L.A. Times invites readers to submit public, gov’t documents
The L.A. Times is trying to engage its readership days after the paper published a full-scale investigative series thanks to public records sent in by two readers. The Times wants to build on that momentum and today launched a guide for citizens to find and submit public documents from local agencies.
The guide writes, “The Times encourages readers to share government records you consider newsworthy or interesting. Send us documents and a Times staffer will review them and post them to this site, which also includes files obtained by our reporters.”
Possible records include salary reports, tax summaries, closed session meeting notes, employee contracts and many more.
The Times included a troubleshooting page to offer tips on getting the docs quicker and how to handle research exemptions.
Unveiling this call for citizen engagement comes days after the Times published an investigation into the salaries held by several city councillors in Bell, California. One document found how ex-City Administrator Robert Rizzo concealed high salaries, but a journalist didn’t find the paperwork; a reader did, and he was credited for assisting with the newspaper series.
In an article announcing the initiative, the Times says it “hopes this page will serve as a resource for those seeking information from their governments and become a place where people can share the information they’ve dug up.”
UK newspaper The Telegraph may charge for content in September
Don’t call it a paywall. The Telegraph is planning to roll out a digital content system to charge for some of its content, the Guardian has learned, but the technology won’t act as a full paywall. In the UK, paywalls currently exist on newspaper sites such as News International’s Times, Sunday Times and News of the World.
The Telegraph’s metered plan will launch in September. It will supposedly allow readers to access certain content free, and then ask readers to pay a certain fee if they read more than a designed amount of articles.
The Guardian writes: “The system set to be introduced has been described by one source as ‘very light touch’, with a ‘very generous allowance’ before users would reach the metered limit and be forced to register and pay.”
A source told the Guardian the goal of this initiative is to encourage readers to subscribe to the print edition, which will then give them free access to digital content on the Telegraph website.
Neither confirming nor denying the specific report, a spokesperson from the Telegraph says a payment system is still up in the air: “Absolutely no decisions have been made on the introduction of a paid-content model. Like all publishers, TMG continually evaluates the developments in the digital sector.”