The ReportingOn Blog

It’s alive.  ReportingOn — the Django-powered open beta backchannel for your beat, not the Twitter account — is up and running.

[UPDATE 10/21/08: Most of what's on this list has been added to the new ReportingOn feedback forum.  Check in there to vote for features, suggest new ideas, and report bugs.]

Here’s a brief glance at my list of the first additions and revisions to be made, not necessarily in order:

• On individual beat pages, a list of related beats.
• On individual beat pages, a list of the users who file updates on that beat most often.
• Add e-mail signals (optional?) when a user comments on an update.
• Add redirect from /comments/posted to the single update page.
• Direct messaging, or a way to indicate how you want to be messaged. (Twitter? E-Mail? Carrier pigeon?)
• Users input a few beats on signup.
• Friends
• Suggest friends on sign-up based on your beats.
• Address book import option.
• Groups?
• Add location metadata to each update. (By user location or by option to add a location to each update?)
• Post your update to Twitter.
• Implement standard microblogging API.
• Add Terms of Service (Written as of 10/8/08, but considering whether it’s necessary.)
• On user pages, links to recent comments they left. (Done 10/08)
• Add permalinks for each comment. (Done 10/08)
• On user pages, a list of the tags they use most often. (Done 10/27/08 8 a.m.)
• Move this list and all feedback to uservoice. (Done 10/21/08 11 p.m., added list items, added Feedback widget to RO template, changed /contact template.)
• Translate the FAQ into Spanish. (In progress on 10/10/08 with both unsolicited and solicited help.  Posted at reportingon.com/faq_es on 10/21/08 5 p.m.)
• YUI autocomplete for tags. (Done 10/20/08 5:00 p.m. although only works with the first tag in the beat field for now.)
• Merge the updates-by-user page with the profile page. (Done 10/17/08 noon.)
• RSS feeds for all updates, users, individual tags, what else? (RSS for latest updates added on 10/12/08 11:30 a.m., RSS for users added on 10/12/08 10:00 p.m., RSS for every tag added on 10/14/08 9:00 p.m.)
• Repair the stylesheet of this blog, which was nuked when I accidentally deleted and then restored the database recently. (That was awesome.)  (Switched to a different theme for now, 10/9/08)
• Permalinks for individual updates. (Done 10/4/08 11 a.m.)
• Comments on individual updates. (Done 10/9/08 12:30 p.m.)
• Add Google sitemap functionality. (Done for updates at 10/7/08 8:30 a.m., but still could use additional maps for static pages.)
• Add Creative Commons license (Done 10/7/08 1 p.m.)
• Yikes, tags with multiple words — as in “global warming” in quotes — are broken at the moment. (Please use underscores to connect multiple word tags for now, like so: “global_warming” — Use as many single word tags as you’d like, such as: awesome, cool, excellent OR awesome cool excellent.) (Fixed on 10/14/08 8:00 am)

OK, maybe that was in order after all.  Not really. As I think of easy-but-necessary things, I’m adding them to the bottom top of the list.

Either way, please report any bugs using the feedback form and I’ll add them to the list to be squashed!

[This post was also published at IdeaLab.]

I’ve been writing about ReportingOn, my Knight News Challenge project, in fits and starts for 11 months now, but it’s time to backtrack for a moment and answer some simple questions about what I’m up to here.

Q: So, what’s ReportingOn?

A: ReportingOn.com will be a simple way for journalists to update their peers on the stories they’re working on right now.  Tag your 140-character-or-less updates with the beat you’re on, and find peers reporting on similar beats to make connections, introduce yourself to potential mentors, or discover an unsung hero.

Q: When you say “journalists,” who are you talking about?

A: Anyone who publishes news, information, or commentary at a relatively stable spot in print and/or online.  That umbrella should cover reporters at the Washington Post, photojournalism students with a blog and a school paper, and independent bloggers who focus on a certain topic.  Ideally, the journalists in question have a definable beat, whether it’s geographical or topical, and they’re doing original reporting of some sort.

Q: So it’s a social network?  I already belong to a few of those…

A: You can call it that if you want.  If it’s a social network, it’s one based on beats, which doesn’t exist just yet.  There are plenty of blogs, social networks, and discussion boards based on craft, and there’s Wired Journalists for general professional networking, but no public place for journalists to flag themselves as, say, an education reporter who frequently writes about standardized testing, and find other reporters working the same beat.

Q: So what am I supposed to say about the story I’m working on?

A: As much or little as you want.  Maybe you just want to mention something general about your story and tag your update with your beat to let your peers know what you’re up to.  Or maybe you have a question that needs an answer, or you’re bored with all the “usual suspects” sources and you’re looking for an introduction to an expert with a different point of view.  You’ll probably get exactly as much information out of ReportingOn as you put into it.

Q: What if my competition picks up on what I’m working on and beats me to the story?

A: Really? You’re still worried about the paper across town? OK, no problem, just don’t included much specific information in your updates.  But really, ReportingOn is probably going to work much better if you’re writing an investigative/enterprise story or a feature.  I’m not sure how well it’s going to work for breaking news, unless you’re just looking for a source or some help making sense out of freshly released data.

Q: OK, where do I start?

A: So glad you asked. ReportingOn is currently in development, but you’re more than welcome to follow ReportingOn on Twitter and send it updates.  Also, there’s a spot at www.reportingon.com to enter your e-mail address.  I’m collecting those, and when there’s news about the site, I’ll send it out to the list.

I had a great talk with Sharon Hill from the Suburban Newspapers of America a few weeks back.  You can see the results today in her story at the SNA site:

“I always like to tell people that your competition is not the radio station, the TV station or the major metro in the next town,” he said. “In the long term, your competition is the Web. Your competition is that there are people talking to each other about what’s going on in your home town or the world or Springfield, Illinois or anywhere — and you need to be able to do that too. You don’t want to cut off your content and say you’re not posting this story on what happened in open court today because the TV guy who wasn’t there will get it off your Web site and read it on the news at six o’clock. You can’t scoop yourself.”

As I’ve been explaining ReportingOn to journalists, bloggers, and various other brilliant thinkers and peers for the past few weeks, it has occurred to me that those unfamiliar with Twitter might be thinking of longer blog posts when I talk about the updates I hope reporters will file to the site.

The following is an excerpt from the project proposal I turned in to the San Jose State University School of Journalism and Mass Communications graduate committee back in April:

From shorthand to instant messaging to text messaging over mobile phones, the abbreviation of communication has become a human habit.

Twitter is no different. The core function of this Web service for an individual user is to provide a space for 140-character updates.

Twitter’s declared purpose is to give the user a space to update his or her “followers” on the answer to the question: “What are you doing?” However, the combination of short updates and ease of interacting directly and regularly with one another has enabled users of the service to form loose, casual networks with persons whom they otherwise may not communicate with on a direct or regular basis.

For example, an intern at a company may find himself speaking directly to a vice president in 140-character bursts. Such an interaction might be rare or difficult to coordinate in person in the corporate world, but in the casual environment of Twitter, there is little motivation to maintain hierarchical barriers to useful communication.

This low barrier to communicating with strangers who have a common interest might be the key to the success of Twitter.

ReportingOn.com would provide a similar space for journalists to briefly answer the question “What are you Reporting On?” The ease of scanning a list of these updates for interesting items contributes to the casual nature of this form of communication.

While the immediacy of the medium serves to provide quick answers to reporters on deadline, the rich metadata available in the form of date, time, location, and topical tags on each post narrows the breadth of information available to a selection of niches. This metadata creates an asynchronous pool of updates, allowing a reporter to find peers with experience on a particular beat at any time.

In this manner, ReportingOn.com will help journalists connect with each other; the site will have no hierarchy, no leader, no editor, but will function as a social network based on both rapid and asynchronous communication.

I’m at the MIT Center of Future Civic Media today and tomorrow meeting with fellow Knight News Challenge winners, Knight Foundation staff, and rock stars from the MIT media lab who are building all kinds of crazy stuff.

Seriously, there are lots of cool kids here, few of whom I’ve met in person before.

Say hello if you see me.

I’ll post cameraphone pictures to Flickr when I’m not physically underground…

Here’s the Knight Foundation video of me talking about ReportingOn:

News Challenge Winner Ryan Sholin, Reporting On from Knight Foundation on Vimeo.

You can view more videos of News Challenge winners talking about their projects on Vimeo.

(This post was originally published at ryansholin.com on May 14, 2008.)

I’m proud to announce that ReportingOn won a Knight News Challenge grant. I’m in Las Vegas at the E&P Interactive Media Conference for the announcement of all the winners.

Yesterday, Brein McNamara, another News Challenge winner, said more or less that we’re all in over our heads to some extent.

That’s the right idea.

We’re supposed to take a good idea that we don’t necessarily have the resources to polish into a great idea on our own, then use the funding from the Knight Foundation and the growing network of winners to finish the process.

And that’s the challenge.

I’ll add a link to the full list of winners when I have a free moment, but I’m betting you’ll be able to find it at newschallenge.org.

There are some awesome projects on the list, including Radio Engage (Margaret Rosas and the whole Quiddities crew are seriously representing Santa Cruz out here), Spot.Us (David Cohn’s community-funded enterprise journalism project), and a CMS/front-end system project headed up by the editors of the Daily Bruin.

Nothing about ReportingOn has changed today. Follow reportingon on Twitter, send a tweet about what you’re working on to @reportingon, and find journalists working on similar stories.

Then, the easy part: Help each other out.

Huge congratulations to all the winners, and thanks to everyone involved in making this happen so far. Now the real fun starts…

(This post was originally published at ryansholin.com on February 9, 2008.)

Just a glance of the mockup I built tonight.*

Click to enlarge…

This might give you an idea of how I’ve been imagining (and diagramming in mindmaps/on napkins) the structure of the site.

*(…in Coda, not Photoshop. HTML and CSS that I can build into a Drupal theme.)

(This post was originally published at ryansholin.com on February 9, 2008.)

Journalism.co.uk asked six questions about ReportingOn.

I answered them.

“4) Why are you doing this?

I saw a need to connect reporters to each other. So much local news lacks context, lacks a clear idea of where a local event fits into a larger trend, whether we’re talking about drunken driving or school funding or foreclosures.

Twitter has been a big inspiration, as well. I’ve been impressed at how casual, public conversation can be packed with information and benefit to anyone willing to ask questions and give answers freely.”

Plenty more about ReportingOn to come in the next few weeks and months.

For now, follow reportingon on Twitter and send your own Tweets @reportingon to make connections with your peers across town or on the other side of the world.

(This post was originally published at ryansholin.com on January 14, 2008.)

From the message I sent to members of the What Are You Reporting On? Facebook group yesterday:

The initial, humble little piece of integration with Twitter is live now at www.reportingon.com.

If you look at the right side of the page there, you’ll see a list of all the recent tweets sent to @reportingon. If you have a Twitter ID, try it out by posting a message like “@reportingon working on a review of There Will Be Blood.”

Your message will show up at reportingon.com.

I’m working on ways to let you subscribe to all those replies by RSS or Twitter.

Thanks for participating – I hope to see you all making connections with other reporters at reportingon.com.

If you don’t have a Twitter account yet, sign up for free at www.twitter.com.

The next step will be a site with groups where you can share your strategies and sources for working your beats with peers at other news organizations, in other towns and around the world.

I’m going to leave it at that for the moment.

In the immediate future, I’m still working on:

• Using the Twitter API to get this done instead of piggybacking on existing services that use the API themselves.
• Pushing the @reportingon tweets back out to users following ReportingOn, which in turn would make it easy to…
• Push @reportingon tweets out by RSS

Please feel free to add your feedback here, in the comment thread at reportingon.com, or e-mail me about it at reportingon@gmail.com.

Thanks!