Oh, my.
I just don’t know what to say about The News Formerly Known as Peer, now redubbed “Honolulu Civil Beat“.
Now that it’s had a soft launch, it’s still hard to get a fix on. With six staffers spending only part-time reporting, dividing the rest of their time between blogging, commenting, responding, discussing, “conversing”, etc., it’s very difficult to tell what degree of in-depth reporting is going to be possible.
I’m sure everyone wishes them well. I’m not so sure many folks are going to pop for the $240/year subscription price, creating what blogger Larry Geller refers to as “a gate community.” That’s a pretty steep entrance fee to what apparently is self-defined first as a center for civic discussions and secondarily as a source of news.
Editor John Temple writes:
You might have noticed that we’ve opened the doors to this new civic square without putting up any news articles. That’s different – a news service without news, at least initially. It’s intentional. We want to begin by talking with you about what we’re doing, to hear what you want from us and what you think we should be asking. We believe conversation and civil debate with our reporter-hosts and with other members is central to what will make Civil Beat valuable. And we want you to see that the core of our service isn’t the article itself.
Hmmmm.
Not quite what I expected or hoped for.
I also admit to being put off by the initial bias signaled in the shaping of the starting issue in Chad Blair’s exploration of state politics, “the one-party dominance of the Democratic Party of Hawaii.”
There are obviously a lot of ways you could phrase the starting point for an examination of Hawaii politics.
“One-party dominance” is a loaded term. Not a good way to begin, in my view.
Even starting with the Democratic Party, you might have asked a straight-forward question: who makes up the Democratic Party and how has it not only maintained, but extended its reach during three decades of largely GOP power in Washington? Not so much bias in a starting point like that.
Or it could have started with the GOP–Why is the party perceived as so relatively powerless after getting Gov. Lingle elected twice?
An examination of the state could have initially sidestepped the question of political parties by looking at structures of power. Interlocks between the Big Five once defined Hawaii’s power structure. With the Big Five long gone, what does the state’s power structure look like now?
But phrasing the question as one of “one-party dominance” necessarily shapes what comes next.
I call that a stumble out of the starting block.
I spent a few minutes looking at some of the self-descriptions of other new journalism initiatives, which are decidedly sharper in tone and more to the point.
ProPublica.org says it “shines a light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them.”
In the best traditions of American journalism in the public service, we seek to stimulate positive change. We uncover unsavory practices in order to stimulate reform. We do this in an entirely non-partisan and non-ideological manner, adhering to the strictest standards of journalistic impartiality. We won’t lobby. We won’t ally with politicians or advocacy groups. We look hard at the critical functions of business and of government, the two biggest centers of power, in areas ranging from product safety to securities fraud, from flaws in our system of criminal justice to practices that undermine fair elections. But we also focus on such institutions as unions, universities, hospitals, foundations and on the media when they constitute the strong exploiting or oppressing the weak, or when they are abusing the public trust.
CaliforniaWatch.com “exposes injustice, waste, mismanagement, wrongdoing, questionable practices, and corruption so that those responsible can be held to account and so the public can be armed with the information needed to debate solutions and spark change.”
Voice of San Diego: “…we are inspired by passion to expose what is right and wrong, to drive reform and to spur solutions for the best of the community as a whole. We offer these stories in the traditional in-depth news articles or in blogs. Our commitment is to engage you through lucid storytelling and serial narratives, to bring you along with our reporters as they do what they love and get you involved in a conversation about San Diego. You can see our content not only here but on the television, radio and news pages of our partners all around San Diego County.”
New England Center for Investigative Reporting:
NECIR-BU’S core mission will be to arm citizens with information needed to fully participate in the democratic process. In addition, we will hold the powerful – including major institutions, officials and policy makers – accountable to the public. A major priority of our work will be to serve the public interest by exposing social injustice, abuse of power and governmental and institutional waste, fraud and mismanagement.
Our mission statement: Protect the vulnerable. Expose wrongdoing. Seek solutions to problems.
The Bay Citizen is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, member-supported news organization. In collaboration with the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, The New York Times, and other media organizations serving the Bay Area, our mission is to enhance civic and community news coverage in the Bay Area, stimulate innovation in journalism, and foster civic engagement.
Admittedly, those are different beasts. The News Formerly Known as Peer seeks to create a sustainable profit-making approach. The others are trying to find a platform for journalism that isn’t being supported elsewhere. It’s too early to make judgements about what Honolulu Civil Beat will have to offer. Or so I am hoping.
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Few in Hawaii will pay 20 bucks a month for the privilege of engaging in gate-kept civil conversation about public events, except those with vested interests in steering the conversation.
Assuming the Star-Advertiser keeps producing some level of news and allowing comments, everyone can rant to their hearts’ content for free.
But the “Metromix” cutey pie roundup will probably get the most traffic.
Others will be satisfied with perusing coupons in the Midweek delivered to their door for free, and might occasionally read one of its numerous vapid columns. Bus riders will pick up the Weekly sometimes, especially when it’s raining or the used-car rags are all gone.
Perhaps my expectations were too high for the project being touted as Honolulu Civil Beat (CB). My inital reaction was, “What the hell is this?”
I know the official launch will occur on May 4th and the content is very limited at this point, but CB has the appearance of a opinion-led news aggregator (essentially, a regular blog).
I truly wish the best for this endeavor, and I hope my initial thoughts will change as time goes on. Best of luck.
With such a steep “subscription” price I believe what you will have for “discussion” is much like what you see on Hawaii Threads. The same 7 or 8 people who have an opinion/comment or a rebuttal to just about any topic. Frankly, from what I’ve seen so far, free would be too much if I put a value on my time at all.
Thank you for your thoughtful comments. Honolulu Civil Beat seems to be successfully setting low expectations, which of course is not a good business model.
will be interesting to see how it all shakes out. . . wonder if the new print paper will pony up the money to see what’s going on and then take a different approach to some of the stories?
as for the one-party dominance, i think that if you have one party in power for decades, of course there is going to be a logjam and other problems. . . complacency, narrowing of ideology, etc., are likely to happen. . .
I’m in agreement, Ian. While I keep telling myself that it’s too early to be pessimistic about this, and to give them the benefit of the doubt and some time to find their footing and work out the kinks, the soft launch, the above quote from John Temple, and most of all, the cost of subscription, left me disappointed. If they can deliver on the news content, fine, then we might have a nice, and maybe even unique, journalistic endeavor, but even then I can’t see myself paying $240 just for the perk of being able to join in the discussion. That’s more than the cost of daily delivery of the Honolulu Advertiser, and I’m still not sure whether or not Honolulu Civil Beat will be a better and smarter beast.
-r-
Is anyone going to give it a try and see what HCB is like *from the inside*? I’m willing to satisfy my curiosity for the intro $4.99 plus excise tax.
Claire, once inside you can post a comment. Well it says comment in the box, but John Temple said it’s a conversation. They need to change the wording to say converse instead of comment.
I don’t want to open PayPal account, so i guess i’m out… which just doesn’t make sense to me. How many places on the web are PayPal exclusive? I would think any business would happily take my money via credit card these days.
James,
Ebay owns Paypal.
So I guess they are assuming everyone uses Ebay uses Paypal.
The old General Motors type of assumption. That turned out well.
I thought that Chad Blair was right on with the theme of the ” one party dominance, Democrats, in Hawai’i”. Education certainly hasn’t benefited! If good discussions on “subjects for change for the better” can be produced, then it’s worth the price, isn’t it? Hopefully no wasted space on cats!
Yikes. The first “story” you see is an introductory paragraph that uses 113 words to inform you that there is a big, thick, comprehensive report somewhere that is hard for the staff to understand but is reputed to document city accounting and other financial matters.
Okay, you’ve told me absolutely nothing with that lengthy turn off.
Nothing about anything that’s in the report that would make me want to pay money to read further about whatever it is you have to say, and nothing to bolster my confidence that you even have the capability of saying anything meaningful about it.
That may sound harsh, but it’s going to take a lot more than that to attract a paying readership while the economy sputters, budgets are slashed, and disposable income dries up.
The Brady Bunch-esque staff photo is cute, though.
Okay, okay. Let’s hope it gets better with the “hard launch” in a couple weeks. Seriously.
First off I wish the best to Civil Beat. I signed up for Civil Beat, got in and was quite disappointed.
Here is part of my disappointment.
1) How do I know when there is something new on the site? Is there a set publishing schedule?
There is no email alert, no RSS no way to know when something new is posted. How am I supposed to, as Temple says “We believe conversation and civil debate with our reporter-hosts and with other members is central to what will make Civil Beat valuable”
How I’m I supposed to know when there’s a new conversation going on to participate in. They want it to be valuable, but there is no system to value me in.
Am I supposed to follow each reporter-host on Twitter ,to keep up to date? If so, then the civic center is on Twitter not Civil Beat. The conversation is happening on Twitter.
There seems to be some confusion as to how this civic center is to work. John Temple doesn’t want to call it comments but conversations, but there is no real way to have a conversation. If you post a comment, you have to come back to the website to check if someone responded to your comment. There is no RSS or email alerts letting you know some is responding/talking to you.
2) The second thing I find odd is, Civil Beat wants – “to hear what you want from us and what you think we should be asking.”
But unless you pay, the only way is to let them hear from you is to find the contact us link at the bottom of the web page, click on it and then you have to email them.
There is no feedback form, no how are we doing, what can we improve on links or forms.
3) Being that the founders/creators of Civil Beat have all this expert knowledge I wonder how they are getting feedback. I’m talking about real feedback, not the congratulations, great jobs comments on the website now.
One way that would be easy for them to get real live feedback, is to have a search box on civilbeat.com.
How does a search box help in getting feed back?
The search box will show you what people are looking for, or what they are having a hard time finding on your website. These search terms can help you in adjusting your website to be much more user friendly.
Granted they have been live for about a day, I won’t go into the behind the scenes technical things I find lacking.
One thing I will mention is after the launch hype dies down, they will need a stronger value proposition in getting sign ups.
Currently, they are using the sense of urgency to get a sign up with a discounted subscription rate. But once at full rate $19.99, they will need to clearly define the benefits of paying for a civilbeat subscription. The call to action will have to be stronger than – “Pay $4.99 with PayPal”.
I would guess they have about 170 sign ups currently, and will need a lot more.
I know John Temple feels that with CivilBeat.com they will have something special that people will want to be a part of and pay for –
“People are paying on the Web for (publications such as) The Wall Street Journal; it has established value. … We believe people will pay for content and experience that they value.”
What he is missing is that the Wall Street Journal not only has valueable articles, but the WSJ helps its readers make and save money.
Right now I don’t know what CivilBeat.com value is, is it articles that pose questions and conversations that try and answer them.
They need to take a step back and listen to what they are saying. They are assuming what people want (by asking article questions), and how people want it (by way of conversation subscriptions). Remember the Internet is not only a push median, it’s a pull to.
the site is interesting, but frankly I can see why people would not feel comfortable being opinionated in a public forum in Hawaii
anything they post could possibly be used to label them in the future
and we have politicians that love ad hominen attacks
I appreciate all the profiles in courage that want to participate, but I think the majority of people just don’t have a need to be courageous
I’m not going to pay for any kind of news service (or whatever) that publishes its first staff-written article on rail transit and cites, in all seriousness, “an editorial from the Grassroots Institute,” especially without even attempting to explain what that organization is (and maybe without even knowing). Hint: far-right local franchise of the Cato Institute and assorted fellow travelers, funded by same. And it’s “root,” not “roots.”
Describing the “editorial’s” author as a representative of “a national environmental organization that opposes most construction projects” is just laughably naive for anyone even dabbling in journalism.
This is seriously lame when you’re referring to a notorious libertarian ideologue and opponent of virtually all rational land-use controls by government, who instead advocates total reliance on the “free market” (read: rich people and corporations that want to build whatever and wherever they want, with no pesky environmental laws to follow).
http://www.civilbeat.com/posts/2010/04/22/240-anyone-half-rail-anyone/
What a disappointment.
Okay, two days later and not one word on the, ahem, “incomplete” rail story has changed, despite Pierre’s acknowledged reading of the posts here. Not even a correction to the small but indisputable error in the name of an organization cited (Grassroot, not Grassroots).
That doesn’t say much for a commitment to basic accuracy.
Would they notice if a news organization referred to them as Civic Beat rather than Civil Beat?
It’s not too late. But pretty soon, people might start calling it Drivel Beat.
I just posted my comment in HCB about the Paypal login being annoying (for me). I’ll share any response I get.
I’m wishing the best for this new venture, especially because several of my friends work there. But personally, I would have a hard time paying $20 a month to hear about some reporter’s wardrobe malfunction. It’s hard to blend hard news with that folksy first-person blogger style, but I hope they can pull it off.
The world needs more news-gatherers.
🙂
N