I tried to stay as close as I could to the form this’ll use in the upcoming open competition. It uses dizzyingly small word counts.

1. What do you propose to do? [20 words]

A robust, embeddable, nonlinear data visualization tool to allow journalists to show multiple connections between data points rather than a linear bar graph or time line.

2. Is anyone doing something like this now and how is your project different? [30 words]

The current crop of embeddable data visualization tools lack nonlinearity – such as time lines designed with no other link between data points than chronological order. It’s time to remedy that with something new.

3. Describe the network with which you intend to build or work. [50 words]: N/A

4. Why will it work? [100 words]

Many data sets can be divided in multiple extremely useful ways. Say you want to chart the United States deficit. You might use a bar graph of deficits by year. But it would also be useful toshow which political parties increase the deficit at the fastest rate, to group together which years had war spending or to show each year’s tax rate.  With so much data on the board, it would be very difficult to see at a glance that two years a century apart were analogous.  If success means increasing the clarity by which journalists can communicate, easy to use, embeddable charts designed for nonlinearity and interactivity would easily be a success.

5. Who is working on it? [100 words]

This idea is in concept stage only. It would need two programmers, two graphic designers with experience in infographics and a data-driven journalist to reach fruition.

6. What part of the project have you already built? [100 words]

I have conceptualized different ways to visualize data that could be generalized for multiple uses.

7. How would you sustain the project after the funding expires? [50 words]

The project would operate on a hybrid advertisement/subscription model where users select which manor we would receive profit.

Requested amount from Knight News Challenge: $250,000

Expected amount of time required to complete project: 1 year

Total Project Cost:  $250,000

Citizen journalism should be praised. Citizen journalism should be stopped. Citizen journalism benefits the public by circumventing the filters of traditional reporting. Citizen journalism lacks the rigor of traditional reporting. Citizen journalism will replace journalism with something better. Citizen journalism will replace journalism with something worse. Citizen journalism will lose the fight against journalism. Citizen journalism already has replaced journalism.

 There’s a real problem with the debates – all of them – over the value of citizen journalism. Everybody seems concerned over replacing traditional reporting with democratized media. But in reality, citizen journalism can never replace journalism because it isn’t on the same continuum as journalism.  That doesn’t mean it isn’t a great information dispersal mechanism, only that it is among the many great information dispersal mechanisms that aren’t journalism. No one worries what will happen when the telephone takes over the newspaper or when traditional media will be overtaken by face to face communications.

 The hang up seems to be right there in the name “citizen journalism.” Detractors are right, if only on this point: Citizen journalism isn’t journalism. Instead, it is a way  of democratizing, globalizing, digitizing and amplifying conversations. While journalism can certainly be globalized, digitized and amplified, it can never be democratized, especially if it’s globalized.

 Without the accountability implicit in the editorial process but absent in a democratized process, global communications are a great way to spread bad information. Snopes is full of urban legends that were widely and quickly propagated by the internet. At the same time, global democratized communications encourage the widespread fracture of culture into subcultures. There are enough anorexics worldwide to support pro-anorexia web communities that provide a feedback loop of people talking to people who all want to believe that anorexia is okay. Combining the lack of accountability with increasing sub-communities, Andrew Breitbart is able to play two devastating video pranks and DailyKos is able to convince a wide number of people that Bristol and not Sarah Palin gave birth to Sarah’s last child.  

For what citizen journalism is, there doesn’t need to the gatekeepers that journalism does. Citizen journalism is really about sharing personal experiences, saying “This was my experience at the Occupy Davis movement,” and personal thoughts and propositions like “Let’s protest Gadhafi.” But without professional truth seekers, no one shares the personal experience of “The United States is involved in domestic wiretapping.” There weren’t cell phones and hoards of protesters in the ATT office building.

Citizen journalism is great at what it is, but not of the same kind as journalism.  Journalism is slowed by what makes traditional reporting traditional reporting – a wide vetting process and centralized accountability. It isn’t a replacement for the newspaper, only a new and effective way to have conversations.