Sewer project that had something fishy going on. Turned it over to readers to explore, investigate and report. Turned over all their documents to the public for them to try and solve as much as they can.

“Pocketbook issues” hit readers exactly there, in their pocketbooks. So when talking about network journalism, people have a real incentive to go in and dig through documents. But is it possible with non pocketbook issues?

KM – invite users to submit material everyday. Community has a role in all that they do and have heavy participation all across the website. It’s not confined to individual instances.

JC – lots of social issues (little league) that people are equally passionate about. Get a sense of community that has gone under the radar for way too long. Have to make it easy for people to feel like engaged experts.

Robert Cox – Media Bloggers Association — had you looked at using amazon mechanical terc to give readers an algorithm or prep them or give them a way to organize their work to be as efficient as possible?

Users were given instruction and gently steered, but no sophisticated assistance.

Audience comment: Best crowd sourcing on a national level is in the political arena. Bloggers wanting to make members of the other party look bad etc. Partisan issues. Stories that might make someone from another party look bad.

Open sense of what the dialogue needs to be.

Worth noting that dialogue is great, but it can become hateful. Gannett watches that closely, removes that kind of content etc. Happens everywhere, not just race related stories, can be as innocuous as high school sports.

MW: Medium is the message, but how do you deal with trolls.

The public builds how a story developed in way the paper couldn’t have imagined or controlled. Have to recognize that and turn it over to the public. Don’t have the tools yet to give it the structure it might need.

About.com audience member – Have you thought about allowing other users to monitor user comments? Letting people rate other users as to who is a trusted person or other users have flagged as abusive?

Answer: Yes. We’re exploring developing those tools. Anyone else?

Have filters and people who moderate the blogs and the forums, but could be much more aggressively reported upon.

Alot of science is just data gathering. A lot of journalism is just data gathering as well. Have the masses to do a lot of that work and in turn open the field up to writing all sorts of new stories.

Who are we reaching out to as part of the blogosphere?

Have these new tools and processes just extended coverage or shifted it?

Answer: Have sources never explored before. Journalism is better through community help. Still looks like traditional journalism. Always looking for ideas.

Main Goal: Last October the changes were implemented across the country and as of May this year – all Gannett’s papers have fully transitioned. The shift to information centers has many layers – including the willingness and capabilities to work with members of the community on investigations. “This is not rearranging furniture – this is a shift in how we do our jobs,” says Carroll.

Notable Achievements: Carroll and Ganett have been encouraged on several fronts since the change. Using crowdsourcing along with database analysis Gannett has broken stories faster and working with communities has drawn conclusions that would have gone otherwise unnoticed, says Carroll. A new tool called “Get Published” let’s anybody upload content and many of Gannett’s papers have between 100-200 hyperlocal sites that are the result of pro-am reporting. “We provide the backbone and the tools and we welcome community involvement,” says Carroll.

The Cincinnati Enquirer recently launched The Data Center, allowing readers to search thousands of databases based on lifestyle and content information linked through home addresses. For example, readers can search records of crime in their neighborhoods, review trends and compare statistics throughout the metro area.

In another example: Florida Today received an email tip by way of the “Blow the whistle” button. It was from an appraiser who said thousands of local homeowners were getting ripped-off by insurance companies that inflate the replacement value of homes on paper and, consequently, overcharge for hurricane insurance. Insurance policies are not public record, and there would be no way to report that story authoritatively without asking as many residents as possible to share private documents. So the paper posted an item to the Brevard Watchlist asking readers to “join the investigation” by doing just that. The countywide investigation yielded a front-page Sunday newspaper story and an online report on how to estimate a home’s replacement cost.

Gannett is reporting traffic increases across the board, from visitors to time spent on sites, frequency in visits and pages viewed per visit.

A Surprising Realization: The biggest surprise is that we didn’t do this earlier, both in the company and in the industry, says Carroll. If journalism at its core is to serve the public, then it has not been taking advantage of all the new tools that can help perform this function, says Carroll. “But if we think about how to use them creatively, we can get back to the things that those of us who grew up in the business in our hearts truly believe in – that we can work with readers to inform and engage and shine light on wrongdoing,” says Carroll.

Biggest Practical Lesson/Mistake: Carroll admits that Gannett underfunded not just research but technology and infrastructure. Many of Ganett’s papers responded to the changes from headquarters not with disdain – they were behind the changes, but didn’t have the technology or infrastructure to make it happen. It requires more than just talk – but capital investment in laptops, video equipment, trios, the ability to transmit digitally, etc.

Money: The editorial changes are working in tandem with revenue teams at Gannet that are exploring new ways to monetize the product. An advance data team is not only exploring content – but also how to engage readers online with mapping software and other areas that traditionally hasn’t been explored in advertising.

“We will only move forward and build on what we have done.” Gannett is very encouraged by the possibility of becoming sustainable, says Carroll. Many of these concepts have been tested at the 12 original Gannett papers to make the shift and they have developed over the past year and Gannett is seeing strong results.

Future Goals: There is no endpoint in Ganett’s transformation. “I see us only building on the research and reaction that we’ve gotten,” says Carroll. There is still an imperative to be nimble and invest in the types of technology that is needed, from social networks and beyond, but right now Gannett is ready to pounce on what is next. “We as an industry have not been as serious as being early adapters — and now I see us positioned in the front row so we can react quickly,” says Carroll.

What do you hope to get from people attending this conference?

I am very very interested in all the experimenting that is going on across the industry — We need to do more R&D. I spend as much time as I have looking at experiments that people are involved in — That’s what I want to get out it.

Its first brush in citizen journalism came in 2004 during Hurricane Charely. Today setting up a forum during a hurricane might seem second nature, but at the time it was an eye opening moment. As people shared information “we realized how much knowledge there was in our community,” says Mackenzie Warren.

Next, Fort Myers took an active approach to citizen journalism, enlisting the public in a investigation into sewer expansion, where hundreds of residents mobilized and scoured through documents. Throughout this investigation the paper relied on experts within its community like accountants, lawyers, engineers, “professions that we don’t have an expertise in,” says Warren. “We found in the community those people exist and they are willing to sift through blue prints and time cards, that’s what distinguished the project.”

The third and current experiment is called “Team Watch Dog.” Relying on retired experts in the community, Fort Myers has built a team of 20 volunteers, who work side by side with the newsroom on dozens of projects.

Main Goal of Fort Myers: To fulfill the same goals that the paper has had since 1884 when it started. “Our fundamental purpose in the community hasn’t changed at all, it’s a new means to the same end,” says Marymont. The hope is that by relying on the wealth of information within the community the paper is able to do deeper and better journalism.

Notable Achievements: Fort Myers has created a network of citizen experts, including a retired FBI agent, a defense intelligence agency analyst, an education worker and more. “We have formed an alliance that our community is coming to recognize,” says Marymont. “It’s the breadth of what we are doing that is notable.” This has also had a positive effect on the papers credibility in the community.

A Surprising Realization: The immediate volume of readers’ willingness to participate. The utilities investigation racked in 6,500 pieces of user-generated content over the lifetime of the project, with a huge flow in the first week.

The paper was inundated by the number of people that wanted to lend a helping hand to monitor their government. The same occurred with the Team Watchdog project, which was originally going to be called News-Press Nine, limited to nine volunteers. But hundreds applied.

Biggest Practical Lesson/Mistake: In their experiment of crowdsourcing in the Cape Coral utilities investigation, Fort Myers originally thought the experiment would take place in forums that they would monitor and eventually use to get quotes from contributors. “That is all fine on paper until you have 6,500 people,” says Warren.

The paper was swamped and was never able to catch up. “We left a lot of leads on the table,” says Warren. “If you strike oil, you better have a pump that can collect it all before it spills out.”

Money: Fort Myers runs on a traditional business model. On the web this means getting as many pageviews and unique visitors as possible. The site did experience an increase in traffic during the Cape Code investigation, including new regular readers. “We make new believers each time,” says Warren.

Future Goals: Fort Myers wants to rework the infrastructure that it uses to perform experiments in network journalism. Having a few under their belt, they are taking a look back to see what tools were clumsy or not right for the job. “In some cases we were using a sledgehammer to bang in a nail, in others a house hammer for a railroad steak,” says Warren. With the Team Watchdog project underway, Fort Myers is looking at new technical solutions, so they won’t be held back from not having the right tools.

What do you hope to get from people attending this conference?

“We are not short on ideas, we are short on the means to do them. What we want to get out of this is new inspiration and new directions we can push ourselves and persuade our audience to get involved and get motivated. New ways to promote what we are doing, so we can expand our audience and make new believers and readers,” says Warren. “My top hope is to actually come away with progress toward technical tools that are better for supporting networked journalism, we’re ready for the next big experiment in Fort Myers and we hope this conference can help us gain clarity on what that will be.”