Comments (126)
| I would require that all communities place their public information online, and develop a uniform tagging system so that public information is easily searchable. | ||||
 | I agree with this suggestion. But as a consultant working in community development I often run into a language barrier with the common citizen. They simply don't know the language or have the background to follow government and corporate entities. To this end I would suggest a database that works as Charlie suggests, but also includes links to white papers written with residents in mind to provide context, as well as a definitions for the tagging system. Laborious? Yes. Needed? If you want informed citizens, absolutely. | |||
| Thabiti is right about the language. Read an agenda or the minutes of a meeting, and like the most mundane of Senators, your local government folks tend to speak and write in bureaucratic jargon that the soccer mom, bartender, or even a journalist would have trouble deciphering. Officials could do a much better job of speaking in layman's terms instead of trying to impress by speaking in acronyms, codes, or the government buzzwords they brought home from the most recent conference of the X-State Towns Association. | |||
| As I said earlier, all public records must be made easily available to the public either online or in person. | ||||
| Don't allow good newspapers to die. In North Carolina, two major metros, The Charlotte Observer and The Raleigh News & Observer, both with their shares of Pulitzers, both sworn competitors for a century, are sharing their newsgathering forces. Will that work long-term? Who knows, but as long as it does, North Carolinians are well-served. | ||||
| yes! yes! | |||
| Agree with Pete, but think North Carolinians - and the public at large - would be better served by having more healthy newspapers competing to present a multiplicity of news and opinions, instead of being forced to share newsgathering resources to survive. | |||
| I agree completely. | |||
| See my comments to questions 4 and 5. | ||||
| better indexing and tagging - less jargon, code, acronyms; more plain language | ||||
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The problem is a classic one---the market that was providing both profit and a large public good has collapsed. A new market will rise, but in the first stage there will be a clamor to let the market provide, without support or guidance. Disastrous prescription, as Adam Smith could tell you: the market will not provide the "public good" side of journalism for the time being. It needs other support until a new market system is built up. | ||||
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Today's record number of news consumers, and the financial crisis among news producers, are both caused by news being virtually free now. Has information become a right that should be guaranteed to all? If so, shouldn't the government pay for it? This has implications of its own - but what about the BBC model? | |||
| In order to improve the quality of the information, one would need to improve the quality of the journalist's education and training. Very rarely does a news report stand out as being unbiased, well-researched, and well presented. Also rare is news without the glib entertainment aspect or the unsolicited opinion or obvious slant of the newsreader/writer/network... Many reports don't even try to hide their 'theme' when sharing the story. Word choice, story choice, etc. has become blatantly obvious. So much so that most folks (yes, most) don't bother with major news networks or even newspapers any longer. The market has spoken, people stopped buying newspapers when they found themselves being insulted not just on the editorial pages, but in the stories. The San Francisco Times is best used to line bird cages. The Washington Post makes great hamster bedding. Too many papers aren't worth the trees that died to make them. | ||||
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Exactly. The problems that newspapers are having is largely due to their own lack of professionalism. It's rare to find, as you say, good, unbiased, factual reporting. There is also another reason: profit motive. These newspapers don't really work for their readers, they work for their advertisers. So they gravitate towards the sensational and "cute" to drive the most "eyeballs" to their pages. Long live PBS! | |||
| There’s no shortage of quality information. The issue is recognizing the type of information that people need expanded access to and finding a trustworthy mechanism for delivering it (by trained reporters and citizen journalists with relevant experiences and expertise). Consider the various dimensions of information: local, statewide, national; formal and informal; personal, business, government, social. With this in mind, local governments and news outlets (here, I mean “old media”) should work together to develop portals that can address a citizen’s information needs from the outcomes of their local school district decisions to what their Representative and Senator are working on to what local non-profits' volunteer needs are. This would require government to be open and flexible, and news outlets to be objective. The next step would be to connect into other forms of “new media” to ensure that people are able to access this information through a myriad of entry points. | ||||
| Back when newspapers were healthy and thriving enterprises owned by individuals and families, there was little concern that the news side of the operation would be influenced by the revenue-generating side of the operation. Granted, there were those occasional local advertising clients that put pressure on the newspaper owner, but, for the most part, there was a separation between the news and revenue sides of the operation. Unfortunately, when newspapers began to be purchased by venture capital companies who were not satisfied with the 20% to 35% profit margins it began a trend toward laying off news staff members. I think the only way to save the news business is to make it NON-PROFIT AND SEVERE ITS REQUIREMENT TO PRODUCE REVENUE. THAT COULD HELP DE-POLITICIZE IT AS WELL and in turn, that would improve the quality of the news. | ||||
| The quality of the information depends on the quality of the information providers--are they providing us distortions, polemics, raw data, analyzed material, full records, censored records, or what? While I applaud full disclosure of records of any public body, I am very unlikely to comb such texts myself. The amount of information that floods us each day needs a sorting function to help me adjust to what is important and to whom and why. Whatever the risks that accompany it, running a quick Google search or its equivalent has become a necessity for my hunting down information. My 2 functions--screening the information thrown at me and my own search for what I want and when I want it.. I would not trade one issue of Scientific American or NY Times or the Economist, for 1000 volumes of IIBD front page editorials, or angry blogs across any political spectrum., nor tarde 1 hour of Leherer for 1000 hrs of "fair and balanced' Fox. Good media should be unafraid to teach us about biases. | ||||
| The staff of local internet, newspaper and radio news sources should be energized and excited about what they do. Support local sources with direct dollars, high-quality training and networking opportunities. | ||||
| I dont think you can improve the quality of information without improving EDUCATION. The two are inextricably linked. People need to know what information they need, and why its important, in order to know to seek it out. Also, we need to make civic engagements "sexy" again. This is beginning to emerge with the characteristics of the millenials. The key is to connect the need for quality information to their love of volunteering and involvement. We must show, through education and example, why the two are linked. | ||||
| The tribal government needs to make their meeting notes public and more accessible for their tribal members. More dialogue needs to happen between the policy makers and the people. | ||||
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