Neighbors Go isn’t all Go!

Jason Castro on Neighborsgo.com

The idea? Great! What better way to build readership in a dying industry than to devote content to the events of one’s backyard. It’s like blogging only in print form. That, and it’s more factual. There’s a team of editors that edit the content that those “neighbors” submit to Neighbors Go. The problem starts when those neighbors are doing most of the writing and not the journalists themselves. Sure, newspapers as we know them are an archaic and dying form, but that doesn’t mean that journalism is. After all, a journalist’s job is to “seek the truth and report it.” Yes, there is a thing called “citizen journalism,” but they in no way compensate for the job trained journalists can do. Neighbors Go needs more STAFF writers reporting on stories in the communities.  While the idea that ordinary citizens can submit their stories to the newspaper is a new and fresh approach, those stories should be then covered by an experienced professional who will act as the neutral man. When people are submitting only their stories, it defeats  many of the standards set in journalism. Conflict of interest and maintaining a neutral stance are a few of the journalism standards that come to mind. After all, they’re submitting stories that THEY want to be covered, which can be a good and bad thing. On one hand, it’s a good way of knowing what interests readers. On the other hand, why does this person want this story covered? So they can scrapbook the article about their little boy losing his first tooth? Save it for the blogs.