COMMUNITY JOURNALISM AND OUR NEW WEBSITE

Journalism is now becoming a two-way conversation.  In the past, the flow of information has come from professional journalists to citizens through traditional gatekeepers of information: newspaper, radio, television and internet websites.  Everyday people lacked the power, the influence, the wealth and the know-how to communicate local news and information about their neighborhoods, their communities, and their towns to the world.  But now, Today's THV is offering the people of Arkansas a way to do just that.  It's called community journalism. 

We at Today's THV are excited and energized to lead the way once again in this powerful combination of hyper-local journalism and internet technology that will be in the hands of Arkansans.  Todaysthv.com is the one of the most trafficked websites in Arkansas, with over 3 million unique visitors and over 53 million page views last year.  Only Google and Yahoo get more local hits than us.

So this is your chance to let your voice be heard on a unique public platform that is viewed by thousands of fellow Arkansans every day.  More importantly, this is your chance to participate in the powerful dialogue of democracy.  How do you take part? 

MY THV COMMENTS

First of all, you can now comment directly on every story we do.  Below every story on our website you can add your own My THV comments.  We hope you will add something to our story, more information or your opinion.  How do you do this?  Go on our website, click on any story and in the comment box below the story you can write what you want.  Once you post it, it's immediately right there on the website for the world to see. 

MY THV 

My THV is the newest part of our website.  This section is entirely generated by you the viewers.  You can take part in discussion forums on a variety of topics, create blogs (short for weblogs) and even post your own photos and, soon, your own videos.  One of the exciting new features of our new website is that everyone can be the facilitator of conversations. 

HOW WE SHOULD ALL PARTICIPATE IN THIS NEW DIALOGUE

We at Today's THV would like to set the standard high for the character and tone of how everyone participates in this new dialogue.  We would like to remind everyone that there is great power in the written and spoken word.  It is up to you as new members of this community journalism effort to ensure that the site discussions are constructive and informative.  Discussions will feature a variety of viewpoints. Not every discussion on the site will fall in line with the values/morals/lifestyles of every community member. We suggest you disregard the conversations that are not appropriate for you, and instead focus on the topics to which you can relate.  In many ways, we'd like our community journalism participants to adopt the same journalistic standards that Today's THV uses. 

What are those standards?  Here's a link that will take you to a page that will explain most of the values, standards and practices we use every day.  Our newsroom has a guiding vision and mission that we hope you will keep in mind as you participate in this new medium of community journalism.  Our vision is something we aspire to…something that doesn't happen with every story we do, but we try.  That vision was expressed by Edward R. Murrow, a pioneer in the early days of CBS broadcast journalism.  Mr. Murrow said, "Television should teach, illuminate and inspire."  Not every story hits that lofty target, but we certainly will try to do this and we hope you will too.  Our mission is a more simple and easy to accomplish.  That mission is to "serve the people, inform the public and preserve the democracy."  Every task we do serves this mission, whether it is something technical or journalistic, no matter how small or how large the task.  By participating in the journalistic process of gathering truth and providing that truthful information to one another we are serving one another, we are informing one another, we are preserving our participatory democracy.         
 
Before you create a discussion, we encourage you to think about the purpose of your post and what you hope to learn or gain from the responses. When you seek input/opinions from other community members, be prepared to get all types of feedback.  Debates can be enlightening, but should remain focused on the topic and not become personal.  If a comment isn't something you would say face-to-face to someone you just met, then it probably shouldn't be typed in our forums or blogs.  Vulgar, obscene and/or gratuitous comments will be removed immediately and the posters reprimanded or removed.  FCC- accepted cusswords, while not encouraged or condoned, are tolerated. We hope our community members will speak to one another with kindness, respect and appropriate language.  You, as the members of todaythv.com, determine the character and tone for the site.  We encourage you to invest positive energy to make it the informative and entertaining site it is intended to be.