Comments (104)
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Local communities need financial and technical support aimed specifically at translating print records into digital databases accessible online. Without financial or other incentives a growing digital gap will be created between large cities that have made (or are capable of making) this transition and smaller cities and towns that will never be able to do this on their own. This effort would benefit citizens certainly, but geographic data focused products at newspapers and other media, as well as new products such as Everyblock can only be built if the huge cost of gathering and manually entering this data is removed from the equation. | ||||
 | Absolutely agree, the government in Ireland need to work alongside locals to bring a transparent record and overview of the handling of claims into politicos affairs and expenses. If the national government ever allowed digital archiving and encouraged 3 rd party apps and improved navigation, there would be a lot of change. I think this will happen in the next 1/2 years, and will bring true progress between government and its citizens. | |||
| Local governments need encouragement and incentives to make records and activity transparent and accessible so that community news sites can analyze and link to information that is important to communities. As news organizations downsize and community organizations help pick up the slack, making government information more accessible is one way to offset the loss of professional journalism resources in many communities. Since Obama has signalled a desire for more government transparency at the federal level, now may be the time for a productive push for more openness at the local level. Local officials often get the rap for being reluctant to release records. Training and technology can help change attitudes. | ||||
| As a young journalist decades ago, I was taught my role as a self-appointed representative of the public. I learned that a major component of a journalist's job is to question, then verify sources and information. Depend on local governments to determine what information is provided to citizens, when and how? Sure. While we're at it, let's just ask Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong-Il to keep us posted on their development of nuclear arms via their websites and Twitter. | ||||
| Public records must be just that -- public. Local governments should put as much online as possible. | ||||
| We need to rethink what we mean by "community" and how we, as a community, provide what we need. Most major cities have one mass newspaper - which I think generally does more harm than good. We need to work from the most local day-to-day direction (see RB United) up. The problem is one of distance - only the very most dedicated City Hall watchers can pull the signal from the noise. Its less about news than about the need for a complete overhaul of local governance. | ||||
| With the daily press (printed press) slowly but surely disappearing local governments could enter into agreements with publishers to subsidize the papers IF it could/would be done in a "no strings attached" manner -- which I know is asking a lot. Short of that, then the local public libraries will need to become the collector and distributor of local information and news, getting input from various civic and non-civic groups/organizations, regular attendance at all meetings of governing bodies, committees, etc., receipt of all minutes, etc. Then, posting all on the library's website. It can be done IF the library has adequate financial and technological support. | ||||
| would libraries take on that sort of responsibility as they are allowing locals to take books out, that is their function. Also I think it might work all right once the local political representatives who get voted into the local county council decided on a a group local government overhaul or governance. A new local governance system needs to be installed and it has to be working with the local citizens | |||
| Our local government has quite good online info, though the council could do a better job of more frequently communicating, maybe via e-mail as well as on a website. The local free entertainment weekly has a good summary of local govt and business activities, however. Some website with local summary, updated as necessary, might be good if it were independent of local ads. | ||||
| The question isn't or shouldn't be about access, it should be about use. The information or data may be accessible, but if you don't go looking for it, it's much the same as not being there, not being useful. The buzz is all about interactive, two-way communication, yet most folks tend to be more or less passive. They look for "popular" information, but may not look (or know where to look) for information that may actually affect them. So the question is what information do they need and how do they get it (how do we deliver it to them)? Access implies that they'll seek it out. Not sure that's a valid assumption. Folks have access to public documents at county courthouses, but just how many of them actually walk up to the counter and ask for it? Information may be available on the Web, but how many folks know what to ask for, where to ask for it, where to find it? | ||||
| Put it all online in a way citizens can find and use the information. For instance, if the county transportation department is considered re-designing a road, project documents should be easy to find on the department web site. The department should offer e-mail, RSS or other alerts to citizens based on geographic and topic criteria. Of course, alerts to news media will remain essential, since most people will only try to find the detailed documents after learning of a project or policy issue through the media. | ||||
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It would be great to have government provide funding for reporting projects (a la BBC and PBS, non interfering grants) that might be led by experienced journalists and enlist community members as reporters. | ||||
| Local government (or any level of govt. for that matter) has no business in the news business. Local government should limit themselves to governing those items over which they have authority. Only in Communist countries (Marxist regimes, Dictatorships, etc.) does the government have a role to play in what and how information is disseminated. | ||||
| Though I subscribe to our local newspaper, The Wichita Eagle, it is obviously becoming harder and harder for the newspaper to continue offering enough information to be viable financially over the long term. Given the necessity to repeat national news that is available elsewhere, it won't be long before even that must be reconsidered. Local news, however, is always going to be important to people and therefore, offering that news and links to national news on the newspaper's web site is going to be the preferred way to get local news before long. We will probably check The Eagle's website along with the other web sites we visit. Though I love reading The Eagle every morning, it is becoming obvious that printed newspapers will not be able to sustain their existence for much longer. I WOULD VOTE TO ALLOW NEWSPAPERS TO BECOME NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS MUCH AS ARE NPR AND PBS STATIONS. I WOULD ALSO DONATE MORE THAN I CURRENTLY PAY FOR A SUBSCRIPTION IF IT WOULD HELP KEEP LOCAL NEWS VIABLE. | ||||
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Local governments need to help create employment and other economic opportunities that give all community members time to access, discuss, and create information. Most of the discussion about the digital divide has been directed towards increasing access to hardware or network connectivity rather than facilitating lifestyles that have time and space for using and creating information. Furthermore... it seems like local governments are notoriously bad at creating interactive, collaborative web presences for local government issues. So, these discussions often take place in online spaces (blogs, mailing lists, social networks) that are invisible to local government stakeholders. Local governments need to build better web sites that keep both policy makers and community members in the information loop. This dialog needs to be integrated that with more traditional information sharing spaces like flyers, pamphlets, town-hall-meetings, and forums. | ||||
| In metro Denver, Ch. 8 has carried live and taped coverage of government events such as City Council meetings. However, as a Direct TV subscriber courtesy of my Qwest bundle,I no longer can access that channel which is a disappointment. News bit overload is a real problem today. 140 characters on a Tweet does little to educate and inform. And deep, insightful reportage is rare, making it difficult to obtain balanced information. | ||||
| THey should stick to, and help improve, local resources. These include, newspapers, local online sources and community radio. | ||||
| i think its a bit nostalgic to think that local newspapers really contributed in a concrete and aware way to civic life. certainly some coverage did/does, but increasingly newspapers take on the same stories one sees on television or in national media. we need to define what 'civil life' is. is it joining the knights of columbus? supporting a local high school team? or something else entirely? is debating an issue online civic activity? i dont know the answer but i think the concepts can be elusive to most people. we know we like community, but how does that extend out, and what creates it. | ||||
| The governor of Pennsylvania has proposed cutting all state funding of public television. Should this decision be passed by the state congress, our state will take a major step backwards in providing its citizens with local educational and informational material. I don't like to think of the government having a hand in the content of news that made available to its citizens, but there should be adequate funding. | ||||
| I think you're asking the wrong question. Local governments (and newspapers, for that matter) don't necessarily want to improve access to information. There are greater questions, too, such as how much information to which one should have access, and what kind of information to which one should have access. Maybe the first step to improvement is identifying those greater questions and then answering them as best as possible? | ||||
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