What if You Had Digg Powered by Journalists? Or a Journalist Powered by Diggers?

“But for beat bloggers for local newspapers, it makes perfect sense. If I’m reporting on education in Dallas, why not share the sources (national or local) that I have with an education reporter who covers the topic from Florida?”

Your example hit me on the head because I am your example: for five years I covered education in Florida. Now I cover it in Texas. When I came to work for the Morning News five years ago, I brought my robust Florida source list with me. Know how many times it’s come in handy covering Dallas schools? Never. And why would it? Dallas is Dallas. Tampa is Tampa. The two don’t cross very often.

This is a bigger problem I’m finding as we ramp up to the launch of the Dallas portion of the beatblogging project. This social network idea, to me, may have terrific application on beats that are big and broad and have huge audiences of experts, like “science” or the NBA or the drug industry. But when you get down to specific local topics — city schools, city hall — the universe of potential network members is confined to your locality. Sure, I could include in my network education enthusiasts in Florida and elsewhere, but what do they specifically know about Dallas schools? And if they can’t contribute to that discussion, why include them in the network?

Kent
You bring up a good point: And yes — you were the reporter I had in mind while writing that example. I did think about the situation you had in mind (Local reporters need local sources)

So while local reporters might have less of a direct benefit, I still think they can be found. A reporter in Florida won’t have sources that will relate to your Dallas beat but do any stories you write ever need a national source? Somebody from an education non-profit? Somebody from the government? Or, perhaps less of a direct benefit to you, I could see this as a way to help tutor younger reporters: They would be able to share links with you (a seasoned veteran) and you could take a quick look and tell them how great/horrible it is.

Journalists are, in my experience, intellectuals trapped in a pragmatic job. There has to be a way to tap into the collective wisdom in this profession. Perhaps Publish2.com isn’t it – but it’s a step in that direction.

Sure a network of reporters sharing sources and ideas is of value — in fact an invaluable network already exists, through an immensely popular listserv run by members of the national Education Writers Association. It does exactly the sorts of things you suggest. Although I will admit that I’ve dropped off the listserv — after 15 years on the beat it lost value and started to be an irritant with dozens of daily e-mails from reporters who were writing about stuff I didn’t care about/had no local connection.

Maybe I’m approaching this with the wrong mindset? See, I’m trying to create something to fill a void, not re-create something that already exists elsewhere. That’s why I don’t think an inter-state or ultra-national network of education writers would be very practical for the few times I need a big-picture source. There waaay are easier ways to find those experts than by building, nurturing and growing a social network.

I’m glad to see Kent raise the EWA as an example; the first thing that occurred to me as I read David’s post was, “But beat reporters *already* do that through their professional organizations.” Me, I belong to the Natl Assn of Science Writers and the Assn of Health Care Journalists, and the listservs for both those groups are chockablock with people asking for sources and others counter-offering their recent stories for names and ideas. I acknowledge this doesn’t have the speed or wide reach of sampling your audience by Twitter, but we’re talking here about tapping a peer network, not a social network – not necessarily the same thing.

Nice contribution. Thanks. Keep up the good work here.