David Berlind: JOTS Specification

"Spokesperson" is SOP for Microsoft's PR Counsel

Mon, 07 Feb 2005 22:00:18 GMT

In my experience, it has been standard operating procedure for any checked facts on stories regarding Microsoft to be anonymously attributed to "spokesperson" when the person fielding the inquiry works for one of Microsoft's public relations firms such as Waggener-Edstrom or Fleischman-Hillard. When a Microsoft employee fields such an inquiry, the answer has always been attributable to that person. As you can see in a recent blog entry of mine, such attribution is made. I'm fairly certain this is a Microsoft imposed policy.

This raises some issues for the JOTS specification. There should be a way that such policies can be set as preferences in a way that automatically includes a short document like this as the part of a full disclosure or transparency statement for any given story.

Spec Entry: Public/Private toggle by category

Sat, 05 Feb 2005 03:36:28 GMT

Objective: Provide a way to keep the raw materials going into an unpublished story from public viewing until after the story is published.

Abstract: As I said in my entry regarding the need for an RSS feed on a per editorial project basis, one reason RSS feeds would be great for media organizations is that they would allow editorial managers to track the projects that their editors and writers are working on. But, editorial organizations -- especially ones that do any investigative reporting -- probably don't want editorial projects-in-progress to be available for viewing by the public until after the story is published. After all, you don't want to show your hand to competing journalists and media organizations. So, on per category basis, you need a way to toggle the editorial project as public or private. This of course raises the issue of security which I'll try to address more in depth in another post. But, suffice to say that JOTS has to have the sort of security baked into it that gives an administrator control over users and what authority those users have. For example, who has the authority to switch an editorial project from private to public?

Spec Entry: Multiple RSS feeds for granular subscription

Sat, 05 Feb 2005 03:27:00 GMT

Objective: Break a transparency channel down into sub-channels and allow people who want access to the raw materials to subscribe to the complete channel, or individual editorial projects. Abstract: This is a pretty straightfoward part of the spec and it's why the underlying infrastructure of a blogging system may be ideal to serve as a transparency channel's infrastructure. I've already broken this transparency channel down into multiple categories, many of which are focused on a single editorial project. The idea is that if someone wants to narrow their view down to the raw materials for one particular project, the system should make it really easy to do this. Most blog infrastructures such as the one I'm using to prototype this channel, will automatically generate RSS feeds for each category. With categories, the RSS feeds and the Web site provide a plethora of entry points to those interested in the raw materials. For media organizations, RSS feeds at the editorial project level would also provide editorial managers with a great way to keep track of the stories that their staffs are working on.

Designing a Journalist's Online Transparency System (JOTS)

Fri, 04 Feb 2005 02:11:48 GMT

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.

Spec Entry: Using pre-established source preferences to automate raw material handling

Fri, 04 Feb 2005 02:07:01 GMT

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).

Spec Entry: Transferring e-mail into JOTS

Fri, 04 Feb 2005 02:04:44 GMT

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)