News Organizations Crowdsource Palin Emails

Several news organizations are joining forces to crowdsource analysis of Sarah Palin's emails from her time as Alaska governor.

Copyright ? 2011 National Public Radio?. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

MELISSA BLOCK, host:

Those heavy boxes of emails may have reporters in a be-careful-what-you-wish-for state of mind. NPR's David Folkenflik says many leading news organizations are eager for help going through them from you.

DAVID FOLKENFLIK: That's a lot of emails to wade through. Jim Roberts(ph) is assistant managing editor for news at the New York Times, and he says: Bear with us, folks.

Mr. JIM ROBERTS (Assistant Managing Editor for News, New York Times): I can't begin to imagine how difficult it will be, and it's very possible that we will report things this afternoon that are potentially less important than things we will find tomorrow.

FOLKENFLIK: The Times has three reporters in Juneau who are poring through the records, and the documents are being posted as quickly as possible. But it's also asking readers to send tips pointing to noteworthy emails.

The Washington Post and a consortium of the liberal magazine Mother Jones, msnbc.com and ProPublica have launched similar initiatives.

Mr. ROBERTS: There's been a certain amount of criticism that we and other news organizations have heard about, you know, is this a smear-Sarah effort. We're just looking to see whether the simple fact of having more eyeballs on these documents will help us learn things about them.

FOLKENFLIK: But that's not forestalling the criticism. Fox News host Greta Van Susteren, whose husband has been a Palin advisor, asked readers of her blog whether major news outlets were performing a public service or a colonoscopy. And here's a few choice comments from the Times's readers on its article appealing for help, as read by the NPR Players.

Unidentified Woman #1: I don't remember the New York Times asking the public to go through then-Senator Obama's emails to find newsworthy materials.

Unidentified Man #1: Don't you folks get paid to do this work yourself?

Unidentified Woman #1: Why didn't you invite people to help read the health care bill before it took effect so we could know what was in it?

FOLKENFLIK: Actually, congressional records, such as Barack Obama's Senate emails, are not subject to Freedom of Information requests. In Palin's case, it is a fishing expedition, but it's also an irresistible lure. She inspires strong reaction, good or bad. She's weighing a run for president, she was embroiled in controversy while governor, and she hails from a state with sturdy public records laws.

David Corn of Mother Jones was the first to file a comprehensive request for her records.

Mr. DAVID CORN (Mother Jones): So what we have here is, like during the gold-rush days, 16-or-so news organizations all running to the same creek, panning furiously.

FOLKENFLIK: Crowd-sourcing efforts to scrutinize records aren't all that new. Readers of the British newspaper The Guardian helped the paper find financial abuses by members of Parliament there. But such successes are rare, and the technique itself is infrequently attempted.

Jay Rosen is a New York University journalism professor. Rosen has encouraged news organizations to incorporate the expertise of their audience, but he gives the media mixed marks.

Professor JAY ROSEN (New York University Journalism): Part of the reason for that is we don't really have a close collaboration between investigative reporters who really know how to work with documents and users who could help with some of labor. And we don't have a lot of imaginative ideas for it either.

FOLKENFLIK: Sarah Palin says the press is just seeking messages to pull out of context. But editors at the Times say it's nothing of the sort. They say if this experiment works, they'll try it more often in the future, on candidates from both parties.

David Folkenflik, NPR News, New York.

Copyright ? 2011 National Public Radio?. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2011/06/10/137112911/news-orgs-crowdsource-palin-emails?ft=1&f=1020

bin laden video ge sweet home alabama dexter season 6 mothers day gift ideas gas buddy college