This is a May 2013 refinement of the idea for the Accountability Newsroom.

I entered a synopsis of this in the 2013 Knight News Challenge. I still think its an interesting idea. Others with more resources, technical and otherwise, are working methodically toward similar visions. I believe some government agencies are moving themselves forward toward a vision of being a Social Enterprise. Although these internal efforts wont have the newsroom aspect of this proposal, I commend them. My best wishes to all working earnestly in this arena to improve government and its services.

The AccountabilityNewsroom Summaryby Sally Duros PoynterInstituteDigital EntrepreneurshipBootcamp,2011 This is my 30-second elevator pitch: The Accountability Newsroom is a digital ombudsman that creates jobs for journalists in curation, community building and investigations while applying the wisdom of frontline workers to improve government. What is The Accountability Newsroom? TAN creates a dotted line between frontline employees and the government executives in charge. This paradigm differentiates between corrupted systems and corrupt individuals. Its product is real government change while creating new types of jobs for journalists. Its allies would include citizens, workers, unions, and others such as businessesall affected by government inefficiency. TAN would be a digital tool that would gather the energy of government workers to change their work environments while keeping them safe and anonymous Its benefits would be many: 1) TAN would create a rich new database of trusted sources who are working toward government change. 2) TANs fully developed vetting system could create new classifications of jobs for journalists as curators, commentators and news gatherers in online community building. 3) Coordinated with citizen input from other services, TAN would be able to shine the spotlight on inefficient services, creating greater transparency in troubled workplaces. 4) This transparency would be a tool that the newsroom watchdog could use to turn political will in the direction of better management, efficient services and greater accountability. 5) Ultimately, solutions developed on TAN would improve government.

Here's why I think my project is needed: Without an effective tool for organizational change, politicians and investigative journalists claims to cut waste and red tape of government are empty rhetoric. Commonly what is thought of as waste is line items in a budget that reflect salaries and benefits to workers. Sometimes the job is in a department that has been duplicated or rendered obsolete. In other case, the waste is fallout from the usual investigative journalism model, where corrupt politicians are exposed but corrupted systems remain. The corruptor is whisked away, and a patchwork fix is planted over the damaged system simulating repair to the public eye. In reality, these patchworks often add paper work and bureaucracy. TAN will be the landing pad for public workers who want to improve government. Affiliated with an established newsroom, its reporters, curators and community builders will encourage, support, listen to and protect insiders while collecting info to change the culture and processes of government. This is what I've been doing with my life, and my proudest accomplishment to date: I highly value my 20 years experience in the newsroom and as a freelance journalist, as well as my years in public service. Co-joined, these experiences help me see patterns, a very big picture, a systems perspective. When I worked in government I could see the promise of technology to make a difference in government operations and services. My vision is shared by others - such as those in the Gov2.0 world that news is evolving in a way now that could make possible some partnerships between government and journalists that could best serve the places where we live as well as our precious Democracy. I left a career in journalism to work for Mayor Richard M. Daley and also at the Chicago Public Schools. At the time I took the job with Mayor Daley, I had the option of attending graduate school at the London School of Economics or the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy on a half scholarship. I decided to take the job in Mayor Daleys office figuring that I could be paid to learn about policy in city government rather than pay someone else to teach me. Building upon my experience launching and running Crains City&State a publication subsequently purchased by Congressional Quarterly my job was in organizational development not public relations. During that time, I worked with some notable people among them, Valerie Jarrett and Michelle [Robinson] Obama. My work there helped me see how the city operates from the very top levels of its landscape through the business, government, charitable, university and civic sectors. I joined the Chicago Public Schools and it was not a good culture fit for me, and my mother was ill so I left. Shortly afterward my mother died and after some soul searching, I decided that I wanted to continue my work on the Internet I had worked on some related projects in City Hall as well as take what I had learned about government back to the newsroom. In 2006, I landed a job at the Chicago Sun-Times as the Real Estate Editor.

My experience in government [and years self-employed as a consulting web editor, editor, writer and fundraiser] greatly enriched my Sun-Times sectionwhere I brought a consumers perspective and digital skills to bear including a blog and creative partnerships. Sadly, it was a bad time for newspapers and I was laid off in 2008. But the moment was right for my experience in journalism, technology and government to come together as part of the groundswell of innovation renewing journalism and newsrooms. My experience at the Chicago Sun-Times taught me how difficult it is to bring about internal organizational change, to change processes and culture. It echoed my experience as a changemaker in Chicago City government and at the Chicago Public Schools. This project is the beginning of a solution to addressing that difficulty On my resume, I say that I am an: Independent journalist and digital strategist who provides insight and solutions to organizations active in the multidimensional worlds of news, Web and community. This self definition feels right. Detail how you will generate content. How frequently will you update? Heres how it works: TAN is affiliated with an established news organization. Using the power of that partners partnerships and organizing tools, a government agency is identified to work with. A joint invitation is made to government workers to participate. Workers, anonymous but verified, contribute stories from their workplaces. In all cases, the story is confirmed and vetted prior to being posted. Sometimes the submitted story will report inefficiencies or bad management. Other times it will report waste, fraud and corruption. While culling the tips, TAN identifies potential fraud in a government department. That lead is pulled out for closer work. Staff members identify keywords and run Google and print ads to attract sources and build an investigation. If the confirmed problem is of a more mundane nature, the tip remains in the searchable database. The spotlight on the problem creates accountability. Journalist moderators host a discussion that leads to problem solving. TAN is a win-win for all parties. It provides public employees access to a transparent system that communicates upwards through the hierarchy. It suggests potential fixes to long-standing problems. And it provides a rich source of leads to the partnering news organization. TAN will allow a local newsroom to respond quickly when a problem is reported in a municipality. Using TAN, the news org will have culled a ready network of insidersspark plugs and change agentswho share affinity and can provide insight and context, improving reporting on the issue. Most important, officials will be able to see the processes in place levels below in the hierarchy as described by public employees in the front lines. This transparency is an information tool that

the news organization can use to encourage change for good government. It is a tool government leaders will pay close attention to. In addition, TAN is innovative in several ways. First, it uses a crowd-sourcing, online strategy for identifying government inefficiencies or abuses. Second this approach works from inside government. By allowing government employees to put a spotlight on pervasive problems in their workplaces, it encourages accountability and emerges solutions. Employee reports posted anonymously on TAN will help the news organization actively bridge the gap between what government is and what it should be. Third, this is a paradigm shift in online community building. TAN encourages top-down, bottom-up and peer-to-peer information exchange and establishes new standards for government information transparency, local accountability news and civic engagement. How can this be sustained? Once proven, TAN can be a tool that can used by any newsroom to work with any level of government. The majority of the work that must be done is developing the vetting and curatorial processes through a Beta project to understand how many people it will take to operate efficiently. I am hoping that one newsroom staff could be trained to be the Chief Editor of TAN and reporters and EAs from the news agencys City Desk would work in tandem with them. The software model for TAN will be open source. IDENTIFY BETA AGENCY The Accountability Newsroom will work best starting small with one municipal agency and as the tools is built and proven grow incrementally larger. VETTING PROCESS Key to TANs success will be a vetting process that enables TAN to verify municipal workers yet protect their identity. Another key process will be the one of sifting investigative leads from organizational change leads. This process must be well-defined and documented in detail so that it can be taught by senior staff to interns and new journalists. Why I know I can make this happen: This idea is a refinement of principles harnessed in controversial websites. It would be a gift for the reform-minded citizenry, government executive or politician: combine Whistleblower power with the desire of front-line employees to make a difference in their work environments. Intellectual support for this idea resides in writing by Peter Drucker, who suggested in his 1967 book The Effective Executive: In an era dominated by knowledge workers rather than manual

workers, expertise canand often doestrump position as an indicator of who is really leading and who is really following. Carnegie Mellon adjunct professor Robert Kelley challenges what is called the leadership myththe idea that leaders are all-powerful and all-important. Kelly posits the existence of exemplary followersthose who act with intelligence, independence, courage, and a strong sense of ethics. Kelly says that one should not mistake lack of authority with lack of power and influence. Spurred by cultural and technological advances, more followers are either challenging their leaders or, in many cases, simply circumventing them altogether. Followers can mass-send messages via e-mail, collect data using concealed devices, and post their evidence on websites. It is this power to self organize and crowd-shift that TAN and its newsroom partner will harness. I have professional background working in organizational change in Chicago City government and at the Chicago Public Schools. In this, I supervised blue suit MBAs whose role was to dig into a bureaucracy, map the system there and come up with a plan to simplify it, ie. cut the waste and red tape of government. Sally Duros is a long-time business journalist who has been an editor for the Chicago Sun-Times and an internal consultant on good government in Chicago city hall. Currently she is a social journalist working toward the next generation of successful, credible online newsrooms. Connect with her on Google+ and on twitter at saduros.