Online Journalism News

Q&A MyReporter.com: 'Nothing happens until the reader asks a question'

Posted: 31/07/09 By: Chie Elliott

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Last week My Reporter.com, an interactive website where reporters reply to questions asked directly by readers, won the Knight-Batten Citizen Media Award.

Soft-launched on May 18 and seeded with some staff-generated questions, users started asking questions straight away, says creator and web development manager at the StarNews, Vaughn Hagerty. The site now receives approximately 75 questions a week, he says.

The site works as follows, explains Hagerty: "We promise to provide a response within 24 hours. Answers might take longer.

"Ask a question, either on our website, via email or by Twitter. Within 24 hours (longer on weekends and holidays), a personal response will come from our newsroom describing how we plan to handle the question. While we don't commit to answering questions that are too specific to a single person's situation or ones seeking to resolve disputes, we'll at least direct the person who asked to possible resources.

"Questions we do answer are assigned to staff reporters, who provide a timely response that we post on the site, with credit given to the person who raised the question.

"We aim to answer the question within 24 to 48 hours, though some answers do take longer. Reporters and editors juggle this along with their other duties, a process that we're still working to perfect."

So how did a seemingly simple Q&A platform become an award-winning venture? Journalism.co.uk put its own questions to Hagerty to find out more.

Why did you decide to create MyReporter.com?
[VH] The seed was planted about six months ago during a discussion about how we could and should innovate. StarNews' executive editor Robyn Tomlin, who led the discussion, pointed out that people were asking us questions via Twitter or forums and wondered how we could provide a sort of community 'help desk'.

I thought about that and drew up a proposal that outlined a proposed production process and rough mock-up for the concept that became MyReporter.com. Our company was in the process of changing its blogs and, since I already was very familiar with PHP and MySQL, the technologies that underlie WordPress, I used it as the foundational technology.

Is it a niche market for you?
I think it is more accurately an extension of our core mission, which is to gather information about issues that matter to people in our community. It could be said that all journalism starts with a question. Usually, though, that question is being asked by a reporter or editor. Readers' involvement typically comes after a story is published.

MyReporter.com changes that process by putting readers in charge from the beginning. Nothing happens until the reader asks a question.

What is the value of using a site like MyReporter.com when many of the answers could likely be found on the internet?
You can certainly find all sorts of information from an internet search, but you probably have no way of knowing the veracity of most of it. It might be correct. Then again, it might not be.

MyReporter.com gives people access to their own 'personal journalist', someone who has been trained to gather and report information accurately and whose name is probably familiar.

MyReporter.com takes questions specifically about coastal North Carolina. Are there plans to expand the same model to other communities?
It's still very early in MyReporter.com's life. We have a number of features that we'd like to add before we really think it's a complete package. Even so, we have had inquiries from other publications about adopting our platform, and I expect that will only increase with the exposure from the Knight-Batten award.

MyReporter.com is a product of the StarNews, a newspaper in Wilmington, N.C. We're a part of the New York Times Regional Media Group, which includes several papers, mainly in south eastern US, and some of those may take it up as well.

Are there questions you cannot or will not answer?
We try to focus on answers that are specific to coastal North Carolina and that apply to a broad range of people, as opposed to an individual.

We also won't resolve disputes: we won't help you get your money back from your mechanic. We will, however, respond to every question with a personal message that includes contact information for possible resources that might help. Doing this helps us winnow down the questions to those that appeal most to people in our community and better manage the workload for the editorial staff.

What is the most difficult question you have ever received?
One of the most gratifying things about this has been the consistently high quality of questions that we receive. Wilmington is on the coast and has beautiful beaches, so we tend to get a number that are ocean-related. One person wanted to know whether there was any truth to the claim that urine can be used to relieve the sting of a jellyfish.

Who are the journalists responding to the questions?
Responses come from our reporting staff and our regular correspondents, all of whom are local. We have two reporters who spend about 20 hours per week each answering questions. Another 12 on our staff field questions based on their beats and areas of expertise. They each generally answer 1-2 questions a week. Beyond that we draw on correspondents to fill in gaps.

What is in it for your journalists?
MyReporter.com provides a sort of real-time view of the types of things that interest our community. That's the same community that our newspaper and news website, www.StarNewsOnline.com, serve.

A number of questions have turned into news stories. And, in aggregate form, they give us a constantly updated snapshot of the types of things we should consider covering, based on the subject of the questions. So, reporters get a better idea of what is important to readers.

What does it cost to run the service?
WordPress is free, though I made a number of significant modifications under the hood. For the most part, we haven't grown our operating costs in any significant way. Rather, we reassigned existing resources.

How do you support the site commercially?
It does not generate revenue, though it will fairly soon. There is one 'sponsor' on the site, but that is there on a trial basis as part of a test of a model we expect to be paid-for.

What did winning the Knight-Batten Citizen Media Award mean to you?
MyReporter.com was something new for our community and, we believe, for journalism in general. We weren't sure how either constituency would react. As far as the community goes, we received an overwhelmingly positive response right away. Based on the volume of questions and traffic to the site, I think it's safe to say that readers truly like and appreciate it.

The Knight-Batten award is high praise from the industry. To be chosen for this recognition from among such a strong and compelling field of entries is a rare honour. Let's face it: MyReporter.com isn't flashy. It isn't necessarily technically innovative. Its function is (somewhat deceptively) simple.

So, what makes it innovative? It is the philosophy that drives the process, a philosophy of listening to readers first, before reporting begins. Some argue that it detracts from our core mission as journalists, and, no doubt, some editor/reporter-initiated stories might not get done because that effort was instead put toward answering a question from a reader.

I don't believe that MyReporter.com should take the place of core journalism. But, I can guarantee that the answers on MyReporter.com are of interest to readers, who ask the questions that lead to those answers. I think the Knight-Batten award is an acknowledgment that MyReporter.com's reader-first philosophy deserves consideration by news organizations looking for better ways to collaborate with their communities to produce compelling content.

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