Beat Reporting With a Social Network: Can it Work?

Via Pressthink:

Are there network effects in beat reporting? Across the US, a dozen reporters (with beats) are going to try to find out—simultaneously. This will improve their odds of succeeding.

This is a simple project testing a single idea: Maybe a beat reporter could do a way better job if there was a “live” social network connected to the beat, made up of people who know the territory the beat covers, and want the reporting on that beat to be better.

That’s the entire idea—so far.  Beat reporting with a social network: can we get it to work?

Can reporters bring knowledge, contacts and interests of many different people from around the beat into the production of news, views and information for the beat, by making use of social networking tools that lower the cost of collaboration? Is it viable for dispersed groups to become an editorial force?

Let’s figure out how it’s done! This blog is a place to find out what's going on, which beats you can join and how the reporters are learning to report in a new fashion. Each reporter is going into this in their own fashion - They run it. They fund it. They venture into it independently but simultaneously with others trying similar combinations. Which beat is right for you? What tools have worked?

We’ll help create the common space to share ideas and make sure it works for the people whose by-lines and news brands are invested in these newfangled beats. We will also feed into the experiment the best thinking from outside professional newsrooms. Hosting this blog will be David Cohn, director of distributed reporting at NewAssignment.Net. While there may be advice, there is no consent.  Participants run their beats their way.

This blog can provide you with an introduction, if you are interested in joining a social network, or an idea about how to create a social network around your own beat.

Isn’t this what beat reporters already do?

Beat reporters have always had networks of sources, of course, but the sources haven’t been connected to one another, or able to self-publish; they haven’t been social networks at all. And we didn’t have the easy tools for Web-based collaboration that we have now, like group blogs, wikis, Facebook groups and so on.

To better understand the difference, take the Rolodex of a typical beat writer and imagine all the scattered but well connected people in it wired together. Pooling their knowledge for the good of the beat, they also get something from participating in its daily buzz; it’s river of news. We haven’t “always” had a reporting system like that.