Saving Watchdog Journalism

The good folks at Duke are continuing to push the conversation about how watchdog journalism can be saved.

 A new report from
The DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy examines ways that
can make smaller numbers of reporters more efficient at combing through
piles of documents or large databases. The 20-page report has an
intimidating title: "Accountability Through Algorithm: Developing the
Field of Computational Journalism," but it's written so that even the
most hard-bitten of journalists can follow along. 

Newsrooms
across the country are shrinking, but many are trying to hang onto
their investigative teams and to encourage beat reporting that
continues to examine and challenge the actions of those in power. At
The News & Observer, for example, we have expanded our
investigative team this year from two reporters to three, and we
continue to get great watchdog work from reporters on their beats.

The
co-authors of the report, James T. Hamilton of Duke and Fred Turner of
Stanford, say that by applying existing and emerging technology,
journalists can find better ways to sift through thousands of Internet
sites and find trends. They can use software to more quickly search
through huge documents or use voice recognition software to plow
through long videos or audiotapes.

At Duke, they aren't just writing papers. Sarah Cohen, the new
Knight Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy, is at
work with journalists and software developers to try to adapt available
technology to the work of reporters and editors. She has visited our
newsroom twice to alert us to what's possible.  We hope to have some
success stories soon.

 -- Steve Riley