In the week where it was rumored that CBS may be getting out of journalism and when the ABC "debate" outraged many, I called Michael Skoler of American Public Media/Minnesota Public Radio, to see how he saw the opportunity for the public radio/TV system to step up to the challenge of delivering high quality news to Americans.
"Today’s journalism was born in a time when there were few alternatives to mainstream media and it was tough to gather reliable information from diverse sources. Only a small number of organizations had the resources to gather news and to distribute it. Journalists took on the role of finding and sharing the news that they deemed important, and many in the news business saw this as a sacred trust".
"But for twenty years, public trust in journalists has been eroding and, in some cases, lost."
I asked Michael how this trust had been lost.
Michael made the point that many news organizations have become disconnected from the people they serve. With media consolidation, there are fewer reporters, and those reporters are asked to produce more stories, usually by phone rather than by spending time in communities. With fewer resources, the major media increasingly rely on the same set of expert sources to explain the news – people with titles who may not have direct experience or knowledge of the news, such as the military analysts that were the subject of the recent exposé by the New York Times.
Journalists have become more vulnerable to those that try to manipulate the news agenda.
Another trend is the fragmentation of the audience. As the numbers of cable channels and Web news sources has expanded, it has become harder for the mass media to gain and hold a large audience. A network news show can no longer be assured of 30 million viewers a night. A city newspaper can no longer be assured of a mass readership. To get the numbers, many news organizations believe they need more flash rather than more substance. They invest in hyping stories, fancy graphics, and celebrity coverage. In short, they have shifted toward "entertainment".
Getting attention is often a case of a louder voice.
Michael feels the current crisis for mainstream media is a crisis of relevancy. He cites a recent Zogby Interactive poll (http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1454) where 70% of Americans acknowledged that the news is important to their quality of life. But 67% said that traditional journalism is out of touch with what they want from their news.
I asked if this was not "good news" for public radio and TV. After all, many believe that the large increase in the audience for public radio in the last decade may well have been driven by this vacuum of relevancy and truth at the network and cable level.
Michael agrees that this might be the case, but he fears that public media is vulnerable to the same resource pressures and growing disconnection between journalists and the public.
His concern? That the newsrooms of public media are also relying too much on the usual sources of news – the officials, analysts and self-appointed spokespeople who often have their own agendas to push. "We too rely on ‘experts’. Our ranks are not very diverse. We can miss what is important to our listeners in their daily lives. We have to be careful about taking our relationship with the public for granted.
Trust is built on understanding and that means engaging and listening to the audience. I think we compete best by becoming more relevant and more trusted."
I asked Michael, how this might work. How would relevance break through the noise of today’s media? How would his organization’s model of Public Insight Journalism, PIJ, help increase relevancy and hence trust and how it could help to deliver very high quality news at a cost that public media could afford?
Michael made it clear to me that PIJ is not about filling the airwaves with listener opinion. It is about drawing on the experience of the public to inform the news process.
How does this work?
People are invited to join the Public Insight Network serving Minnesota Public Radio and American Public Media’s national news shows. Here is what those who join can expect:
• Up to one e-mail a month asking for your insight on issues we plan to cover — you respond only if you have knowledge; otherwise ignore the request
• An occasional follow-up call or e-mail to get more information, if we follow a lead you provide
• Confidentiality: We won't quote you on the radio or the Web without your permission
• An open line for you to tell our radio programs what stories are important to you, your family and your community and help us set our coverage priorities
• An occasional invitation to public insight meetings we hold in your area
• No spam, marketing calls, or requests for money — your information is private and is not shared outside of a small circle of public radio journalists
"We ask people for knowledge and experience, not their opinions. So if we are exploring the impact of rising gas prices or looking at problems with public education, we target those in the network we think will have knowledge and ask for their experience. What they share helps us understand how people experience the issues and enables our reporters to focus on the most relevant angles and stories."
I asked how the newsroom makes sense of all of this information - how does it turn data into news?
"Our relationships with the Public Insight Network are managed by a new breed of journalists, which we call public insight analysts. Their job is to engage people and gather information on stories, and then synthesize the knowledge and experience of the network and bring that information into the editorial process. It’s a daily process that connects the newsroom to the audience."
"We aren’t turning over the reins of the newsroom to the public. We are creating a partnership, where a journalist’s skills and judgment are still on the line. In the PIJ model, almost nothing from the public goes direct to air or the Web. As we gather public insight, our journalists do what they have always done – vet the information, check out multiple sources and then tell well-crafted stories that provide truth and context.
“We have built knowledge management tools that allow just 2 1/2 analysts in Minnesota and 3 in L.A. to manage relationships with over 50,000 citizen sources. Our tools enable us to target groups of people within the network who are likely to have knowledge on a specific issue, so we are not constantly surveying people. We respect their time and privacy. They are sources and we don’t share their names with our membership department or anyone else. Our goal is journalism, not marketing. If we break the trust, we would be finished."
The result is that relevancy and impact are increased, he says. Stories, or perspectives, that might have been missed in a more closed approach are often uncovered. And trends are spotted. For example, Michael says, his analysts first uncovered stories about the middle class squeeze from the network – before papers like the New York Times ran a series. Recently, some in the network revealed that they plan to give their tax rebate checks to charity and that this is causing quite a stir in the charity sector.
I asked Michael
about the metrics.
He says the network now has more than
53,000 citizen sources, with about 24,000 in the upper Midwest and
the others spread across every state and two dozen foreign countries.
In the last few months, he says 10,000 people have responded to
requests for information and 190 stories have been informed by the
network across APM, MPR and 4 other public radio newsrooms that are
PIJ partners – New Hampshire Public Radio, Colorado Public
Radio, Oregon Public Broadcasting and North Carolina Public Radio.
The network grows by about 2,000 a month. That is a lot of people who now have a much more meaningful relationship with their stations, says Skoler. “So not only does our news improve, but so does the overall relationship with the audience.”
I asked whether this has helped the bottom line. "MPR’s member numbers are at an all time high" was Michael's response.
So if this is working for you, what about other stations I asked.
“The 4 stations that we have trained are very happy with how their local networks are helping their journalism. New Hampshire has about 1,200 in its network, Colorado has about 2,400, North Carolina has 500 and Oregon Public Broadcasting has over 2,600. That growth has happened in a year or less.
"We train 2 people in each station – a journalist/analyst and a news manager – and APM provides the software tools. We learned from our early mistakes and these stations can move so much faster and with greater assurance as a result.”
If you want to learn more about PIJ - here is a link to the main site that opens with an invitation for you and I to join the network. I append the opening words in the follow-on to this post because they speak of the new relationship that is surely at the heart of a more trusted and relevant news that public media can afford.
I close in hope that this is a process that only a public model could offer. Is this not a great advantage? Conventional news can only turn up the volume and in the end defeat themselves and fail the nation.
What will happen as public media calls upon the experience of the people in this way? What will happen to the news? What will happen to the station? What might happen to American Society?
Education. Health care. Community. War. Whatever the issue, Minnesota Public Radio needs your knowledge and your experience to make our news coverage an even stronger public service.
Become part of our Public Insight Network and join thousands of people like you who help make Minnesota Public Radio News even stronger. About once a month, we'll ask you to share your observations, insights and experience. We then pass on your information to our reporters and editors who may follow up with a request for more information, or perhaps an interview. It's a great way to share what you know. So open up. And add your insight to the news coverage that half a million people count on every day.
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When Tracy Batsell wanted to hear a positive story about her community, the North Minneapolis mother and mentor became one herself. |
Thanks to e-mail and the Internet, our radio producers and reporters can quickly find and learn from thousands of people who have experience or knowledge on a story we are covering. We call this the Public Insight Network, and it relies on people like you — our public sources.
You have knowledge and insights that can help us cover the news in greater depth and uncover stories we might not otherwise find.
Some of our public sources end up in our radio programs. Others prefer to just help us get at the heart of a story. Nothing you share with us goes onto the radio or the Web without your clear permission. So please help us create the great stories that have made you a public radio listener.
What you can expect by becoming a public source
• Up to one e-mail a month asking for your insight on issues we plan to cover — you respond only if you have knowledge; otherwise ignore the request
• An occasional follow-up call or e-mail to get more information, if we follow a lead you provide
• Confidentiality: We won't quote you on the radio or the Web without your permission
• An open line for you to tell our radio programs what stories are important to you, your family and your community and help us set our coverage priorities
• An occasional invitation to public insight meetings we hold in your area
• No spam, marketing calls, or requests for money — your information is private and is not shared outside of a small circle of public radio journalists
• You may be called on to help with national stories through American Public Media. Your participation will inform well-known programs such as Marketplace, Marketplace Money, Weekend America, Speaking of Faith, and American RadioWorks.
Your help will make public radio coverage stronger
• By giving our shows access to first person information and sources, new story ideas, a wider range of perspectives, and information that helps us identify under-covered or emerging issues
• By broadening our network of sources and strengthening our connections with diverse people around the region
• By helping us create deeper and more relevant reporting based on a diverse range of sources
