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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I agree that that’s a very steep price; the Wall St. Journal is a lot less than that, is delivered to my house daily, and has some top notch investigative reports.
By starting off with $20/mo (after the 4.99 intro), they are backing themselves into a box. If they have to ratchet back to $10/mo., it will be widely (and probably correctly) interpreted to mean that they couldn’t get takers at $20. Better to have started at $10 and raised the prices as people tried it and liked it.
Is there enough individual interest willing to pay for the opportunity to create/promote a predetermined political agenda ? Maybe to get them started and then the corporate written stories start appearing and the new think tank journalistic theme might need to change their name again.
Hi Helpless and others,
Thanks for your thoughtful feedback and suggestions! We’ve definitely got a lot of work to do before we launch, and we’re getting very helpful feedback from our initial members. No product or service starts out as good as its creators want it to be, but we’ve got a highly motivated and committed team that is gearing up as quickly as possible. I appreciate the time you took to make your suggestions and I’d welcome your thoughts as we continue to make improvements leading up to our launch.
Aloha,
Pierre
I just wish it wasn’t so Oahu centric.
We have a world of news on the neighbor islands and they don’t seem to care about them or want to give them any coverage.
What happens if someone does pay the fee and then starts making comments that Mr. Omidyar doesn’t like or approve of?
folks complain about not ponying up moolah for the news, then will complain when the paper(s) and tv don’t cover what they perceive as news. . . unfortunately, media let the genie out of the bottle by giving everything away for free years ago and it’s too hard to start charging for something that has been free for so long. . .
I love how everyone has no problem telling Pierre everything he’s doing wrong when the site’s been open for 3 days and hasn’t even launched yet.
All these critics, I wonder where their news sites are? I’m sure their sites pay professional journalists to cover stories on all of the main Hawaiian Islands and then provide their content to people for free all while remaining economically viable. Because doing that is just so simple and Pierre is such an idiot for being the only person on earth to have failed to figure that out yet.
To all you haters: What have you done to improve news coverage in Hawaii?
Get used to the idea that on the internet, just like in real life, you’re going to have to pay money to get something of value. There ain’t no free lunch.
Thanks for your comment.
I think Pierre would agree that thoughtful criticism will be a big help as they sharpen their approach.
I hope so. And I think most commenting here have honestly said they hope the project is successful.
In any case, thanks for jumping in.
-Ian
Some people will indeed “pay money for something of value.” But not many will pay for the kind of stuff CB has produced so far: “We pick the topics, and you tell us what you think the news is.”
If you want to pay for that, go for it. bring all your friends. But don’t label everyone who points out problems, expectations or preferences as “haters.” I think many would love to see Pierre and co. succeed, but that’s going to take some work.
I’m on board with this concept. Wishing you all the best success.
Not to disparage the ‘written word’ / blogs but would suggest giving options to engage people to highlight stories and entice them to read . Top news sites like CNN, ABCNEWS even today’s Huffington Post all rely on a dominate graphic and then interplay of choice –graphics, video and photos. Successful news organization need to incorporate words and pictures as I learned and taught at Univ . of Missouri , the basics ethics and mechanics are the same, not just tweets but documentary works of reporters and photographers .
Also another suggestion would be kokua/’giving back’ while helping and engaging the community on a important topics. For example Furlough Fridays could be
“Photo Fridays” , a Civil Beat employee would lead a mini journalism class on hot topic and let local children students and post their photos and blogs …or “Eco-Wednesday” section where beautiful images (photo , words and video) would engage local readers on a specific environmental topics
http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_national/midway/
unlike my straight forward multimedia show at the above link..you could even go to the other extreme purchase simple Animoto editing tools and make the inter-actives which include interviews photos, music , interviews, and videos !! .more hip and engaging..MTV style ..editing and dynamic presentation.
Just a thought!
I’d love to help
Lucy P.
Hmmm… it’s a long time since launch and the Grassroot(s) thing still isn’t fixed. Small thing, but sloppy.