It’s a fact of life that we all have too much to do, and that great new ideas for websites often fall to the side because of time and expense. At WNYC, our producers have also encountered roadblocks caused by lack of time or resources. But we have good news: there are a lot of helpful tools–and a huge community of users–out there. From tech geeks to public radio partnerships, you can find the support you need for your story.

Get Started
If you already get Crowdsourcing and you just want some tips, you’ll just need our Quick Guide. For the rest of you, start there, but be sure to explore links and other pages. There is analysis of our success and failures, as well as soup-to-nuts case studies that you can borrow for your own story.

Make a Good Pitch for New Journalism
WNYC is action-oriented, but does not advise the Don’t Ask First, Apologize Later method. Believe it or not, all the actions taken to promote and grow the activity on Your Uncommon Economic Indicators were done in consultation with a very busy digital team and sanctioned by the higher-ups. By allowing internet-savvy producers to use outside resources and take some risks, the station built upon early success, devoted more resources and entered into new online ventures. In fairness, producers reported the good and bad of our process, and that helped us get feedback from our enthusiastic peers.

Let This Field Guide Do Some Talking
By opening our doors to citizen reporting, WNYC has taken some of the risks you may be concerned about. Our guide can provide you with some proof that “This Stuff Works!” The trail we’re blazing is just one of hundreds, and sometimes it takes crazy curves, but we want to take you along for the trip. Talk to us, use us as a resource and tell us what we missed. That will make this guide more useful. And when your editor or board member makes a face about your online story ideas, point them here. Tell them, “If it can happen in New York, in can happen ANYWHERE!”

The cooperative effort between The Brian Lehrer Show and the WNYC audience to gather anecdotes, photos, calls and videos and tell the less-reported story about the 2009 Recession, was named a Notable Entry in the Knight-Batten Awards for 2009. According to the J-Lab website:

The Knight-Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism spotlight news and information providers who offer more than multimedia journalism. The awards honor novel efforts that seize and create opportunities to involve citizens in public issues and supply entry points that invite their participation or spark their imagination.

At WNYC, we know that, while we may have sparked the project, what gives it wings is the thoughtfulness and interest of our listeners.

We’re glad you are interested in this remarkable new way to approach reporting stories. We hope by reading our experiences, these pages will offer you food for thought on new ways to invite audiences to become part of your news gathering process as well.

Your comments will help us build up a page of FAQ’s and show us what needs better explanation. Please offer us constructive feedback in the comment sections!

Follow the conversation among public media folks on Mondays at 8 p.m.
Follow @pubmedia on Twitter or search for the tag #pubmedia

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On October 14, 2010 Tanya Ott from Atlanta Public Radio hosts John Keefe and Annie Shreffler on a webinar for PRNDI to discuss social media, crowdsourcing and interacting with the audience via text messages. (webinar link)

On March 13th,  Public Media makers shared their work at SxSW.  EconomyStory managing editor Laura Hertzfeld moderated, and WNYC News Director John Keefe, KCET New Media Projects Director Juan Devis, Public Media Texas Director Michael Olson, and Youth Radio News Director Nishat Kurwa were panelists. Summary here.

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WNYC and Economy Story Partners hosted a webinar on February 24th.
Learn about our reporting tools:  See the archived video.