This issue: Online news from Mark Briggs

Katrina online: Craigslist and other sites teach lessons about the Web's power. Click here for details.

Wiki: Journalists may be slow to embrace the power of Wikipedia. Click here for ideas on using a wiki.

Powerful blog: The Billings Gazette found out how a blog can add to a community's dialogue, even on a tough story like meth addiction. Click here for details and a link.

Citizen journalism: J-Lab has new resources for newspapers interested in harnessing their readers energy online. Click here for details and links.

ALSO:

Katrina Relief: More stories from newspaper staffs needing hurricane relief. Click here for more.

HURRICANE KATRINA: CHANGING THE GAME
The worst natural disaster in our nation's history has been covered extensively, and quite admirably, by scores of reporters, photographers and editors. Many newspapers located in the affected areas went above and beyond the call of duty to cover the victims of a disaster when they were victims themselves.

But information regarding Hurricane Katrina has also been supplied by nontraditional sources that have proven every bit as important.

Craigslist, the mostly free classified ad site that is the bane of newspaper advertising departments, quickly evolved into a community resource for those most directly affected by the disaster. In the wake of Katrina, the lost-and-found sections of the site quickly morphed into missing persons bulletins, proving the powerful community nature of the site.

In addition to missing people listings, Craigslist also featured links for relief resources, temporary housing, temporary employment, missing pets, transportation and rideshares, volunteers and a Katrina discussion, illustrating the power of combining classifieds and community as an effective utility for readers, especially during a crisis. According to founder Craig Newmark via a Wired News article, page views on the site quadrupled last week.

Tapping the power of classified listings to supplement news coverage of a catastrophe is a new way of thinking for newspapers, long supported by classified revenues but not accustomed to considering the listings as useful content.

Local news sites like NOLA.com (from the Times-Picayune) established a missing persons database and, as of Sept. 7, had more than 3,000 entries. It was one of more than a dozen Web sites offering information on persons both missing and found, all of which were self-service information portals featuring information supplied directly from readers. (For a list of Katrina-related online resources, go to www.wired.com/news/planet/0,2782,68727,00.html.

Steve Outing, who writes for the Poynter Institute and Editor and Publisher, observed this game-changing shift in a recent column (see poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=88073).

"If news organizations wish to retain the role of community gathering place, they might consider beefing up their preparedness for local disasters," Outing wrote. "Think about redesigning news Web sites with the lessons of Hurricane Katrina in mind. If a disaster the scale of Katrina struck your community, how would your news Web site best help the victims, their friends and relatives outside the disaster zone, and people willing to volunteer?"

THE BREAKING NEWS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Wikipedia, the community powered online encyclopedia, quickly sprouted an entry on Hurricane Katrina while the news was still breaking (just as it did following the bombings in London in July). It has grown into a one-stop resource for information with sections like storm development, historical context, evacuation, local effects and aftermath, disaster relief response and political effects (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina).

According to a recent Reuters news story, traffic has grown 154 percent over the past year and at current growth rates, it is set to overtake The New York Times on the Web. In April, Wikipedia tied with CNN.com as the No. 2 most visited site among U.S. Web users searching for details on the new Pope Benedict.

The information on Wikipedia can be edited by anyone, meaning it is subjected to comprehensive vetting (though also constantly changing). But because of its open-source nature, many traditional journalists view it with disdain.

What if news organizations used the model to create their own wikis? Like blogs, a wiki is a tool that can be used many ways and the information found in them can vary greatly in quality, from unsubstantiated rumors, to professionally fact-checked and style-edited mini-narratives.

It would be a powerful tool for providing a comprehensive collection of reporting, photography and other information regarding any significant news story, both for readers and internally as reporters and editors move in and out of working a particular story. It's common to compile a list of past articles online and point readers to them for background on an ongoing story. But a string of daily articles, written with the timeliness for that day alone, doesn't stand the test of time or provide the organized buffet of information that a wiki can.

NEWS IS A CONVERSATION IN BILLINGS
The Billings Gazette ran a five-day series on meth last month, featuring a multimedia package that tells the stories of two recovering addicts in their own words (see www.billingsgazette.com/modules/toc-methpackage.inc).

The reporter on the series, Ed Kemmick, also writes a blog on the newspaper's Web site. A week after publication, he wrote a story about a meth addict who was shot to death in a confrontation with police. Kemmick received a call from someone who knew the man and had her own story about him. He reported her story on his blog, which generated a thoughtful and spirited discussion about meth in the community (see www.billingsgazette.com/blog/citylights/index.php?p=1189#comments and www.billingsgazette.com/blog/citylights/index.php?p=1189).

"We've heard on the blog from the deceased's fiancée and two best friends," online editor Andrew Katkin said. "The resulting comment thread is some of the most compelling, deep, interactive and fascinating journalism I've ever read. It is also, in my mind, proof of the strength and potential not just of blogging but of this whole 'citizen journalism' thing we talk about. The narrative is effective, but the conversation is unique, powerful and undeniably richer than any story we could ever tell in print."

CITIZEN JOURNALISM 101
A new Web site launched by J-Lab offers quick and usable instruction on how to build (or simply understand) the various concepts that are being called citizen or participatory journalism. Check it out at www.j-learning.org.

Jan Schaffer, executive director for J-Lab, said the site was written and designed over the past eight months by Susannah Gardner, author of Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies, and Travis Smith, former editor of Variety.com. The target is three disparate audiences: online editors at traditional news organizations, small newspapers without significant online staff, and students and educators in journalism programs.

"The feedback has been great so far," Schaffer said.

It's described as a "how-to digital handbook" and offers 20 chapters and 60 subsections of basic skills training on how to plan and build a community news site. It even has information on the latest off-the-shelf software and marketing suggestions.

KATRINA AID: MORE STORIES FROM THE FRONT-LINE

Contributions to the APME Katrina Aid Fund have started to arrive. APME will get the funds to the managing editors of affected newspapers in the next couple of weeks so they can use the funds to help staffers meet emergency needs.

Incoming APME Treasurer Karen Peterson has reached several more Gulf Coast editors to get their stories:

• Wind and water damaged about 85 percent of the homes in Slidell, La., and left the office of the Slidell Sentry-News unusable. The Sentry-News' sister paper, the Covington News Banner, was more fortunate. The Covington office was one of the few places in town to have power when Managing Editor Sandy Cunningham and her staff returned. Her biggest concern, however, was that six of the 14 people who worked in both newsrooms were missing. Even their homes had been destroyed. Both papers normally print at the Bogalusa Daily News, which has been without power. Bogalusa's depleted news staff got together a 14-page paper Sept. 10 printed in Natchez and another this Wednesday.

• Ronnie Agnew, executive editor of the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., said his newspaper did not lose power although most of the town did. Ronnie and his staff were able to help their sister paper in Hattiesburg, which had to run on generators and a severely damaged phone system.

Many of the stricken papers used the Web to stay connected to their readers. The editors at Bogalusa said it all when they posted the following: "We know this isn't the perfect method of communication, but it is a start. We are confident that our community will rebuild and be even better in the future. For now, our prayers are with you and all our neighbors, and our hopes are for better days ahead."

You can contribute to the APME Katrina Aid Fund two ways:

1. Through your local U.S. Bank branch.

2. By check made out to APME Katrina Aid Fund. Send it c/o Deanna Sands, Omaha World-Herald, 1334 Dodge St., Omaha, NE 68102.

APME plans to distribute money by Oct. 1.

Today's installment was written by Mark Briggs, online editor of The News Tribune in Tacoma, Wash.

To receive e-mail notification of new APME Updates write to APME@ap.org

Previous issues: Sept. 15, 2005 | Aug. 30, 2005 | Aug. 23, 2005 | Archive