Content and Community: My talk on Peer News at the Newsmorphosis conference

This is a draft of the speech I gave at the Newsmorphosis conference in Honolulu on Thursday, March 18. My actual remarks varied from this outline. You can see my talk on ustream.

Updated to clarify my statement about "comments."

• This is my first public appearance since I moved to Honolulu
• I’ve got to say the newspaper scene here feels like deja vu all over again
• A year ago, it was Denver becoming a one paper town and I was the editor there who saw his paper silenced, with hundreds losing their jobs
• When I got here in January, it was apparent that the newspaper status quo in Honolulu couldn’t go on for long
• What happened, how the tables turned, is another example of why we can’t take anything for granted in this media era
• I understand how difficult, even distressing, these changes can be
• But having lived through a similar experience and come out on the other side, I’m also here to tell you that even in a time of uncertainty there are reasons to be encouraged...as I am today, working here in Honolulu.
• The title Jay Fidell gave this speech is “What role will Peer News play in these transformations”
• It seems to me, based on what's happened with local TV news outlets and now at Honolulu's newspapers, that the media environment is doing a pretty good job of transforming itself without any help from Peer News
• Think of Jay’s title for this talk as an unsupported lede...or a headline that doesn’t fit the story
• I’m not actually going to talk about the role of Peer News in the transformation we’ve been talking about at this conference today...Frankly, I don’t know what the role of Peer News will be in these transformations...that will be for others to decide down the road
• I do know that we’re going to approach some things differently. We’ll learn from that and I hope you’ll follow our service and my blog and learn with us
• What’s different for me at Peer News from what I’ve done in the past is that we’re not trying to invent an online newspaper, we're not trying to move things we've been doing in print online
• We started by asking three fundamental questions
• 1. What is the role of the press in a democracy
• 2. How best would you fulfill that role using all the tools available today
• 3. How do you do that in a sustainable way
• I hope my talk today will help make more clear our answers to those questions.
• I think we’re in a period where news organizations need to shift their focus from their own needs to the needs and desires of citizens...
• I’ve been out talking to people to hear what’s on their minds...Let me give you a sense of what I’m hearing...
• Show video clips of man/woman on the street interviews
• I think you can hear a sense of concern...they’re worried that news is filtered, that they’re not getting the whole story and that things are getting worse
• At peer news we want readers to feel things are getting better.
• That they’re being heard
• That they have people working on their behalf.
• We’re starting from scratch, so that allows us certain freedoms.
• We have no history...that means we don’t have to shift from an old model to a new model.
• Our mission statement is an example of I’m talking about
• The mission of peer news is to create the new civic square
• It’s hard to imagine any traditional news organization opting for that mission statement
• Fundamentally, we believe that our news service should empower citizens and encourage greater civic participation
• We’re creating a place where people can learn and understand, debate and discover
• Our goal is to be the place where citizens come to learn, understand, debate and discover solutions to the most important issues in our community
• Peer news will be a place where citizens’ contributions matter...yes, potentially as much as the contributions of the journalists who provide the reporting and information that will serve as the basis for discussion
• So I'm going to answer the question many of you have been asking me for weeks: What are you doing
• Peer News is focusing on two things: Content and community. That’s the bottom line. Those are the two words that you’re going to hear from us again and again. Content and Community.
• Here’s how we’re going to be different on the content side
• We’re taking a more holistic approach to news...We’ll take issues that we know people care about or are important to the community and provide in-depth reporting that can serve as a resource for readers. That resource will be a living history, something that evolves as understanding of the issue develops..That’s different from the traditional approach of reporting isolated stories reflecting a single point in time....And it’s different from an archive, a collection of the stories a news organization has written, like the archives on important topics you might find on many news sites
• Matt Thompson of NPR described a similar way of thinking in a blog post recently
• He wrote: "Right now, the most common way the news industry attempts to impart systemic knowledge is by wedging it into our episodic reports... This is completely bass-ackwards. Journalists spend a ton of time trying to acquire the systemic knowledge we need to report an issue, yet we dribble it out in stingy bits between lots and lots of worthless, episodic updates."
• If you want to understand an issue like the proposed rail project for Honolulu on Peer News, you’ll be able to read a deep and ever-growing briefing on the issue, with maps, source documents, etc. Articles won’t need all the boilerplate background that is typical of many newspaper stories...we’ll use links from articles to connect people back to a page that will seem more like wikipedia than a newspaper, although wikipedia with a news edge
• Our articles typically will be driven by questions rather than events...that’s why we talk about an investigative reporting mindset driving our approach..... we’ll be trying to answer the questions readers might ask in order to come to an informed opinion about an issue like rail
• And when I talk about important issues, I think it’s key to stress that we’ll identify what we think those are and hold onto them tightly...we don’t want to focus on a hot topic one day and seem to forget about it the next
• So that’s a bit about the content part of the equation

• Let me focus now on the other half of the equation: community
• As I mentioned before. We’re out to create the new civic square. You can’t do that without having people engaged.
• One of the ways we’ll get people involved is by connecting with them and connecting them with each other
• Here are 3 specific things we’re going to do
• No. 1. Our job title for our reporting staff isn’t “reporter”
• It’s “reporter and host”
• This is different from what other people are doing...but we think it’s going to be a key to our success....
• If you think of reporters as the servants of their readers...people who are working for their readers...you’d be a lot closer to what we’re thinking, instead of reporters as chroniclers or reporters as stenographers...
• We know there are going to be people in the community who know more than our reporters on any given subject...the challenge is to involve them and create a place for them to participate in the new civic square...
• The second thing that will make us different is how we’ll handle what most news sites call comments.
• How many of you, and be honest with me, how many of you read comments because you think you’re going to learn something from them? Give me a show of hands. How many of you are embarrassed by the comments on your own Web site and think they reflect badly on your community or news organization?
• Maybe now you’ll understand why we’re not going to have "comments". (I put quotes around the word comments after Jay Rosen pointed out that it sounded like I was saying it was going to be a one-way conversation. My point was that we were going to have debate, discussions, conversations - not comments. We think we can create a more satisfying and civil environment through this approach, rather than using "comments" after an article.)
• We all know how comments on news sites can descend into racism, hate, the ugly side of humanity...how they can reflect badly on news organizations and often only reflect a narrow slice of their communities...in truth, the comments sections of most news sites often act as a keep out sign to decent people...why would anybody want to participate given the tone and nature of the speech found there?
• The problem...or at least a big part of the problem...anonymity...
• In a civic square...you have to show your face ...you can’t avoid responsibility for your words..
• We plan to recreate that experience ..
• No. 3, Peer News is going to call things like it sees them.
• We think it’s important to find a way to, as one new friend put it, speak hard truths to each other and still get along
• This means that at Peer News we’ll be taking stands... Readers may not agree with us sometimes, or even most of the time...but we believe that by taking a clear position on many issues, it will help others shape their own...
• So that should give you a sense of how content and community will work together on Peer News
• But let me go ahead and address a few questions I know you might still be asking
• One big one is what the news service itself will look like
• The site isn’t going to be some 3D affair, something nobody has ever seen...it’s not Avatar...
• It’s designed to serve the needs of its readers, to make it seamless for them to participate every day, to keep them coming back for more...it’ll be about the content and the conversation, not about whiz bang
• The site exists to fulfill the needs of the community..
• We hope the site will connect people here in a way they haven’t been connected before
• Another question that I often hear is so what’s the business model
• Peer News will be a member organization, but not members only
• We’ll be embracing transparency and social media...there will be plenty of presence and impact for everybody, whether they’re members or not
• But the business model is based on creating content and experiences that people will value...and are willing to pay for
• That’s where we start...
• So what can you expect from peer news? A different way of thinking about content and a different way of thinking about community
• And a new way of thinking about how they’re connected
• I’ve come a long way to start this journey...My wife and I moved here from Colorado because we believe in this idea...as much as I’ve come to love the magic of this place in the weeks that I’ve been here, it’s not what brought me here...I’m here because I’m passionate about the possibility of finding a new approach to journalism...I believe in what we’re doing at Peer News, in what I’ve told you about today...I hope after listening to this talk that you’re starting to feel the same excitement, too