http://virtualeconomics.typepad.com/virtualeconomics/2008/06/second-order-reasoning-comes-to-user-edited-news.html

And he’s quite right – there is something intriguing going on here as you discover once you start to nose round a bit more – http://knewsroom.com/news/home/learn_more

It all starts with the bright young man from www.kluster.com – the bit I really liked is the ‘what happened here…’ link; the black and white, Manhattan sky-line stuff is wholly over-shadowed by the restless narrator with all this obvious vitality and energy bubbling up from within.

And the fact that he doesn’t know where or what next. But almost rejoices in being in that particular space. It energises him. And he drives on. Fantastic.

But there is something that we should be able to tap into here – this whole wisdom of the crowd thing; this predictive game we can play with news. One of the HubDubs was at JEE Camp the other month and his ‘pitch’ was superb.

In common with Seamus’ comments, I still struggle with the rewards system both Kluster and HubDub operate. Don’t know whether winning ‘watts’ would work when you try and drill some of the Kluster thought processes down to a local news level.

Because that is to where I always return; that if we think that any eventual MyLocalWriter.com ‘outlet’ needs to be as collaborative a community effort as possible, there likewise needs to be a mechanism for this to happen – that’s why I’ve always rated www.yoosk.com – not in its in ‘Any questions for the new Lord Mayor?’ form, rather in its question for the new headmaster form… drill it right down; give the local community a chance to frame a question of their collective liking.

For me, in there lies one way of holding local elected officials to account. What, Mr Parish chairman, are you going to do about the gangs of kids hanging around on the car park late at night? Why, Ms Librarian, are you not open more often in the early evenings?

That’s a fabulous tool of community enpowerment if Yoosk could be re-calibrated to work at that parish pump level.

Which is why I wonder the same about Kluster. Can you build a tool whereby the community can start to dictate the news agenda; that the community ‘rep’ – the journalist – can be gently guided into areas of genuine community concern?

There is something in that opening phrase on the website, www.kluster.com, that rings very true: ‘Stop telling people what’s new, and start asking them what’s next…’

It needs tweaking. To my mind, a fully functioning democracy needs someone to be charged with telling the community with ‘what’s new…’ from the town council meeting; thereafter, I suspect there ought to be a mechanism that allows that same community to answer the rep’s follow-up question: ‘Where next, people?’

Where do you, the community, want me to go with this piece of news? Guide me…

I used the word ‘gently’ with reason. Because community-directed news can be fraught with peril; particularly out there on some pretty mean, local streets.

Extreme example, but let’s propose a www.mylocalwriter.com for Dewsbury and watch the local community there direct traffic news-wise following the ‘disappearance’ of Shannon Matthews.

It would be a circus. And if those hands that guided www.mylocalwriter.com/dewsbury were anonymous, it would be poisonous and vindictive and with every capacity to become a witch-hunt of the pillow and burning crosses variety.

If we are looking for a future in which responsible local journalism thrives and survives then it has to maintain the same legal integrity of its newsprint forebears. Neither Yoosk.com nor Kluster.com can be allowed to ‘descend’ into pointing fingers at the dodgy-looking old boy in No47B.

And that’s a big, big challenge – avoiding the kind of ugly frenzy that can, on occasion, be unleashed within local communities.

I suspect, on occasion, it will inevitably bubble up; passions will be stirred, opinions will be aired. A moderating influence will be needed in some shape or guise.

Can the ‘wisdom of the community’ be entrusted with that capacity? To be the moderators of a community’s news agenda?

It is a fascinating arena and one into which I think we are going to have to step. Because the world, news-wise, has been turned upside-down; what once was no more than a mute and dutiful audience, is now ‘twittered’ to the teeth with all the tools of the modern day news-gatherer.

And if we don’t engage their help, then they’ll march on without us; that the ‘news’, as they deem it, will be Facebook’d and Bebo’d before we’ve even touched the keyboard; we have to step back into that news loop; make ourselves an integral and trusted part of the local community’s 24/7 news process.

And, somewhere, within that task lies a Yoosk or a Kluster. Or a mixture of the both. But some tool of enpowerment and engagement within that news decision-making process is going to be essential.

Our ‘news desk’ of the future is going to have to be a broad church; our ‘news editors’ many and varied. Setting the news agenda is no longer the exclusive right of the local newspaper editor. That power belongs to the people.�