February 26, 2006 12:38 PM
A response to YourHub.com critics
Romenesko on Friday included a misleading post by Howard Rothman from NewWest.net about YourHub.com. As a member of the team that created YourHub.com and the editor, president and publisher of the Rocky Mountain News, which produces it, I would like to address the issues raised in Rothman's column and by two columns on Poynter.org - one by Steve Yelvington and the other by Kelly McBride - that jumped on Rothman's bandwagon.
Rothman begins: "If there's one thing I've been telling people we need around here, it's more respectable-looking pseudo-media where politicians (among others) can dump a truckload of hooey that appears to most observers to be official, serious, unbiased, old-fashioned, editorially sanctioned news."
I'm not sure how Rothman knows that "most observers" would view a posting by Colorado House Minority Leader Joe Stengel on YourHub.com as "official, serious, unbiased, old-fashioned, editorially sanctioned news." But his argument wouldn't have held water if he had acknowledged how the column is presented.
First, it carries the byline of Joe Stengel, who by the way is pretty well known in these parts. (This is how the byline reads: "Contributed by Joe Stengel on 2/15/2006.") Second, there's a big picture of Stengel right next to the byline. The caption says "House Minority Leader Rep. Joe Stengel (Littleton)." I can't imagine how "most readers" would imagine that a piece written by the House Minority Leader would be "unbiased, editorially sanctioned news."
But even if they did, when they got to the end of the column, they could have learned much more, by reading comments from opponents or critics. (Granted, in this case, no such comments have been posted.) You see, anybody can post a story, photo, column, event, blog or even sell something on YourHub.com. It's meant to be a wide-open exchange of ideas, experiences and goods. However there is one requirement. To post, people must register and then they're in charge or they can (though this is rare) submit an item to the YourHub.com staff, which will help out when necessary. All postings carry the author's name. And no post can stand alone, free from comment. At the bottom of every post, a reader can rate the story and talk back by submitting comments that will be attached to the story. So, for example, a GOP primary opponent of Stengel's or a Democratic opponent in the general election or an individual or group that opposes Stengel can all rebut him - or worse - and thus color any reader's perception of Stengel's post. If you look up stories that I've posted, you'll find that I have a 3.5 rating.
This self-policing aspect of the Web and blogosphere is one of its greatest strengths. I believe many in the mainstream media vastly underestimate it. It is one of the reasons people feel confident using eBay, for example. YourHub.com has adopted the approach of successful consumer Web sites and applied them to a community journalism site.
As for YourHub.com appearing to be "officially sanctioned news," it would be worth explaining how the system works. Anybody can post an item to YourHub.com, unless it's violent or obscene. However stories don't make the home page of our 44 hubs (representing communities in the seven-county Denver metro area) unless a YourHub.com journalist decides they're of general interest and should be displayed on the most prominent page of each site. So play and the possible exposure a story might get is still decided by journalists. Then, those journalists pick the best postings of the week and publish them in a weekly section of the Rocky Mountain News that is also distributed to the homes of Denver Post subscribers. This is where editing occurs. Submissions selected for the print sections are verified in the same way we verify letters to the editor in the Rocky Mountain News.
Rothman is correct that it's not clear in some instances, such as Debbie Brown's posting, what the relationship of the writer to the subject is, but if you go to her post you'll see that her rating is 2, which is low, and that the piece is what it is, praise for a candidate. Again, YourHub.com is a conversation. Anybody involved in the race or who wants to comment, can do so on the same page.
Rothman ridicules the postings on Joe Rice as "noble press releases." Perhaps I'm missing something, but what is wrong with having a forum where candidates for public office and their supporters can post stories, columns and photographs supporting their cause? Again, despite what Rothman says, it's clear that the Rice posts are announcements for a candidate. Why wouldn't it be positive that there's a place where such things can occur, and where others, including Rothman, can comment on them? To me, this suggests the possibility of a robust dialogue.
Rothman concludes by returning to Stengel and asserting that his posting looks like "any legitimate editorial column you might find in the pages of the Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post." It is a column. It's clearly his opinion. What's wrong with presenting it as such? Are there some people we want to deny free speech?
Rothman concludes with a rhetorical flourish: "So I ask: Where would these folks, and we - the voters - be without these illuminating YourHub.com contributions? My only hope is that more politicians in the area catch on and start getting their free ads here as well."
It's too bad he doesn't get it. When candidates or others post on the Web, they enter into a dialogue, just as Rothman did by writing about YourHub.com. In his case, he could have posted comments on each of the stories he criticizes, informing his fellow users about his concerns. Unlike on a candidate's Web site, where disagreeable information can be left out.,YourHub.com allows anybody to comment on and criticize the very politicians Rothman says are getting free ads. I'm not sure what the problem with that is. Making speech and connections easier seems like a step in the right direction to me. Doing so, in my view, creates the possibility of a more vibrant democracy.
Then came the Poynter Institute's Steve Yelvington, who jumped on the issue to pronounce that sites such as YourHub.com must be "absolutely clear who is speaking." But it doesn't appear that he actually looked at the site. Each post carries a byline. In every case, Stengel's byline appears with his columns. What could be unclear about that? They also include a photo of Stengel, with his official title. This is exactly what a newspaper commentary section would do when running a column by the governor, mayor or yes, even a member of the legislative leadership. Yelvington asks "Who is Joe Stengel?" This makes me wonder whether he looked at the post. There's a big picture of Joe Stengel next to his byline and the caption says, "House Minority Leader Rep. Joe Stengel (Littleton)." How could anybody be confused who Joe Stengel is?
Bottom line is we don't present pieces as "unfiltered as if they are newspaper-style journalism," as Yelvington asserts. Go to YourHub.com and ask yourself whether it looks like any newspaper site. I don't believe the answer will be yes.
Yelvington insinuates that essentially YourHub.com is a source of cheap content for zoned print sections and states that a site built around "strong community interaction will develop its own methods of fixing this problem - quickly." Exactly. That's why YourHub.com allows comments on any posting and why it allows readers to rate contributors. He also implies that YourHub.com doesn't have the kind of participation or traffic to make that happen.
This is what the Denver Newspaper Agency said regarding traffic and revenue in a Feb. 15 press release announcing the launch of national syndication of YourHub.com: "Since the implementation was completed (in August), metro Denver 'hubs' have enjoyed an average of 309,000 page views and more than 45,000 unique visitors per month with more than 13,000 of those being registered users. At the same time online audiences increased, more than $5 million in annual print and online revenues were generated (with 40-50 percent of advertisers being new business), andYourHub.com print circulation surpassed all local suburban and community newspapers combined."
Yelvington might not think a crowd nearly big enough to fill Coors Field, the home of the Colorado Rockies, is much of an audience, but I feel pretty good about it given that the effort was only launched last May. And just to be clear, we get hundreds of posts a week, far more content than we could ever consider for the print sections. And the trend lines are all moving in an upward direction, meaning we're getting more posts as people come to understand how they can use YourHub.com.
Then another Poynter writer, Kelly McBride, jumped in, with a post headlined "The problem with citizen journalism." First, she erroneously states that "The Rocky Mountain News and The Denver Post created YourHub." Perhaps if she had followed traditional journalistic practices and actually called someone at YourHub or looked at the bottom of every YourHub.com page she could have avoided that simple error. As is clear from the language at the bottom of every YourHub.com page and on page 2 of the print sections, the project is produced by the Rocky Mountain News and distributed by the Denver Newspaper Agency. (MediaNews Group, which owns the Post, gets 50% of the profits from the Denver Newspaper Agency, as does the E.W. Scripps Co., which owns the Rocky Mountain News.) Here you can see a benefit of the Web that is available to all YourHub.com users. Just as I can quickly correct McBride, YourHub.com users can quickly correct me or any other writer.
What McBride doesn't seem to understand is that YourHub.com is a combination of many types of journalism. It includes what she would call traditional journalism, stories written by independent staff reporters and photos taken by staff journalists. But it also includes contributions from citizens.
As an editor, I wish traditional journalists actually lived up to the standards of our profession when writing about "citizen journalism." For example, McBride asserts: "YourHub.com has a decent "about" description. But it's way down at the bottom of the page in tiny (emphasis added) type. And while it tells folks what YourHub.com is, it doesn't say what it isn't."
What tiny type? That type is the same size as the body type of the stories on YourHubcom, but it's much more visible because it's bold and set apart on a screened background. And how would somebody write a description of what his or her site "isn't?"
By the way, this is how the About YourHub.com section begins:
"YourHub is exactly that: Yours!
It's a Web site built by the people in metro Denver with help from the Rocky Mountain News. People throughout metro Denver can access their own community's YourHub.com Web site, featuring stories, photos and events posted by others in their community -- that means you!"
Does that seem confusing? Unclear?
We haven't had a problem with readers telling us they're confused about what YourHub.com is. They seem to get it. We have run into many journalists frightened by an environment where citizens can say what they think unedited, except for a profanity filter, and appalled that everybody can exercise the same First Amendment rights on a newspaper-owned Web site - even PR people, businesses and politicians.
A danger with a blog like Romenesko is that readers won't find a response to a post like Rothman's. They'll read the post and move on, thinking that what they've read is the whole story. I appreciate Jim Romenesko giving me this opportunity to respond. I hope you come away with a better understanding of the accountability YourHub.com actually provides and why the idea of citizens telling their own stories holds so much potential.
John Temple
Editor, president and publisher
Rocky Mountain News
editor@RockyMountainNews.com
February 26, 2006
7:42 PM
wicked witch writes:
Of course, you will censor this post Johnnie boy, because it links to a web site that has been wonderfully critical of your insipid blog and your vicious, anti-Indian paper, but I would like to emphasis that your blog really is boring as hell and something only a drooling dimwit could enjoy.
Charlie Brennan, one of your flabby reporters, on the other hand has been worth his weight in hysterical laughter at his hokey attempt at electronic adultery. The letters are a Try-Works exclusive.
OK. Censor this Mr. Free Speech. But we've still got yer man!
February 27, 2006
10:44 AM
William M. writes:
The danger with a blog like this one is that it refuses to deal with issues readers care about, such as why Bill Johnson is allowed repeatedly to fabricate information for his column and remain on staff.
February 27, 2006
4:29 PM
Alan Aardvark writes:
Howard Rothman wrote:
> If there's one thing I've been telling people we
> need around here, it's more respectable-looking
> pseudo-media where politicians (among others) can
> dump a truckload of hooey that appears to most
> observers to be official, serious, unbiased,
> old-fashioned, editorially sanctioned news.
For those who want a truckload of politically biased hooey, I can enthusiastically recommend the regular pages of the Rocky Mountain News.
February 28, 2006
10:35 AM
Pat writes:
Editorial influence seems weak again today with titles, "House GOP" vs. "Senator Apologizes", written by Lynn Bartels, re: Senators Hanna and Stengel. A "D" is the most identification Hanna gets later in the article. And this after Mr. Temple's Saturday column addressing this to his readers. And then poor Littwin, who does not know the meaning of extortion. Both senators were despicable in their behavior and deserve to be exposed. Ah, but how manipulated the exposure, although minor in this instance compared to other columns on various subjects. It doesn't really matter much anymore, because most readers see it for what it is because they are too informed today to be taken in. As for blogs, the ugly things said on them have no influence other than with people who already are of like mind and it is a waste of time to bother with them.
February 28, 2006
8:40 PM
Alan Aardvark writes:
Pat, keep in mind that Lynn Bartels is one of the Rocky's more biased reporters. She once appeared on "Colorado Inside-Out" and reminisced about the Republican Party before it became controlled by a bunch of "home-schooling, gay-bashing, Limbaugh loving, right-wing Republican psychos." Then later, when a Colorado Pols reader questioned her about the remark, she tried to tap dance away from it by claiming that she was just kidding. Right!
And Bartels especially has it in for Joe Stengel, because he was a leading Referendum C opponent, and she -- along with a dozen or so other Rocky reporters -- campaigned hard for Referendum C in the news pages. One shining example of her bias was in her report last October that Stengel had flunked his first try at the bar exam ("Lawmaker flunks bar exam", 10/6/05). Since 42% of Stengel's 295 fellow DU law grads also flunked, one might wonder why his result would even be considered newsworthy, but the answer of course is that Bartels wasn't going to miss a chance to paint a Referendum C opponent in a bad light.
So, I'd take Bartels' current campaign against Stengel -- regarding alleged overbilling for out-of-session work -- with a block of salt. Maybe she has a point this time, but I'd feel better about her charges if she could produce any actual proof that Stengel wasn't working on even one of the specific days he billed for -- and perhaps if she were willing to also give Andrew Romanoff a bit of scrutiny for his own sizable $14,000 bill for out-of-session work.
Question for John Temple: Did you issue a directive to all of those Rocky reporters to campaign for Referendum C in the news pages, or did they all just coincidentally decide to do it on their own?
Question for moderate-to-conservative readers of the Rocky: Do you really want to pay good money to support this kind of journalism?
Closing thought: Don't give up on blogs just because of rude bloggers like Wicked Witch. There are some great blogs out there. Find them and read them!
March 1, 2006
10:17 AM
Pat writes:
Alan, although I was not aware of Bartels "Colorado Inside- Out" appearance, her track record, along with too many other RMN reporters, tells me that she tries to manipulate through distortion, some fabrication and can be vindictive in her pursuits. I agree, she is not to be taken seriously.
The following is not a rhetorical question. Why do you think John Temple has allowed his news pages to be almost completely taken over by this type of reporting while he pretends this is not happening? I read his Commentary and do not detect their same bias and distortion or their lack of logic and facts. I am familiar with Keller, editor of NYT and other editors across the country who, in everything they say, reflect stupidity and ignorance of how informed the public has become (the CBS, Dan Rathers of print journalism). John Temple, on the other hand, appears to be aware of this change in the public.
In reference to your question for moderate- to-conservative readers, I like to be informed re: what these irresponsible journalists are saying to our community and how their failures are becoming apparent to more people everyday.
March 3, 2006
2:36 PM
Robert Knilands writes:
Poynter got the facts wrong? No, say it isn't so! I just don't understand why people haven't seen through the often inaccurate blathering of Kelly McBride and others. These people are wrong far too often, and they rarely correct or even admit to any mistakes. These are the people who are supposed to be guiding newspaper accuracy?
March 4, 2006
8:54 AM
Billie Janssen writes:
Mr. Temple, why do you refuse to write about Bill Johnson, your fabricating columnist?
Sir, I wrote you two detailed letters listing specific fabrications and factual errors in a Jan. 18 column by Johnson.
It took you 10 days to correct one of Johnson's errors. But you let all his other errors and outright fabrications go uncorrected.
In addition, Mr. Temple, you did not have the courtesy to respond to my letters. Sir, you do not care about truth or fairness. You care about covering up for a dishonest columnist, thereby hoping to save your paper from ridicule.
Johnson is not only a fabricator. He is a weak writer. Gary Massaro should have Johnson's spot. And, Mr. Temple, Deb Goeken should have your position. She knows Johnson is rotten to his core, but you keep propping him up.
March 5, 2006
2:44 PM
Alan Aardvark writes:
Pat wrote:
> Why do you think John Temple has allowed his news
> pages to be almost completely taken over by this
> type of reporting while he pretends this is not
> happening?
My take on this is that John Temple's own political sentiments lie as far to the left as those of his reporters and editors, so I don't believe that Mr. Temple will prove to be of much help when it comes to reigning in journalistic bias at the Rocky. He is actually part of the problem, not part of the solution.
One of the best pieces of evidence for this point of view came when reporter Ann Imse pulled off her infamous stunt to aid the so-called "Denver 3" last April. As you may recall, Ms. Imse, Rocky photographer Evan Semon, and Karen Bauer (a member of the progressive activist group) crashed a private meeting of the Denver Metro Young Republicans, apparently for the purpose of gathering information to abet the activist group's then-contemplated (now actual) lawsuit. Ms. Imse conveniently "forgot" her press pass that night and also "forgot" to introduce herself at the meeting when asked to do so.
Clearly, Ms. Imse was actively taking sides in a partisan political fight rather than just reporting on it. So where was Mr. Temple? It turns out that he not only signed off on the stunt, but he actually helped plan it! Is that a not-so-subtle clue as to Mr. Temple's own political leanings?
There's one other possible theory that might explain why Mr. Temple allows so much liberal bias in his paper -- and I think this is unlikely -- but maybe what he does is a brilliant, intentional marketing strategy. Suppose Mr. Temple knows that his paper has already lost most of its moderate-to-conservative subscriber base, and his goal is to hold onto the group of hard-core lefty subscribers in Denver proper and Boulder. In that case, Mr. Temple would be trying to cater to this group by telling them what they want to hear, and what he is doing would make sense from a business point of view.
Indeed, if the Rocky's published letters to the editor reflect a representative sample of reader opinion, there is some reason to believe that much of the moderate-to-conservative subscriber base has already fled.
March 8, 2006
12:17 AM
Eric T. Cat writes:
Vincent Carroll did a nice job again today showing why he is the biggest coward in Colorado journalism. Let Bush violate the law with illegal spying; no peep from Vinnie. Let Bush lie to start a war, run up massive deficits, and generally prove himself a gutless weasel; all OK by Carroll. Let Chaput and his fellow miterheads cover up rape and abuse over decades; Vinnie whines about the poor church being persecuted. But let a teacher point out that the Emperor not only has no clothes, but should be impeached, anbd Vinnie soils himself in his eagerness to start a 20 part series spreading lies about the man.
Two hints for the ediot in chief. First, when defending a criminal president, don't choose as precedent another one who also broke the law to illegally sell arms and then funnel the money to murdering terrorists. Second, weasels who secretly tape a man, then compund their gutlessness by shopping the tape around to whoever will promise to destroy the man's career, are not victims but cowardly bastards.
March 8, 2006
12:43 PM
Pat writes:
Goodness, what did they put in "Cat's" kitty bowl last night? Perhaps we can look forward to Cat's belief in courage allowing him/her to not hide behind a pseydonym.
March 8, 2006
12:47 PM
Pat writes:
I hit wrong key and mispelled "pseudonym."
March 8, 2006
2:47 PM
Pat writes:
Alan Aardvark responded to my question: Although, John Temple, Editor often prints his Commentary with logic and facts, why has he allowed his news pages to be taken over by irresponsible opinion reporting?
Yes, I am familiar with the Ann Imse debacle and John Temple's extremely long, defensive answer to the criticism he received. Does he believe everything this sneaky or deceptive appearing little group told him?
He most often responds to criticism of his reporters like a mother defending her "baby chicks." Although, too many of his reporters are angry and act out like babies in their writing much of the time, they do give us a more accurate picture of the reasons for the state of newspapers currently.
I have also wondered if the articles may be even more unbelievably unethical than we see; and that the final results have been heavily edited. Is Temple afraid of mutiny?
I guess I am not yet ready to concede that Temple is as Far Left as most of his reporters. Playing Mr. Nice Guy, or weak or controlled, maybe. Unaware of the sinking newspaper business or not forward thinking, I don't think so. I am still evaluating.
March 10, 2006
6:09 PM
Steve Zissou writes:
> Perhaps we can look forward to Cat's belief in courage allowing him/her to not hide behind a pseydonym. <
Said the courageous poster with the single androgenous name. LOL!!