Welcome!

Citizen Journalism Today

Ron Ross

Subscribe to Ron Ross: eMailAlertsEmail Alerts
Get Ron Ross via: homepageHomepage mobileMobile rssRSS facebookFacebook twitterTwitter linkedinLinkedIn


Related Topics: Citizen Journalist

Article

A Labor of Love Challenges Revered Tenets of Journalism

Objectivity and gatekeepers pushed aside
By Ron Ross
Article Rating:
January 20, 2011 02:49 PM EST
Reads:
 410

New ideas are born when a few journalists, public relations specialists and concerned citizens decide they are willing to challenge the status quo and change the way news is chosen and published.

Such was the case for eight citizens of Reno, Nevada, when back in 2009, they dared to challenge two thought-to-be sacred tenets of journalism - objectivity and the importance of editors to determine what is/is not important enough for publication. As a result, they created www.thisisreno.com.

Their website actively solicits press releases from government agencies, businesses, non-profits and others, and then publishes them with little or no editing. The theory is that people and businesses are better qualified to tell their stories than reporters and editors.

Bob ConradAccording to Bob Conrad http://conradcommunications.com/about/, one of the site's founders, little or no editing is done to incoming press releases.

"We may alter a headline or make a minor change once in awhile, but usually we publish the press releases in their entirety," Conrad said.

They tested the idea before starting the project.

"Before we created the website, we did a survey of PR people in the Reno area and told them what we had in mind. Our idea was met with great enthusiasm so we created the website," Conrad said.

They tell their readers how they perceive news and newsmakers with 12 philosophical points (http://thisisreno.com/about/our-philosophy/) worthy of your reading and consideration. Here are two examples to whet your appetite:

In philosophical point #1, they say, "The quality and credibility of information is more important than impossible-to-achieve objectivity."

In philosophical point #2, they reveal a mistrust of editors by declaring that editors are an "impediment to news."

Conrad said, "Over the years we've been surprised at which stories caught on with the public and which ones got a sort of ho-hum response."

This high view of readership is also a part of their philosophy: "People determine the importance of information, not editors."

When I asked Conrad if it's working - are you getting hits? - he told me they we're getting 5,000 page views a month when they first started.

"Now we're getting 9,000 to 10,000 page views a month. We're pretty happy with that."

When you look at the site, you'll notice that there is only one ad - for a non-profit organization.

"It's a labor of love," Conrad admitted modestly. "We do it because we want to and we think it's important."

Published January 20, 2011 – Reads 410
Copyright © 2011 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
Syndicated stories and blog feeds, all rights reserved by the author.

More Stories By Ron Ross

Ron Ross' first job was as a newspaper delivery boy for the Omaha World Herald in Council Bluffs, Iowa. He earned his first byline front-page story as a writer for his high school newspaper. While in high school, he served as a Citizen Journalist by reporting all of his high school sports scores to a local radio station. After high school, he entered college and graduated from Nebraska Christian College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965. He pastored church in Kansas, and then took his wife and two children to Zambia (in central Africa) for seven years of in-service to his denomination as a missionary.

Upon return to the United States he pastored churches in Nebraska, Texas and Colorado. He completed work for a Master of Divinity Degree at Creighton University and a Doctor of Theology degree at Biblical Life College & Seminary.

He wrote the book, Your Family Heritage, a Guide to Preserving Family History, which was considered one of the seminal resources for oral history taking. He has lectured often on the subject for the Colorado Historical Society.

He has written numerous articles for a variety of periodicals, been a columnist for his county newspaper and active in his community in a variety of ways. He published several official football annuals for major universities and was the editor/publisher of Business Trend Magazine.

More recently, he was the owner of Tidbits of Douglas County (Colorado), an entertainment weekly that he sold after 12 years as owner/publisher. While a Tidbits publisher he served as the "Dean" of Tidbits University, a three-day program that teaches new publishers how to publish a successful Tidbits paper in their communities. Dr. Ross wrote the training program and taught new Tidbits publishers for several years. He continues to participate in each Tidbits University as a guest lecturer. He writes a weekly motivational/inspirational column that is published in several papers and was repurposed as a brief motivational video and posted on YouTube.

Dr. Ross is now the publisher of Tidbits of Greeley, Colorado. He lives in Loveland, Colorado.

In 2008, Dr. Ross saw the need for local communities to have their own on-line newspapers so he began investigating a variety of ways that could be accomplished. He decided that skilled citizen journalists were needed to make such a website successful. He came up with the idea of a series of low-cost webinars that citizens could take to learn the fundamentals of researching, interviewing and writing articles about local news and features. The idea took on a life of its own when his vision was expanded to the National Association of Citizen Journalists.

He shared this vision with Susan Cormier, a former newspaper reporter and editor who he had come to know and whose talents he recognized by working with her in a local networking group. Together, they created the National Association of Citizen Journalists. They visualize a vibrant nationwide (potentially worldwide) organization that recruits, trains and motivates citizens to write, produce and publish news about their local communities.