By Yimou Lee
Voices

The 24,000-plus pages of the emails Sarah Palin sent as governor of Alaska proved to be problematic for news organizations such as The New York Times, which were eager to publish substantial reports. So they turned to an unlikely ally to help them: their readers.

The New York Times and The Washington Post asked readers to dig into the documents and provide story ideas. Mother Jones, MSNBC.com and ProPublica partnered with a research company to create an online database for the emails.

The approach to invite the audience to research a vast and sometimes specific material, often called crowdsourcing, has been an evolving phenomenon in many fields, and journalism is now beginning to benefit from the technique. It’s a way for journalists to both expand their network of sources and engage readers, media experts say.

“Crowdsourcing as a method holds potential to do more accurate, more informative and more interesting journalism,” said Tanja Aitamurto, a visiting researcher at the Center for Design Research at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., who specializes in crowdsourcing and open innovation. “It holds also potential to create a closer relationship to readers, as readers are given a chance to participate in the journalistic process, which traditionally is a closed process.”

Crowdsourcing takes many forms, from requesting for photos during a breaking news event to asking for help from witnesses or seeking feedback on Twitter and Facebook. Often, these bits of information reveal much of what’s happening on the ground, where reporters aren’t able to immediately reach, or even make for a more fascinating project.

During the uprising in the Middle East and North Africa, many journalists did not have immediate access to the hot spots. But many organizations such as Al Jazeera and National Public Radio turned to the people on the streets to tell a more complete story. Andy Carvin, senior strategist for NPR, is one good example. He developed more than 30,000 Twitter followers by filtering and re-tweeting information developed during the uprising. His curation of tweets helped his organization cover the story with much more color and details.

The “Mixed America’s Family Tree” was a crowdsourcing project by The New York Times this year, in which the newspaper asked readers to submit their own mixed-race family story. So far, it has successfully produced 246 stories told by readers.

But crowdsourcing is not a silver bullet that resolves all the challenges in journalism, experts – and even readers – say.

“Don’t you folks get paid to do this work yourself?” was a popular comment by reader Brandon West on the New York Times’ Caucus blog. The tart question, which was formed as a response to the newspaper’s crowdsourcing appeal on Palin’s emails, was recommended by some 341 readers. Other similar comments were posted: “The NYT wants non-journalists to do their homework for them!” and “Both the Times and the Washington Post are sending out identical notices of recruitment. … How many staffers do you plan to let go to cover this assignment with ‘just plain folks’?”

“We have to remember that crowdsourcing is still a new phenomenon not only for journalists, but also for readers,” Aitamurto said. “Journalists have to be able to answer that question: first to themselves when planning crowdsourcing activities, then when communicating about the crowdsourcing initiative itself in a proactive way, and then to readers’ inquiries.”

Crowdsourcing hardly reduces journalists’ workload. The common belief is that it is an alternative for media to save money, time and labor.

“I’m not cynical enough to believe it’s meant to save money, and I doubt it really saves much time,” said Robert Quigley, a former social media editor for the Austin American-Statesman and a senior lecturer starting this fall for the Journalism School at the University of Texas at Austin.

Quigley covered a 2010 plane crash in Austin, Texas by using the Austin American Statesman’s Twitter account to ask witnesses information and seek photos from the public.  Using his reporting background to carefully but quickly get facts and verify them, Quigley was able to write stories he wouldn’t have been able to otherwise.

“A good crowdsourcing project takes a lot of effort, both on the front end and in presenting information,” Quigley said. “The keys for news organizations are to do their part in verifying information and to present the information in a way that makes sense to consumers.”