"We were early believers in the value of partnering with the public.  They are places we can’t be. They have sources we don’t have.  And they have expertise we don’t have."

The Beat: Child welfare in Southwest Florida. Following the critical issues of child safety.

Reporter: TBA.

Description: Kate Marymont, Editor and Vice President of News-Press writes….

NewAssignment.Net’s latest project is a perfect fit with the 2008
strategic goals of The News-Press and news-press.com in Fort Myers.

We enthusiastically volunteer.

Three of our key goals for the year ahead are:

– To develop more sophisticated reporting for readers who seek depth.  Much of that will come from beat reporters.
– To expand the breaking-news report for digital readers.  Much of that will come from beat reporters.
– And to collaborate with our community on achieving both of these.  Social networking tools will be key to success.

We
were early believers in the value of partnering with the public. They
are places we can’t be. They have sources we don’t have.  And they have
expertise we don’t have.

You ask whether a beat reporter could
do a better job if there was a "social network" connected to the beat,
made up of people who know a good deal about the area and want the
reporting to be better.

Our team here believes the answer will
be a resounding yes. But we also believe in the value of testing new
ideas as thoroughly and honestly — and quickly — as possible.

We
are eager to test, share, test some more, shift, talk, test. That’s
what we do in our laboratory here in Fort Myers.  We’ve experimented a
lot with crowdsourcing and interactivity.

Our experiences have
taught us that good ideas gain momentum.  If beat blogging with a
social network enriches one reporter’s work, others will embrace it. We
hope to expand this concept across beats to make journalism better for
southwest Florida.

The News-Press Team (1 Kate Marymont, Editor and Vice President of News-Press
(2 Miriam Pereira, Assistant Metro Editor
(3 Mackenzie Warren, Managing Editor and Information Distribution
(4 TBA, staff Reporter News-Press