: Risky indeed…Man in the street…
During Happy Hour on the deck yesterday, I started thinking more about man-in-the-street reporting and the case of Greg Packer. And I got an idea.
What if newspapers (this really wouldn’t work for TV) were to set up revolving panels of citizens to contribute the voice of the people to appropriate articles as needed?
There are many different ways this could work. But the idea would be to give reporters a (changing) pool of selected, interested citizens from which to pull comments on the news of the day.
I can think of many reasons to oppose such a panel. For example, such a panel could be prone to tokenism and the inane notion that certain citizens would be speaking for identifiable groups. Plus, by singling out certain people for this task, the participants would come to see themselves as different. Indeed, they would be different because they would feel a (not so) subtle pressure to keep up with the news to an extent, perhaps, more intense than the average citizen.
Yes, there could be many faults. But I still like the idea.
Wilmington (DE) News-Journal (Gannett owned) has for the past several years featured a rotating panel of a dozen citizens who attend editorial board meetings and write columns on subjects of their own choosing during a year-long stint. Your idea seems to be a next step up from this—-maybe pitched to a Gannett paper?
We began planning such a program a while back — a pool of readers interested in being contacted for comment in response to breaking news of various types. The plan is now on hold while we install a new computer system (they sound unrelated, but this project is like ripping an old house down to the studs and completely renovating it while still living in it — it’s just all-consuming).
re: News Journal
KC Star does the same.
Re: Lex’ comment
Lex…what paper? Are you at liberty to say?
We had something like this several years ago in my local paper (The Dispatch and Rock Island Argus {IL}). As I remember, the columns were incredibly boring and I think the thing died a natural death. I think the problem here, in a middle sized market, is that exposing your true views in this hyper-partisan and PC environment, could have repercussions in your private life - at work, at church, at your kid’s soccer games - everywhere. The result was mindcrushing blandness, but possibly this would not be a problem in a larger market.