This Watchdog Bites

A citizen journalist from TPMCafe stands up

Anna Haynes interviews "Mrs. Panstreppon" of TPM Cafe via email, May 11-21, 2007

In her TPM Cafe profile, Mrs. Panstreppon describes herself as a "retired brain surgeon," but her true background in accounting serves the citizen journalism community far more effectively than brain surgery could ever do.

Mrs. Panstreppon has worked alone, in collaboration with one other person, and in crowdsourcing projects such as the Earmarks Project and TPM Muckraker's DOJ Document Dump.

Anna Haynes: What do you think the next phase of crowdsourcing will look like? Have we hit its true potential?

"Mrs Panstreppon": I'd like to see crowdsourcing become more organized and take advantage of on-the-spot reporting. For example, property records here on Long Island are not available online but if someone needed property records for an investigation, I might volunteer to visit the county clerk's office.

Q: You said you'd like to "see crowdsourcing become more organized." Organized in what way?

A: I mean more established and more reliable and less speculative. Some people are just better than others at putting information together. I often see promising research projects that sorely need a manager to edit and compile information in a useful fashion.

To be effective in the political arena, however, I think information still has to be channeled through mainstream media for the most part. One example of how this works is someone from the TPM Cafe noticed the GWB43.com domain address on DOJ emails and commented about it in the TPM MR [TPM Muckraker]. I added that Susan Ralston, Rove's former assistant, used a GOP domain name on her emails posted at the Senate Indian Affairs Committee website. Someone then alerted CREW who filed a complaint with Waxman's committee and from there, the RNC email issue hit mainstream media.

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

A: If there is, I wish someone would tell me about it. I spent five years of my own time and money because I thought our system of government was in very serious danger.

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

A: What Josh Marshall has done with TPM is the best example of how crowdsourcing can be effective. His Social Security project was brilliant and I don't have to tell you how important his work on the DOJ scandal is.... Marshall asked his readers to go through the thousands of DOJ docs and post comments about them. While some of them were repetitious, his readers made a lot of interesting and useful observations.

The funniest example of how a crowd can be effective was when New Yorkers ganged up on Condoleeza Rice and chased her out of NYC and back to DC in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Rice sightings popped up on the Internet like mushrooms and everyone seemed to simultaneously know about her shopping for $400 shoes while people were stuck in the Superdome without food and water.
[Ed. note: Snopes rates this assertion as Undetermined. Someone should confirm it with Ms. Rice.]

But crowds and information need to be managed. Daily Kos threads with hundreds of comments, many of which are irrelevant, is an example of what I mean.

I prefer the TPM Cafe and the TPM Muckraker because my comments are more likely to be read and read by an informed audience.

Q: Why do you prefer TPMCafe over a group citizen investigative journalism site like ePluribus Media?

A: Since I usually work alone and get few comments, the TPM Cafe format works for me. But I admire the work ePluribus is doing and recently signed up to comment there.

Q: You came to my attention through your work on the Earmarks Project. What surprised you the most with your participation on that project?

A: What surprised me the most was that while many people were happy to publicize it, no one seemed to actually want to do something about the boondoggle. It was a good idea but poorly executed.

My main reason for researching the earmarks was to demonstrate how to look at them from a different angle and how to investigate them. Those earmarks were relatively small and my audit trail was easy to follow.

The SF used my work to attract publicity but never focused on two of my major points. One, 990s are available online and are a great source of information and two, I [found some curious information about the Glaucoma Caucus Foundation].

Q: What was the minimum that you would have expected (in the way of support and consequences) in order to feel that your participation was sufficiently effective?

A: I would have liked for someone from a citizen advocacy group to call the head of the congressional glaucoma caucus and ask him or her about the two lobbyists on the foundation's payroll. Calling the president of the foundation, one of the lobbyists, would have been interesting too.

Q: Have you tried contacting such "persons of interest" and asking them these sorts of questions?

A: I don't because I am on my own and don't have the protection offered by a well-known organization. I have called people on occasion and asked straightforward factual questions about 990s. I try to always reference my research with factual and reliable sources. i.e, 990s, SEC filings, campaign filings, corporate and property records etc.

Q: If you could make a small change to how one of these citizen journalism sites worked, what change would you make?

A: I'd probably break down the projects into smaller pieces. For example, TPM Muckraker could feature the USA [U.S. Attorney] resume of the day and then TPM MR readers can fact check the resume. I did that with Rachel Paulose, Minnesota USA, and I think I identified who helped get her appointed.

Another idea would be to pick a conservative think tank and analyze the think tank's 990s. SourceWatch does a good job putting info together on these groups but, for the most part, it overlooks financial info.

Q: A thought experiment - suppose you could put together a citizen journalism operation. What would it be like?

A: Too big a question to answer off the top of my head but my main goal would be to make the project fun. We'd be playing "Gotcha" for real. Here is an example of the kind of project I would love to do with serious researchers - the DoD and Homeland Security have awarded lots of big and small dollar contracts to biometric companies. Logic tells you that defense, law enforcement etc don't need a gazillion competing security and identification systems so what services are all of these biometric companies providing and to whom?

(Edited by Angela Pacienza)