Craig Silverman is the journalist behind Regret the Error, the co-author of Mafiaboy: How I Cracked The Internet and Why It’s Still Broken, and the managing editor of PBS.org MediaShift. [Full disclosure: MediaStyle principal Ian Capstick is a contributor to the MediaShift blog] He’s also part of the team, headed by Wilf Dinnick, that is creating the transparent, multimedia, open-sourced news website OpenFile. In the first of this two-part interview, Silverman discusses the genesis of OpenFile, what separates audience from news, and the business model of news online. -Travis Boisvenue

What’s the elevator pitch for OpenFile?

The short version is that it’s a collaborative local news site.

Collaborative meaning that anybody from the community in Toronto–maybe they’re seeing something happening on their street and they’re wondering, “why are all these trees being cut down?”–they can go to the site, open what we call a File, and say, “there are trees being cut down all over the street, I’m wondering ‘why?’”

And if we at OpenFile, the editors, look at that and say “this is a good story”, we assign it to a reporter.

So the idea is that rather than just having a bunch of editors decide “here is what the news is today”, we’re going to be working with the community, with the people. Their ideas, their suggestions, and then the actual process of reporting is also collaborative. We’re going to be inviting people to be part of the process of putting a story together, we’re going to ask them to add information, add insights.

We’re very very focused on local stories. The term “hyper local” is obviously very popular. Stuff that a larger city paper might not care about is something we definitely care about, and because everything on the site is geo-tagged, as we build up more and more information and Files on the site, you’ll be able to go in and enter your postal code and find a whole page full of things that might be as relevant to you.

It’s aggressively local, it’s open, it’s collaborative, and, of course, it’s online only. So we’re going to be doing a lot of stuff with multimedia.

The ideas behind OpenFile seem to come from gripes with how print media is being run.

I think there’s that element. Overall, we see it as evolutionary rather than revolutionary. A lot of the things that we’re trying to do have been suggested over the years, and in a lot of cases tested.

I would say one of the core problems that we’re trying to address is the separation between people in a community and a news organization that’s supposed to represent and cover that community. It’s true that you could call up the local newspaper and say, “I have a story” and get someone on the phone, or send in an email. But the chances of there being any follow-up, let alone you being part of that process beyond that initial phone call, let alone any credit or acknowledgement for you in any official way, that’s pretty unlikely.

And from my background I’ve spent a lot of time looking for accuracy and errors and corrections, that’s an area of expertise for me. And there is kind of a truth about errors and corrections that I think relates to journalism in general, and it is that we rely on people to spot our mistakes as journalists, and in a lot of ways we also rely on the public to tell us what’s going on, but the problem with corrections is that a lot of the time people won’t bother to report an error that they spot because they think that people in the newsroom won’t care. They don’t know how to go about doing that, and in a lot of cases they don’t think that journalists are all that interested in being accurate.

If you think about a general news example, a lot of people don’t know how to go about getting someone at a newspaper to report something, especially if they’re a regular member of the community, not someone with a PR person. There is a real barrier when there is not a clear message being sent by media organizations saying, “listen, we want you to be a part of this, we want to know about what issues matter to you and what your ideas are”. There is no formal process for it, and that’s sort of a core thing in [OpenFile's] mandate. We’ve got a clear process and a clear message saying, “we want to hear from you”, and we’re not just going to take your story idea and hope that you hear about it later.

Another challenge is figuring out a viable online business model for journalism.

What’s that business model looking like so far?

Our plan is to do advertising rather than to do a pay wall. If you look at the beta site right now, there is no advertising. Obviously, that’s going to change. But one thing you’re probably not going to see, or ever going to see on the site, are your typical google ads, banners, text ads–that kind of thing. In terms of a sustainable model, if you are only selling those kinds of ads, banners, clicks, and things like that, you’re going to have a hard time supporting real journalism. So there are two things we are going for. Number one, we’re going to be looking at a sponsor model, something along the lines of what you might see at PBS where specific programs are paid for by specific foundations. So we are talking to larger organizations about becoming founding sponsors and offering them exclusive placement and positioning on the site.

The second part is the long term part. We’re geotagging everything that goes on the site. As the site evolves and there is more and more content, and as we see where people are distributed over the city, all of a sudden we can do location-based advertising. We think that advertising is more and more looking towards contextual, looking towards location-based.

You mentioned “real journalism”. What kind of distinction do you make between print journalists and bloggers that haven’t had print experience?

For right now we probably are working with people who have done published work for pay. And frankly I don’t distinguish if they’ve written for an online publication or if they’ve written for the Toronto Star. If someone has written real, quality reportive pieces and has been paid for them, that to me is journalism. If someone is writing their own blog and that’s something they do as a hobby–and we see that there is quality work there–and we think that there is a story that they might be really good at, I think think that we’re willing to take a chance on them.

Our vision over time is that people who start on the site as users and typical citizens–if over time they build a reputation and show that they are really good at sniffing out facts and sniffing out stories–if they seem to be good in terms of writing, we do see a time in the future where we can promote people to be reporters for the site, even if they aren’t a full-time reporter.

Do you see OpenFile as a model that could replace traditional newspapers?

As a general statement, I think that if your idea is you launch something new and its going to erase things that have been there for hundreds of years, you’re probably not going to have a lot of success. I see it as an “and” situation rather than as an “or” situation. There are things that the Toronto Star does, for example, they we’re probably never going to be able to do. They maintain a full-time bureau covering city hall. We don’t see ourselves doing that. We certainly see ourselves doing a lot of reporting about city hall and decisions made there and how they affect local communities. I think those institutions for the most part will continue.

For me, it’s just a broadening of options available to people, and really offering a different kind of relationship, experience, and ultimately a different kind of information product. So yeah, I see there to be an element of coexisting. If you look on the site, we already are linking to all kinds of different reports at National Post, Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, Toronto Sun. We’re linking to the great work they do when their work touches on areas that we’re looking at. And obviously i think that that’s a bit of a distinction: they’re starting to link out a bit more, but they’re pretty hesitant to show somebody what’s going on at a competing place, whereas we very much embrace the idea of doing that.

I’ll be blunt: my CityVote column over at Spacing Ottawa wasn’t singing to me. I was having trouble breaking out of my “rant mode” with written text . It comes easily. Ranting. I am a New Democrat after all .

I got to thinking about how I’ve had some amazing people ask me to help them tell their stories during this election. It always kept coming back to my offering to teach them how to do it themselves. Spacing Ottawa and the CityVote space needs to be a conversation and I see my role as enabler. So, we’re going to take this on in a bit more formal way.

“Making the Invisible Visible” will be the theme of the audio/video project. My team at MediaStyle.ca is going to help teach people how to use consumer electronic tools (cameras, microphones and ideas) and guide them in creating messages to Ottawa candidates. I’ll then use all the energy I have left to encourage the candidates for all types of office to weigh in online.

Have a message for a city politician that isn’t listening? I want to hear it. Email me or comment below. Here is more on the project from me:

CityVote 2010: Making the invisible visible from Ian Capstick on Vimeo.

A helpful reminder to our no-doubt enormous British readership: voting registration ends Tuesday at 5 pm. Don’t forget the printable registration form over at About My Vote. While you’re out doing that, the rest of us will be reading about how the Conservative party is trying to adjust to Clegg’s campaign of change (spoiler alert: not very well). - Travis Boisvenue

General election news

• Election day at-a-glance [BBC]
• Scottish National Party launches manifesto [politics.co.uk]
• Oliver Burkeman takes “Clegg is the new Obama” to its sarcastic grave [Guardian]
• Tory advisers switch tactics, pull attack ad in favour of personal Cameron message countering Clegg [Wales Online]

Nuts and bolts

• The Whoops Report: Cameron plagiarizes Clegg in personal message countering Clegg [The Independent]
• Manifesto authors answer listener questions (podcast) [Guardian]
• “Cameron came in not so much to answer 15 questions as to dispatch them” [Guardian: David Hare's Election]
• If you’ve been following @punditsguide you might have noticed this great two-parter on selection bias in UK voting [FiveThirtyEight: pt. 1, pt. 2]
• The good, the bad, the empty: what a party slogan is made of [Times Online]

Don’t forget to drop me a line at travis@mediastyle.ca if you’ve got news tips or feedback.

Anyone on Twitter these past few days might have been bombarded by messages tagged with #sxsw. I know I was. South by Southwest is no stranger to public relations. SXSW, or “South-by” as it’s known, is all about getting noticed. Here is a quick guide to what all the fuss was about these past five days.

The venerable and much loved cultural festival started with music as its roots. Created in 1987 when 700 musicians and record executives converged looking to tap into the city of Austin’s unique musical heritage and see (or sign) bands the organizers had corralled from all across America.

In 1994 SXSW moved away from an exclusive focus on music with the addition of film and interactive conference programming. For Maggie Fox, CEO of the Social Media Group, says SXSW Interactive is like “spring break for geeks.”

This is exactly why in 2007 Twitter decided to launch its now ubiquitous service at the festival. People like Fox would be there.

Early adopters are to technology start ups what street fashion is to fashion designers – a muse, a sounding board, a reality check.

What are the early adopters seeing and hearing about this year? Here three big trends highlighted at this years SXSW Interactive that I think might make a broader impact on the web:

Location, Location, Location: all the rage with the SXSW crew this year was checking in and being checked out using Foursquare and Gowalla. Online consensus from Canucks attending is that Foursquare is the application to watch. It’s broadly about more than just one application however. Twitter launched their geolocation features at SXSW. And Facebook choose the second last day to start a roll out of a truly geeky – and potentially location based feature - QR codes.

Money, Money, Money: PayPal is making major moves in the online payment space. Recently announcing PayPalX (essentially an application programming index) will now communicate with IBMs cloud services and at SXSW announcing a a new iPhone application allowing easy transfer of money via literal bumping of technology together. ZoomPass in Canada is another recent entry into a similar market.

Toronto start ups like Community Lend and Freshbooks are also at the forefront of at distinct trend away from relying on big banks and major software providers for financial management. Look to Wesabe.com and thus far US only (but Canadian owned) Mint.com for more clues on how banks and credit institutions are being sidelined by new ideas in money management.

Format, Format, Format: The SXSW format itself was the topic of much internet banter. The SXSW organizers estimate 17,000 in attendance officially at the festival and this included players from the worlds biggest brands. This isn’t the crowd that attended SXSW when it first started, and as one online wag put it, “you do have to wonder where the cool conference no one knows about is now?” SXSW music festival works on a scalable format, music concerts work small and large. Attendees regularly reported this years keynotes – the largest events at SXSW – were not as engaging as in previous years. In particular, the Twitter “interview” with founder @ev was subject to many in the hall simply abandoning the talk. The size and scope of the festival is precisely what attracts some people – while others in the interactive community are surely seeking out less frenetic experience. And, as SXSW gains a reputation for being “spring break for geeks”, will managers and business owners ask their staff to find a less exciting trade show to attend in these austere times?

For more on SXSW

Friend and colleague Jaime Woo has been reporting from SXSW for the Torontoist. Take a look at his dispatches here. And, review his travel Twitter account for a neat inside view on the festival.

And, if you thought the SXSW madness was over for this year, think again. The music festival has just started; slightly smaller and less connected than the interactive side the classic SXSW experience creates just as much buzz in music circles – and like everything that too is spilling into our daily social channels.

So, were you at SXSW? How is my “from afar” assessment? Thinking about going next year? Comment below.

Photo credit

I suppose this was bound to happen when you take away the team of highly trained producers, but could anyone have guessed Mike Duffy was going to fall on his face this many times?

The Canadian Press reports:

“Senator Mike Duffy has attacked the University of King’s College and other Canadian journalism schools for exposing students to Noam Chomsky and critical thinking….

“When I went to the school of hard knocks, we were told to be fair and balanced,” Duffy was quoted from his speech in yesterday’s issue of the Amherst Daily News. “That school doesn’t exist any more. Kids who go to King’s, or the other schools across the country, are taught from two main texts.”

“According to Duffy … those two texts are Manufacturing Consent, Chomsky’s book on mainstream media, and books about the theory of critical thinking.”

Atlantic radio host Rick Howe responded to the recently appointed Senator’s assertions better than I ever could, and he says what a lot of people in Ottawa have been thinking:

“Speaking of blowhards, I see where Senator MIke Duffy was spewing his dribble again. In a speech to Conservative party faithful in Amherst (who else would waste a night on Duffy) the former CTV News employee slammed journalism programs, like that offered at King’s here in Halifax, for turning out what he called leftist graduates. Duffy claims he went to the school of hard knocks where he was taught to be fair and balanced. If I correctly recall his nightly interview show on CTV, there was little fair and balanced about it. And of course today Duffy enjoys his reward for his pro-Tory bias.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself, Rick.

(h/t @nationalnewswatch for the Howe bit)

Photo credit

Joanna Smith was one of the first Canadian reporters to travel to Haiti after the devastation. Her compelling, graphic and raw accounts of the aftermath of the devastation of the earthquake are regularly featured on the Toronto Star’s front page. I’m very grateful she she took a few minutes to answer a few questions about reporting from Haiti.

Smith’s usual stomping grounds are the scrums of Parliament Hill, as she explains in this interview the decision to go to Haiti “came so quickly…I had not even really had the chance to see the images on television until I had already agreed to go and I was preparing for the trip.”

New communications tools have played a big part in her sharing and reporting her experiences on the ground. Her active and regular use of Twitter has steadily been gainly Smith attention and positive word-of-mouth online; she was followed by about 700 people pre-Haiti and now 2200. While Haitian wireless service is spotty and she cannot regularly see her readers comments via Twitter she says contacts have emailed her about the massive response, she also weights in on two quiet debates in media circles about ethics of disaster reporting.

Traveling with her is photographer Lucas Olenluk and Smith’s parliamentary co-worker Allan Woods joined the team, riding along with a Canadian military aide flight.

Interview with Joanna Smith of the Toronto Star

Q: You have reported on deeply moving, emotional, brutal and hopeful moments in Haiti. How does the scene reconcile with the way you prepared yourself in your own mind as you made the trip to the ravaged areas; I suppose I’m asking – until you are there on the ground, can you even image how vast the destruction is?

Joanna Smith: It was nearly impossible for me to prepare mentally for the level of destruction before I got here, just as it remains extremely difficult to accurately convey what I am seeing in words.

The decision to send me here came so quickly. I knew there had been a devastating earthquake, but I had not even really had the chance to see the images on television until I had already agreed to go and I was preparing for the trip.

On the flight down I kept thinking: “This is going to be like Hurricane Katrina.” I didn’t cover that event at all. I read about it in the newspaper, heard it on the radio and watched it on television like most of the world. It was only several days into my assignment that I realized this was far, far worse in many different ways. You get used to a thing.

On the ground, everything is so much more immediate, obviously. I’m here. It is so difficult to describe the stench and even harder to understand how one gets used to it. I’ve stopped wearing my face mask, stopped noticing it on my clothes and stopped stepping around the garbage and just walking through it.

It feels surreal, as cliché a term as that may be when it comes to describing a disaster zone. I often feel detached, or as if I am on the set of a movie or in a wax museum. It is a very strange feeling to realize that you are seeing the things you are seeing and not breaking down into tears or getting sick. It’s a strange sensation to feel fine here, but something I am at the same time grateful for.

Q: You have been actively using Twitter to relay messages back home and around the world. You won’t be surprised to find many of us are glued to your status updates. Two questions. First, Does this help ease your families anxiety about you being in a disaster area?

JS: Absolutely. My friends and family tell me they are checking my updates constantly just to make sure that I am safe and sound. My dad has joined Twitter. He sent me an email asking if I could see his “tweets” and put the word in quotation marks like that. It was adorable. He is following just one person and it is me. He was terrified when he heard about the aftershock. I did not respond to his concerned email right away, so he logged onto Twitter and said he exhaled deeply when he saw that I was safe. The father of my colleague, Toronto Star photographer Lucas Oleniuk, has also joined Twitter to follow my updates. The other day he sent Lucas a text message suggesting we go to Canadian Tire because I had tweeted about our truck getting a flat tire after rolling over a shard of glass or anything else that was lying in the street. I managed a short telephone call to my husband the other night when there was a period of good reception and he already knew everything I was up to that day. It’s been a great way to stay in touch.

And second , how are you finding getting instant/near-instant feedback from readers?

JS: I am actually unable to see the @ replies very often. When I have seen them, my reactions have been mixed.

First, It was surprising to see how many people were interested in my work. I joined Twitter about seven or eight months ago and have already found it an incredible reporting tool, but have not seen the kind of response I have seen in Haiti. Covering H1N1 and live-tweeting parliamentary committees is a different thing, obviously. I began tweeting from Miami and Santo Domingo to keep myself busy, honestly. Then I had no email reception after we crossed the border into Haiti and so, out of necessity, filed an entire story via Twitter and just kept it up throughout the first day. I had absolutely no idea the level of response I was getting back home until friends started emailing me about it. Now I guess it has become my thing while I am here and I am happy to contribute to covering this story in that way. The 140-character limit brings an immediacy to the reporting. It forces you to forego flowery adjectives in favour of simple language: verbs and nouns. I find that style of writing is leaking into the stories I file to the newspaper as well and I see that as an improvement in my writing. I can tell that readers are responding well to that and it is nice to hear from them.

Second, it can be frustrating when followers mistake me for a relief worker, take tweets out of context or expect far more from me than I can possibly provide. I find that whenever I tweet the name of a location, followers ask me to help search for people at a nearby location. I can do no such thing. I am just a journalist writing about what I see. I know there has also been a large number of people asking me and other media to spend more time at the Hotel Montana and asking for more details about what I have seen there.  People need to understand there is little I can do to help. Rescue teams are there full-time. Embassies are in charge of identifying bodies and contacting their families. I cannot do that. I am not a search-and-rescue team and I do not have the level of access to databases and other clues that embassies have to be able to identify someone. I could be wrong and really hurt a family needlessly. For example, I found a suitcase with business cards from a U.S. doctor. I refrained from tweeting the name. I found out days later she had already been rescued. I understand how frustrating a lack of information can be, but I cannot be an authoritative source of information when it comes to things like finding missing loved ones.

Q: There have been ongoing debates – albeit quiet – about the number of journalists in Haiti from Western nations and then the semantics/connotations around the words looting, scavenging and collecting food for the hungry. Will you weigh in on these briefly from your perspective?

JS: The first part of your question is a debate that I have not witnessed here in Haiti, although that is not to say it is not happening. Every Haitian I have spoken to has been glad the media is here to tell the story. They wish I was an aid worker who could bring them a bottle of water of course, but failing that they are gracious about my role as someone who is here to tell their story and hold the Canadian government and the international community to account. I am sure Haitians in Port-au-Prince would rather we were here than not here and their opinions are the only ones I really care about right now. The world can talk again about this point once the media, including myself, begin pulling out of Haiti.

As for looting vs. scavenging, this is a debate I have addressed, albeit briefly, with readers via Twitter. There is something about being on the ground here that makes all debates like that seem academic and a little ridiculous. I do not mean to be condescending. I have participated in such debates many times throughout my own life and I no doubt will continue to do so. Just consider this: the Haitians have not had such debates. They call it “pillage” and they still manage to see the nuance in the word. Just because it is looting does not mean it is wrong in these circumstances. At the same time, what about the person who runs up to the person who just “looted” or “scavenged” from an abandoned storefront and takes whatever they “looted” or “scavenged” away with the threat of violence, or actual violence? Is that “looting” or “scavenging” or “stealing”? Is that person any more or less desperate than the person who took it from the abandoned storefront? Are they more or less justified in their actions? Context is everything. Unfortunately, the 140-character limit on Twitter does not allow for much of it, so I have warned readers that I will likely use “looting” in that forum, whereas I will think more carefully about it for the newspaper version. I might have called the 15-year-old girl who was shot dead by police a looter at one point, but the harsher criticism should undoubtedly be reserved for the one, or the system behind that one, who fired the gun.

Here is an embed of Joanna Smith’s most recent tweets. And, take a moment to donate to the Humanitarian Coalition or the Red Cross – they are going a great job on the ground.

Photo credits United National Development Agency; who have placed their images under Creative Commons. Bravo!

Many people have been asking for us to put on a group session at a price most non-profits can afford – I aim to please so, I’m really excited to announce this session Media Skills Training for Progressive Canadians.

This workshop is the most hands-on, interactive and cost-effective way to ensure your team understands the fundamentals of media relations. Created for progressive organizations and groups – this training provides real-world tools for action. Only 15 spots are available, it takes place at the Code Factory, downtown Ottawa on January 27th at 9:30 am – 1pm.

Our half-day Progressive Media Skill Training teaches:

• Major media terminology so you can speak the media’s language
• Tactics for incorporating earned-media into daily business routines
• Interview skills including techniques and templates for creating your media message
• Prep skills for media interviews in TV, print, radio or online
• Online communications and how to work with your collaborators online and through social media
• Learn measurement and its importance to public relations and media skills development.

Participants will leave the training with planning templates, strategies and tactics to pitch your ideas to the media.

Please note: this session is for unions, progressive non-profifts and New Democrat MP/MPP staff

On December 5th we held our second annual Christmas bash with friends, colleagues and MediaStyle clients at our home in Ottawa to spread some cheer and raise donations for the Ottawa Food Bank.

A few quick party tips from our home to yours this holiday:

• Outsource the cookies! Local bakeries make wonderful treats. We made the cupcakes at home and all of the buffet food – so to make things a bit easier we had the Golden Baguette on Bank Street take some of the load.
• Groovy Linens in Ottawa provided a visual punch with their signature crush fabric linens.
• A Christmas Smoked Ham made the buffet easier to prepare; the large roast only needs a few hours to heat up in the oven and feeds over 100 people (give them small buns and lots of mustards)

Doubled donations

Special thanks to Jaimie Woo who came in from Toronto and Ming Wu for his wonderful photos (featured above). Also, thank you to our guests for helping out the Food Bank with their generosity. Let’s do it again in 2010! This year MediaStyle more than doubled its donations to the Food Bank with a whopping 157 pounds of food and other household items.

Happy Holidays from Ian and Shawn

Bank St. Better than Ever? Photo by Richard Akerman

Design by committee has reared its ugly head in the nations capital this week.

The business improvement area has thrown up dull blue banners featuring a nearly illegible red font and emblazoned with the unintentionally ironic slogan “Bank St. Better than Ever.” Friend and fellow Change Camper Richard Akerman posted this set to Flickr.

The list of complaints about the banners – and there are a lot of issues with these signs – all boil down to a total lack of viability as a promotional method. The banners can’t be read from the street or even from windows overlooking the street.

From the font, colour, and motif the overall design strikes me as an attempt at placating the largest number of people on the approvals list; with the ultimate consequence that the signs are useless.

And in other news, Bank St. will also soon be home to another bright yellow blight on the neighbourhood – in the form of another Cash Stop. I understand the industry leader in cash-lending is a bright yellow behemoth, but these new upstarts should resist the urge to copy their bigger competition. Instead of making people feel like they are standing inside a No-Name package, why not break the money-lender mold and make an environment that is pleasant for your customers and the neighbourhood? (Or do they just not care about either?)

The recent additions to Bank St. are only marginally better than the old 1970’s era signage spotted by Spacing.ca before the months of road closures. It’s clear the Bank Street Business Improvement Area could use a little help from their friends.

Full disclosure: I’m an active member and the business liaison for le/the Village, an ad-hoc queer group adding our flags, symbols, art to Bank St. between James and Somerset St West.

The Cornerstone Women’s Shelter blaze and last night’s fire at a women’s rooming house are bringing to light the urgent needs of women’s advocacy and support groups in Ottawa.

Updated: And, a lot of people are expressing – including me –  disappointment in the reactions some of the people who were near the fire had; see the second article linked above. See this Twitter search here and here for more reaction.

These two recent fires in women’s housing in Centretown will be putting major pressure on the emergency shelter system in Ottawa.

Here is a list of organizations I cobbled together this morning of organizations in Ottawa who support women in crisis situations where accommodation, clothing or food is required. Please add other organizations in the comment section.

Cornerstone Women’s Shelter donations can be made online here; or contact Anglican Diocese of Ottawa at 71 Bronson Ave. 613-232-7124 to arrange cash donations.

Harmony House

Nelson House

Interval House

Minwaashin Lodge, Aboriginal Women’s Support, also supporting Oshki Kizis Lodge. An emergency shelter for women.

Centre 507: food bank; 613-232-3059.

St. Joe’s Women’s Centre, 613-231-6722

The Well, 154 Somerset W. at Elgin (clothing donations); 613-594-2843

Ottawa Community Immigrant Services, donate online here.

Ottawa Food Bank

Immigrant Women’s Services of Ottawa

And, donations can always be made to the Ottawa United Way.