The Era of
Networked Journalism Begins
Today marks a key moment in the evolution of the Web as a reporting medium.
The first left-right-center coalition of bloggers, activists, non-profits, citizens and journalists to investigate a story of national import: Congressional earmarks and those who sponsor and benefit from them.
This is networked jounalism (professionals and amateurs working together to get the real story) beginning to come of age, and its very much in the spirit in my initiative NewAssignment.Net. The partners in the
Exposing Earmarks Project are the Sunlight Foundation, Citizens Against Government Waste, Porkbusters, and the Examiner Newspapers, along with Club for Growth, Human Events Online, The Heritage Foundation, Tapscotts Copy Desk and you, should you choose to be involved.
An editorial in the Examiner explains:
Something new is happening today as The Examiner invites readers to help uncover which members of Congress sponsored the 1,867 secret spending earmarks worth more than $500 million in the Labor-Health and Human Services appropriation bill now before Congress.
These earmarks average more than $268,000 each. To our knowledge, The Examiner is the first-ever daily newspaper to join with readers, citizen activists from across the political spectrum and bloggers in this manner to uncover the facts behind government spending.
Check out Sunlightss Google Map (Show me the money
). Heres Porkbusters resource page. And The Examiners database, state-by-state. Instapundit has more.
The pro-am part builds on the method Josh Marshall used when he tried to get Republican House members to own up to their closed-door vote changing House ethics rules in the case of then Majority Leader Tom Delay (I discussed it here). Marshall asked his readers who lived in districts with Republican Congressmen to call their Representatives and ask how they voted on the Delay rules, then e-mail the results to Josh, who would collate and distribute them.
Again from the Examiner:
Check out the earmarks for your state and then call your congressman and ask if he or she sponsored any of your states earmarks. If the answer is yes, ask why the congressmans name isnt on the earmark. If you recognize the institution designated to receive the earmarked tax dollars, call them and ask them what they intend to do with your money.
Then email us at
info@examiner.com with the subject line Earmarks and tell us what you found out. The Examiner will be asking more questions about who got the earmarks and why, so your information could be very important. You will be part of an army of citizen journalists determined to shine some much-needed light on spending decisions made behind closed doors by powerful Members of Congress.
Why is this project a significant marker in Web journalism?
* Its trying to bring new facts to light: which members of Congress sponsored the 1,867 secret spending earmarks worth more than $500 million in the Labor-Health and Human Services appropriation bill now before Congress. That information is a secret right now.
* Its the work of a coalition that crosses partisan lines from Zephyr Teachout to Glenn Reynolds, if you will.
* Its about a fundamental matter of accountability in elected government: will members of Congress own up to their concealed actions?
* The story is still in motion. As The Examiner notes, Congress may still modify the bill, approve it as is or reject it. This is journalism in time to make a difference. As Dan Gillmor notes, It could work to shame Congress people into at least telling the truth about their special favors.
* It enlists Net users across the country in the collecting and sharing of information of vital public importance.
* Journalists in Washington do what they can do best (Examiner reporters will be asking questions on Capitol Hill about many of these earmarks in coming days) citizen-reporters do what they do best contacting their Representatives as concerned constituents demanding answers.
* It develops a pool of common data that different partners can interpret and talk about in their separate ways. Therefore they dont have to see eye-to-eye on everything, just the importance of bringing these facts to light.
* It shows that in newspaper journalism Web innovations are more likely to come from outside the established players in this case billionaire Philip Anschutzs Examiner chain (See Jack Shafer on Anschutz and innovation.)
* It couldnt be done without the Net.
Im excited to see if this works. Pro-am journalism isnt an abstraction any more. Its happening today. But
how did it come together? I asked Zephyr Teachout of the Sunlight Foundation to answer some basic questions about that. Heres our Q and A:
Why did the project begin with the bill for Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education departments?
Zephyr Teachout: I think this began because there was a
story in The Hill about how members were eager to pass this appropriations bill in order to help their reelection campaigns. Also, there was time. The minimum wage provision was inserted at the last minute, making it impossible for the bill to be passed quickly, creating an opportunity to actually review the proposed earmarks and create a database.
Why did Sunlight choose to partner with these organizations, most of which, as you know, would be seen as conservative leaning or hard right?
Zephyr Teachout: All the
groups got involved over Porkbusters initially. We dont necessarily agree, nor do we have to, about what happens when you get greater transparency. The point is that we do agree about greater transparency. The fact that a liberal like David Weinberger, a leading Democratic figure like Josh Marshall, and a Heritage Foundation alum can all swarm around this project says that this is not an ideological effort.
Did you ask any more liberal good-government groups if they would join?
Zephyr Teachout: It was somewhat accidental how all this came together. There wasnt any attempt to exclude or include anybody we all had a shared interest and we wanted to get the project out in the open as soon as possible.
Did you ask any other news organizations, beyond the Examiner, if they wanted to be a part of this?
Zephyr Teachout: I guess its the same answer as above I think the Examiner got involved because Mark Tapscott was on the call. I cant underscore enough that this is a project were all really excited about, but came together out of more serendipity than planning.
This is a first run we hope to be involved in making a similar project even better for the next appropriations bill!
After Matter: Notes, reactions & links
Scott Rosenberg of Salon in the comments:
Why am I not surprised that the conservative Anschutz papers are looking at the earmarks in a social services appropriations bill? Im sure theres plenty to find there, its not a worthless effort, but
the unfolding details of the Cunningham saga, as in the eye-opening confessions of Brent Wilkes in the Times, suggest that the most outrageous earmarking (a k a bribery) is happening in the military appropriations area. Lets see Anschutz go after that.
Mitch Ratcliffe (see my earlier post on his criticisms of NewAssignment.Net) adds:
I agree that this is a bracing example of what can be done, but Scotts point underscores the concern Ive raised about how funders drive the agenda. Ad hoc examples of networked or civic journalism are relatively easy to find, but making a system of journalism work without this kind of influence over what gets covered and when, thats hard.
Zephyr Teachout of the Sunlight Foundation replies:
This is not the last bill, but the first which is an important point. This is the first draft of a process we want to make routine: citizen engagement in legislative review. And at Sunlight wed like to make it better next time, so any advice is useful. How can we make this better?
This is, actually Scott, a nonpartisan project, brought together as a very very loose coalition that made this possible will probably change over time, though as with earmarks its always important to look at who is behind what. Though the people involved may have different motives, there seems to be a shared belief that we need to know where appropriations come from, and whether there are conflicts of interest in the process. At Sunlight, thats our core goal getting out from behind the veil of secrecy.
Its quite possible that most of the items in the bill are benign, but the problem is that theres no review and no accountability.
Craig Newmark:
This has significance beyond exposing a little corruption, its a next step in a process where professional and citizen journalists work together to expose bad guys.
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