?”

What followed were a total of 171 posts on Ultimate Floors. Posts that gave background information were immediately followed by more complaints like this one:

“These liars have a HUGE amount of our money for flooring we ordered. We kept calling them and they kept saying that it was coming. Imagine our surprise when after just talking to them 2 weeks ago, we find out that they closed and took our money!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Reporter Simon Read was new to covering the city of Antioch for the Contra Costa Times. One tool he used to get acquainted with the city was to monitor the discussion boards, which is how he came to find out about the problems residents were having with Ultimate Floors. On July 24, 11 days after the original post, Read posted his own information: “Greetings, I’m Simon Read, the Antioch city reporter for the Contra Costa Times. I’d be interested in talking to anyone who has been taken for a ride by this business. Please feel free to contact me…”

Then on Aug. 8, the newspaper published on the cover of the business section his story on Ultimate Floors, “Flooring customers allege fraud.”

In interviews with Read and in postings on the newspaper’s online discussion board, a number of customers said Ultimate Floors “failed to address complaints or issue refunds.”

Today the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office is looking into complaints about the firm; and one couple has sued its two owners, claiming fraudulent business practices.

I don’t know what we call this type of reporting in the 21st Century. I call it an effective use of the newspaper’s web site and the type of service that local reporters can provide to residents of a community if they are paying attention and following up on what citizens are saying. That’s community reporting, plain and old fashioned, but using a new set of tools that open up the process. The interaction with a web audience that results when reporters listen and then follow up on a discussion in this manner will go a long way toward rebuilding the trust and restoring the faith that a community needs and wants to have in its local newspaper.