Empowering readers: where "civic journalism" and "citizen journalism" merge

Amy Gahran writes about citj for Poynter and on her own blog. The question she brings up in this post is why MSM sites don't link to the actual bill and/or relevant passages in proposed legislation, when they do a story about a bill or a issue that involves legislation. She notes

The reason we report on the legislative process is to empower citizens to more easily follow what their government is doing. That makes it easier for citizens to get involved in the legislative process ... In legislative circles, having correct reference numbers goes a long way toward helping you find the right people to deal with and knowing where to get involved in the process. This makes civic involvement more effective, efficient, and rewarding. Little links and citations in news stories can help make all that happen.

As a journalism teacher I am constantly challenged by my students lack of understanding of how to write for an online audience. It seems so obvious to me, that once you put your words online, there is an obligation to the reader to "back up" what you say with links. That is making your work transparent. If I mention a story, a bill, an organization, a person, a concept or jargon word (and this is not an exhaustive list of what items call out for links) I need to link to it for the sake of my own credibility if for no other reason. If I don't do the link, then my reader may try and find the site I refer to, but might get misdirected and that is one kind of easily averted misunderstanding. If I don't link, my viewer/user might question whether I am talking without having done the research or located the site, etc. And if I have written skillfully enough to engage my reader so that they want to act as a result of my writing, I am cheating them by not putting the links into my story. It's obvious, but I think it is one of those things that you need to learn by writing online and reading online frequently. If you aren't engaging in interactive online reading and writing, the links may seem superfluous to you.

tags technorati : blogging writing links