It had to happen. Had to. A major—and very corporate—US news organization has thrown in the towel on its proprietary news gathering operations and has turned to the wisdom of the crowd to report the day’s news.
Gannett, publisher of USA Today and 90 other US dailies, has reorganized its newsroom departments into “seven desks with names like ‘data,’ ‘digital,’ and ‘community conversation,” reports Jeff Howe for Wired News:
“The initiative emphasizes four goals: Prioritize local news over national news; publish more user-generated content; become 24-7 news operations, in which the newspapers do less and the websites do much more; and finally, use crowdsourcing methods to put readers to work as watchdogs, whistle-blowers and researchers in large, investigative features.”
The regoranization, coming on the heels of Gannett losing a full third of its share price in the last two years, has been tested in 11 of its US newspaper properties and will be rolled out in all Gannett publications by May. Howe covers the seven desks reorganization elsewhere.
This isn’t new. Startup national open-source journalism projects like NowPublic and NewAssignment are on the verge of taking flight. Similarly, on the local level, open-source journalism projects like the Twin Cities Daily Planet (see disclosure box, right) are already competing head-to-head with the corporate dailies.
It was only a matter of time before the corporate news organizations made this move. Whether it’s a positive move or not remains to be seen—inevitability does not equate to quality (or even being correct). Professional news organizations have the deep pockets required to do the reporting most of us seem to find important. Bootstrap open-source organizations just don’t have the financial chops to root out the really big, really important, really complicated stories. At least not yet. And that’s where Howe’s Wired story is the most disturbing: “Of all the pilot projects the company has conducted over the last few months, the most promising would seem to be the crowdsourcing of in-depth investigations into government malfeasance.” (Howe covers the crowdsourcing phenomenon in-depth on his excellent weblog of the same name.)
Hell, the Philadelphia Inquirer couldn’t afford Donald Barlett and James Steele—probably the best investigative journalism team in the business—and neither could Time magazine. Who knows how long ad-heavy Vanity Fair will be able to carry the duo. “Most of us got into this business because we were passionate about watchdog journalism and public service, and we’ve just watched those erode,” Gannett vice president for new media content tells Howe. “We’ve learned that no one wants to read a 400-column-inch investigative feature online. But when you make them a part of the process they get incredibly engaged.”
Yikes. Is Mentos and Diet Coke the really-way-new journalism? Too soon to be sure, but here’s hoping not.
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