Photo illustration by John Whitlock Original photo courtesy Mike Moore/Jessamine Journal

Calling all citizens
Newspapers find more content with some help from public

By John Whitlock
KPA News Bureau Director

The words “citizen journalist” don’t always leave the best impression on folks.

While most readers are citizens, not too many of them are interested in being journalists. They would like to see soccer games, church socials, grand openings, prom photos and the like in their local newspaper.

For many Kentucky newspapers, the citizen journalist might conjure the image of cavalry coming over the hill.

Citizen journalism, sometimes called participatory journalism, encourages the public to share its tips, stories and photos from local events with the community – usually through a newspaper or Internet site.

Although many papers are still working to get their programs to match current technology, the idea started getting momentum in the late 1990s.

Duke Conover, managing editor of the Paducah Sun, said he got his first exposure to citizen journalism during a workshop in 1999.

While working in Morganton, N.C., Conover came up with an idea to involve more of the public in the production of the paper and launched the paper's "Neighborhood Newsroom" program in 2001.

"This was a way to encourage people to write for the paper and to train people to work in the newsroom," Conover said. "In its infancy, we met every Saturday morning."

After training over the course of eight weeks, the volunteers started coming up with small assignments and special coverage relating to some of the areas they were interested such as youth sports and their communities.

"Each idea had to be molded and crafted into something useful," Conover said. "But by the time they were done with the training, people had a good idea of what we wanted and what was expected."

Since most of the volunteers had an interest in writing, most of the training was related to creating story ideas, journalistic style, interviewing and getting a story ready for publication.

After four or five months, some of the volunteers lost interest but those who remained became important, contributing members of the staff, Conover said.

The training classes eventually moved off-site to a local community college and featured volunteers from churches, athletic leagues and local museums.

At the conclusion of the training, the volunteers received a certificate of recognition from the paper, press passes and their first assignment.

"After the eight-week program, people got the idea," Conover said. "Once you understand the style, putting pencil to paper is not that difficult. Journalistic style was the only hang up. (If they volunteered), they usually had the ability to write."

In the Neighborhood Newsroom program, the writers would receive an assignment during the weekly meeting, write their piece and then send the copy along with any photos through email to the editor.

The program had plenty of positive long-term effects including helping to fill out the paper's reporter staff.

Conover said one of the Neighborhood Newsroom volunteers had sharpened her journalism skills to the point where she was qualified to become a full-time staffer – a position she held for three years before retiring.

In exchange for their work, the volunteers received $25 per published story and $10 for each published photo. If the citizen journalists wrote at least one story a month, they also received a free subscription.

One of the best benefits from the program was the introduction of new ideas, tips and new sources into the editorial department.

But despite the money, the one perk that seemed to most interest the volunteers was a real byline in a real newspaper, Conover said.

"Some of them became really good," Conover said.

If a Neighbor Newsroom volunteer came up with a good story or strong news tip that they wanted to work on, Conover said they would either get their own byline or possibly share one with a regular staffer.

The best citizen journalists, Conover said, generally come from the ranks of the retired or those who have other substantial forms of income, stay-at-home moms or people who don't have a regular full-time job.

Conover says papers should actively court small-business owners, bankers and members of the health-care industry.

One group that Conover says he didn't have a lot of luck recruiting were the rank-and-file members of the emergency services, including EMTs, firefighters and law enforcement agencies.

Because of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, many emergency personnel are leery of offering information concerning health-care related issues because of legal and privacy issues.

The Kentucky Enquirer is another paper experienced in this area. For Dennis Hetzel, Kentucky Enquirer general manager, the key to a successful citizen journalist program starts with changing the name.

"We've found that the name 'citizen journalist' gets thrown around a lot. The name is a misnomer," Hetzel said. "The average person doesn't want to be a journalist. They do want to see what they are interested in in the paper."

"There was quite a learning curve," Hetzel said. "A lot of times we got 'I don't want to be a journalist but I've got a picture of my kid’s soccer game.’”

So the Enquirer looked for ways to avoid the journalist tag and named its program “Get Published.”

"We really learned a lot in that first year and a half," Hetzel said.

Gannett, which owns the Enquirer, opened Web page links that cover more than 200 communities in northern Kentucky and parts of Ohio. The submissions are directed to different publications the company owns across the region.

Through the “Get Published” Web site, the public can submit photos, offer youth sports reports, share school and church news and add items to a community calendar.

But the biggest hurdle the paper faced was getting the public to participate.

"It requires a lot of community outreach," Hetzel said. "People want to see it but they don't necessarily want to do it themselves."

To help promote the program, Hetzel said the paper used focus groups, in-paper promotion and plenty of community outreach.

"We started to figure out some things and got the key players to start using it," Hetzel said. "It's a seeding process."

Getting the program into the public consciousness is a constant effort, Hetzel said.

"Don't sell short the need for outreach," Hetzel said. "Guerrilla marketing is a key player. If you want people involved in youth sports, the YMCA, libraries, go out and literally show it to them. Register them on the spot."

Because the public can post messages, community items, scores and notes with only limited editing, Hetzel said the paper staff had to get over the idea of correcting every mistake.

"Culturally, you have to get over being trained to be slaves to AP style,” Hetzel said. "You have to get over the fact that in AP “street” is written out but someone might submit “St.” It takes way too much time to process all this stuff."

Hetzel said submitted on-line items don't require the same attention to detail.

"In print, we take responsibility – with this on-line (material), the submitter is taking responsibility," Hetzel said. "It's a hard bridge for some of us to cross. If it moves to the regular paper, it goes through the regular process."

Eventually, the staff adjusted to the change and embraces the program.

"It's not going to replace anything you’re doing now,” Hetzel said. "It's going to complement it."

For weeklies and smaller dailies, Hetzel said a submission-friendly Web site could be a valuable asset.

"It's a gold mine for photos," Hetzel said. "You can make a lot of really nice picture pages using submitted photos."

One thing that submitters can enjoy that they can't in the newspaper is close to complete freedom within their submissions.

Not only will publishing press releases on-line free newspaper staff to take care of other duties, Hetzel said, but businesses, civic organizations and church groups won't have to go through an editor.

"They can push that message out to the Internet in their own words, selling it as one-stop shopping to get their press releases out there," Hetzel said. "It seems to help. They can say it the way they want and people like that."

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