Tawnell Hobbs and Kent Fischer’s Dallas Independent School District blog has seen a huge spike in traffic lately due to their phenomenal coverage of the district’s unexpected budget shortfall.

The blog has seen more than a 100 percent increase in page views to be exact. The two have been covering the districts developing financial crisis in real time, and people have responded by coming back to the blog over and over again, while also leaving hundreds of comments a day. The crisis could lead to more than 1,200 people losing their jobs and will lead to large budget cuts.

It’s big news for anyone working for the school district or who has kids in it. Not only are Fischer and Hobbs covering this story in ways print never would allow, but they have also provided a place for people to have a voice. People are upset and outraged over this situation, and the amount of comments the blog has received have greater increased.

I’ve written before that timing is very important for a blog. Getting out in front of an important story like this and owning it is a great way to build traffic. Fischer and Hobbs are owning this story.

The Web allows beat reporters to cover crises in more immediate ways. Not only are Fischer and Hobbs updating their blog all the time, but they are also utilizing other technologies like live blogging to give readers immediate information and feedback.

Ron Sylvester said last week that Twitter puts print back in the game for court reporting. Beat blogging and other social networking tools can allow reporters to cover stories in ways that print would have never made possible. Fischer and Hobbs still file stories for print, but they can also give people the kind of immediate information that print never could.

Good beat blogging is more than just immediacy; It’s also about interaction. Live blogging can help give people that interaction during live events. So can two-way communication in comments sections and on Twitter.

Another part of Fischer and Hobbs’ strong coverage is their daily feature, the Dallas ISD Daily Dish. Every day they link out to what the media, blogs and others are saying about the district.

Rather than (wrongly) thinking that linking out will lead people away from their blog, Fischer and Hobbs understand that they can create a stronger community and product by being the place to come to for the best content anywhere about the Dallas Indepedent School District.

Easily one of the biggest negatives of comments on blogs and Web sites is the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) that is spouted off by users that is intended to confuse or deceive fellow users.

FUD is not always malicious, but it is usually spread by people who are strongly for or against something. For instance, Kent Fischer gets FUD on his blog from people who are against the Dallas Independent School District and vice versa.

FUD can be caused by passing along information that a person believes to be correct, but actually is false. Most often, however, FUD is a deliberate attempt to spread misinformation.

Virtually any Web site or blog that gets enough users will have at least some amount of FUD. The best beat bloggers, however, don’t allow FUD to take hold on their blogs. Those beat bloggers take ownership over the comments and community that forms on their beat blogs.

If one person posts FUD, it’s more than likely that others have the same beliefs. So rather than delete offending posts, many beat bloggers choose to directly respond to those posting FUD to correct them and sometimes admonish them. The SciGuy Eric Berger is very good at dispelling FUD.

Let’s look at a benign example. Recently Berger made a post about how most foreign students who come to America for science and engineering PhDs stick around after they graduate. Here is an an exchange from his blog

One user wrote about why he believes some people being educated in the U.S. are looking to move to other countries:

The trend is reversing because this country is not funding
enough research. Taiwan is. Korea is. China is. Canada is. I will have
exceptional mobility once I have my PhD. I am going to go where the
science is being done. Whether that is a city in the US or Seoul is
largely irrelevant to me. Any modern country with reasonable freedoms
will do. I you want me here, you’d better cough up the money.

Berger responded with:

While some of this might be true, the U.S. still funds about 40 percent of the world’s science R&D.

http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/2008/RAND_RB9347.pdf

Has the country made some poor choices and has the budget tightening
of the last several years hurt? Unquestionably. But in many (though not
certainly all, such as superconductors) fields your best bet for
cutting edge research is right here.

So, while it may be true that the U.S. has cut down on R&D spending recently, it still spends a lot on R&D compared to the rest of the world. In fact, Berger’s post, Do most Chinese students come here to steal secrets? was an attempt to dispel FUD perpetrated by a U.S. Congressman.:

In any case, this fear was probably most bluntly articulated by U.S. Rep. John Culberson,
whom I heard speak on this issue a few years ago at a science luncheon
in Houston. Many professors from local universities were there. During
a Q&A, the Congressman was asked about the problem with
foreign-born students obtaining visas after 9/11. He responded:

"A concern that I continue to see is that a lot of those
scientists from communist China, my impression is, and correct me if I
am wrong, come here and learn as much as they can, and then leave. And
I’m not really all that much into helping the communists figure out how
to better target their intercontinental ballistic missles at the United
States. They basically steal our technology for military applications.
And they are red China, let’s not forget."

The answer is a strong no. Berger points out that the five-year stay rate of students from China is 92 percent. That’s higher than India, Taiwan and South Korea. The majority of foreign doctoral students in the sciences come from those four countries.

Berger does not allow disinformation to be spread from his blog. He actively engages his users and takes ownership over the conversation on his blog.

Is it irresponsible for news organizations to allow FUD to go unchallenged? Is this another reason why beat reporters and bloggers need to take responsibility for the comments on their own stories and posts?

Kent Fischer, an education blogger for The Dallas Morning News, has scored multiple A1 stories and hundreds of blog comments because some of his readers alerted him to new grading policies for the Dallas Independent School District.

At first, Fischer didn’t think the new policies were a big story, but then some of his readers provided him with documents that persuaded Fischer to think otherwise. Fischer published those documents on his blog and a firestorm ensued. He has received hundreds of comments from teachers, parents and the general public about the situation.

Most of the comments are negative towards the new policies. The story has now even garnered national attention.

Fischer’s credibility was called into question before his readers once again stepped up and provided him with documents to prove his accusers wrong. The school district tried to claim that the documents were just drafts and that Fischer jumped the gun by publishing them. Fischer’s readers provided documents that proved that the district had been referring to them as finalized.

Fischer has been blogging for a little more than half a year, and he is beginning to find new sources through his beat blog. His new sources and blog were the main reasons why Fischer was able to break this story.

Listen as Fischer recounts how his blog readers have handed him a major story and how they have acted as a truth squad to dispel the district’s FUD.

Click here to stream the interview. Or download the MP3.

Kent Fischer’s blog posts about the Dallas Independent School District relaxing its grading policies were called into question by a district spokesman on another blog.

Fischer’s blog posts and A1 stories about DISD lowering its standards has caused an outcry among teachers, parents and the general public. It has even begun to garner national attention in such publication as The Wall Street Journal. Clearly, DISD has a public relations nightmare on its hands.

Fischer’s reporting was called into question by another blogger who
said the whole situation was overblown. DISD had begun to disseminate
its spin to bloggers and media outlets.

DISD spokesman Jon Dahlander claimed that what Fischer and The Dallas Morning News had published was in fact a draft copy of the new grading policy. FrontBurner blogger Tim Rogers called on the Morning News to print a clarification, and scolded Fischer and the Morning News for making a big deal out of a draft policy.

Just as Fischer’s blog readers helped break this story open, they also helped slap down district spin. For back story, here is a good primer on the first scoop that Fischer’s blog readers gave him about the school district.

This is where the story gets interesting. Normally, Fischer would have no way to prove that the documents were not drafts but rather finalized documents. Again one of his blog readers stepped up and provided him with critical information:

In case you’d rather not click the link and read it for yourself, I’ll cite the pertinent passage here:

Attached please find the finalized EIA regulation,
powerpoint and parent letters (English and Spanish) that will help to
clarify the regulation grading changes for both parents and teachers.

It was the DISD that first used the term “finalized.” One of Fischer’s readers provided him with the smoking gun. This is the first time Fischer’s readers have acted as a truth squad to dispel FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt).

Without Fischer’s beat blog, DISD’s new grading policies might have gone unnoticed. Instead, teachers, parents and others were able to see the new policies and have open debate about them on Fischer’s blog.

Kent Fischer of The Dallas Morning News received an e-mail on Monday from a teacher about new district grading policies for Dallas.

At first, Fischer didn’t think it was a big story, but he made a blog post about it anyway, asking readers what the impact of the new grading policies would be. His readers — many of which are teachers — knew more about this topic than be did, and he hoped they could shed some light on the situation.

His post prompted a reader to forward him some district documents that laid out how broad the new grading policies would be. The tipster told Fischer this meant new, lower standards. Fischer made a post that linked to the documents:

Color me skeptical, but there are enough loopholes in these rules to drive a grade-inflated truck through. Seriously, given all the second chances, fudge factors and wiggle room these rules enact, wouldn’t it take an act of God for a kid to flunk a class?

He even helped readers out by marking up a district memo (PDF) with a "quick and dirty" translation of some of the key points. He broke down a several hundred word memo into six key points.

A sea of comments formed at the end of his post from teachers who were almost uniformly denouncing the new polices. Those two posts led directly to today’s front page story, "DISD plan to ease grading standards angers teachers:"

Dallas public
school students who flunk tests, blow off homework and miss assignment
deadlines can make up the work without penalty, under new rules that
have angered many teachers.

The story already has more than 100 comments. A new district grading policy might not seem like a big story to an outsider or even a beat reporter, but to the people it affects, it can be a huge story. Fischer’s readers helped him realize the gravity of the situation and were the reason this became a big story in the Dallas area.

"In this instance, the blog really paid off, in that readers tipped us
off to a good story that was still mostly obscured from the public," Fischer said.

The newsroom did stick to its traditional-media guns in one instance. The print edition would not allow anonymous comments from Fischer’s blog to appear in print. So, Fischer had to "go out and re-report what was already on the blog."

Since I’m not tied to print conventions and superstitions, I’m going to post some of the gems left in the comments section on Fischer’s blog from teachers.

"This is unbelievable. More proof that our goal is to graduate, not
educate our kids. Are you really going to be ready for college or the
workforce if deadlines don’t matter and you are allowed to retake every
test failed? But wait, we don’t care if you flunk out of college the
first semester, as long as we pushed you through TAKS and gave you a
diploma (no matter how little you did to get it), DISD’s job is done.
If this is the best urban district in the country, we are all in real
trouble." - Oak Cliff Teacher

"Wow. Congratulations DISD. I had actually considered reapplying to come
back after a year of teaching in the suburbs. Thanks for making the
decision so easy for me. I really feel like a fool for keeping my kids
in your school district. That’s two more high achievers that you will
be losing due to the Road to Broad mediocrity that you are
perpetuating." - Pineywoods

"What a shock awaits our college ready graduates when they enter that
college classroom and find out that there are no retakes, there is lot
more than an hour’s worth of work outside the class, and deadlines must
be met. But then it will be quite a shock when colleges no longer
accept a DISD transcript." - Taxedout

Kent Fischer has begun allowing guest bloggers on his beat blog for the Dallas Independent School District.

Fischer is hoping that these guest bloggers can help keep the conversation going during the slow summer months on his blog. The guest bloggers have gotten off to a strong start so far with some provocative posts.

Can they keep the momentum going? Will readers respond to guest bloggers? Will these guest posts help Fischer’s blog connect more with the community?

Those are the questions I’ll be answering in the coming weeks and months as I monitor this experiment. For now, here are a few observations:

• The guest posts are written from a much more personal perspective. Fischer is an outsider reporting on the district, but his guest bloggers are insiders sharing their personal stories. His inaugural guest bloggers are two long-time veteran teachers of the school district. They should help liven up the blog.
• Some of the topics discussed might not have come up otherwise in Fischer’s reporting. One blog post is from a former DISD employee about how his insurance premiums have gone way down since he got a job in the private sector. This might be a catalyst for an in-depth reporting piece from Fischer. Another post was from a teacher about inadequate technology in classrooms and questionable district recycling practices.
• The guest bloggers are getting comments from people on their blogs. Almost all the comments appear to be from district employees. This probably a reflection of the content. No one has really blogged from a parent perspective yet.

Kent Fischer, and education blogger for The Dallas Morning News, wants to build a “blog on steroids.”

In just six months, he has become a successful beat blogger with thousands of page views each day and plenty of comments from dedicated users. Now he realizes that he must take his work to the next level to keep growing and innovating on the Web.

Fischer’s idea for combing beat blogging with database reporting might be the future of beat reporting on the Web. Essentially it’s a micro-site, niche publication that will be the premier source of information related to his beat on the Dallas Independent School District.

Fischer says his biggest triumph with beat blogging was getting himself blogging. He went from “blog ignorance” to wanting to develop a blog on steroids in six months.

What has been the return on investment for his blog? Could his editors justify making him a full-time blogger? Fischer thinks the key is selling his blog to specific advertisers. He runs a niche blog, and he thinks they need to target niche advertisers.

Listen to the interview for details.

Click here to stream the interview. Or click here to download the MP3.

 An update from Kent Fisher at the Dallas Morning news. His new blog continues to be the most-read non-sports blog at Dallasnews.com. But he admits that it has added to his workload - an extra two to three hours a day easily. Plus a couple of hours on weekends too.

This additional workload is to be expected. This weekend at the Computational Journalism Symposium we talked about parts of a journalists job computers can make easier and what parts humans can do better. Writing a good blog post still requires the thoughtful work of somebody like Kent.

Kent also has built a community around his blog. There is a Facebook group, but really Kent’s community is behind closed doors, being managed by himself via emails. Essentially he is following earlier examples of an email newsletter. This method works - and is very personal. But it doesn’t scale (if he wanted to grow the network) and it only adds more work to his growing load. Still - so far Kent is finding lots of success.

But enough from me: Here’s what Kent has to say:

"The network exists, but you wouldn’t necessarily see it from just reading the blog because our primary communication thus far is via an e-mail discussion group. I’ve “deputized” a few network members to be “correspondents” on issues they know a lot about (one teacher analyzes district policy changes for us, another has taken up the mantle of “dropout czar,” several network members have kept us abreast of the inside info regarding a controversial high school program change). Some of this has taken place on the blog, but most if it is behind the scenes. 

I’ll forward you a recent e-mail thread the network had in discussion of some school improvement data I shared. I’m currently working on molding that discussion into an interactive map for the blog and story for the paper."

And just to keep us all honest - here are highlights from that e-mail thread.

From Kent: "Lots of great ideas coming back in from the blog network’s first “homework assignment” — the study of those school evaluation numbers.

Many of you requested I keep your thoughts anonymous. No problem there. But I thought I’d share a sampling of your responses with the whole group. Good ideas here, and some of you went really above and beyond with your thoughts/analysis."

What followed was a range of information from:

• Statistical analysis of how schools are being rated.
• Anecdotal stories about urban schools that are surrounded by drug houses and prostitution
• Suggestions on how to mashup the public data in a way to show how well specific principles did during their time at any school.
• and more.

Overall - Kent is making huge strides. He is taking things slowly - in a positive way. Figuring out how to bring this into his work load. As noted above, he is reaching the upper threshold. But more can be done - and together I hope we can figure out how we can push this further.