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How to be a Roads Scholar
- 1. Roads Scholar how to be a
- 2. Simple question kickstarted investigation: Why doesn’t anybody drive on this toll road?
- 3. 4 bloggers joined forces. None of us were journalists. Team included lawyer, programmer, environmental activist & social worker.
- 4. Ultimate crowdsourcing experience resulted in a week-long series of posts.
- 5. Non-compete contracts between the E-470 Toll Road Authority and local communities was a treasure trove.
- 6. Non-competes designed to protect toll road investors and make driving on public road miserable.
- 7. Local governments forced to lower speed limits, defer maintenance, add new stop signs and promise no new competing roads.
- 8. Testified to Colorado House Transportation Cmte: Cities blackmailed into lending $20M taxpayer dollars to shore up the road’s shaky private finances.
- 9. Energized community groups fighting new toll road projects. State changed laws to protect land owners. New public-private toll roads were halted.
- 10. How to create your own open government crowdsourced reporting.
- 11. Request specific documents. No fishing expeditions Be nice to public workers retrieving info. They’re often limited by technology not desire to help you.
- 12. Make a librarian your very best friend to help research open government issues. Ask state press association for tips on media rights and open record/open meetings law.
- 13. Pay attention to the big picture. Use sidebars not body copy for details. Write explainers on complex parts and link back to posts to keep the length manageable.
- 14. Decide upfront how to tell the story: Serialize. Visualize. Video. Mobile. Social media.
- 15. Timing is everything. Find a news hook. Make it as easy as possible for the media to pick up the story.
- 16. Engage in collective intelligence: Help each other by copy editing, sharing documents and researching issues. Assign a naysayer for fact-checking and logic flow.
- 17. Figure out a distribution strategy to get the information to the community and advocacy groups.
- 18. Have a strategy for merging your investigation into the political realm. Identify your action goals: new legislation, revised law, regulatory change, etc.
- 19. Take a victory lap. Promote your work under a Creative Commons license to help distribute it far and wide.
- 20. Wendy Norris [email_address] @wendynorris Roads Scholar that’s how you can be a want to know more? contact me:
Editor's Notes
- Hi, I’m Wendy, a Knight Fellow at Stanford. This is a story about 4 bloggers and an investigation into a public-private toll road that rocked Colorado, changed state laws, saved people’s homes.
- Pop quiz: I’ll give you 5 seconds. What’s missing in this picture? Simple question: Why doesn’t anybody drive on this toll road?
- Here come the bloggers.We knew each other from Daily Kos. We just started a public policy group blog. None of us were journalists: Lawyer, computer programmer, environmental activist and, at the time, I was a social worker.
- We had never met and didn’t even know each other’s real names. Two of four of us lived in Colorado. But we were all really intrigued by the question: Why doesn’t anybody drive on this road? Our investigation culminated in a week-long series of posts.
- Requested non-compete contract between the E470 Toll Road Authority and local communities. We knew to ask for that because of earlier blogging on government privatization schemes. Treasure trove of information.
- Non-compete clauses designed to make the public road experience as miserable as possible to push drivers onto the toll road. It was created to protect the financial interests of the toll road investors. The public was secondary.
- This is what we discovered. An onerous 15 year contract involving 4 cities and 2 counties. Forced to lower speed limits, defer maintenance, add new stop signs and promise no new competing roads. Risk of huge financial penalties against government bodies for breach of contract.
- Bottom line: Cities blackmailed into lending taxpayer dollars to shore up the road’s shaky finances. They ponied up $20 million. But are in the back of the line for repayment after investors. The series stirred things up. Asked to testify before the Colorado House Transportation Committee.
- Our reporting energized community groups fighting new toll road projects. 1,000 people showed up at state capitol to protest. Laws changed to protect land owners. 2 new public-private toll roads were back-burnered.
- This was our road map. Request specific documents -- don’t go on a fishing expedition. Follow the law and be really nice to public workers retrieving info. They will help you. Ask public for help attending meetings, recording them and reporting back.
- Be best friends with a librarian. Open records and open meetings laws can be confusing. Rules are murky for public-private partnerships. If you’re getting the runaround, call the state press association. They often have lawyers on retainer.
- Pay attention to the big picture. Focus on biggest threat. Don’t get stuck in the weeds. Use sidebars not body copy for details. Write explainers on complex parts, like eminent domain law, and link back to posts to keep the length manageable.
- Decide upfront how to tell the story. Serialize. Visualize. Video. Mobile. Social media. We used an uninterrupted story arc -- decided not to post extraneous stories during the week-long series. Don’t risk breaking the momentum.
- Timing is everything. Find a news hook: Pres. Bush signed federal highway bill with tons of money for public-private partnerships Make it as easy as possible for the media to pick up the story. Use DocumentCloud to upload source material and Storify to curate info from multiple places.
- Engage in collective intelligence: Help each other by copy editing, sharing documents and researching issues. Assign somebody to be the internal naysayer for fact-checking and testing your theories to prevent falling down rabbit holes.
- As important as story itself: Figure out a distribution strategy to get this information to the community and advocacy groups. Build a guest blogger network of experts and those personally affected. Crosspost everywhere. Reach out to like-minded folk.
- Also, have a strategy for getting your investigation into the political realm. I got the Colorado House and Senate communication staff to add our blog to the daily news clips sent to lawmakers by just asking. Becoming a familiar name at the statehouse legitimized our blogging in their eyes.
- Take a victory lap. It can feel uncomfortable but promote your work everywhere. And be generous with linking to others. Also, put your work under a Creative Commons license to help distribute it far and wide.
- Thank you and have fun as a newly minted Roads Scholar!