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Completing the circle on journalists and public participation
Journalists, politicians, and foundations are all tinkering with forms
of amateur input: inviting bloggers to major events, quoting popular
online sites in newspapers, etc. But
Capital News Connection
has really jumped in full-tilt with
Ask Your Lawmaker.
A creative combination of public input and ratings with professionals
who have their boots on the ground in the US Capitol building, Ask
Your Lawmaker is a case study in progress concerning how to get
experts and the public to work together.
I heard a talk from CNC founder and executive director Melinda Wittstock this evening at the Ethos Roundtable, a forum for non-profits in Eastern Massachusetts. CNC gets consulting input from Ethos Roundtable organizer Deborah Elizabeth Finn, and Wittstock came looking for volunteer help with such matters as developing a Facebook or iPhone application. As Wittstock said, Ask Your Lawmaker is still working on how to complete the circle of public input, feedback, and outreach. Step one is the simple form (on the web site's "Ask A Question" tab) for submitting a question to any Congressman or Senator of your choice. Step two is the simple voting mechanism, reminiscent of the pre-inauguration Change.gov site. At this point, the journalists working for CNC--who have years of experience at leading media sites--take over. They don't merely choose the highest-rated questions. Sometimes a question shouldn't have to wait around and gather votes because the topic is hot. The reporters use their judgment in combination with votes to pick timely and provocative questions, and sometimes direct a question to a more appropriate lawmaker (such as the sponsor of a bill or the head of a committee). The next step invokes the power of professional journalism. CNC sends its reporters into the Capitol and congressional office buildings daily. Although they have regular routines with their typical journalists' questions, they throw in citizen questions where appropriate and tell the lawmaker how many people voted for each question. Wittstock mentioned that it's very hard for a congressperson to dismiss a question that came from a constituent, especially one that got a lot of votes. Videos are very hard to make in the Capitol, unfortunately, because filming is severely restricted there by law and the lawmakers are understandably leery of allowing themselves to be filmed any place at any time. The next step goes from real-time back to the web site, along with conventional radio stations. Questions and answers are taped and transcribed so they can be offered as both audio and text. CNC has contracts with a number of PBS stations who work public questions into regular news broadcasts. Podcasts and texts are posted on the web site and served through an RSS feed, but you can also follow AskYourLawmaker on Twitter or search for hashtag #ayl. (Right now they're discussing the talk I attended.) This can bring the answers back to those who asked the questions. Ask Your Lawmaker also offers a feed that visitors can add to their own web sites, and an iframe for each individual report, suitable for embedding. Most powerful at all, citizens' questions can change policies. Lobbyists harangue lawmakers day after day, but sometimes they're more impressed by a simple question revealing a deep-seated need in their communities. They have been heard walking away from journalist interviews saying to their staff, "Brief me about that issue." All very impressive for an effort that's so provisional, the journalists run the web site themselves. Several weak points remain before the circle is complete.
CNC is looking for ways to complete the circle--and will gladly accept volunteer help, as I mentioned--but they're doing a lot in the meantime to firm up their appeal and raise funds. They plan to allow cobranding and to let sites select the length and subject matter of the material they post, just as they now serve up very customized reports to the radio stations they serve. They may start accepting advertising, and they're looking for fun contests that will publicize their work. Ask Your Lawmaker demonstrates a unique solution to a situation whered for amateur input can augment expert practice and expertise can augment what the public has to offer. In this regard, Ask Your Lawmaker is worth comparing to the landmark Peer-to-Patent project and to two commercial ventures I analyzed a few months ago, uTest and TopCoder. The opportunity for a virtuous cycle of public input, professional processing, and listener loyalty--especially in a field whose death has been predicted by many--puts Ask Your Lawmaker into an intriguing category of its own.
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Comments: 3
Craig Maser [20 May 2009 08:21 AM]
Andy, Nice job on capturing Melinda's Ask Your Lawmaker presentation at Ethos Roundtable yesterday afternoon. It sounds like to possibilities are limitless with this widget.
Claire [10 July 2009 05:00 AM]
Andy, this came up as an update on my Facebook feed (a reminder posted yesterday) and I thought it worth some comments this morning on my blog. I had blogged about Melissa's presentation at Ethos but you captured much, much more (& I arrived late to the presentation and missed a bit). Nicely done!
Andy Oram [10 July 2009 05:53 AM]
Thanks, Claire. I think readers should also know where to find
your own comments on the blog you mentioned.