Jtm-mn-mpr

Minnesota Public Radio: What do citizens want from citizen media

Here are running notes on a conversation streamed live today (June 6, 2008) on the web from Minnesota Public Radio in Saint Paul, Minn. -- a group of 14 citizens and a half dozen media reformers talking about what citizens want from their citizen media -- moderated by MPR's Michael Caputo.

Listener Jan Fisher (spelling) talks about the punch cards/hanging chads from 2004 in Florida. It struck him as odd that a professor/commentator knew all about the chads problem -- "I think we overrely on our found experts . . . when you talk to the person who actually really did it, you find out what really went wrong."

Listener says it makes sense to have small staff of professional journalists at Off the Bus on Huffington Post and elsewhere, which vet stories contributed by hundreds of citizen contributors. The professionals "do a really good job of keeping their bias out, but keeping the tidbids of the reporting in."

"I'm having trouble understanding what the downside is to having the public send their tidbits in . . . as long as the media source is still in charge of making sure the information is correct . . . can somebody help me out with that?"