What We Do

Public Insight Journalism®

Journalists are only as smart as their sources.

So American Public Media created Public Insight Journalism — a system that brings together the knowledge of thousands of citizen sources – to help make journalists better informed, more connected to the communities they serve and able to produce more powerful and trusted stories.

We use the radio, the Web, and face-to-face meetings to invite people into our Public Insight Network of citizen sources. We use software to track their expertise and experience and request their help on stories. Then specialized reporters known as Public Insight Analysts distill and fact-check the sources and their knowledge for use in our reporting. We don't just use them as sources, we make them partners in our journalism, by inviting people to help set the agenda of what stories we will cover.

We combine the best of journalism — its rigorous practices, ethics, and truth-seeking mission — with the vast knowledge and insight of the public. The result is deeper and more relevant reporting, a greater diversity of voices in our coverage, and a renewed trust between the public and news media.

The Public Insight Network

Most people don't consider themselves expert in anything. Yet we are all potential expert sources on issues that touch our lives.

A business owner might know about the rewards and risks of immigrant labor. A family doctor may know how changes in state-subsidized medical insurance will impact those living in poverty. A parent might know how No Child Left Behind is affecting public schools.

More than 50,000 people, from every state and 22 countries, have agreed to help American Public Media with news coverage. They share information about themselves – from their training and work to their age, income, and passions – so we can target our requests for help to areas where they are likely to have knowledge.

On any given day, our specialized reporters known as Public Insight Analysts will explore an issue and search for possible stories by contacting several hundred or thousand people in the network Public Insight Network. Each citizen source receives, on average, one request for help a month, usually through e-mail. 

Analysts read every response, check the information and source, look for trends, and pass the best material and sources to reporters and editors working on stories. We protect the confidentiality of our sources and ask permission before using their voices or names in coverage.

Examples of stories based on network sources:

• Marketplace: The Business of War
• Minnesota Public Radio: Minneapolis Bridge Collapse
• Speaking of Faith: Spirituality of Parenting
• Weekend America: Sputnik

Public Insight Partners

The Center for Innovation in Journalism works with many other organizations to advance its goal of creating a new journalism of partnership with the public. American Public Media will expand the Center's work in training other news organizations to use the Public Insight Journalism model and create their own citizen source networks. The Center is exploring relationships with journalism schools to help shape a new curriculum for aspiring journalists that will prepare them for a newsroom culture that includes the audience in setting a coverage agenda, in news gathering and in creating innovative ways to tell stories. And the Center is constantly partnering with foundations, other non-profits and community and professional organizations to expand the Public Insight Network into new communities and among those with specialized knowledge of specific issues, such as immigration, poverty, entrepreneurship and sustainability.

Media partners

In early 2007, American Public Media selected several public radio stations as pilot partners and has offered training, software tools, a learning community and ongoing support as they build their own local Public Insight Networks. The Center will be expanding our media partnerships to other news organizations, including newspapers, TV news broadcasters and online news sites.

Our partners include:

               

The Center is also sharing its online serious games and collaborative tools with other news organizations, both public and commercial. Its Select A Candidate game is imbedded in news sites across the country, including dozens of public radio stations, commecial TV stations and newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune. American Public Media is offering a range of 2008 election games and tools as widgets for news sites, including Budget Hero, a new interactive game on how campaign issues affect the federal budget.

Collaboration with Universities and Journalism Centers

The Center is involved in conferences, workshops and research on the future of journalism in today's information-sharing, open-source culture. American Public Media seeks partnerships that involve research on civic engagement, the creation and evaluation of new forms of partnership with the public, and on changes to journalism education that prepare students for a newsroom culture based on partnership with the public.

• Hurley Symposium: Journalistic Principles Can Survive and Thrive in Digital Environment
• University of Minnesota's Institute for New Media Studies

Foundation Partners

The Center works with foundations to share its knowledge and experience with engaging citizens and to extend the Public Insight Network to under-represented or specialized groups, from youth to the poor and from immigrant communities to entrepreneurs: NorthWest Area Foundation, Blandin Foundation, Kellogg Foundation, and Kauffman Foundation

Work with Non-profit, Community and Professional Groups

The Center collaborates with non-profit organizations to forge deeper connections within certain communities, engage and empower people whose voices are often absent in news coverage, or find people with specific insight and expertise. This partnerships support our public insight forums and newsgathering on specific issues.

Smart Games

We constantly experiment with new ways to tap public insight and the wisdom of crowds by using online technology. Our aim is to find the issues that matter most to people, so we can make our coverage more relevant. And we find people who have expertise on those issues or stories, so we can make news coverage smarter for our American Public Media shows, like Marketplace and Weekend America, and our regional Minnesota Public Radio News service. 

We call our work "smart" games because our tools do more than just provide an interactive way to tell stories and explain issues to the audience. Our games are designed so we learn from the players. We track the choices that players make in the games and analyze those choices for trends or insight into how people think through social problems.  We often ask people to share knowledge and experience during the game.  Here are some examples.

	Budget Hero Budget Hero lets people decide how taxpayer dollars should be spent and focuses on the major issues in the 2008 election - such as the war in Iraq, the Bush tax cuts, expanding health care, and stimulating the economy. Players create their own federal budgets to match their stands on issues and their values. American Public Media reporters and researchers worked closely with the Congressional Budget Office, the Government Accountability Office and many others to create an accurate portrayal of the federal budget and the main policy options in the budget debate.
	Consumer Consequences Consumer Conequences allows Americans to weigh the impact of their lifestyles on the Earth's resources.  Players describe their home, energy use, eating habits and more, and then find out how many Earths we would need if everyone on the planet lived the same way. Players can redesign their lifestyles and some government policies to see what it would take to live within our resources, or they can compare their impact with people of different income, gender, or age.
	Select A Candidate Media outlets nationwide now have the opportunity to share the Presidential Select a Candidate survey with their constituencies by using a free "widget," HTML code that automatically plugs in the survey on their Web sites. As the campaign season advances—as well as candidates' positions—the survey is updated regularly. Since its launch on October 18, 2007, the syndicated Select a Candidate has received more than half a million page views. by answering a series of questions about major issues, voters can quickly learn which candidates are most closely aligned with their views. We use Select a Candidate as a direct pipeline of listeners' contributions to development of coverage.
	Idea Generator APM's Idea Generators provide a collaborative space online for large numbers of people to research, argue and propose solutions to social problems. The aim is to generate fact-based discussion on important issues, like the racial gap in educational achievement, and surface new ideas, trends, or knowledge for our news coverage. American Public Media: Your Economy American Public Media: Preserving the American Dream Minneaota Public Radio: Education Achievement Gap Minneaota Public Radio: The Future of Small Towns
	The Minnesota Budget Balancer In Minnesota, we offer citizens the chance to create their own balanced budgets for the state and then share them with the governor, legislators or friends. The game offers the main options in the budget debate (with over a hundred choices) for raising or cutting spending and revenues.  And it provides the social impact of every choice. We analyze the choices people make and use that to guide our editorial coverage and even create questions for scientific polling. Budget Balancer: do your values add up?
	Medical Matchmaker We created Medical Matchmaker as part of a Minnesota Public Radio series on health insurance reform. The games harnesses a marketing technique called "conjoint analysis," where players are confronted with pairs of health plans and asked to choose the best one. After 12 pairs, players learn which features of health insurance plans are most important to them and how that aligns with the 4 major types of health insurance, including the new consumer-driven health plans.

Public Insight Sessions

We recognize that online relationships have their limits. So American Public Media regularly brings together citizen sources with our reporters and editors to find out what issues matter most in different communities or to get advice on setting our coverage plans for large issues like public education or health care. These sessions occur in communities and in our headquarters, with groups from 10 to 100. Some are broadcast, though most are confidential, providing a safe setting for people to inform news coverage.

We also hold large scale events that bring people from our network in direct contact with known players on an issue. These are broadcast productions with a twist – they focus not just on the insights of the known experts, but on the insights of those in audience.

The Public Insight Forums are, in essence, a way to create a kind of information loop that feeds MPR's news coverage.

Highlight examples

March 28, 2007 – The Toll of a War
At the start of the year about 2,600 soldiers in the First Brigade Combat Team of the Minnesota National Guard were told their time in Iraq would be extended. Minnesota Public Radio News brought together 15 people -- family members, soldiers who had returned from the front, and people who support soldiers and their families – to share their challenges, frustrations, and worries about this most difficult period of their lives. The result was a rich conversation which gave the community a much better understanding of what was at stake.

January 15, 2008 – Dealing with Binge Drinking
The rate of binge drinking by young people in Minnesota is among the worst in the nation; at least four young people died due to alcohol in the preceding months. After a series of stories about the problem, health experts, education officials, parents, and college students from our Public Insight Network joined Kerri Miller in the UBS Forum to share their insights and offer solutions. The candid discussion, in which college students spoke candidly of the out-of-control party scene and parents and college officials acknowledged a breakdown in communication – shed light on a dark corner of campus life.

August 17, 2007 - What does safety cost?
The nation heard about the I-35W bridge collapse at the start of August. Cries immediately went up for better inspections and improving infrastructure. But those calls only raise other questions, such as “just how much should the government invest in the safety and security of its population.” The Public Insight Network invited experts, business owners, commuters to a large scale discussion at the UBS Forum. The end result was a realistic look at the trade-offs Minnesota and the nation faced as the debate over infrastructure spending began.

 

Inventing and Testing New Formats for Journalism

Current news programs and formats, from newspapers to network TV news, are losing audience and interest in today’s knowledge-sharing culture. The Center experiments with formats that include the audience in setting the coverage agenda, in newsgathering and in telling stories in new ways through music, audio, video, essays and conversation.

One new format is In The Loop – a live show, broadcast, podcast and blog aimed at people ages 18 through 35. During initial pilots, the show has attracted more than 1,100 collaborators in APM’s Public Insight Network who help define topics, suggest segments, write and perform essays, songs, and skits, and participate in research and production. Podcast downloads during the regional pilots topped 11,000 in a month.

We are leveraging the journalistic resources and combined networks of APM’s news media partners through joint projects during the 2008 election. Our aim is to have knowledge, ideas and coverage flow from communities to local newsrooms to national shows and back to local newsrooms and communities. We’ll post the results of these experiments as we go.