Thursday, June 9, 2011

Flash mob help sought by NY Times and Washington Post to join in 'analyzing, contextualizing, and researching' 24,000 Sarah Palin e-mails

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# emails of violent flash mobs analyzed by NY Times and WaPo: 0

6/9/11, "How WP, AP, NYT plan to handle the Palin emails," Jim Romenesko

"The Post says it will publish over 24,000 e-mails to and from Sarah Palin
when they’re released Friday morning “and will engage readers in a collaborative crowd-sourcing effort throughout the process.” Its release says:

Chris Cillizza and The Fix are asking readers to help analyze, contextualize and research those e-mails alongside Post reporters over the days following the release. The Post is limiting this to 100 spots for people who will work collaboratively in small teams to surface the most important information from the emails. For more information on how to help report this story with The Fix, go here.

The Fix will be live-blogging the release of Palin’s e-mails. In the meantime, check this page for continuous updates, including the moment The Post publishes Palin’s e-mails.

You can also follow @PalinEmails for continuous news and updates about Palin’s e-mails and when they publish.

The New York Times is inviting readers to help, too. The AP’s plans are after the jump.

Date: 6/9/2011 1:07 PM
BC-US–Palin Emails,Advisory/252
BC-US–Palin Emails,Advisory, US"...

=====================================

from American Thinker, 6/12/11, "The Flasher and the Journalist Flash Mobs," by Clarice Feldman

"The Daily Caller captured both papers in the Act:

NYT:

Help Us Investigate the Sarah Palin E-Mail Records

On Friday, the State of Alaska will release more than 24,000 of Sarah Palin's e-mails covering much of her tenure as governor of Alaska. Times reporters will be in Juneau, the state capital, to begin the process of reviewing the e-mails, which we will be posting on nytimes.com starting on Friday afternoon E.D.T.

We're asking readers to help us identify interesting and newsworthy e-mails, people and events that we may want to highlight. Interested users can fill out a simple form to describe the nature of the e-mail, and provide a name and e-mail address so we'll know who should get the credit. Join us here on Friday afternoon and into the weekend to participate.

WaPo:

Help analyze the Palin e-mails

Over 24,000 e-mail messages to and from former Alaska governor Sarah Palin during her tenure as Alaska's governor will be released Friday. That's a lot of e-mail for us to review so we're looking for some help from Fix readers to analyze, contextualize, and research those e-mails right alongside Post reporters over the days following the release.

We are limiting this to just 100 spots for people who will work collaboratively in small teams to surface the most important information from the e-mails. Participants can join from anywhere with a computer and an Internet connection. Read more about how it will work.

If you need inspiration before getting started, take a look at what to expect from the e-mail drop. For micro-updates as tomorrow unfolds, check out our new Twitter feed.

It didn't take long for outraged readers to respond. On the hot seat, the papers took different approaches.

The NYT denied it had ever made an appeal for readers to investigate the emails, an appeal we have just quoted and cited:

The New York Times has not asked for readers to help with an investigation," NYT spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha said in an e-mail to The Daily Caller, pointing TheDC to a specific news story about the Palin e-mails' release.

Perhaps Spokesperson Ha just doesn't read her paper. I mean, who actually does any more?

The Washington Post was also smarting and indicated in its Daily Fix blog it was reconsidering outsourcing this very important investigation to a flash mob. (Maybe they'll use one to look into Obama's missing biographical everything or to help with a detailed look at the 2,000 page ObamaCare which by all reports is going to be held unconstitutional by the Eleventh Circuit. I mean now that it's passed, it would be nice to know what is in this job killing, unconstitutional monstrosity.)

The Post's Ombudsman said the whole mess began because the emails were "irresistible."

It's this kind of professional judgment that separates the professionals from the amateurs I guess."...


via Poynter.org/Romenesko

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