Thursday, February 03, 2005

Designing a Journalist's Online Transparency System (JOTS) In an attempt to evolve a system spec for designing a system that helps journalists maintain transparency without so much burden that it intereferes with their jobs, I'm starting the JOTS specification.  JOTS stands for Journalist's Online Transparency System and, based on my experiences in trying to manually build my own transparency channel, I will be proposing JOTS features whose main objective is to achieve maximum transparency with the least amount of effort.  I've established a separate category called JOTS Specification for those of you who just want to browse the various spec items, and offer ideas. 9:11:48 PM    comment [] RadioEdit

Spec Entry: Using pre-established source preferences to automate raw material handling Objective: Establish a database of sources and their transparency preferences as a pre-processor for raw materials coming from that source Abstract: The system should include a database of contacts and a tickler that helps the journalist to understand whether or not a source has been notified of the journalist's transparency policy and how that source has responded. For example, the source may provide blanket approval to publish all notes or may say "Ask First." A more advanced feature could include a way to provide redactable text strings. For example, a boolean (true/false) field that goes with a source's e-mail address to that indicates whether the source is ok with having their e-mail address published or not. Let's say the answer is no. The "Redact Email Address" field would be set to true, and the next time I forward an e-mail into the system from that sender, the system automatically redacts all occurences of the e-mail address from the text (but still gives me the opportunity to review it). 9:07:01 PM    comment [] RadioEdit

Spec Entry: Transferring e-mail into JOTS Objective: With e-mail being one of the ways a lot of raw data is captured, there needs to be a fast and easy way to move raw material from an e-mail inbox into JOTS (Journalist's Online Transparency Systems) without the journalist having to do too much to make sure the raw material gets handled properly. Abstract: I've had to cut and paste e-mails in a way that formatting is very screwy and I have to and fix it.  Also, redacting senstivie data is cumbersome and could use automation.   When I receive an email, I should be able to forward it to a system and tag it with, at the very least, the sender's name and a title for the editorial project that the story is associated with.  The system should respond via e-mail with a URL for editing the entry which I can click on an review before publishing into the transparency channel.  The system could for example provide me with a way to look for specific text to redact and then do a search and replace on that that text (instead of me having to do it by hand) 9:04:44 PM    comment [] RadioEdit