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It’s a Jungle Out There! Equipping our Children with Social Survival Skills
Lisa Finan, SocialSmarts™
May 03, 2008

Unless you’ve been living in a cave the last few weeks, you are certainly all too aware of the horrific images of violent school-based incidents constantly playing in every possible media outlet. Teens luring a cheerleader classmate to a home and beating her repeatedly while the video camera rolls; a teacher being assaulted in her classroom by students; a high-schooler throwing a metal chair at another in class knocking the victim unconscious; a 13-year middle schooler who admits that he planned to shoot up his school because he was being bullied.

But what is even more worrisome than these events is that they are occurring in children that are increasingly younger in age! Just a few weeks ago, third graders were caught planning to blow up their school, and children as young as kindergarten are harassed, abused, and tormented. This epidemic also doesn’t discriminate: girls are just as likely to be involved as boys, and it crosses all socio-economic and cultural boundaries. When our children today, on average, stand a one-in-four chance to being victims of school-based violence before they reach high-school, we parents need to do something to help our children survive the war zones our classrooms and schoolyards have become.

First, ask why?
Before we can find effective solutions to the problem, we have to ask ourselves why it exists in the first place. While many people jump to place blame on divided households, families with multiple workers outside the home, cultural differences, de-emphasis on religion, socio-economic inequity and more, none of these “causes” really address the underlying problem. For whatever reason, our kids are not coming to school – or to life – equipped with the social skills and character development that enables them to successfully navigate life’s challenges. Many children today exist in a purely self-centered universe where they believe they are somehow entitled to “their fair share” and more, and that if it’s ok with them, it should be fine for the rest of the world.

Babies are born being completely ego-centric little beings, and they must be so at first in order to survive. But, as they grow, children need to learn that although they are the apples of their parents’ eyes, the sun doesn’t quite rise and set by them; there are other people in the world who are just as deserving of attention, care, and consideration as they are. The popular practice over the last decade or so that has parents abandoning boundaries and rules in order to foster their child’s self-esteem has actually back-fired. Over time, children need to learn that it is important, sometimes critical, to put the needs and desires of others first before their own whims and wants.

“Treat others the way you want them to treat you,” also sometimes referred to as The Golden Rule, is the cornerstone of every good social skill, courteous behavior, and positive character element. While many people think these things are just “good manners,” in reality good social skills are much more.

More than Just Manners
While having decent manners are important, you have to understand that “manners” really refers primarily to outward behaviors. But, to truly be successful in our personal interactions with others, we have to be sure that our intentions for those behaviors are in line with our actions. If we only “act” a specific way when it benefits us, – for example, by complimenting a boss we really can’t stand – we can be someone with perfectly proper behavior, yet still be a proper jerk. When we are truly motivated to be courteous and gracious to someone because we respect them and care about them as people, our entire demeanor conveys that we are a person of decent moral character as well as showing good conduct.

For our kids, these skills are not just a “nice to have,” an add-on we “train” them in as we have time. Repeated studies show that good social skills are the primary factor in a child’s future success, and are possibly even more important than popular factors such as education, socio-economic background, or the “who you know” network combined. Think about it: it doesn’t matter how smart you are or where you come from, if you can’t get along with others, how successful do you think you’ll really be?

And their Lives May Depend on It!
Truly, the ability to successfully share space and interact with others is becoming a lost art. When popular media and mass marketing continually touts that “it’s all about you,” how do we operate as a community and not as disjointed islands of humanity? While we preach “political correctness,” the reality is that we tend to focus over-much on differences and not similarities. The buzzword of the day is “tolerance,” and not “acceptance.” Is it a wonder that we stand so often as “us against them?”

It is critical that we help our children learn to be a little more understanding, a little more patient, and a lot more compassionate with the people around them. Maybe if we teach them that sometimes the best course of action during a disagreement is to simply admit there is no common ground and to walk away, we wouldn’t need so many counselors, mediators…and downstream, legal defense! If we became better at moderating our words and actions, we could avoid a conflict before it even got to that point. Maybe our children would realize that it’s NOT OK to lure someone into a house and beat them up on camera to “get even” for a snarky remark posted on the Internet? Even better, maybe they’d even appreciate that the snarky remark is often best kept to oneself.

It’s not a lost cause – YET. If enough people return to a way of thinking that emphasizes positive behavior and positive thinking, we can make a difference in our families, our schools, our communities. We have an opportunity to make this a kinder, gentler world for our kids and their kids to grow up in. Maybe one in which 25% aren’t headed to be a statistic. I think we owe them that. Teach them the three R’s (Reading, ‘Riting, and ‘Rithmetic) and then add those extras Rs --Respect, Responsibility, Reliability, -- then we really have done everything we can to give them wings and set them free to be successful people ushering in the next generation.

Corinne Gregory is a freelance writer and editor, creator of the SocialSmarts™ program from The PoliteChild®, and a mother of three. She welcomes all comments and can be reached at corinneg@politechild.com.More information can be found on the company’s website at www.socialsmarts.com or www.politechild.com.

edited.

For an email interview we're told:
"There should be no need for ellipses. You're not removing substantive material. Raw means not totally raw, but slightly cleaned up, lightly edited to remove anything that gets in the way of flow or is totally redundant."

How about rewording an interview question, to better fit with the answer? or rewording an awkwardly worded question?

The writer's goal is to showcase the subject's views. So - in addition to representing those views faithfully, what constraints should the writer abide by, in representing just what the interviewer asked and when?

(First round; it still needs followup Q&As.)

Below are 4 common (and very general) questions that we're asking everyone, and then a few that are specific to your experience with crowdsourced journalism at DailyKos and E Pluribus Media.

1. What do you think the next phase of crowdsourcing will look like? Have we hit its true potential?

I think it is hasn't reached its potential yet. I think the real use of it will be in culling over document dumps quickly. What I'd really like to see is a requirement for all proposed legislation to be online in full at least 72 hours before being voted on by Congress. The Patriot Act showed us what happens when legislator's don't have time to review complex legislation, and this is really a place where the crowd effect could help. If 50 people divided it up, went through it, reported about their portion, and then one or two writers summed up the findings, citizens would be in a position to knowledgeably contact their legislators with their view of how they should vote. Right now, both the public and often the lawmakers themselves don't have time or a place to harness a lot of eyes to analyzing the impact of specific proposed legislation.

And obviously, the stuff like the email dumps in the US Attorney cases can be sorted through much faster with many, many eyes.

2. What do you think motivates [contributors to the project(s) you're involved with]? Is it money or some other incentive?

Certainly not money. Part of it might be, in some cases, a desire to get a name for one's self in a pretty small pond. But mostly, I think it's a frustration with the media, which has served the country poorly during this administration. I know a lot of people feel a responsibility for getting to the truth of the matter. They no longer trust the media to do that. And I also think the fellowship that comes with collaboration in a country where many feel isolated and cut off from the truth is a motivation. There is something inherently ennobling about joining with others in a cause greater than just promoting the narrow interests of your life (and America is grounded in that tradition). I think its also a revival of the notion of participatory democracy. Those who are gifted with analysis, research and interpretive skills feel they're giving something back to the country by exposing corruption. It's grounded in idealism, I think, that people have been embarrassed for a long time to claim but is coming to the fore and put to a practical end -- gathering information to make us all better citizens.

3. Do you really think there's wisdom in crowds? If so, what's the clearest example you know of?

Depends on the crowd. That at a revival meeting? Not so much. If it's a crowd that is large enough, and agrees that facts matter, it will be self-correcting (if it's seeking an end that's emotion- or faith-based, therefore unverifiable, no). The clearest example I can think of is exhibited daily in diaries at Daily Kos. If someone doesn't have links to a direct quote, report or research, readers immediately call a writer out on assertions. It's not even done in a spirit of meanness, the agreed-upon rules are so clear. People want verification so if they are trying to present evidence to others down the road, it's not just a ranty diary at Daily Kos but is backed up by verifiable facts. People will enter a diary and say, "Can you give me the link for that statement so-and-so is making? I want to check it out." That's something that's done in the spirit of knowing we don't want to be made an ass of down the line with bad sources or pure speculation.

Also, as I'm sure you know as a writer, you NEED a second set of eyes to know if you made your point clearly (that's what editors are for). Sometimes you get so used to the details of a complex subject you're handling and presenting, you forget that someone new to it can't make the leaps that you can. In the "wisdom of crowds" case, you are working with -- and presenting to -- many different levels of readers, i.e., some who may know as much or more than you (some may be lawyers, doctors or other experts on your subject, so they're crucial critics), and you may be making the case to those completely unfamiliar to the subject and you need to hear, "Hey, you lost me on that one. Can you explain in another way? Do you mean such-and-such?"

Of course, there are drawbacks to this as well -- sometimes the input stage goes on too long, sometimes too many cooks spoil the meal by wanting too many things addressed. This is where the crowd aspect can cut both ways -- making it not streamlined enough, getting nitpicky or PC about wording, etc. But I think the trade-off is worth it if some reasonable sorting of responsibilities can be agreed upon.

4a. What has surprised you the most with Daily Kos?

The size surprises me now. That it's stayed at least minimally functional with the amount of comments, diaries, page views it gets is astounding. The Scoop software has been customized and pushed to its llmit. Yet people still find new ways to use it. I was impressed when Senator Kennedy put up a diary on immigration in March, people asked him questions, and he came back an hour or so later with an audio-recording of answers to the specific questions. That was a really creative use of the space (and probably more efficient for him or his staff than typing it out, I would think).

Also at Daily Kos, despite the constant calls for the "Front Page" (or Markos) to do this or that, pay attention to this or that, a lot of people really "get it" in terms of self-organizing. A perfect example of that was during the Gonzales' testimony a couple of weeks ago. A couple of days before, diarists organized a schedule to live blog it, what order each diarist would put their diaries up in (because it was known comments would hit the hundreds pretty fast and new diaires would be needed). Then when it was all done, they converted all the diaires, with comments, into a PDF and made it available. NONE of this was done with any admin or moderator help. It was simply people who saw a need, joined together, found a solution and got it done. Amazing stuff.

4b. What has surprised you the most with E Pluribus Media?

EPluribus is a different kind of organization (and I haven't been involved in it for over a year, so my observations are about what surprised me during its founding and first year). I think what most surprised me was how many professional people (lawyers, professors, experts in many fields) were willing to basically take on a second job for free and help with the research. And this for a sustained amount of time. This really pointed up to me how invested people are in these projects, how much they themselves get out of the organization in terms of feeling they're giving back and getting personal fulfillment as well.

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Drawing from your Daily Kos and E Pluribus Media experience to shed light on the present, the pitfalls and the potential of crowdsourced journalism...

What features of a crowdsourced journalism project make it likely to succeed?

A good collaborative software program ups the chance of success, with good search capabilities. Having a big enough pool of researchers, but a smaller crowd of actual skilled writers (doesn't necessarily have to be journalist types).

(and what's success?)

Good question. There are several measures, I guess. One would be getting public officials to act on your findings (as epluribus was able to do by having Louise Slaughter officially begin asking the White House about Jeff Gannon on our behalf). Another would be getting mainstream media to cover what we're covering, although this may be less important as more and more people flock to these citizen journalism sites as primary sources for news (as TPM's coverage of the US Attorney scandal surely has done, at least for that issue). Another measure might be how well an organization is able to get its stories driven into the larger blogosphere itself. As we're seeing the power of blogs grow, sometimes moving a story just that far is enough to get enough letters, calls, input to representatives asking for an investigation. And I guess a final measure of success is how informed the members themselves are, how gratifying they're finding their involvement. Even if a story doesn't break big, certainly there's some measure in success in having a few hundred people feel the satisfaction of having gotten to the bottom of something.

What advice would you offer to someone contemplating starting a crowdsourced journalism project?

Be very, very clear on who is responsible for what. One of the pitfalls can be the "commons" problem in which because there are so many people involved, you think someone else surely is already doing a task, making a phone call, etc. Things can drop through those commons cracks. Also, in my experience at ePluribus, there is a LOT of interest in the digging aspect. You end up with literally thousands of pieces of information, some of it going off on tangents that do indeed need to be looked into, but perhaps not right that moment. Yet research will simply keep going on and on and on -- this person is on this board of directors, which also shares two members of boards at this OTHER company, which also has ties to THIS lobbyist .... and so on. There tends to be an inclination to continue researching until its developed an overwhelming sprawl, and with no intermittent narrative provided.

To avoid this, I'd recommend: stories as series, first of all, if it's complicated. Secondly, there seems to need to be a slot somewhere between the research arm and the narrative-writing arm. You don't run into this in traditional journalism, because usually the reporter IS the researcher (or at least is directing a single researcher). But when you end up spawning hundreds of pieces of information in a couple of hours on a subject, you need to have some sort of bridging person or persons between those two areas. Often the researchers are so excited about what they're finding out, they're reluctant to slow down and explain it in a way that helps a writer or writers make sense of it. If one or two people committed to doing brief summaries (however inelegant ... they don't have to be writers) with links to evidence of what they're saying, it would be very, very helpful for those tasked with writing the end product.

EPluribus hadn't solved that when I left. Perhaps they have now.

What do you gain by having E Pluribus Media separate from DailyKos? What do you lose?

Well, first you have to understand that they're entirely different entities. Markos is the sole owner of Daily Kos, I was just a diarist there who stumbled across information that exploded into the Gannon story through joint research. He didn't even notice it was going on until long after it had made news across the blogosphere and even made it into the MSM. Ironically, his first front page notice about it was a link to Atrios, which was commenting on it, but was linking back to his own site. I don't think he even clicked the link Atrios was referencing, because it took him a while to notice it was about something breaking on his own site.

The limits of the Daily Kos set-up for research were apparent within a few days. People were loading scads of information into the comments of the diaries; diaries were spinning off from that (often because I asked people who found some information to look into it further). The search engine sucks and you couldn't search comments (IIRC). This really became apparent as a problem once the whole thing was over. In reviewing the diaries and comments in a kind of after-report, we actually found his real name and address had been provided in a very early diary by one smart commenter. But it was lost amidst hundreds of *other* names and addresses provided by other commenters. The most active researchers, some of whom were techies, suggested another, more friendly platform be created, so we moved over there. Then we still would post stories at the research site and cross-post them at Daily Kos.

Daily Kos thus became an outlet, while the epluribus site (then called Propagannon) was the research hive.

Legally, epluribus was set up by Brian Keeler and me as a 501c4. This had nothing to do with Daily Kos; markos didn't have any role at all in it.

The obvious advantage to cross-posting at Daily Kos is that it's the biggest political blog in the world. But it simply isn't able to handle a massive collaborative research project as well. Perhaps smaller ones, very tightly focused, it can handle in a diary series with fewer pieces of information and researchers. But the scale we were thinking of for epluribus -- basically investigating all aspects of the right-wing machine? Not a chance.

On the double-edged sword of visibility - a high-profile crowdsourced investigative journalism project will attract more participants, but is likely to face the same "scrubbing of websites" problem that the Jeff Gannon investigation ran into. For this reason, EPM's investigations aren't done "in public" on a webpage anyone can view.

With the caveat that I haven't been involved with the group for the past year or so, I'd say at least during the first year, there was very little website scrubbing done once it went private. Also, we were very aware that it had happened in the past and made a concerted effort to save the pages we ran across that had information and we made screenshots as well before ever writing about what we'd found.

Has taking the investigations private ameliorated the "scrubbing" problem, or is it still an issue? On balance, has this working in private groups been a plus?

The plus is obvious -- you're not alerting those you're looking into. Another plus: the writing end product has a chance to be a lot better, fact-checked and all, than when you're slamming out two diaires a day in public from comments like I was early in the Gannon investigation. HOWEVER, at least for me, there ended up being a real loss of ... I don't know ... feverish excitement. Of course, having a story unfold as rapidly as Gannon did is unusual; that may have been a once-in-a-lifetime kind of shooting the rapids that you wouldn't find in any medium. The other negative is that I think it makes it more difficult to recruit and incorporate new members when it's being done in private. It begins to look or feel exclusionary, even if it's not. That may be something that can be avoided in some sort of hybrid model? Or more reach-out? I don't know the answer for sure. And it may have just been my own feelings too about the initial story, the excitement, the possibility, the success of it. Anything that comes after that can feel like some sort of a letdown.

What other questions should I have asked?
(and what are the answers...)

Funding. You need to ask about funding. My own feeling is that the citizen journalism movement is probably going to move forward on a model of a couple or a few paid people devoted to keeping an organization of volunteers going full time. Maybe that can be supported through fellowships, maybe through advertising, maybe through fundraisers, maybe through subscribers, maybe through all these.

But there are also $$ needs beyond staff. Paying for servers, subscriptions to Lexis/Nexis, FOIA requests, sometimes professional expertise (a campaign finance lawyer, a forensic accountant) -- and if one gets ambitious for on-the-ground reporting, airfare, hotel, etc. These are going to have to be taken into consideration as these organizations move into "more serious" territory. And remember, it's going to be an uphill battle, with the traditional media guarding its turf ferociously every step of the way, so these groups need to make sure their products are pretty unassailable (a standard the traditional media has not felt compelled to live up to, sadly).

The other day we asked you whether there were common questions we should ask in each interview.

We compiled your suggestions and came up with four we'd like you to incorporate into your interview. (If you've already done your interview - don't worry about it.) They don't need to be asked in any particular order; they should be mixed in with your questions.

Hopefully you've heard from the person you're supposed to interview by now. If you haven't please let me or your editor know ASAP.

The questions:

1. What's really new about crowdsourcing? And where is it going next?

(We're asking this question because we want people to talk about the future. As well, this will keep our Assignment Zero project relevant for some time. Think about it: we'll have the world's foremost thinkers hypothesizing on the future - and it'll be accessible in one place.)

2. Is there money to be made with crowdsourcing? If so, why will some people work for free so that others can profit?

(This question speaks to the ethics of crowdsourcing and addresses some of the lingering criticisms floating out there.)

3. Do you really think there's wisdom in crowds? If so, what's the clearest example you know of?

(Here we'd like hear what projects they're impressed by.)

4. What surprised you the most with your project?

(Here we're hoping they'll tell us an unique story from their experience.)

A recent report on "The rise and prospects of hyperlocal journalism."

http://www.kcnn.org/research/citizen_media_report/

Here's a disturbing one for you. Sometime after publication of the Citizendium article, the following grafs were inserted into the story right after the graf noting that Wales refused comment:

(Editor's note: Following publication of this article, Wales offered the following on-the-record comment in an e-mail to NewAssignment.net editor Jay Rosen:

"'Instigator' does not mean 'founder' is the main other comment I would make. My claim in this matter is quite simple, and this is on the record:

"Larry Sanger was my employee working under my direct supervision during the entire process of launching Wikipedia. He was not the originator of the proposal to use a Wiki for the encyclopedia project -- that was Jeremy Rosenfeld. And Larry has himself publicly stated, 'To be clear, the idea of an open source, collaborative encyclopedia, open to contribution by ordinary people, was entirely Jimmy's, not mine.'

"His role in the early days of Wikipedia was important -- he was considered the 'editor-in-chief' -- but it was not the role of founder. Larry was never comfortable with the open wiki process, and he has been critical of it from the beginning and to this day.")

I commented before about the inherent conflict of interest in our taking on a Citizendium story. I believe that the original story was as even-handed as you could get it, and thankfully, we were blissfully ignorant of Jay's involvement on the Wikimedia Foundation's advisory board (remember, for emphasis, that this board is advisory in nature only, not involved in the day-to-day running of Wikipedia). But now, post-publication, we've got changes being made to the story based on an e-mail from Wales to Rosen.

I have serious issues with the modification of any story after its publication, particularly when the modifications involve allegations that are central to the story itself.

It's a fact that Wales refused comment on the story pre-publication. Now re-read this sentence from the inserted copy:

"'Instigator' does not mean 'founder' is the main other comment I would make. My claim in this matter is quite simple, and this is on the record:

This is quite simply a smoking gun; by saying that he has an "other comment" that is "on the record," it is quite clear that there's more to this e-mail, and that what appeared above it was "off the record." This makes it even more obvious that there's some kind of communication going on behind the scenes.

I believe that if you don't vote, you lose your right to bitch about the government. And if you refuse to be interviewed for a story, you lose your right to have the story reflect your views. Them's my guns and I'm sticking to them.

A person involved on the project commented to me, privately, that knowing about the conflict of interest left a lingering "dirty" feeling. At the time, I knew that our team had done its due diligence. I didn't share this feeling, and replied as much. Until now. Now I feel dirty too.

As interview week approaches, I thought I'd share with you some of my tips.

Before the interview:
-Talk to your editor. They'll be able to help you figure out what we want to get out of your subject. This will help you craft your questions.

-Research the person so you have some background.

-Jot down questions that will answer the basic Who? What? Why? When? How?

-You'll want to try to ask questions that can't be answered with a 'yes' or a 'no.' Ask people to describe when they first heard about crowdsourcing . Or how they got involved in the subject.

-Don't be afraid to ask dumb questions. There aren't any! Chances we don't know the answer either.

For the interview:

Introduce yourself and tell the person about Assignment Zero.

If you are recording the interview, be sure to ask permission first. (It's illegal in many places to record someone without their consent.)

Feel free to repeat back the answer to make sure you've understood it.

If you don't understand an answer, ask them to explain it again in simpler terms. One trick I always use is to think `How would I explain that answer to my 81-year-old grandmother? If I can't then it's time to get clarification.'

End the interview with a simple, `Is there anything I've forgotten or missed?' You'd be surprised where this can lead you.

After the interview:

Transcribe your quotes and post them to the page.

Ta-da! You're done!

Journalism itself seems to be swimming upstream; even Jay has occasional second thoughts about talking to reporters, what with the potential for misquotes, poor paraphrasing, or reporters who already have an agenda and just want to find someone who will parrot it. Check out what he says on his blog, in the context of applauding the New York Times's withdrawal from the White House press corps dinner: "Last Week That Man Tried to Run You Over. Why Are You Having Dinner With Him?" It's a great read, and I encourage all of our pros and ams to read it.

For example:

Two weeks ago, Jim Rutenberg, a Times correspondent in the Washington bureau, interviewed me about the upcoming Correspondents dinner and in particular the choice of 70’s-era comedian, Rich Little, after last year’s funny man, Stephen Colbert, held the press and president—and the dinner itself—up to extremely effective ridicule. This is not the opinion of the journalists who were there, of course, Rutenberg included. In his view Colbert “just wasn’t funny.”

Rutenberg’s article made me wish I had followed, in this instance, blogger Dave Winer’s policy. When asked for a phone or e-mail interview, he usually declines. “If you have a few questions, send them along, and if I have something to say, I’ll write a blog post, which of course you’re free to quote,” he said last week. Responding to Winer, and to this event with Jason Calacanis and Wired magazine, Jeff Jarvis wrote: “The interview is outmoded and needs to be rethought.”

And we're having an Interview Week? There's a disconnect here somewhere. Some pretty spirited defense of the "let me write my own answer, in my own words, on my own blog" view has appeared in my own inbox as I was traveling down the Citizendium road. Jay didn't side with the bloggers flat-out -- in this case, he rues that in this instance he wishes he had -- but when the big dogs like our own fearless leader wish that they'd followed the "I'll quote myself, thank you" road, you know that the interview itself is on shaky ground.

When a source gets burned enough times -- and sometimes, once is enough -- that phone won't get answered the next time a journalist is on the other end of it.

Yes, let's have an Interview Week, but let's make sure to be fair to our sources. Otherwise, the sources will vanish and we'll be left with nothing but a rewrite desk.