John Temple Responds to Criticism of YourHub.com
Saturday, October 29 2005
Published on AllBusiness.com
John Temple, editor, president, and publisher of Rocky Mountain News, which owns and operates the citizens media site YourHub.com, wrote in response to criticisms levied against the site by E&P columnist Steve Outing. Below is Temple's letter, and a follow-up from the original columnist.
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I think Steve Outing raises good questions in his column, Can 'Citizen Journalists' Really Produce Readable Content?
However it's disappointing to see a major trade publication take such an important question and answer it in such a shallow way.
One would expect a publication on journalism to follow basic accepted journalistic practices, such as doing thorough reporting and seeking response from the people in charge of the operation it criticizes. I think we at the Rocky Mountain News, which produces YourHub.com, have much to share with the industry based on our experience launching the most extensive citizen journalism experiment in a U.S. metropolitan area. It's a shame Editor & Publisher didn't bother to ask what we have learned. However I would hope your readers wouldn't take Mr. Outing's word based on a cursory examination of one of our 42 community Web sites and check them out themselves at YourHub.com.
I have found that traditional journalists find it difficult to accept that a citizen site is going to look and feel different from a traditional news site. It's going to be messy. Mr. Outing is correct that some postings will be of little interest to a wide audience. But what he's missing is that a citizen journalism site is more like a bulletin board at a library or community center than a newspaper. I find myself enjoying looking at those bulletin boards. Of course I'm not wowed by every item on them. But together they give a feeling for a place.
YourHub.com and citizen journalism is a much bigger idea than Mr. Outing suggests. Citizens can post stories, photos, columns, letters, drawings and anything else they can think of. Soon I hope they'll be posting video and audio. But they can also use the site every day to find links to all the news stories about their community, not just stories from the Rocky Mountain News. We truly try to provide people a one-stop site to participate in their community throughout the day. Along that line, we also offer traditional community resource information, such as library hours, hospitals, etc. And, of course, we help buyers and sellers find each other. Mr. Outing may not like the postings of PR people, but last I looked they're still covered by the First Amendment, too.
***
I think Steve Outing raises good questions in his column, Can 'Citizen Journalists' Really Produce Readable Content?
However it's disappointing to see a major trade publication take such an important question and answer it in such a shallow way.
One would expect a publication on journalism to follow basic accepted journalistic practices, such as doing thorough reporting and seeking response from the people in charge of the operation it criticizes. I think we at the Rocky Mountain News, which produces YourHub.com, have much to share with the industry based on our experience launching the most extensive citizen journalism experiment in a U.S. metropolitan area. It's a shame Editor & Publisher didn't bother to ask what we have learned. However I would hope your readers wouldn't take Mr. Outing's word based on a cursory examination of one of our 42 community Web sites and check them out themselves at YourHub.com.
I have found that traditional journalists find it difficult to accept that a citizen site is going to look and feel different from a traditional news site. It's going to be messy. Mr. Outing is correct that some postings will be of little interest to a wide audience. But what he's missing is that a citizen journalism site is more like a bulletin board at a library or community center than a newspaper. I find myself enjoying looking at those bulletin boards. Of course I'm not wowed by every item on them. But together they give a feeling for a place.
YourHub.com and citizen journalism is a much bigger idea than Mr. Outing suggests. Citizens can post stories, photos, columns, letters, drawings and anything else they can think of. Soon I hope they'll be posting video and audio. But they can also use the site every day to find links to all the news stories about their community, not just stories from the Rocky Mountain News. We truly try to provide people a one-stop site to participate in their community throughout the day. Along that line, we also offer traditional community resource information, such as library hours, hospitals, etc. And, of course, we help buyers and sellers find each other. Mr. Outing may not like the postings of PR people, but last I looked they're still covered by the First Amendment, too.
