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Records Quest
Project Vision Statement & Potential Social Impact:
Journalists bemoan the death of the industry and scapegoat bloggers as dilettantes. Newspapermen say blogs undermine original reporting that only professionals can do. This is, if nothing else, self effacing. Bloggers represent the same crop that reporters did before media consolidation: the engaged citizen who doggedly follows important events to their conclusion.
The best of both breeds are those who go the extra mile to provide insight into events that require investigation. Reporters need to remember their true calling—public service—and not lash out at their brethren when a little industry competition disrupts their news gathering routine. Reporters should ally with bloggers, because they are one and the same.
Creating a social coalition and a file sharing network can address this disconnect directly by teaming bloggers who have the most experience collectively in getting information across the Internet to people globally, and reporters who have the experience of gathering news in civil arenas.
Sustainability (financial) model:
By charging government agencies for software solutions we can maintain financial viability as a nonprofit organization, while still supporting our civic goals.
Potential obstacles:
The fact that journalism is still very much a competitive industry could limit participation in the public records gathering process. It is likely that mainstream journalists will be late adopters to our program, but that once they recognize the value—as they have with online journalism in general—they will be quick to pick up the slack and will probably end up being the largest contributers.
Resource Needs:
This project is very low resource. Because it uses Open Source software that is also free (gratis and libre) it does not require much overhead or maintenance. Much of the work of maintaining the website and network can be done by one employee, and the social project will scale well according to the popularity and the grants that we receive. Publicity is the base element of how much support we will receive as a donations supported organization.
Key Milestones:
So far, getting support from Ibiblio in the form of free web hosting has been a huge encouragement. I have attended numerous conferences and meetings and people are excited about the idea. Jay Rosen's NewAssignment.Net has received good recognition and funding, and this project attempts to resolve one of the anticipated problems of NewAssignment before it arises. Kimo Crossman's endorsement has also been a green light, and I am sure many people will be attracted to our organization and its services because of his particpation.
Project Summary:
First, we will build a coalition of media workers who have an interest in making public records more accessible. They would do this by uploading digital public records requests to a permaseed BitTorrent network.
Next, we will create a new standard for government to publish public records and reduce the amount of administrative overhead required in processing records requests. Throughout the project we will offer all software we develop to the public (free of charge) and government agencies (for a fee) as a way to stay financially sustainable.
Technologically, the project is not difficult. Using existing Free/Open Source software and free web hosting provided by Ibiblio, we can produce a specialized set of web applications so that anyone can participate. Because it is decentralized any public record was released to the public would forever remain public.
This project is compatible with the words in the Freedom of Information Act, the Sunshine Ordinances and other public access laws of our country. Richard A. Knee of the San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance Task Force told me directly that, "...once any member of the public gains access to a record, all the information that the person obtained at that point becomes forever public." Participants would be armed with the knowledge that public records can not be owned and are presumed to be freely copyable, distributable and public.
Starting locally and later spreading nationwide we could create more public access to government for all. Kimo Crossman has indicated willingness to participate in the project by donating public records that he has acquired.
Public records sharing would become standard to the publication of written news online and would be a great public service to citizen journalism, effectively negating the most common critique of bloggers as "amateurs," by crowdsourcing public records gathering.
