How Ideas Can Stall - Knight News Challenge

K- Knight Foundation HOW IDEAS CAN STALL MediaBugs 2009 KNIGHT NEWS CHALLENGE LESSONS LEARNED FROM MEDIABUGS, A SERVICE THAT ALLOWS READERS TO REPORT ERRORS IN MEDIA COVERAGE. GRANT AMOUNT: $335,000 An Evolving Effort Page Views Page Visits Evolution of an Idea MediaBugs added multiple components over time in an attempt to adapt their error correction service but to-date has been unable to get traction with users and news organizations. WEBSITE Allowed users to publicly document errors. Media outlets were then notified April Launch of MediaBugs error reporting site. Widget released at same time October Opens up tracking software to organizations to solicit corrections. across the US November Report an 8,415 Error Alliance launched PAGE VIEWS WIDGETS AND WORDPRESS PLUGIN Enabled media outlets to February WordPress plugin released incorporate error reporting on 1,500 their own sites. PAGE VIEWS (p) REPORT AN ERROR ALLIANCE Raised the issue of transparency in error reporting. Apr 2010 Jan 2011 Jan 2012 A Problem- Not a Priority Interfering with a Prized abc Relationship CN News sites that already had in-house corrections systems (however imperfect they may be) felt MediaBugs offered a solution to an issue they had already addressed. News organizations were hesitant to link to an outside site that mediated their relationship with readers. // Fishing with a Large Net Faced with limited adoption, MediaBugs expanded its services to news sites across the US. However, this limited the high-touch outreach that's often needed to secure marquee partners. Limited User Engagement MediaBugs was unable to build a participating community of people committed to filing bug reports. Errors ('bugs') Filed by Readers JUNE 17 BUGS FILED ON AVERAGE 7 BUGS FILED Creating a PER MONTH Conversation APR 2010 MAR 2012 While MediaBugs has faced significant challenges as a service, it contributed to an important though oftentimes ignored conversation about the transparency of reporting errors. + 182 DOWNLOADS OF MEDIABUGS WORDPRESS PLUGIN BY NEWS ORGANIZATIONS Their work led to the creation of The Report an Error Alliance, an advocacy effort that now includes nine news organizations as members, including the Washington Post and Salon.com. <10 ORGANIZATIONS USING MEDIABUGS WIDGET INSIGHTS GATHERED FROM 'EXPERIMENTS IN MEDIA INNOVATION: A LOOK AT THE 2009 KNIGHT NEWS CHALLENGE WINNERS', AUGUST 2012