Remember when you were in high school and you didn’t particularly enjoy raising your hand to add input to a discussion?

I’m curious what it takes to get people to comment on a news story, and why they comment.

Anna Tarkov, a media savvy maven, wants comments sections to get a makeover and I must agree.

Most news sites use discussions boards just because and without real thought as to why or how to better utilize them. I’m not sure I have the answer but newsrooms should begin a dialogue about this issue.

So, what ideas do you have to offer?

Photo courtesy of Rolling Stone's Peter Yang

A big debate in newsrooms is whether or not to allow anonymous comments.

Regardless of policy, are anonymous comments really anonymous?

After reading the feature article in the current edition of Rolling Stone about the most dangerous man on the Web, it got me thinking, should a newsroom use the same software to protect those who can post anonymous comments and its own database of information?

The story about Jack Applebaum, the brain who invented the software that keeps whistle-blowers anonymous on Wikileaks, is somewhat unsettling because he sheds light on how un-anonymous we all are on the Web.

“I don’t want to live in a world where everyone is watched all the time,” Applebaum tells Rolling Stone.

Applebaum is a crusader for freedom of speech but in a way that’s unconventional and according to some highly controversial. He travels the world and promotes his software that keeps people anonymous by teaching “political dissidents and human rights activists,” how to use the program to protect their online activity from oppressive regimes. Applebaum believes that anonymity on the Web is a means to achieve freedom of speech.

“The dangers of the Web may remain abstract for most Americans, but for much of the world, visiting restricted websites or saying something controversial in an e-mail can lead to imprisonment, torture or death.”

Governments aren’t the only ones that keep accumulating information on its citizens, one American newsroom collects information from its community in an effort to help reporting.

An NPR newsroom developed a system to gather anonymous information about community members: Public Insight Network. The idea is to go beyond the “rolodex” style reporting and create a limitless number of go-to sources for certain subjects.

According to Minnesota Public Radio the network has information on approximately 75,000 people. The way the system works is like a glorified digital business card. A citizen offers information to the newsroom like what he or she is good at, maybe a profession, or a certain experience. The idea is that when the station is doing a story on say hunting, news directors will be able to access the digital database for “hunting” and out comes people who have put hunting into their profile.

This opens up a wealth of information and sources for a newsroom. The 21st century version of reporting–keeping tabs on all citizens to help with the 2.0 era of journalism.

The real question is how protected is this information and who in NPR is allowed to see this personal information? Could a newsroom who engages an audience in this manner benefit from the Applebaum’s Tor software?

While my mother has a new found love for the internet, she has no need for the paper delivery. But she enjoys and appreciates the local coverage and says she’d continue to pay, but the paper has become a hassle and another morning chore.
In the case of my mother the paper has outdone themselves. They’ve created a better, more convenient product that trumps the paper version. So, who’s to say people won’t pay for online coverage? What if the local paper is a trusted, desired brand that community members can’t get anywhere else?

Newspaper executives are wondering the same thing–will consumers pay? A recent study shows people will pay for online content if it’s highly targeted toward them and if they can engage with the content. The study also cites that as time goes on people will be more willingly to pay for content.

Find out more about the study here and what industry insiders have to say.

AT&T plans to do away with the $30 unlimited data plan and will introduce contracts catering to frequent and occasional data users.

The frequent user will pay $25, which allows for two gigabytes of data a month. If that’s not enough, AT&T will charge $10 for each additional gigabyte.

The occasional data user will pay $15 for 200 megabytes and $15 for an additional 200 megabytes.

Have no fear, AT&T plans to text consumers when they get close to their limit.

The question is will other phone carriers follow? And what about internet providers?

A character from the online game "Darfur is Dying" tries to evade capture from militia groups. The game is designed to teach gamers the issues affecting the Sudan region.

If you attended elementary school in the ‘90s you might remember playing Oregon Trail, a computer game designed to teach children about life as a pioneer heading West.

Some journalists think these types of video games are an effective way to tell stories. Op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof believes online games are a powerful tool to engage an otherwise disconnected audience.

Kristof says stories can prohibit audiences from processing the gravity of news from around the world. He says video games might be the answer because they force gamers to become emotionally connected to the characters that represent a larger story.

Darfur is Dying is a computer game designed to tell the story about life in the Sudan region.

Gamers choose from a family of characters and the objective is to elude capture and attacks by the Janjaweed militias.

Gamers can pick a little girl by the name of Elham and her first mission is to collect water for her village, instructions on the screen tell the player,

“You risk being attacked and possibly killed by Janjaweed militias when you leave the confines of your camp, but you must do it, in order to provide water for your community.”

After clicking start, Elham begins running from her camp and soon after a militia truck begins chasing the 14-year-old. As soon as she is captured a message pops up on the computer monitor,

“Girls in Darfur face abuse, rape and kidnapping by the Janjaweed. If she succeeds, the girl can bring more water back than a smaller boy, but less than an adult.”

These informative messages seem to add an educational element, so do games have a place in the future of journalism?

A Philadelphia Daily News editor spent the majority of the afternoon refreshing his web browser, anxiously awaiting for the results of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize winners.

“YES!”

“What?”

“YES!”

“Wait.”

“YES!”

And finally, the newsroom filled will staffers erupts into celebration as they realize their colleagues have won a Pulitzer.

What haunts me, even after I clicked away, is a soundbite from the winners’ colleague, Signe Wilkinson, a cartoonist and former Pulitzer Prize winner.

“I don’t think it’s going to have any influence whatsoever on who buys the paper,” says Wilkinson.

“We generally don’t truly want good information–but rather information that confirms our prejudices,” said Nicholas Kristof in his 2009 column.

In his column, Nicholas Kristof argues that consumers of news have tuned out objective journalism. So, how did the Keith Olbermanns and the Glenn Becks become the preferred choices for news? The journalism industry does not have to look too far because it abandoned innovation and consequently the duty to inform its audience by delivering round and robust stories.
Contemporary journalism in America is inundated with information, and after awhile that information became stale through the traditional journalistic practices. Now these “talking heads” are seen as a way to spice up journalism, a way to entertain viewers and increase ratings.

“The decline of traditional news media will accelerate the rise of The Daily Me, and we’ll be irritated less by what we read and find our wisdom confirmed more often,” writes Kristof.

Journalism news values fuel the Daily Me because we’ve conditioned them to want to read news that reconfirms their beliefs. Looking at the ways in which we present media and the values we use to determine how and what we convey to our audience will help deter this notion of The Daily Me.

Conflict is the basis for news coverage, which is fueled by two-valued orientation that is often reflected in our language. This means that within all the news values there is an underlying theme of conflict or an obstacle. This is why our news becomes stale. Journalists don’t give enough context to stories, because it’s easy to cover two sides of the issue, which has given rise to The Daily Me.
We should have been focused more on news that was contextual and treated stakeholders like threads in a spider-web, one tug along the web leads to multiple pulls elsewhere. Instead, the industry has treated stories’ plots like a zero-sum game, in which only one stakeholder can win.

Reporting with two-valued orientation does not engage the audience into understanding all sides. Instead readers see two opposite sides and when deciding how they feel on an issue, they feel they can only be on one side or the other. Constant reporting like this is fueling The Daily Me. It’s reflected in what we call “objective” reporting, so why wouldn’t news consumers turn to commentators? Is it really that different?

Dear journalists,
It’s your job to teach readers something new everyday. You cover a meeting and you relay relevant information to your readers about the takeaway message. You break a story and tell your readers why it’s important and how it will impact them. Sometimes as journalists we start to take ourselves too seriously. So please, help yourself and remain humble. If you knew everything, you wouldn’t be a journalist. The minute you start acting above or smarter than those you interview is a good indication that you should leave reporting behind.

Everyone can teach you something.

When the suspects were arrested March 2 the Columbia Missourian decided to print the vague addresses of the two male suspects on March 3.

The Missourian should have known that printing the addresses could incite violence, especially due to the nature of this crime. Jake Sherlock the opinion editor said the vague addresses were printed to avoid confusion over identity.

While that’s a legitimate concern the Missourian printed various other indicators to make sure the men could not be confused with any other individuals.

Printing even vague addresses of the suspects was wrong. Here’s why:

1) The article lists extracurricular activities the two are involved with.

2) Mug shots were also included in the article.

3) When searching the MU directory and facebook there are not multiple individuals with the same names.

4) Due to the nature of the crime the Missourian should have acted prudently before printing the vague addresses, one of which is a dorm.

I understand that it was a tough call for the Missourian but the wrong decision was made. The situation can be compared to a sports game. When a basketball player is being overplayed by a defender and can’t continue with the set play, the offensive player should go backdoor.

This backdoor mentality should be more common in newsrooms. Policies should be in place as guidelines because sometimes the game changes and a newsroom has to be able to think critically to adapt to the situation.

Many comments on the Missourian asked why the addresses were printed. The vague addresses didn’t add anything to the story and on the first read they seemed glaringly out of place.

I’m proud that the Missourian did make a decision and was later transparent about the reasons why. But to avoid future situations the Missourian should consider making such policies available online. When situations like this occur readers are given the answer “that’s policy.” But these actual policies are no where online for the broader public to read, making it seem like a willy-nilly decision.

Even though she spoke with an accent from a distant place, it was impossible to miss the conviction in her voice, as she spoke during the 2010 Stop Traffic Now Conference at the University of Missouri this past weekend.

Exposing sex trafficking across the world has become more of a duty and responsibility for photojournalist Mimi Chakarova than a job.

“One reason why this is a very personal project and I’ve stuck with it for this duration is because I owed it to my generation of women to do the story, and to do it in an honest and compassionate way,” said Chakarova.

Chakarova grew up in a Bulgarian village before moving to the United States as a teenager. After the fall of communism, Chakarova says people began looking abroad for ways to make a decent living. Yet, few young women knew that these aspirations would make them the perfect prey for pimps and organized crime.

“None of us when we are little girls dream of being prostitutes one day,” said Chakarova.

Often times these women are offered jobs abroad by people they know. But when they arrive in the new country their passports are taken. When they see an exchange of money, they realize they’ve been deceived. After being forced into this dangerous under world, they most likely will never escape.

“This is a story that’s not only dangerous to do because you’re dealing with mafia, you’re dealing with criminal networks. As a female in order for me to get into some of these places, to get in this world, I cannot go in posing that I’m a client because the clientele is not female it’s male. So, as a female I’ve had to go undercover on many occasions where I had to become a part of that scene and experience and hear things and see things with my eyes that are incredibly disturbing,” said Chakarova.

It’s obvious that Chakarova is haunted by what she has seen. But this has become her mission for the past seven years. The situations she has put herself in to tell this story are unimaginable. But Chakarova does it for all the right reasons, to expose an injustice hoping that one day it will change.

Chakarova gave incredible advice to journalists and reminded me why I wanted to be a journalist.

-The primary job of a journalist is to listen, if we assume we’re better than the those we interview, it makes it hard to listen and tell a truthful story.

-Be a human first. This was a great reminder. When profiling these women she refrained from acting careless. In one profile, she didn’t use her camera for months, she wanted to get to know this woman first. Chakarova says to always remember that at the end of the day you are a human, which needs to sleep at night. First you’re a human and then you’re a journalist.

-Don’t forget why you wanted to be a journalist.

“We cannot fix everything and there is a lot of awful depressing and disheartening realities out there but it doesn’t mean that we should just close our eyes and pretend that it doesn’t happen. Which is our jobs as journalists, to expose those types of injustices and to inspire others to change,” said Chakarova.

For more information about Chakarova’s work visit her site here.