ReportingOn
(This is a presentation I gave at BCNIPhilly on April 25, 2009.)

An introduction
The Spartan Daily newsroom at San Jose State University circa
May 2006. A student media organization operates in a bubble,
rarely collaborating with other schools when it comes to content,
except for sports photos of away games.

An introduction
When I wrote this story, I communicated by phone and e-mail with a
reporter at the Dallas Morning News who acted as a mentor of
sorts, steering me in the right direction.

An introduction
At the Santa Cruz Sentinel, I
worked in a generally young
newsroom with a lack of
institutional memory, and at times,
high staff turnover at times. It was
hard for reporters new to a beat to
add any context to their stories.

An introduction
At GateHouse Media, I worked with hundreds of disconnected
reporters and editors, each operating in a tiny newsroom bubble.
They knew how to share content, and even ideas about craft on a
regional scale, but had no channel for talking about the content of
their stories, pre-publication.

An introduction
Newsroom bubble.

 High turnover.
 Institutional memory.
Can we help reporters pop the newsroom bubble and replace
institutional memory with collective guidance?

Questions
Context?

 Connections?
 Community?
If only there was a way to add context to reporting while making
connections with mentors and forming a community around those
connections to better track and codify them...

Answer
A backchannel
for your beat.
This tagline, defined: http://tr.im/ROtagline

Inspiration
Twitter

Facebook

Digg

Low barriers to
communication,
connection,
community.

Phase 1
Launched October 1, 2008, powered by Django,
developed and designed solo.

Phase 1
1222

members
 449 updates
 50 daily visits
Traffic started high and then tapered
off with occasional bursts after fresh
links from prominent blogs.

Challenges
Biggest challenge:
DIY has its limits.Trying to do it all by
 myself.
 What's my motivation?
 Twitter is faster than me.
 Translate this?
 Public Relations Sharks.

Wait a minute.
Did I just
build a database
of beat reporters
that makes it really easy
for PR practitioners
to find and contact
journalists,
neatly tagged
with the beat(s)
they cover?
For better ways to connect PR and journalists, see
HARO and PitchEngine.
Is that a problem?

Next Steps
Hire developers! The ReportingOn development team?
 Lion Burger.
 Please phrase that in the form
of a question.
 Tie into Twitter, loosely.
 Quick & dirty translation.
 Tag those sharks.

Phase 2
This is a mockup.
Ask a question, get
an answer. Or six.
Vote up the best
questions and
answers. Earn
points, get badges,
feed your ego. Hot
topics bubble to the
surface. Track your
beats, other
reporters, searches,
and answers to your
questions.

Phase 2
This is a mockup.
See a good answer
to a question on
your beat? Find a
journalist, check out
what they follow.
Answer their
questions, or follow
their answers. Make
new connections,
develop your beat’s
community.

Open
When it’s done, ReportingOn will be open-sourced, so you can carve your
own question & answer tool out of it. Maybe you want a private version for
your news organization, or you want to ask your readers questions....

More
reportingon.com

Highly recommended:
pbs.org/idealab

Start thinking about a Knight
newschallenge.org Newsnow. Start crafting your
Challenge proposal for

2010
pitch, talking about it, sharpen
helpareporter.com your ideas now.

pitchengine.com

stackoverflow.com

ryansholin.com/speaking/BCNIPhilly
