Are there any limits of readers’ involvment?
August 29, 2008 by grzegorz.piechota
The New Statesman asked readers to vote for the next investigation the journalists should carry. The news magazine called it ”a unique experiment in British journalism.”
The New Statesman has a long track of investigative journalism. Stephen Gray wrote about CIA rendition flights, Martin Bright exposed the link between the Foreign Office’s and radical Islamists or Chris Ames worked on the government’s notorious dossier on weapons of mass destruction.
The editors believe there are five areas that they believe need investigating, but before they assigned these topics to any journalis in the newsroom, they had asked readers to vote and tell what the Statesman’s priorities should be.
The poll was announced online. Readers could vote and make comments with other story ideas.
Readers could choose following topics:
- Who funds the UK Conservative Party?
- What is the influence of giant multinational PR and lobbying companies?
- What Prinve Charles is really doing and will he stop his meddling in the areas of agriculture, architecture and education when he becomes king?
- What is the state of British Childhood? Why is it that British children always end up near the bottom of international “happiness” comparisons?
- Asylum Crisis – why one of the richest countries in the world leaves asylum seekers on the streets with no access to benefits?
Finally, on Friday evening 84 % of votes went to the Asylum Crisis. The Statesman has not disclosed how many users voted.
The magazine’s political editor Martin Bright promised on his blog that the results of the investigation will be published by the end of the year. ”An investigation into such a controversial and complex issue will take some time,” he explained.
Even if this experiment is not as unique as the UK news magazine claims, it shows that something changes at the respected newsrooms – editors try to engage readers in new ways.
Interaction is no longer just a selection of letters to the editor published on page number 87.
How a new daily involved… every household
Probably the most fascinating example of a similar poll that I know about is the case of Divya Bhaskar, a daily newspaper in Gujarat, India.
Before it was launched in 2001, the newspaper’s representatives had visited personally (sic!) all (sic!) 800,000 (sic!) households in Gujarat three times (sic!).
Firstly they asked what kind of newspaper people would like to have, secondly to find what they did or didn’t like in their old paper, and thirdly to show people a dummy and an order form for a three-month subscription.
The launch of Divya Bhaskar was accompanied with a an advertising campaign with a simple slogan: “Now your wish will prevail.”
No wonder the new daily was number one on the market from day one.
I have learnt this story at the IFRA International Newsroom Summit in 2007 in Paris.
Asking questions is not enough
Asking readers for tips and votes is only a beginning. From my own experience, it is much harder to listen to what they really say.
Many newspapers ask questions, but they don’t really care about answers. Many newspapers invite readers to join the debate, but want to control this debate on every stage.
People in the newsroom interacting with readers often face problems like these:
- How to explain to a journalist that a reader complaining about a story or sending a correction is not a foe?
- How to convince a journalist that maybe the story idea submitted by a reader should have a higher priority that a story this journalist is working on?
- How to convince an editor that reader’s question or view may not be less important than traditional sources of opinion – like scientists, analysts, lobbyists, politicians, spokesmen etc.?
These are common problems in many newspapers and we don’t even touch issues like usage of user-generated content, crowd-sourcing etc.
Where are the limits of readers’ involvement
I asked Sue Matthias, an acting editor of the New Statesman, the following questions:
- The Statesman has limited the readers involvement to vote on the topics and to share people’s views of what media have missed when covering the issue. Have the magazine ever considered any deeper involvement of readers?
Just as an example I mean: collaboration in data gathering, analysis of documents, or any other activity assigned usually to proffesional journalists. - Can they imagine that a news organisation like the Statesman goes deeper into a collaboration like this in the future? And what would be the troubles, or challenges one would have to face?
- In the Statesman’s poll Asylum Crisis story was a winner. What will happen to other story ideas like party funding or lobbying? I understand the editors have found them important enough to put them on the list. Will they investigate these issues even if they don’t get readers’ appreciation in the voting?
I will publish Sue’s answers here as soon as I get them.
Join the debate
What do you think: are there any limits of readers’ involvment in editorial work? Should editors of respected newspapers and news magazines go deeper in collaborations like this? What would be the troubles, or challenges they would have to face?
Tagged: Case studies, debate, interaction, investigative journalism, letters, opinion
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