By David Fortier
The premise for this website originated with my master’s project for a degree in journalism education at Kent State University. Details of the project can be found in the citizen-driven community journalism section of the website, the project proposal, and final paper.
Basically, the project involved a group of volunteers from Bristol, Conn,, who met for 10-weeks to discuss the concept of citizens driving decisions about news and coverage of our community. The conversation began with people’s views of the news, where they found news, the quality of those reports, what needed to be covered, and whether the coverage was adequate.
From there the conversation evolved to one of looking at each of these elements through an ethical lens: in other words, rather than talking about fairness and balance and interviewing, the conversation began with ethical concerns, specifically, two ethical standards for journalists: the code of ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists and one from the Ethical Journalism Network.
The SPJ code has four major categories: seek the truth and report it, minimize harm, act independently, and be accountable; EJN has five: accuracy and fairness independence, impartiality, accountability, and humanity. The idea behind this is that people using these standards will not only adopt the best practices of the best journalists, but they will be able to critique and produce a type of journalism that meets the needs of their community.
Some of the results of those conversation that The Bristol Edition intends to follow include the following:
- Facts-based reporting.
- Try to avoid “he said, she said” reporting.
- For the time being, no comments. (At least until, we can figure out how comments will lead to better reporting.)
- Try new story forms, including podcasts.
- Transparency: Disclosure personal ties, interests, in all reports.
- Provide context for reader who would like more information by Including links to primary documents, as well as other material that is available.
- Partner with our readers by asking for their help with stories as well as holding public events to decide what stories are worth reporting. (Note: write from the bottom up or the middle out rather than the top down.)
- Train reporters and writers in our ethical approach, along with best practices used by journalists.
- All TBE staffers will aim to educate our public about ethical citizen-driven community journalism and their critical role in making it work.
Most important, TBE is a work in progress, guided by specific values that we aim to meet. Readers are free to call us out when we fall short of these goals. At the same time, TBE must not get lazy about our aims, which means regular self-evaluations and publishing what we learn about ourselves.