Lessons from Beat Blogging - by Patrick Thornton on Wednesday, October 8, 2008 13:14 - View Comments

Eric Berger asks his users to be his assignment editor

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The SciGuy Eric Beger is asking his users what kinds of science stories would they like him to report on.

Ever had a really good idea for a science news story, but lacked the time or resources to pursue it?

Hire me.

There’s no cost to you, happily. But the opportunity is real.

During the next week I’m going to solicit story ideas from readers for untold science-related stories.

Berger is going to collect the ideas that people leave in the comments section of his post, select several of them and then conduct a reader poll. They’ll also throw in a few ideas from his editors.

Berger will then look at the stories that users have voted on, and the discussion about each idea from fellow users, and then decide which stories to pursue.

This is an innovative way to get users involved. We’ll be interested in seeing how many science story ideas his users come up with. It’s also a good way to serve readers.

Berger was inspired by David Cohn’s crowd-funded project Spot.Us.

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  • http://ksquareblog.com Kevin K

    For what it’s worth, Ezra Klein has been doing something similar for a long time, asking readers what he should blog about. Though not lately, election keeps him busy I guess. See example: http://is.gd/44gY And a result: http://is.gd/44in

    He calls it “Assignment Desk.” I believe Matt Yglesias used to do it occasionally. No link on hand though.

    Not sure exactly when or where the idea originated.

  • http://beatblogging.org/2008/12/23/leaderboard-for-week-of-12-22-08-the-best-of-the-best/ Leaderboard for week of 12-22-08: The best of the best | BeatBlogging.Org

    [...] Berger does other innovative things, like asking his readers to be his assignment editor. [...]

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BeatBlogging.org was a grant-funded journalism project that studied how journalists used social media and other Web tools to improve beat reporting. It ran for about two years, ending in the fall of 2009.

New content is occasionally produced here by the this project's former editor Patrick Thornton. The site is still up and will remain so because many journalists and professors still use and link to the content. BeatBlogging.org offers a fascinating glimpse into the former stages of journalism and social media. Today it's expected that journalists and journalism organization use social media, but just a few years ago that wasn't the case.

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