Scott Rosenberg, Susan Mernit, and lots of other smart people chatting at the Mar. 11 Public Media Collaborative meeting, Berkeley.

Last night I attended a meeting of the Bay Area Public Media Collaborative. I’m impressed by how this group is pulling together significant and diverse energy and talent.

The point? To “bring together bloggers, journalists, technologists, media and environmental justice folks, community organizers and activists from around the Bay area to explore and discuss social justice and emerging technology issues in a way that links theory and practice.”

One nonprofit group represented there last night, Independent Arts and Media, is planning a Journalism Innovations Expo II. Collaborative members discussed tacking a social/online media train-the-trainers Barcamp-style event onto the beginning or end of the expo.

I live-tweeted last night’s meeting. Here’s what I posted…

• #PMC meeting is now starting, track the action on Twitter Search
• Pretty powerful group of media people & community organizers at #PMC meeting tonight.
• @susanmernit: #PMC is starting to get interest from people outside journ/media world: geeks, community organizers, etc. Cool!
• The building where the #PMC meeting is tonight also houses Causes.com and an association of photojournalists.
• #PMC meeting: Time for attendees to talk about projects they want to do, so we can organize ourselves so we help can do them.
• @JoyceKim suggests Literacy Bridge talking book project that could use some help from #PMC community.
• @joycekim says Literacy Bridge needs investors/donors, grantwriters, fundraising, product specification developers for its device.
• @marcsmolowitz says Full Circle Fund wants to map Bay Area nonprofit closures. Needs tech help #PMC
• Independent Arts and Media is organizing Journalism Innovations 2 event, May 1, USF. Needs help with organizing, exhibitors, donors #PMC
• @jdlasica “Screw the big cos/foundations, local public media needs to be done by grassroots” #PMC
• @beandy: Redefining Progress techpopulism project: how-to wiki for noprofits using social media, and mapping out new net tools needed
• Barry Brilliant at #PMC meeting looking for help with designing net-enabled devices for seniors.
• #PMC nonprofit looking for help with independent Sacramento news coverage (statehouse)
• #PMC Friends Committee on Legislation of CA is doing advocacy/citizen journalism on CA prison system. Hiring development/outreach person.
• #PMC city of oakland marketing dept is looking to learn more about how to use social media to market the city, needs people.
• @boothism’s org is working with organization that helps Oakland youth. (Need org name, URL)
• @maiki’s new company is developing a toolkit for microblogging, wiki, soc. media #PMC
• Oakland Clean and Safe Ports needs help to draw attention to Oakland port issues prior to big vote coming up #PMC
• @susanmernit #PMC community is gelling due to compatible interests/needs.
• Public Media Collaborative wiki is where #PMC community will coordinate on resources, needs.
• @susanmernit likes Barcamp training model. Would like #PMC event to train the trainers for nonprofit/community orgs to learn soc. media
• @susanmernit would like #PMC train-the-trainers event to have followup mentoring to make the info stick
• #PMC Attendee would like training workshops to be cumulative, so past workshop participants can help out future ones.
• @marcsmolowitz would like #PMC train-the-trainers event to be smaller and more about discussion than lecture.
• @joycekim suggest that #PMC train-the-trainer workshop attendees should commit to being a trainer in later workshops
• #PMC attendee suggests train-the-trainers events involve decisionmakers from org, not just training implementers
• I’m witnessing a culture creating itself at #PMC meeting: ideas for how to use events to both train and solve social/online media problems.
• @boothism “I know some grassroots people, no budgets, not nonprofit org yet, who have really basic needs for blogging/soc. media skills” #PMC
• @joycekim suggests doing training at house parties where #PMC goes to people who need media help, not expecting them to come to us.
• @beandy: “Are nonprofit orgs merely clients of #PMC or can we offer something to this process? I do clever policy design. Will that help?”
• #PMC Wiki should include not just what our community needs, but what members can give.
• @maiki “I see social media as connection not broadcast. Anyone #PMC touches, we should connect them with everyone else we’re talking to.”
• @susanmernit is concerned w/ #PMC: balancing democratic process with making stuff actually happen, acting on ideas.
• #PMC meeting is breaking up now. I’m liking this group, looking forward to participating more after I relocate to Bay Area in May.

Run for your lives!  Zombies want to eat your brain!

…Gotta admit, I was tickled to hear on MSNBC and elsewhere about this bit of creative hackery:

TX DOT was not amused... But I was... (Photo courtesy Lucas Cobb)

In Austin, KXAN reported:

“[Austin Public Works spokesperson] Sara Hartley said though it was a locked sign, the padlock for it was cut. Signs such as these have a computer inside that is password-protected. ‘And so they had to break in and hack into the computer to do it, so they were pretty determined.’”

OK, yeah, I know there’s a serious potential public safety issue here. Apparently the Austin police are trying to catch the sign hackers, who may face a class C misdemeanor charge.

But I think Queer Cincinnati nailed the opportunity here for public officials to turn this to their advantage by responding with a sense of humor:

“Does anyone else think, perhaps, the PD should have just taken it as the joke it was, and posted ‘Zombie Threat Eliminated, Road Construction Ahead’? I think that would have shown a great, human side to the government. And we wouldn’t have these silly threats to go after college pranksters.”

Amen! After all, as Queer Cincinnati also noted, instructions on how to hack road signs have been posted on Neatorama and elsewhere. This is definitely going to keep happening. Probably responding with humor — while improving security of road signs — would generate the most public goodwill.

One listener who called in was Jeffrey Levy, web manager for the US Environmental Protection Agency. He asked O’Reilly how the federal government might be able to use social media to enhance governance and civic engagement.

…To be honest, I didn’t actually catch O’Reilly’s answer because my own mental gears immediately went into overdrive. I’ve been involved with covering environmental issues for nearly 20 years — and thus I’m a frequent user of the EPA Web site. And it’ll come as no surprise to anyone that the EPA site currently is one hellacious frustrating sprawling mess, offputting to professionals as well as citizens. (I assume Levy is working to improve that situation…)

But there is another side to how federal agencies interact with the public that goes beyond their own sites: the regulatory process. Every proposed federal regulation must be published in the Federal Register. (Trust me, it’s really ugly. You definitely don’t want to read this stuff unless you have to — yet another strategy to keep citizens at arms length from government.)

Every proposed regulation must allow for a public comment period. That’s where social media might fit in…

Fairly typical instructions in the Federal Register for submitting public comments for a proposed federal regulation. This just screams: “STAY AWAY!!!!”

Theoretically, the regulatory public comment period is open to anyone. But in practice it’s really a process for insiders: involved parties, lobbyists, organized advocates and activists, and other groups who already know what’s in the works for a given regulation.

To “regular folks” who might care about or be affected by a proposed regulation, it’s pretty hard to even learn that a regulation has been proposed and what it might mean — let alone submit a comment in time for it to be considered by regulators before the rule is finalized.

There’s gotta be an easier way for people to engage in the federal rulemaking process. And maybe social media could help. I’m intrigued by how Medill’s recently unveiled NewsMixer project uses Facebook Connect to add social functionality and to news stories. Specifically, people can raise questions associated with specific paragraphs within stories (a kind of annotation) and also discuss the stories in various ways.

Wouldn’t it be helpful if people could participate in the rulemaking process like that? What if the federal register was available in a newsmixer-style interface that made it easy to make annotation-style queries about specific points in a proposed regulation, and discuss the proposed rule with other interested people?

I’m sure there could be a way to connect this kind of interface with Twitter and Friendfeed too, as well as generate rule-specific feeds that could be used in mashups. I haven’t thought this all through yet.

But if any part of our federal government could use more streamlining and social functionality, it’s the rulemaking process.

What do you think? Please comment below.

The growing number of citizen journalists (of various flavors) obviously are willing to do at least some of this work — but they don’t always know how to find what they’re seeking, or have sufficient context to even know what might be worth pursuing beyond the narrative line chosen for a packaged news story. Also, lots of people who have no desire to be citizen journalists still occasionally get interested enough in some news stories to want to check them out further first-hand. They just need encouragement, and some help getting started.

Therefore, it helps to consider that news doesn’t always have to be a finished story. In some cases, or for some people, a launching point might be even more intriguing, useful, and engaging. Here’s one option for doing that…

For several years, one of my steady freelance gigs has been writing for the Society of Environmental Journalists’ Tipsheet — a biweekly e-mail newsletter that gets distributed to thousands of journalists and is also archived online. Tipsheet presents ahead-of-the-curve or under-the-radar environmental journalism leads with background, sources, resources, and angles to consider.

One of this publication’s strengths is that we include specific links and contacts. We don’t make Tipsheet readers hunt around for, say, the correct government scientist, or the correct report document, to begin their research or independent verification. We list names, e-mail, and phone numbers (when they’re already publicly available, or with permission). We link to specific Web pages and files. We offer access to a diverse array of sources. We recommend discussion forums and provide details on upcoming meetings or events. We also link to existing coverage and commentary that illustrates interesting approaches or provides unique insight.

This approach goes far beyond the “what you can do” toolboxes. Already included with many news stories. It’s about helping people find and define their own stories. Here, engagement is the main event — not an afterthought. It’s about storyfinding, not just storytelling.

To see how this works, check out a couple of recent SEJ Tipsheet articles: Supreme Court Case Affects Nearly 550 Power Plants and Eco-Packaging for Wine: Bottles and Beyond

In short: Even though SEJ Tipsheet is intended for an audience that knows how to find this stuff (professional journalists), we give them a significant head start by doing much of the initial legwork and synthesis. That’s the core value of our Tipsheet — we don’t just give journalists ideas; we make it easier and faster for them to get started.

Perhaps the tipsheet approach might appeal to more than just journalists. Perhaps it might also prove compelling to schools, concerned citizens, businesses, and more? Maybe, in some cases, even more traditional mainstream news audiences such as voters or cost- or health-conscious consumers?

For instance, instead of (or in addition to) writing a story about a school board meeting, a tipsheet piece might offer context and leads to help citizens explore, understand and engage in a thorny local education issue.

Or, rather than write a story about a change in the local crime rate, crime statistics could be presented in context with related statistics (especially economic) and diverse sources to help people discover potentially meaningful patterns and various possible interpretations.

Or, rather than interview one or two sources for a radio piece on a new museum, a tipsheet could help people understand how the museum relates to the local community — including who paid for it, and who is likely to visit.

Would most people want to explore the news on their own? Probably not. But then, “most people” don’t care about any particular story you can find in a mainstream news venue. The “general audience” is a myth. When you get down to the story level, news has always been about niches. Every piece of news has its own community of relevance — and every news topic offers myriad potential stories.

What do you think of this idea?

(NOTE: I originally published a slightly different version of this post on Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits.)

That’s what David Cohn is trying to do with Spot.us, which launched yesterday. This project, funded by the Knight News Challenge, is attempting to support local investigative journalism through crowdfunding. Poynter’s Ellyn Angellotti described this project her recent centerpiece feature. Here’s Cohn’s short explanation of how Spot.us will work:

Yes, crowdfunding is a very different approach to journalism. And the unfamiliar always seems potentially dangerous. That’s why most mainstream media articles so far about Spot.us, like this one from the New York Times, include some variation of this caution: “Critics say the idea of using crowdfunding to finance journalism raises some troubling questions. For example, if a neighborhood with an agenda pays for an article, how is that different from a tobacco company backing an article about smoking?”

That’s a valid concern, but I think it must be considered in context…

1. Journalism has always had funding strings attached — often implicit, sometimes explicit. Great journalism has always been subsidized by people, organizations, or sectors with various agendas. And, more often than most journalists would care to admit, this has skewed coverage. This explains why so many newspapers have long offered meaty real estate, auto, travel, and lifestyle sections. It also explains why many news orgs take extra care (including, sometimes, outright avoidance) when covering news that might hurt the economic interests of big advertisers. To navigate this morass, most news orgs have devised processes (including the advertising/editorial firewall) that address internal conflicts of interest — not perfectly, but generally well enough.

2. Could crowdfunding actually work? We don’t know yet — hence, the experiment. And Spot.us is just one experiment; typically several experiments are required to fairly test a hypothesis. Leonard Witt analyzed the prospects of Spot.us according to Clay Shirky’s “three rules of crowdsourcing” test. (See Ch. 11 of Shirky’s book Here Comes Everybody.) Witt thinks that so far, Spot.us succeeds on two of Shirky’s criteria: “Is there a plausible promise?” and “Are the tools effective?” Witt says the open question remains on the third: “Is there an acceptable bargain with the users?” I agree: This needs to be a good deal all the way around. That’s why the first few Spot.us projects should offer blatantly obvious value and impact to the Bay Area. Without great content, the model might be unfairly judged.

3. The traditional approach is broken, perhaps beyond repair. It has become glaringly obvious that ad-supported, mass-media news orgs — the key support infrastructure for most investigative and enterprise reporting — are in dire trouble. Alarming numbers of them are shedding staff and cutting costs fast, yet still remain in danger of folding entirely, sooner rather than later. While national-level investigative journalism will probably continue at the major news orgs left standing after this shakeout, local projects are very much in jeopardy. For this reason, more than any other, I think we need experiments like Spot.us. We cannot dismiss a community’s willingness to pay directly for investigative journalism without giving it a serious try.

(NOTE: I originally posted this on Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits.)

Yesterday, after much prodding from local bloggers (including me) and commenters on its site, the Boulder Daily Camera finally reported that the streakers who got busted by Boulder police at the 10th annual Halloween Naked Pumpkin Run will, if convicted, have to register as sex offenders. Today, the paper also published the names and ages of the 12 streakers who were cited for indecent exposure. All of these people are over 18, and thus under current CO law must register as sex offenders if convicted.

No acknowledgement of the community/independent media role in pressing this issue was offered by the Camera.

I just called the Boulder Municipal Court (303-441-1842), which informed me that Boulder County Courts (303-441-3750) are handling these cases. The county court rep I spoke was surprised, since normally misdemeanor citations handed out within Boulder City Limits get processed through the municipal court system. However, he did say that if indeed the county will be handling those cases, they should have more information on Friday. So I’ll call back then and will post an update. I’ll also check back with the municipal court, just in case they gave me incorrect information.

I’m contacting the local courts because I want to learn the dates and locations of arraignment hearings for the busted streakers. As far as I know, the public (including media) can observe these hearings. It’d be here that we’d learn whether these cases are being plea bargained down, whether there are motions for dismissal, and in general the attitudes of the judges, cops, attorneys, and defendants.

Stay tuned…

This map shows Georgia, filtering for long waits and “bad” reports.

UPDATE NOV 4. The names of the 12 busted streakers have been published, so I’m following up on this case via local courts…

On Halloween, as I wrote earlier, I went down to Boulder, CO’s Pearl St. pedestrian mall to check out the costumes — which are always spectacular — and to see the annual Naked Pumpkin Run. (Note: that link above goes to my blog post which includes a video containing nudity.) This loosely organized event has a lot of local fans.

The Naked Pumpkin Run is nothing more than that — sometime around 9-10 pm on Halloween, a bunch of people get naked, put jack-o-lanterns on their heads, and run en masse down the Pearl St. Mall. It’s not sexual, violent, dangerous, or threatening. It’s just silly. It’s unique. It’s fun. It’s exuberant. It’s positive and life-affirming.

And: It’s illegal.

Unlike in previous years, the Boulder police were out in force for this event, where they ticketed several runners for indecent exposure. Consequently, several fun-loving local folks may end up suffering life-altering public stigma as registered sex offenders.

No kidding.

The Colorado Daily posted this video of the event, including some footage of the busts:

Need some irony? All this happened less than 24 hours after two remarkably violent assaults, which occurred just a half-mile from the scene of the Naked Pumpkin Run busts.

Here are the details, as best as I’ve been able to gather them so far…

This was my first time at the Naked Pumpkin Run. (I was just watching, not running.) Attendees from prior years told me that so far the Boulder cops had always refrained from doing anything more than crowd management at this event.

But this year, I witnessed somewhere around 12-15 cops detaining and ticketing runners. (It was pretty dark and mobbed, with folks moving around, so I couldn’t get an exact count. But I’m confident with that ballpark figure.)

Yesterday our local paper confirmed that “12 runners were cited for indecent exposure.” I expect that on Monday the Boulder police blotter may offer more info (although the online version of this blotter is generally a summary of incidents, not details or names).

EXTREME LEGAL CONSEQUENCES

These citations could be much more than just a bummer to the folks involved. Under Colorado state law (18-7-302) indecent exposure is a class 1 misdemeanor. But: If these citations are upheld by a judge, the people involved probably would be required to register with the Colorado sex offender registry.

According to CO statute 16-22-103 (5), judges do have leeway to exempt people convicted of indecent exposure from required sex offender registration — but only for minors, which is not the case with the Naked Pumpkin Run. At least, that’s my reading of the statute, tell me what you think:

“(5) (a) Notwithstanding any provision of this article to the contrary, if, pursuant to a motion filed by a person described in this subsection (5) or on its own motion, a court determines that the registration requirement specified in this section would be unfairly punitive and that exempting the person from the registration requirement would not pose a significant risk to the community, the court, upon consideration of the totality of the circumstances, may exempt the person from the registration requirements imposed pursuant to this section if:

“(I) The person was younger than eighteen years of age at the time of the commission of the offense; and

“(II) The person has not been previously charged with unlawful sexual behavior; and

“(III) The offense, as charged in the first petition filed with the court, is a first offense of either misdemeanor unlawful sexual contact, as described in section 18-3-404, C.R.S., or indecent exposure, as described in section 18-7-302, C.R.S.; and… [procedural requirements follow...]“

…Seems to me that those “ands” confine permitted exemptions to minors.

Yes, those charges could (and probably will be) plea bargained down. But still: It looks like that in this case, for the sake of posturing, the Boulder police department was willing to seriously mess with people’s lives. The cops on the scene apparently were directed to issue citations for indecent exposure — not creating a public nuisance or some other charge with less dire consequences.

This consequence seems unnecessarily putative to me. I mean, hundreds (if not more than a thousand) people were gathered on the Pearl St. Mall specifically to celebrate this event. I saw very, very few minors present, all of whom appeared to be accompanied by their parents. Yes, some people were drunk and/or rowdy, and I’m glad that cops were on hand to manage those cases — which they did, capably and professionally. But by and large, the mood of this gathering was jubilant, fun, and friendly. As a woman wandering about the crowd mostly independently, I never felt the least bit endangered, threatened, or scared there.

Believe me: the annual New Year’s Day Mummers Parade in Philadelphia (which I’ve attended several times) is a vastly more menacing and risky crowd scene — often involving many incidents of public nudity that are intended to demean, embarrass, or intimidate innocent bystanders. (Now, THAT could reasonably be considered “indecent exposure.”)

In Boulder, rarely do you see more than 3-4 cops together at a time. Therefore: 12-15 Boulder cops in one place, detaining and ticketing people at nearly 11 pm for nonsexual, nonviolent nudity which the surrounding crowd was enthusiastically cheering (I saw NO ONE who appeared surprised or offended — and I was looking for that!) appears conspicuously disproportionate.

NEARBY, SAME DAY: GANG RAPE AND RACIAL BEATING

As if that’s not enough, there’s the larger context: Didn’t the cops have more important stuff to do that day than bust streakers?

Indeed they did.

Less than 24 hours before the Naked Pumpkin Run, at 12:45 am on Halloween — and just a few blocks away — a 20-year-old woman was gang-raped. Yep, right here in Boulder: gang-raped on the street. Two assailants held her down, while the other two raped her. Just about a half mile away from the scene of the Naked Pumpkin busts!

But wait, there’s more! Also at about the same time as the rape, just over a half mile to the west (and also just over a half mile from the courthouse on the mall), another violent assault occurred — this time, a racially motivated beating. According to the Boulder police:

“A 22-year-old male victim reported that he was assaulted by an unknown suspect who used ethnic slurs. The victim, who is Asian-American, told investigators he was walking down the street with some friends, singing a song from the movie Team America. The victim and his friends were confronted by a group of four men. One of the suspects came up to the victim and began challenging him.

“According to the victim and witnesses, the suspect said something to the effect of, ‘Do you think you are an American?’ and called the victim a ‘Chinaman.’ He punched the victim in the face multiple times. Initial reports were that the suspect pulled a knife, but subsequent interviews lead investigators to believe that the suspect may have referenced a knife but did not show one.”

This map shows how close all these incidents — which occurred on the same day — really are.

View Larger Map

OK, let’s assume the Boulder police department is investigating these violent crimes (including the crime scenes) thoroughly and professionally — and that the Naked Pumpkin busts Halloween night did not draw away any resources from those investigations, or from other normally required local law enforcement activities at that time. So what?…

CONTEXT MATTERS, FOR LOCAL POLICE AND NEWS OUTLETS

Given this context, the key question becomes: Why — when several violent criminals, including a gang of rapists — are on the loose, would Boulder police chief Mark Beckner make a deliberate choice to issue potentially serious and life-altering citations to nonviolent streakers at an annual (although unofficial) celebratory event?

Here’s what Beckner told the Daily Camera about this enforcement decision:

“‘We wanted to do something before (the event) got out of hand,’ said Police Chief Mark Beckner. ‘This was a good opportunity to enforce the law.’

“In past years, police haven’t had the staffing levels to ticket the runners, Beckner said, but this year the Halloween run fell on a Friday when a lot of officers were scheduled to work. Beckner likened streaking to speeding — police can’t catch them all, but they do what they can.”

There’s reason to question Beckner’s claim that “In past years, police haven’t had the staffing levels to ticket the runners.” The Naked Pumpkin Run started in 1998. In its 2007 annual report, the Boulder’s police department reported that it employs 171 officers. The department’s 2006 report and most other annual reports do not quantify the number of Boulder cops. But the 2005 report does mention, “During 2005, the Boulder Police Department was as close to fully staffed as it has been in several years.”

So far, the Camera’s staff coverage of the Naked Pumpkin Run (Oct. 27, Oct. 31 morning and late night, and Nov. 1) has neglected to note that these citations can result in mandatory inclusion in the CO sex offender registry. Same for coverage by the Denver Post and all other local mainstream media I could find. (If you have seen coverage that does mention this potential consequence, please comment below with links or cites.)

However, several comments on those stories have noted this consequence, as have some Camera letters to the editor blog posts. (See the Nov. 2 Letter to the Editor post titled “Overreacting to juvenile streaking,” and this letter from Les Halbek.)

However, local blogger David Thielen did interview chief Beckner before the Naked Pumpkin Run about the Boulder police’s apparently selective strategy on enforcing streaking laws. An excerpt:

“[Chief Beckner and I discussed] the specifics of [Boulder's June 2008] naked bicycle ride, tonight’s Naked Pumpkin Run, and students streaking. [Beckner said that police] did not arrest any of the naked bicycle riders because ‘there were too many.’ At the Pumpkin Run tonight he said if it was just 1 or 2 [runners], then they probably would be arrested. If there were lots then he said it depended on the situation but was not willing to say anyone would be arrested if it was a large group.

“So here’s where it gets interesting. I asked what would happen if 40 or 50 students streaked the football game. And his reply was they would probably only be able to catch and arrest 5 or 6 of them. When I asked why in that case they would arrest 5 or 6 but did not do so for the naked bicycle ride and probably would not for the Naked Pumpkin Run — he said ‘Because they are different.’ Yet when I pressed him for what was different, he was not able to give me anything specific.

“Here’s my theory — the only difference is that in one case it’s students and in the other it’s adults. It’s a double standard, it may even be subconscious. But unless Chief Beckner can give us a clear credible explanation about how they are different and why that difference deserves the different approach, I think we should assume it’s discrimination.

“On a related note, I pointed out that the ‘crime’ of streaking carries with it the possibility of being labeled a sex offender. Yet the police view it as a crime to enforce as resources allow. I asked him if he could think of any other crime where you can be labeled a sex offender, yet the police view it as enforce it only if resources are available. He couldn’t think of any other.”

Pretty telling — and worthy of further examination, I think.

But apparently the Camera staff is aware of the potentially dire legal consequences of streaking in Boulder. This Oct. 25 Camera story on another recent Boulder streaking incident (at an Oct. 24 Boulder High School football game, involving the 17-year-old son of State House Majority Leader Alice Madden ) pointed out:

“The boy faces a class-one misdemeanor charge of indecent exposure, Boulder police Sgt. Pat Wyton said Saturday.

“The charge carries fines ranging from $500 to $5,000 and/or a sentence of six to 18 months in jail.

“Wyton said it’s also possible that a judge would order the teen to register as a sex offender, although that scenario is unlikely because a judge might view the stunt as less serious than other indecent exposure offenses.

“‘It’s a kid running across a field as a prank … I’m sure he’s going to get some kind of referral or restorative justice,’ Wyton said.

Irony, much? Yes, a minor could be exempted from the sex offender registry. But, according to state law, it looks like an adult probably cannot.

WHAT COMES NEXT, AND WHAT CAN YOU DO?

…I’m very sad that my town’s police department chose such an unfortunate time to crack down on a popular, festive, nonviolent, nonsexual longstanding annual event involving public nudity. Whether this decision was made because of that day’s earlier violent assaults, or despite them, I cannot say.

Clearly, chief Beckner’s own remarks indicate that making a point was the point here. The Naked Pumpkin Run citations were clearly not a matter of protecting public safety, as far as I can tell — and I was there. Rather, the point seems to have been to make the Boulder police look busy and tough.

If anything, the officers’ actions on the Pearl St. Mall Halloween night actually exacerbated public safety risks in that situation by inflaming the crowd — which grew quickly and circled closely around the cops and detainees, chanting “Let them go! Let them go!” Indeed, that was the only time that night when I feared violence or panic might erupt.

I’m not blaming the cops who issued the citations. They were doing what they were told, and they have no discretion about legal penalties. And, as far as I could see, they executed their duties professionally.

I hope the judges who consider the Naked Pumpkin Run citations decide to dismiss the charges. This appears to be the only option under current law that would keep the Halloween streakers out of the sex offender registry. Furthermore, Boulder’s law enforcement strategic decision was, I think, irresponsible and cynically motivated. I intend to attend these hearings if I can, to report on what happens. I hope other local bloggers, citizens, and news organizations will do the same.

Of course, dismissing charges against these defendants doesn’t really solve the problem.

This is why I think Colorado residents should petition our state legislators to change Colorado’s sex offender registry law. Our judges should be able to exempt people of any age who are cited for indecent exposure from having to be registered as sex offenders. Also, we might want to lower the minimum fine for indecent exposure in CO to something that would be reasonable in situations like the Naked Pumpkin Run. $500 is pretty steep in that context. The authorities would still have discretion to find up to $5000, the current maximum.

Here’s who to contact in the Colorado legislature:

• HOUSE: Currently, Boulder County’s state representative is Alice Madden (303-866-2348, alice.madden.house@state.co.us. Yes, that’s the very same Alice Madden whose 17-year son was busted earlier this month for streaking at a Boulder High School football game — and since he’s a minor, he could be exempted from the sex offender registry even if convicted. But her term limit is up, so after the Nov. 8 election Madden will be replaced by either Republican Dorothy Marshall, or Democrat Dickey Lee Hullinghorst. Stay tuned, and contact Madden’s successor once she is in office.
• SENATE: Boulder’s state senator (District 16) is Democrat Dick Gibbs (303-866-4873, dan.gibbs.senate@state.co.us. He’s running for re-election against Republican Don Ytterberg. Again, after the Nov. 8 election would be the time to contact our state senator about modifying these laws.

Finally, let’s hope the Boulder police catch the perpetrators of those truly heinous violent Halloween crimes. And let’s hope the victims recover well. And let’s hope that others don’t suffer at the hands of those criminals in the meantime.

What do you think of the Naked Pumpkin Run busts, and their possible legal consequences? Please comment below.

Earlier this week I wrote about the internal and external obstacles journalism schools face when trying to achieve collaboration with other academic departments (such as computer science). That spurred a pretty interesting discussion in the comments.

This discussion got me thinking: Right now, it’s becoming obvious to many journalists that our field sorely needs lots of top-notch, creative technologists. Developers for whom software is a medium, and an art form. Developers with a deep passion for information, credibility, fairness, usefulness, and free speech.

However, my impression is that, so far, it’s not nearly so obvious to most “geeks” (and I use that term with the utmost affection and respect, as do many geeks themselves) how they might benefit from collaborating with journalists, j-schools, and news organizations.

So if journalists need geeks, but right now they don’t need (or even necessarily want) us as much, the question becomes: What’s in this for the geeks? Why might they want to work with us? Where’s their incentive?…

There is a bright spot of opportunity: Many hardcore geeks (especially those who create free software, where the mantra is “free as in speech, not free as in beer“) share core goals with journalists — especially regarding public service and free speech. That’s a solid launching point.

One of the people whose views on bridging the journo/geek culture gap I respect most is my Tidbits colleague Rich Gordon, from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism. He runs a pioneering program that offers scholarships to Medill’s graduate journalism program to people with education and/or expertise in computer programming. (This effort is funded by a Knight News Challenge grant — and they’re seeking a followup grant.)

In his comment to my earlier post on J-schools, Gordon wrote, in part:

“Journalism and computer science partnerships will work only if the two academic departments see these collaborations as equally valuable. In my experience, there are cultural and communication gaps that need to be closed.”

And in this MediaLab post, Gordon elaborated:

“Journalists and technology professionals do have two things in common. First, the best people in both fields really do want to change the world and make it a better place. Second, both believe that people want and deserve access to the best possible information. But there also is a substantial gap between journalism and computer science.

“Too many journalists don’t respect technology development as a creative activity — they think developers should just build stuff they want. Too many technologists don’t respect journalism as an intellectual activity — they think journalists just pump out content for their algorithms to process.

“Too many journalists really don’t like technology change; they blame it for hurting media businesses, threatening their livelihoods and diminishing the quality of news available in local communities. Too many technologists think it’s not their job to worry about the negative impact of technology innovation on media companies and journalism — and when they do think about the consequences, think only about information at the national and global level (which is broader, deeper and more accessible than ever) and not at the local level (where online news ventures rarely do the kind of original reporting that newspapers do).”

…I think that pretty much nails the key mindset differences that define this culture gap. But there’s also the organizational angle. I was discussing this recently with Brian Boyer (a programmer currently in Gordon’s graduate journalism program, and part of Medill’s Crunchberry Project team). He observed that generally news organizations don’t see themselves as tech companies. Yet, he said, geeks “want to work at a place where tech is at the core of the ideas. News orgs need to realize that they’re tech organizations now — they live and die by the Web.”

Given that context, I ask again: What’s in this for the geeks? How can we foster more mutual understanding and respect? What compelling reasons can journalists offer that honor geek values, culture, and goals? How can journalists demonstrate that we can and will respect talented, passionate geeks as full partners (or even potential leaders) in collaborative efforts — not pigeonhole them as IT lackeys?

I’m asking journalists to start from this point: “Journalism: So what?” I’m also asking geeks to speak up about how they view journalists: our efforts, our culture, our goals, and what might make us more appealing as collaborators.

Any ideas? Please comment below.

]]> http://www.contentious.com/2008/10/31/working-with-journalists-whats-in-it-for-geeks/feed/ 2 http://www.contentious.com/2008/09/16/being-a-citizen-shouldnt-be-so-hard-part-2-beyond-government/ http://www.contentious.com/2008/09/16/being-a-citizen-shouldnt-be-so-hard-part-2-beyond-government/#comments Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:28:48 +0000 Amy Gahran http://www.contentious.com/?p=1852 NOTE: This is part 2 of a multipart series. See the series intro. More to come over the next few days.

This series is a work in process. I’m counting on Contentious.com readers and others to help me sharpen this discussion so I can present it more formally for the Knight Commission to consider.

So please comment below or e-mail me to share your thoughts and questions. Thanks!

To compensate for our government’s human-unfriendly info systems, some people have developed civic info-filtering backup systems: news organizations, activists, advocacy groups, think tanks, etc.

In my opinion, ordinary Americans have come to rely too heavily on these third parties to function as our “democracy radar.” We’ve largely shifted to their shoulders most responsibility to clue us in when something is brewing in government, tell us how we can exercise influence (if at all), and gauge the results of civic and government action.

Taken together, these backup systems generally have worked well enough — but they also have significant (and occasional dangerous) flaws. They’ve got too many blind spots, too many hidden agendas, insufficient transparency, and too little support for timely, effective citizen participation…

In other words, the patchwork network of backup systems often fail to supply enough civic information to precisely those people who are most likely to be involved or affected by civic issues, in ways that engage them and support participation. Also, often the civic info they offer generally reflects the providers’ own agendas, assumptions, habits, and preferences — about which they may or may not be conscious or transparent.

Yes, having these backup civic info systems is certainly better than relying solely on the government’s own information systems — but too often, not by much. And sometimes they can even be much worse.

JUST GIVE ME THE DATA

The Knight Foundation has been supporting some efforts to make civic and public info more user-friendly and direct, like Adrian Holovaty’s Everyblock project. This is another third-party civic info “backup system” that aims to provide a more direct experience of civic info. They try (and mostly succeed) to improve upon government communications by enhancing relevance and usability. Everyblock empowers users to search and filter civic info as they choose (at least within a geographic context).

…But there’s a big catch to offering this valuable service: Everyblock must cope with the fact that usually getting raw civic info from government and public sources is a huge pain. It requiring considerable tweaking and maintenance to constantly adapt their “screen scraping” processes.

Screen scraping is a painstaking, cumbersome programming technique. A screen scraper program extracts data from the final display output of another program (what gets shown in, say, your web browser). According to Wikipedia: “The key element that distinguishes screen scraping from regular parsing is that the output being scraped was intended for final display to a human user, rather than as input to another program, and is therefore usually neither documented nor structured for convenient parsing.” That means the whole process is inherently pitfall-prone and inefficient.

Blogger and author Jon Udell nailed the underlying problem of data friction inherent in situations where civic media are forced to resort to screen scraping to obtain public information:

“Data friction can be intentional or not. When it’s intentional, you might have to file a FOIA request to get it. But in a lot of cases, it’s unintentional. The data is public, and intended to be widely seen and used, but isn’t readily reusable.

“…Now it’s time to grease the wheels. Here’s one way that can happen. An enlightened city government can decide to publish [its] data in a reusable way. I’ve written extensively about Washington DC’s groundbreaking DCStat program which does exactly that. I can’t wait to see what happens when EveryBlock goes to Washington.

“But city governments shouldn’t have to go out of their way to provide web-facing data services and feeds. Databases should natively support them. That’s the idea behind Astoria (ADO.NET Services), which is discussed in this interview with Pablo Castro. If the NYC Department of Health had that kind of access layer sitting on top of its [restaurant inspection] database, it wouldn’t put EveryBlock’s screen-scraper out of a job — it would just make that [person's] job a whole lot more interesting and effective.”

This all leads back to why I like what the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy is doing: They’re flipping the focus around, to put people’s needs first.

They’re doing this by starting from the question “What kind of information do communities need?” — rather than simply settling for “How can we tweak the badly designed, human-unfriendly entrenched patchwork system of civic information so that it becomes at least slightly less painful or more useful?”

…Well, they’re doing that to a point, anyway. The crucial limitation I see in their approach lies in how the Knight Commission has chosen to define “community.”

(COMING THURSDAY: Part 3, Beyond Geography…)

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