Just another WordPress site
Posts tagged entertainment
Politico missing in action or M.I.A. on crowdsourcing
Nov 2nd
Politico is missing in action when it comes to crowdsourcing. Or maybe it just hates crowds. Either way, Politico is M.I.A. on the issue. I could not find one example of a crowdsourced project for the political news organization. With the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, Politico missed a huge branding opportunity to get the crowd involved. Perhaps it was the memo NPR sent out to its staffers that made Politico skittish on using this event as a crowdsourcing project. Also, it could be that job was outsourced to its sister site, TBD.com, part of Allbritton Communications (story from editorsweblog.org tbd_uses_map-based_crowdsourcing_to_char.php ).
After all, that is what crowdsourcing is about, outsourcing your newsgathering to the “crowd” like an open call.
I checked and re-checked and I must be missing the place where to look on any general crowdsourcing projects it has done. Saturday’s rally by Comedy Central would have been ideal for Politico to initiate such a project. The timing was short, from 12noon to 3pm, so the duration for collecting data would not be for days on end. The information could have been turned into story from the audience or a quasi-poll. Questions could have been, your estimate of the crowd, or best sign, best musical performance and best political speech by a speaker and then categorized for the online audience.
With crowds estimated at over 200,000; this would have been a great way to examine what people were saying from one end to the other of The Mall. Perhaps the reasons for not using this particular venue had some disadvantages which we discussed in class: bias, yes, many people attending had political leanings to the left than to the right; newsworthiness, some in the crowd thought this rally was led by “real” news anchors -Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert; and finally, the issue of manipulation, individuals in the crowd might seek to influence projects to their own ends. Numerous examples fit this last issue: I saw several signs carried by men that read, “I am only here to meet women.”
What Politico did do for the rally was a minute by minute twitter feed with links to its own story, a live blog of the event, and the highs and lows story by Politico Click stewart_rally_highs_and_lows.html. But this is not the same as incorporating citizen journalism into an event; especially one of this size and with so many eyewitnesses. It would have been a great way to counter anyone including political pundits who did not attend but pontificated on what happened at such a large venue. The website does have a link for community, across the tool bar. People can comment on stories, a form of crowd sourcing on political discourse. But this is not a project.
I do see that TBD.com is asking the community to report and help the news organization map any voting trouble for Tuesday. Instructions are clear for the participants help-tbd-map-voting-problems-tuesday-4003.html . Perhaps Politico will piggy-back on this story in some way. As for the rally, a missed opportunity for Politico to actively engage its readership and the “Faces in the Crowd.”
Being a Follower of Patrick Gavin
Oct 13th
My mother always told me not to be a follower. She would tell my siblings and me, “If all you friends jumped off a bridge, would you follow them?” I agree with her, why be a follower? This is the question I have been asking myself, why follow Patrick Gavin of Politico on twitter (pwgavin) if it was not part of my homework assignment?
His beats are entertainment and gossip for the political website (bio on Mr. Gavin) and so far, I feel I must be missing something. I do not find his tweets all that entertaining. True, I have only been a follower for a few days so perhaps I am making a hasty judgment. After all, he does have 6,487 followers. Me? Nada, zilich, nobody.
Take one of his post from this past Tuesday, a tweet about entertainer, Jay-Z, and his new PSA about voting with a link to Gavin’s own story on Politico’s Click website. The link to his own story, is a brand builder, I understand that and would do the same. (screen shot insert)
It was interesting but on this particular day, there was bigger news happening inside the Beltway, right at the White House. Movie star, George Clooney, had a meeting with President Barack Obama. Yes, the session was on a very serious, topic, the violence in Sudan. Clooney was seeking help from the President. Gavin’s number of tweets on the star: nothing, not even a Retweet of a picture from one of colleagues from the stake out location where the actor gave a press conference following his White House meeting. Maybe I don’t understand the parameters of this beat but I would imagine that any entertainment figure in town would at least be acknowledge by the beat reporter in some fashion.
Many of Patrick Gavin’s tweets comprised of links to his story on the web or Retweets of colleagues’ stories. One R-T from Mark Knoller was actually a picture of the swing set used by the Obama girls, the same day Clooney was speaking to Obama. Still, I did like the tweet with the Washingtonian Magazine article about the music scene in the D.C. area. I saw this as way for Gavin to connect to his readers. But with so many followers, will they all be interested in D.C’s music? Another tweet was the list of people attending Quinn Bradlee’s wedding. That is the kind of fun information I would want from a reporter following this beat.
And why was he in Las Vegas, sending a twitpix of Pete Rose? Perhaps if I had been followwing Gavin longer, I would know. I see little interaction with his audience. I expected more, something juicy from Politico’s Gavin. I picked Gavin because I was having problems adding anyone to my list and finally got the add list to work. His name was at the top of the Politico lists and he does have many followers but I will not be one of them.