WNYC’S The Brian Lehrer Show uses a drop-box form where listeners can add their stories to the online, local economy report, Your Uncommon Economic Indicators. It allows people to send us signs of the recession as soon as they spot them. They can upload a photo, enter text, share a video or call in a report. If the user provides a location, their information is entered into a dynamic Story Map . Most visitors spend up to 5 minutes on average browsing the map, story archive and photos on display.

Keep it Simple

Our form takes 30 seconds to fill out. Adding a quick story can be the extent of a contributor’s engagement. If they want to go further, they can add other media, get in contact with the editor, come back to the site repeatedly, etc… But the key is to let people engage at their own level, never set the bar too high, and reward them for any way in which they contribute!

Tools We Use
WNYC is currently creating a tool for producers to use when crowdsourcing. We also utilize these online resources:

• Django data management
• Geocoding tools to place each submission on the story map
• Spinvox, an 800 number collected calls and recorded them as mp3 files
• Mediawiki–to host instructions and a user bulletin board
• Widgetbox, an embeddable widget anyone can produce with their webpage URL
• YouTube playlists and Group pages
• Email–to communicate on a regular basis.

With our upcoming easy mapping tool, a reporter will be able to plan a story and distribute a link to their drop-box form. Instead of having a reporter cope with a stuffed email inbox, the input lands in a spreadsheet. Staff can read entries, pull from a variety of regions and cultivate a group to be contacted for follow-up.

Mining Data
A few months into the project, a simple word search on the database revealed that most people were writing in about jobs, mortgages and rent.

No surprise there, but we also found less obvious topics coming up with frequency: lunch, school, commute (easier/empty roads and trains), advertising. Some of our best segments were produced from recurring topics, rather that specific posts. For example, our Brown Bag Lunch series inspired over 100 recipe contributions for ways our listeners could enjoy a good meal without breaking their budget.

As economic news evolved through the year, producers also looked for matching trends in the entries.

Maintenance

In addition to fact checking and follow ups, the editor assigned to this project devotes the better part of every day to routine moderating, copy-editing and one-to-one communication with contributors. Many intriguing submissions require more reporting and can lead to features on the air. Or the editor may spot a larger story and match it to what participants are writing in about. While most people are too busy, some contributors, when asked, will go back and take photos or try to learn more about what they reported. Sometimes they also find similar stories and report those as well. Finally, the editor communicates regularly with the entire group of contributors via email to highlight recent segments, interesting threads or exceptional entries.

Our Listeners’ Reactions

The feedback Brian Lehrer’s show gets from listeners who have worked with us on Your Uncommon Economic Indicators, is that we make them feel they have access to the station and that we encourage real participation. For example:

I think that
 you are doing a great job using mash-ups, call-in audio, etc., to refract
 the strength of your audience back into the show. I know from my time at
 WCBS 880 that calls to action can be very effective, and your Website
 provides both stickiness and asynchronicity.
-Gian Trotta
, Web Associate Editor
 Consumer Reports

I just popped in to Maffei’s and Dominick was so grateful, I got a nice Eggplant Parm on a hero (+ a drink, woo hoo!) for the plug he received.

 That was a fun segment and I’m glad to have contributed. You guys are my heroes (pun intended). Keep up the great work.
–

Marcos
[Marcos reported that a pizza shop posted a sign announcing they were reducing the price of a slice because cheese prices were down. We called the owner to talk about it on air, along with someone from the dairy industry.]

WNYC remains firm about the high quality journalism that comes out of our megaphone. By using online tools to collaborate and manage our listeners’ information, we build new relationships and we can recieve an large number of unique stories with genuine human elements to augment our reporting.