Fake grassroots don't grow…

January 11, 2007 By 8 Comments

Fake grassroots don’t grow.

It seems an obvious statement. But it remains lost on too many Internet entrepreneurs, who will lay down plenty of fertilizer, but who seem unwilling to plant actual seeds.

Last week, a relative who works in the journalism field told me of a pitch he’d heard from a gentleman who’s planned a national network of hundreds of local “citizen journalism” websites. He’d hired a techie to produce a site template (“Which should be ready in four months!”) and was seeking investors to raise money for a national sales staff. As for the content… well, the readers would provide that!

If anyone wants to take bets in another dot-com dead pool, put down March 2008 as my guess. (And that’s assuming the would-be CEO finds a full year’s worth of venture capital funding.)

Last week also brought news of turmoil at Backfence, one of the more notable attempts to create a local “citizen journalism” network. Co-founder Mark Potts returned after other co-founder Susan DeFife left the company, amid reports of lay-offs of up to two-thirds of the company’s staff. (Backfence was one of the local grassroots reporting sites that disappointed OJR writer Tom Grubisich in his round-up of CitJ efforts in 2005 and 2006.)

One might think that thousands of failed newspaper dot-com discussion boards from the 1990s would have taught the everyone in the industry that “if you build it, and don’t staff it, at best, a few wackos will show.” But some managers and investors continue to cling to a new media business model that reads like something written by the “South Park” underpants gnomes:

Step 1. Install discussion/blog software.
Step 2. ???
Step 3. Profit!

Perhaps this frenzy to create a “reporterless” news publication is simply the logical extension of the disdain that many in news management have had for employing actual journalists over past decades. It’s the ultimate Wall Street fantasy – a newspaper without reporters.

The trouble at sites like Backfence should warn investors considering ventures such as the one my relative’s colleague proposed. Online publishing remains a tough, competitive business. The skills necessary to build and manage a lively online community — the core of any grassroots journalism project — lie outside the skill set of many journalists, MBAs and Wall Street investors. But that does not mean that such skills do not exist.

The most successful and profitable community websites demand every bit as much work as goes into producing a daily newspaper of similar income. Readers do not long contribute smart copy to a website for free without substantial encouragement, guidance and affirmation. A site template and comment algorithm won’t provide that. A community website needs people, leaders who can find the most knowledgeable sources, ask the right questions and elicit thoughtful responses.

Just like a news reporter.

No, an interactive news community does not need as many staff reporters as a newspaper or broadcast station. But you can’t expect a community to grow, and survive, without leadership. And an MBA or Wall Street type without the ability to write or report thoughtfully on a website’s subject matter does not count. In fact, given the tough economics of launching a news website, the weight of an MBA’s salary might itself be enough to sink the project. (See Robert’s Rule #6 in top mistakes made by new online publishers.)

I’m sure that many would-be local journalism entrepreneurs are inspired by Jason Calacanis, the Weblogs, Inc. co-founder who built a network of inexpensively managed topic blogs into a $25 million purchase by AOL. But Calacanis’ blogs still relied on writers with knowledge and passion about their topics to attract the attention of readers.

New local websites that succeed will follow the rules for building strong reader communities and avoid the mistakes made by unsuccessful publishers. They will be the work of writers who know their communities, who are experts in one or more of the various beats within it, and who take the time to draw thoughtful comments and insightful reports from their readers. Whether one cares to call these leaders “journalists” or not.

The sites will not be empty shells, the Potemkin Villages of entrepreneurs with a template and a temporary sales force.

Fake grassroots don’t grow.

Now, go plant some real seeds… and see what happens.

Editor’s note: For some time now, we’ve been including links to Technorati and Yahoo at the bottom of each OJR article, so readers can track what other websites are saying about that piece. Today, we add a link to Google Blog Search, as well.

I’ve been watching Google Blog Search’s results for OJR articles, and over the past weeks found them more extensive and relevant than Technorati’s. (Though Google continues to include results from too many bot-written “scraper” blogs for my taste.) Rather than replace the Technorati links, however, I’ve decided to link both Technorati and Google, so readers can choose the better source for their own needs.

We will continue to link Yahoo, as well, to hit backlinks from more traditional websites that neither Technorati nor Google index as “blogs.” (FWIW, I chose Yahoo over Google because Google does not reveal all backlinks to a URL in its normal search engine results pages. And yes, I’m looking at Microsoft’s Live search and might add it at some point in the future.)

Filed Under: Business Tagged With: , , ,

Your rights as an online journalist: what will 2007 bring?

January 5, 2007 By Leave a Comment

With a new year and a newly Democratic Congress, the atmosphere of American political discourse is thick with auguries of change. What might those changes mean for online journalists? We queried experts in constitutional law, copyright and ethics for a forecast for online journalists in 2007.

Some of the experts we spoke to registered their strongest concerns about the Bush administration’s aggressive stance toward journalists. “George Bush is exceedingly bad news for this country on almost every front, and one of those fronts is his contempt for the press,” said David Rubin, Dean and Professor of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. “He and his Justice Department, prosecutors, and the whole tone that he has set – are more than willing to use the subpoena power to get sources and get confidential information and basically, in his view, put journalists in their place.”

However, John Hartman, a journalism professor at Central Michigan University, predicted that in 2007, “The Bush Administration will be forced to back off on and drop its investigations and intimidations of journalists and news organizations as it is forced to spend time defending itself from various Congressional investigations, including those that might be preludes to impeachment.” Indeed, there are news reports saying that the President is beefing up his legal team in anticipation of Congressional investigations.

As critical as he is of the President Bush’s actions, Rubin doesn’t share Hartman’s expectation of change; “I don’t think anything changes him.” Rubin said it would not surprise him to see more journalists jailed in 2007: “Not only ultimately jailed, but more subpoenas for information, more subpoenas of phone records – whatever tactics [Attorney General Alberto] Gonzales and the Justice Department can come up with, they will.”

Hartman said a Congress led by Democrats will generally be more supportive of press freedom, and may even be open to passing a federal shield law, such as the Free Flow of Information Act sponsored by Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.). Hearings were held on the bill last September, but “Congress might pass a federal shield law, but Bush would veto it under present circumstances,” Hartman wrote. “If he decides to govern from the middle and try to repair his public opinion ratings, Bush might allow it.”

But Rubin disagreed, noting, “[T]his is an issue that the Senate and the House have considered regularly since 1972, since the Branzburg case. So that’s almost 35 years ago, they haven’t done it yet. The situation is now far more complex than it was in 1972, now that you have online journalists and bloggers, which raise definitional issues. The mood of the country is not nearly as supportive of journalists as it was back then. The Congress has so much else on its plate this year, and it’s likely to be a highly contentious place that I just don’t think this is going to rise to the surface as an issue to consider. For all of those reasons, I would be shocked if a federal shield law was passed next year.”

In fact, according to a blog entry by CBS News legal consultant Andrew Shelton, Lugar’s bill died in committee last year precisely because Justice Department lawyers wanted to be able to compel reporters’ testimony in the forthcoming trial of Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice in the illegal disclosure of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

In the area of copyright law, while big changes are not expected, there are still “many issues, both in terms of journalists reproducing content from copyrighted sources and, more significantly, having their work reproduced without permission,” said Jon Garon, Dean and Professor of Law at Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota. Those issues range from common internet practices that can expose journalists and bloggers to charges of copyright infringement to steps that online media producers may need to take to protect their work.

For example, bloggers frequently embed video or audio from sites such as YouTube or Odeo. But Garon said that even when the original source of the content is acknowledged, those bloggers may still be subject to charges of copyright infringement. While portal sites such as Google Video require that people uploading video to their site attest to their rights to the content they post, Google can’t guarantee that the posters are telling the truth. Someone who republishes that content without a demonstrable effort to prevent infringement can still be sued, Garon said.

Of course, most journalists use copyrighted material under the “fair use” provisions of U.S. copyright law. Those provisions allow for the republication of small portions of a copyrighted work for such purposes as news reporting, comment or criticism, or classroom teaching. The fair use doctrine has a long and venerable legal history, but Garon warned “the parameters of fair use are inherently fact-specific.” Further, as OJR reported last February, some experts are concerned that the improper use of cease-and-desist letters by copyright holders has caused online content to be removed.

According to Garon, one copyright issue that caused some controversy in 2006 will likely be ignored in 2007. That’s the law governing “orphan” works – works published before 1923 for which there’s no apparent copyright holder. Under current law, these orphan works are still under copyright – and anyone who uses them risks a lawsuit. In 109th Congress, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), then chair of the Intellectual Property Committee of the House of Representatives, introduced the Orphan Works Act of 2006, which would permit their use when it can be demonstrated that a good-faith effort has been made to contact the copyright holder. Under fire from organizations representing professional photographers and others, Smith ultimately withdrew the bill from consideration, despite support from the American Library Association and others.

As to ownership issues, according to Hartman, “deregulation that would result in the lifting of cross-ownership restrictions is less likely to happen as Democrats are less comfortable with media conglomerates. Yet Democrats might support legislation that would make it easier for newspapers to survive and allow cross-ownership in circumstances where the newspaper would fail otherwise.”

Bloggers faced new legal challenges in 2006, both in the United States and internationally. Josh Wolf landed in federal prison for refusing to turn over unpublished video of a demonstration to a California grand jury. Hao Wu, who was imprisoned for five months by the Chinese government, apparently in connection with video that he was shooting for a documentary about underground churches in that country. Libel suits against bloggers are on the rise. And in December, an Australian court ruled that linking to copyrighted sound recordings can be illegal if it makes it easier to gain improper access to that material.

For Robert Cox of the Media Bloggers Association, these developments illustrate that many bloggers perform the same newsgathering functions as professional journalists, and thus require the same level of education, access and legal protection. His organization has spearheaded a training and certification program that would ensure that bloggers understand and adhere to high legal and ethical standards. MBA has negotiated agreements that will allow certified bloggers to obtain press credentials to cover such events as government press conferences and briefings.

Finally, “there’s something that’s extremely important in all of this, and it almost never gets talked about, Cox said. “Let’s start with this: Freedom isn’t free. If you’re going to publish – and bloggers are publishers – and you can’t back up what you’re writing with lawyers and resources to pay for all of that, you’re not going to last very long.” That’s why, Cox said, the MBA is negotiating with the insurance industry to offer liability insurance that bloggers can tap in the event of a legal fight. “As blogging and citizen journalism develops over time, you need to have access to this kind of support.”

Filed Under: Business Tagged With: , ,

Using Internet publishing to drive book and freelance sales

December 14, 2006 By Leave a Comment

About six years ago, wine critic Natalie MacLean discovered that text-based e-mail was an efficient way to share the articles she published in regional magazines with colleagues and friends. Thanks to the grassroots nature of the Web, that small group of people began to forward her e-mails to other interested wine buffs until the demand for her current and archived articles became big enough to launch a website, Nat Decants (www.nataliemaclean.com). Now, paired with a sophisticated newsletter 60,000 subscribers strong, this heavily-trafficked, multimedia-friendly and database-rich website has helped her to foster a dedicated audience that extends around the globe.

MacLean credits this online community with both enabling her to increase her opportunities in print and for creating a built-in audience for her new book, “Red, White and Drunk All Over.” With the fresh perspective of her recent excursions on a book tour, MacLean chatted with OJR about the ways the Web has created a synergy that expands the voice of this successful, independent wine critic.

Online Journalism Review: Like many independent online journalists, you started your career in the print world. How did the Web become an important medium to expand your audience and distribute your work?

Natalie MacLean: When I was [exclusively] a print journalist and many of my articles appeared in city-based magazines, friends and colleagues who didn’t live in the that particular city couldn’t read the article or buy the magazine on the stand. I retain the copyrights to my work, so I started by e-mailing about 25 folks the articles, which they would forward. Soon there were 200-300 people who were getting these articles, just through text-based e-mail.

OJR:So what point did you realize you needed to maintain your own website?

MacLean: About a year out, when people who joined [the e-mail list] started asking how can they could get all of my previous e-mails. So every time someone joined, I’d be sending 30 e-mails, to pass along all the back issues, so to speak. I thought this is getting silly; I better archive these somewhere, so that’s the birth of the website.

OJR: Do you have any technical knowledge, and did you design the site yourself?

MacLean:Yeah, at first I was doing it because I used to work for Silicon Graphics in California and my focus was the Internet. I loved HTML but I’m no wizard and my skills quickly became very rudimentary compared with where websites were going. It wasn’t long before I hired a webmaster, then things just kept evolving. The newsletter kept growing, the website’s content and functionality kept growing, and I started using forms to sign up for the newsletter.

OJR: Why do you think that niche topics such as yours do so well online?

MacLean: That’s [a reference to] the long-tail theory from Wired Magazine. I just love that theory. There are probably millions of wine lovers out there from all around the world and the brilliant thing is that we find each other on the Internet. So I get stories from wine lovers everywhere, from the night nurse at the emergency ward in Saskatoon to the water reservoir manager in Tulsa. [I’ve heard from] someone in Afghanistan who is making wine in his basement- I think it’s illegal! The Internet is efficient, and it’s also–I put this in quotes–cheap. It’s not cheap to make a good-looking website and to have forms that work and links that don’t go dead, but still I could never reach all of these people in print, cost-wise or time-wise.

OJR: You have a distinct, humorous tone to your writing that makes something as daunting as wine selection more accessible to those of us who aren’t sommeliers. Does your writing voice change online? Can you adopt an even more casual or conversational tone?

MacLean: Yeah I think so, although I know 78 people whom I call “Wine Lovers for Better Grammar.” They e-mail me every time there’s a misplaced comma. It’s like this giant editorial board. So it’s that contradictory thing of being relaxed and at the same time having an obsessive level of attention to detail, which is fascinating and helps me clean up my work in print.

OJR: You both write and edit your work, so how do you ensure accuracy when you source and cite information? You’re saying your readers call you out, and not just on grammatical mistakes–

MacLean: But on other things too, yes. They’ll correct anything. I once wrote an article about kir royale—a drink where you infuse any champagne or sparkling wine with the liquor Cassis–that has a black currant flavor. The black currants are famous around the Dijon area of France in Burgundy and I had misspelled a street name. Someone from Dijon contacted me and said that street is close to where I live, and it’s spelled this way.
I get far more corrections online so the feedback has been far more powerful than the print feedback.

OJR: What tool do you use to distribute the newsletter and what does it tell you about who your audience is and how to engage them?

MacLean: It’s called GotCompany.com. It’s a front-end tool and a back-end tool. I think the interface, the aesthetics look beautiful, but really the power is in the database and the reporting tool. It will tell me how many people have opened my newsletter and I can also see who has clicked on what link.

OJR: Can you tell anything about the user demographic?

MacLean: I can tell what topics are most interesting to people by the open rate and which links are most interesting to people. I stay pretty high level, but it’s only because of the time I have to devote to this sort of thing because I have a full-time journalism slate of jobs for print and then I’m just coming off the book.

I do find it synergistic. Every column I write in print, at the bottom there’s a tag that says for Natalie’s free newsletter, visit nataliemaclean.com. Then, of course, I use the newsletter to help sell the book, then point the book to the website, so I make sure that they’re all linked all the time. These days–especially if you’re trying to sell a book–you have to bring the audience, your readership, with you. [Book] publishers [tend to] spend very little on marketing, so you’re the one who has to develop your readership and then keep communicating with them. If I can’t pump out a book every year or two, at least I’ve been communicating with my readers [online] every two weeks in the interim and I hope they’re around the next time a book comes out.

OJR: Your site offers a modest selection of streaming audio and video. How do these multimedia elements advance the functionality of your site?

MacLean: I think people love to watch TV clips and listen to radio interviews, and people [who visit my site] are clicking on them. It’s an expensive form of information because I have to pay for extra bandwidth for no real monetary return. But now I’m starting to post video and audio clips that are interviews about the book.

OJR: So it also becomes a marketing tool–

MacLean: Yes, absolutely. To me it’s part of a multimedia-rich site, and that’s what I want to provide to the best of my budget and the best of my ability.

OJR: You actively encourage user feedback throughout the site. How do you deal with the volume of response and maintain this intimate relationship with your readers?

MacLean: Well, I get a couple of hundred e-mails a day, but a lot of them are questions that I get over and over again, so I’ll refer people to my FAQ. I think it will get to the point where I can’t [respond to everyone] because I have to earn a living and write my columns, but I like the feedback. I encourage it and welcome it and it’s helpful so I try my best to respond to people.

OJR: How do you select which articles you feature on your website or include in the newsletter?

MacLean: I’m more global in my approach. Now I think about which topics will I take on in print that can be repurposed, so it affects what I choose to write about in print and get paid for. In the past, I selected topics such as best restaurants in Ottawa that are really only relevant to people who live in Ottawa. Now I’m more likely to choose a topic like how to choose from a restaurant wine list that everybody can relate to, no matter where they live.

OJR: You run some Google ads, but otherwise ads aren’t featured prominently on your website.

MacLean: It [earns] three bucks a day for Google ads. That won’t even buy cheap wine! I’m going to look at adding advertising in the next year for related products and services that I think are reputable. I won’t be personally endorsing them. It will be clear that they’re ads and I’ll have someone else handle the booking, payment and invoicing so if a winery wants to advertise, I’m not the one negotiating ad rates while they’re also sending me bottles to review.

OJR: Finally, can you recommend some ways to choose a great holiday wine?

MacLean: Sure! All of my wine picks are on my website. It’s also a matter of your budget and whether you like wines that are full-bodied, medium or light. Develop a relationship with a knowledgeable person at your local wine store and ask what they’re excited about. Also, you can buy a mixed case of 12 within your budget and experiment. Try a new one each time you want to crack open a bottle and I’m sure you’ll find at least two or three that you really like.

Filed Under: Business Tagged With: ,
« Older Posts