At first glance Watching Those We Chose looks like a lot of other political blogs. We have a bunch of good writers (and me.) Every day we churn out new and different takes on topics we find interesting. Like nearly all the other blogs, many of our posts report information we have gleaned from other blogs or from a limited number of regular news organizations. We work hard to give those sources attribution. You will see lots of links to the AP, McClatchy, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. We also cite the original work of Talking Points Memo, Raw Story and other on-line sites.
What might not be apparent is the commitment WTWC has made to citizen journalism. A couple of weeks ago Blue Girl and bmaz filed their amicus brief in the Scooter Libby case. They wanted to see the original letters. Blue Girl has been cultivating sources in Washington and other places. I have contacted several congressional committees and foundations for information. Slowly, but surely, we are learning the skills needed for original reporting.
There is a reason most blogs merely provide an op-ed voice. Opinion writing is fun. Original reporting is hard. It is time consuming. It takes a certain courage to call a source and ask what's going on. You need patience to watch a congressional committee hearing.
There is a reason why most newspapers and television news shows are little more than advertising and editorials wrapped around reprints of AP or network news stories. Original reporting is expensive. Over the years most newspapers and television stations have dramatically reduced their original reporting, choosing instead to rely on services like the AP. The few remaining news organizations generating their own original reporting are large corporations.
We have all suffered the effects of media retrenchment and consolidation. It is much easier for politicians to control the message when they only have shield the truth from a limited number of eyes, especially eyes naturally shaded by a corporate viewpoint.
One of the major advantages of the media organizations like the AP and New York Times is that Congress and its related the research facilities are in Washington. Until now Congress has done little to make information available to ordinary citizens in anything like a timely manner.
That is changing. Recently I posted on theopenhouseproject.com, a bipartisan organization dedicated to making congressional information available to bloggers like me. After posting, I joined. One of the benefits of membership is that I am now a beta tester of something called. LOUIS --the Library of Unified Information Sources. LOUIS is a project of the Sunlight Foundation, which also sponsors theopenhouseproject.com. According to Gabriela Schneider, The Sunlight Foundations' Communications Director.
"LOUIS makes it easy to search from a collection of over 300,000 documents from seven sets of federal documents dating back to 2001:the Congressional Record, congressional bills and resolutions, congressional reports, congressional hearings, GAO reports, presidential documents and the Federal Register. LOUIS, which updates its document depository daily, even allows you to set up a "standing query" as an RSS feed, to get alerts every time Congress or the executive branch takes action that references the subject of the initial query.You can reach the Sunlight Foundation at www.sunlightfoundation.com. Send Gabriela an email. I am sure she would love to hear from citizen journalists across the country.
"In addition, LOUIS delivers these federal documents in an electronic, printable, text format for easier use. LOUIS also lets you access all the pages of a debate in the Congressional Record printer-friendly Web page.
"We've also made available the LOUIS API -- Web access methods that any computer programmer can use to build their own application using the database and the computer code that powers LOUIS."
