Idea Lab

For News Organizations, Transparency is the New Objectivity

by David Cohn
2008 Knight News Challenge Winner

Back in the spring, I made an analogy about journalism being a game of chess. On the chess  board of journalism, content is King (the most important piece) but collaboration is Queen (the most powerful piece). To extend the analogy further: transparency is the board itself. Unfortunately, freelancing is a horribly antiquated system. It works behind closed doors. Independent freelancers are left out in the cold and have to build personal relationships with editors to get any paid work. These relationships are always one-to-one. This make it an outdated model. It made perfect sense 30 years ago, but now it...

• September 15, 2009
• 6 comments

Improving Access to Information is One Way to Make Reporting Cheaper

by Amanda Hickman
2009 Knight News Challenge Winner

When he's not toasting escapism, our tireless editor Mark Glaser has been asking why reporting costs so much. I can't tell you much about investigative reporting (a $400,000 product of which started the conversation), except to say that six figure salaries do add up. But I can tell you that when it comes to local reporting, improved access to information could make a big dent in the expense of getting a story written. If you want to take a look at distribution of discretionary funds by the New York City Council, you have to start with a 400-page PDF full...

• September 9, 2009
• 1 comment

NY Attorney General Should Practice Transparency He Preaches

by Daniel X. O'Neil
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Today New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo made news headlines by coming down hard on American International Group (AIG), the company that has paid out millions of dollars in bonuses to some of the people thought responsible for the billions of dollars in losses that preceded government bailout money that continues to flow to the insurance giant. In a letter to AIG Chairman Ed Liddy (PDF), Cuomo requested a "list of individuals who are to receive payments under this retention plan, as well as their positions at the firm" and "a list of who negotiated these contracts and who developed...

• March 17, 2009
• 2 comments

Making News More Transparent

by Martin Moore
2008 Knight News Challenge Winner

With our Knight News Challenge grant we (the Media Standards Trust and Web Science Research Initiative) are exploring and developing ways in which to help the public find and assess news on the web (for which we have also received a MacArthur Foundation grant). Part of this initiative includes developing tools for making online news more transparent. What does that mean? It means enabling journalists, and people creating journalism, to embed basic information to their online news articles which helps the public establish an article's authorship and provenance (the same methodology applies to photos and video but I'll stick with...

• December 11, 2008
• 1 comment

Sharing the Same Space: News and Advertising

by Kimberly Sultze
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

The Innovation Incubators project is moving into the industry testing phase. Teams of students from seven institutions, Ithaca College, Michigan State, University of Nevada--Las Vegas, St. Michael's College, Western Kentucky, University of Kansas, and Kansas State, worked together to develop three new ideas for community journalism which will be tested in the months ahead. It's a good time to reflect on the project so far and to share one of my observations about what we've discovered during the collaboration process. One of the great challenges for the Innovation Incubator students--undergraduate and graduate alike, and from all institutions--was pitching an innovative...

• July 13, 2008
• 2 comments

How Do You Balance Anonymity & Accountability?

by Mark Glaser
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Here's your question for the week on Idea Lab. Many people think that anonymity is important online for people who are whistle-blowers or would not speak out if they were identified. But the flipside of that is that many people use the protection of anonymity to lob insults and ad hominem attacks at opponents and turn civil conversations into flame wars. What happens if you try to pin down people and make them use real names in forums? Does that bring more civility? That's certainly the case at Front Porch Forum, where people must use their first and last name,...

• April 3, 2008
• 7 comments

How Far Should Transparency Go?

by Steven Clift
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Government Technology reported on public employee protests to seeing their names and salaries online via a database on the Sacramento Bee. What about public employee salaries - should all be publicly posted online? Should only management level and above be listed specifically with others displaying the salary range per pay scales for various classifications? I have a hard time imagining a democracy where any and all legally public government information is not on the Internet for all to see in a decade or so. This means the ethics filings of public officials will be liberated from the dusty paper files...

• March 18, 2008
• 7 comments

Questioning Candidates on Government Openness and Transparency - Pick your Top 5

by Steven Clift
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

While the mainstream media community raises awareness about open government each year during Sunshine Week, we need to push local up strategies that promote greater government transparency online so local citizen media has access to the raw "info" materials we need to improve democracy. We need to take a lesson from OMBWatch's Open Government online survey and ask questions of state and local candidate. Here is the survey introduction from OMBWatch: Open Government: What We Need to Know We deserve a more open and honest government. Elections are the time when politicians pay the most attention to people and issues,...

• January 29, 2008
• No comments

Plain Dealer Should Deal Openly with Blog Ethics

by Jay Rosen
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

By now you may have heard about the implosion of Wide Open, a political blog started by the Cleveland Plain-Dealer featuring four voices from the ranks of local bloggers: two left, two right. They were paid as freelance contributors. Here's the way the "reader representative," Ted Diadiun, described the meltdown. It began when Rep. Steve LaTourette, a Republican Congressman, found out that one of the Wide Open bloggers, Jeff Coryell of Cleveland Heights, had contributed $100 to his opponent. LaTourette was unhappy that the newspaper would pay someone who financially supported his opponent to write political opinion. He complained to...

• November 11, 2007
• 2 comments