Where Are They Now? An Update on the First Four BeatBloggers

As this project picks up speed, expect posts on a more regular basis. In this early stage, however, most of the beat bloggers are still plotting. One mistake we don’t want to make is sending out an invite to a group of eager sources to join our network, only to realize that we haven’t thought through how to build it or what we want from it. It’s an easy way to build false expectations.

I’ve had conversations with all 12 of our beat bloggers (number 13 is TBA and will have catching up to do) and wanted to give an update on the first four now. The remaining eight will be highlighted in subsequent posts.

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News org: Dallas Morning News
Reporter: Kent Fisher: Spoke with on Monday November 20th

Current status: Kent is in the early stages of thinking about
how he can build an active social network considering some of the
unique challenges he faces covering the Dallas public school district.
He knows the general approach he wants to use, which is to use the
social network as a megaphone to broadcast out to his sources. But also
to connect folks that he’s not currently talking to.

He contrasted it with the explanation Jeff Jarvis envisioned here: “But
now the role of the reporter can and should be different: as a
moderator, vetter, enabler, encourager.” After I sent that link out,
Kent explained that what he wants is a way to keep in touch with
everyone to inform his reporting. If it creates a side discussion that
leads to change, he is happy with it, but his goal is still going to be
to get better reporting.

Still to come: As a result of the special concerns below, Kent
plans on doing some shoe-leather social networking first. He has to
present his case to the right people to get them online and part of his
network. Off in the distance Kent has the idea of creating online
forums for all 227 schools. A district water cooler where people can
congregate online. One concern is that 227 different forums will be too
fragmented and people will end up in chat rooms by themselves. Another
means of organizing them into larger forum groups is under
consideration.

Special concerns: When Kent approached an administrator at the
school district the reply was “that’s a great idea, but it’ll never
work in Dallas.”

The school district in Dallas is amid serious reform, so principles are
overworked. The district is largely poor and minority, so many parents
don’t have online access. Tens of thousands more don’t even speak
English. Yet, those parents are the sources that Kent wants to reach,
because that’s where the story behind Dallas’ public school system is.
There is also the question of anonymity. “The Dallas district has a
long history of punishing people who don’t tow the party line,” said
Kent. Several teachers Kent has asked to participate were excited about
the idea, but they feared they’d get in trouble for speaking their mind
on a public blog.

Finally there is the concern about what will happen to the blog and his
sources during the summer break. With a few weeks of slow news, will
they come back to the network after summer vacation?

Big Unknowns: The biggest unknown is “who is going to be in the
network?” Kent wants to get people involved who he isn’t already
talking to. It’s the classic problem: How do we know the people we
don’t know? And how will we overcome the parental digital divide?

Tools under consideration: Right now there isn’t a blog for
Kent’s reporting, which appears in the paper. What Kent is working on
now is figuring out the best content management system that will allow
him to report on the blog and seamlessly broadcast out to his network
of sources. Moveable Type will probably be what they start with and
from there they will either add widgets or find a third party site to
build the network.

Where the excitement is: “Moving our beat coverage of a huge
school district to “real time” blog that will allow people to
communicate, share ideas and offer guidance as stories unfold.”

News Org: Chronicle of Higher Education
Reporter: Brad Wolverton. Spoke with on Wednesday Novemeber 22nd.

Current status: As mentioned above, Kent read the Jarvis post
and described his vision in contrast to it. Brad, on the other hand, is
singing a similar tune to Jarvis. His goal is to create a space where
discussion can take place and Brad will watch closely as the
conversation flies by. Brad is also the first beat blogger out of the
gate. He has gotten about 40 trusted sources to join a Google Group and
he may add another dozen or so in coming weeks, he says. His hope is
that he will broaden this network and tap into it in a deeper way.

Still to come: Brad is using Google Groups as a home base for
now, but is looking into other options. To begin, since these are his
sources – he is having them do short introductions to each other, so
they can get to know each other.

Special concerns: So far Brad seems to be the most gung-ho to be
as open as possible. The question is, how open should he be? He has
even been contacted by another reporter, not necessarily a competitor,
but someone close to his beat, who wants to join. Brad is considering
it. He also seemed very aware that starting up the conversation will
require some goading in the beginning on his end, and is figuring out
how exactly he can increase participation.

He will also face the immediate challenge of the holidays. Since he has
already contacted lots of sources, there will be a week or two of
general radio silence over Christmas and he’ll have to removitate
people post-holiday-mortem.

Big Unknowns: How open is Brad going to let this be? Can anyone
join? Will it be private, but his sources can invite their friends? Is
he willing to lose the “scoop” in order to be at the helm of the
conversation in this network? Right now Brad seems to be guided by the
mantra that open is better – but we are both unsure where this will
lead. He will still want to control the ebb and flow of the
conversation, but doesn’t want to do it in a top-down manner. Brad will
have to work on his finesse with the sources.

Tools: Right now Brad is using Google Groups. The biggest
problem with this tool is that it lacks a sense of getting to know the
personality of other participants. Google groups is mainly used as a
list-serve. But if he wants to get a conversation going, Brad will need
to provide more than just a group email. To help in this early stage
Brad is having a round of introductions, but soon he may need to find a
more concrete way for the people in his network to really get a sense
of one another.

Where the excitement is: Brad has a purely experimental attitude
towards this.  He says: “I’ve gotten a tremendous amount of interest in
this experiment, with one person even describing it as college sports’
version of the Pugwash Conference. While nuclear disarmament isn’t our
goal, some participants think our discussions could lead to ways for
big-time athletic departments to curb their massive spending. I’m sure
that’ll never happen, but I’m encouraged that people see a higher
purpose to these discussions than just feeding me tips. My publication
is in the throes of redesigning the architecture of our website. I
decided not to wait for that to happen, and just set up a Google group
to get a dialogue going. I suspect I’ll move the group into a more
interactive setting at some point, but for now I’m anxious to start.
I’ll keep you posted on the kind of feedback I get to my first few
discussion topics, which I hope to tee up in the next couple of days.
But my long-term goal here may be a bit different than a lot of
peoples’. I want to build a strong (and private) discussion forum that
stays a fairly manageable size, at least for now. Eventually I could
see gravitating this group into a public setting, or creating another
more public group with a similar bent. I also want to start tapping
some of the people in my group to post things to a blog I’m planning to
start early next year, giving them posting privileges similar to what I
have. I’m sure the idea will evolve, and I’m anxious to hear what
others are doing.”

News org: Houston Chronicle
Reporter: Eric Berger, Spoke with on November 20th

Current status: Still in the early stages. Getting a strong idea
for what he wants to achieve, which is unqiue from the other beat
bloggers. His vision is to turn his networked sources into regular
bloggers. Very ambitious and will require extra motiviation.

Future Plans: The idea is to create nine sub-blogs under his
general science blog. Each blog, on a specific science subject will be
run by two scientists and an enthusiastic laymen. He will link back to
these blogs as they pertain to the most important news of the day.

Special concerns:  Keeping people motivated and trying to get
scientists involved on a long term basis. He’s actually tried something
similar before. The difficulty is keeping people active for longer
periods of time. Everyone likes the idea — but after two months the
scientists might wonder why they are managing these sub-blogs.

Eric also wants to find the right people who will cultivate a community
of their own. He has had expeience with science blogs turning into
politically biased shouting matches, and the fear here is that the
heads of these blogs will also need to have moderating skills.

Big Unknowns: The biggest unkown is how he will keep the space
active and constantly moving forward. This means finding a way to
recognize his contributors and give credit where it is due. There is
also the question of how this will be structured. The website is
currently run on Moveable type and Eric wants to find a way to turn his
single blog into a blog ring with individual spaces for the people he
brings in.

Tools: Eric intends on building sub-blogs with the tech support
from the Houston Chronicle. The question is, how will they be
represented on the main page? Eric is currently looking into options
for his blog that will allow him to actively highlight and interact
with the other blogs. There was also talk of holding physical meetings
in the Houston Texas area inviting scientsits from all over the region
- a kind of CafeScientifique.

Where the excitement is….Eric is really reaching out to find a
way to engage these sources. He isn’t just going to rely on them to
inform him, he is going to ask them to become ambitious contributors
who write for these blogs. If you look at the growing communities of
ScienceBlogs and now SCIAM’s community site – it’s easy to see that
science blogging is on the rise, or at least, interest in it is. Eric
thinks he can better serve his readers if he invites scientists to
directly post under his blog, giving them a direct voice.
Eric says:……….”The goal is to maximize participation by working
scientists who want to engage the public, and to keep the discussions
friendly and on point. The initial target audience is Texans, but
eventually it could become recognized as a national meeting place for
those interested in science. The unique thing here is a place that
encourages direct interaction between scientists and the interested
public. So it’s not a blog for scientists, and not a blog for the
public. It’s a neutral meeting place for both.”

News Org: Patriot-News
Daniel Victor. Spoke with on November 27th

Current status: Daniel has a fairly good picture in his head of
what the network should look like with a few holes. He has been trying
to get those clearly articulated to address them. He also has started
writing his “pitch” letter to the people he will want to participate in
the network. Once it’s coherent enough to send out to an initial group,
the networking will begin.

Still to come: Daniel has a uniuqe beat in this project because
he is cover the communit at large including development, schools, the
chocolate factory (Hersheys’) and the theme park. His initial plan is
to invite a small group of trusted residents. From there the network
will grow.

Special concerns: One of my concerns has been how to translate
the content gathered in the acebook group, or whatever it is, into blog
format. My biggest concern is that there’s somewhat of a culture of
fear here…people are convinced if they speak out about the school
district, their kids will be punished. So the biggest question is: does
he invite school board members, a township supervisor or a spokesman
for the chocolate company? Or would that just serve to stifle the
discussion?

Big Unknowns: How big should the network be? That’s one of the
key questions he has been wrestling with and he may just leave it up to
the community to make the final decision. Daniel is also afraid that he
is “foolishly optimistic” in his ability to effectively moderate the
discussion, which he could reasonably see beecoming a problem down the
road. Some forums on the web site have turned into mud throwing with
very little accomplished.

Tools: Ning, Facebook, on a blog using widgets? Daniel is still
looking into where he wants the network to live. Facebook is being
thrown around, especially by other people in the newsroom as a
potential home, but Daniel isn’t 100 percent sold. Ning is another
option which he will look into. It’s looking like Daniel will use a
third party host site to get started and will incporate widgets in his
blog to tie the two together.

Where the excitement is: “I’m hoping that all the discussions
that usually happen at soccer games and e-mails between parents will
instead happen within my earshot. Those parents wouldn’t normally think
of e-mailing me but most of the time, they’d be surprised how
interesting I’d find that information.
I see this as a way to more effectively gather story ideas and when I
do have those story ideas, I’ll be able to pack them with more context
than I might have otherwise been able to quickly assemble, itseems like
everything in this town has a long, long back story.”