I’ve been at plenty of conferences where people talk about what happens when the watchdog, the local media, is asleep, but they all seem to be too theoretical. So I was pleased when I had the opportunity to speak with Massachusetts Democratic Activists at a session at the end of their state convention about citizen journalism. If we want better government, one of the first things we need to do is get more people informed about what is going on.

For me, this has included going to the monthly meetings of my local board of education, tweeting the meetings and writing up blog posts afterwards. I wish more people would do this, and I tried to give attendees to the workshop at the convention enough hints and motivation to get started.

There are many issues that this raises. When bloggers and citizen journalists start covering local meetings, what sort of training should they get? What would be helpful for them to know? What ethical standards apply? I always encourage people to be upfront about how they are, I detest pseudonyms, except in special cases, and talk about any possible conflicts they might have. I encourage people to read the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics and check out the Investigative Reporters and Editors website for tips on being a better reporter.

Another thing that always annoys me about all those conference where people talk about the future of journalism is that people go for the simple story, casting it as a battle between the traditional journalists, trained at journalism schools and in danger of losing their jobs and the new bloggers, untrained, unethical, and working for free.

It seems as if the real story is about how interconnected the media ecology is. Today provided a good illustration of this. Rick Green wrote a column for the Hartford Courant entitled Websites Battle For Woodstock's Hearts, Minds. I’ve butted heads with Rick in the past, because he often seems all too willing to jump into tired old story of professionals versus bloggers in a manner that I do not believe does anyone any good. However, this column was noteworthy for taking a more nuanced look at what is going on in the media ecology.

I should note that I am ‘friends’ with Rick on Facebook, and it was through Facebook that I found his column. There is an important lesson here. Traditional media outlets are well advised to use sites like Facebook and Twitter to promote their content and draw in readers.

Beyond that, Rick explored in interesting issue in Woodstock, CT. Today, they had a referendum that would cut the terms of Board of Education members from six years to four years. It would cut the number of members of the Woodstock Board of Education from nine to seven, and the terms of all current Board of Education members would end this November.

Ostensibly, this would make the school board more responsive. Here in Woodbridge, we have four year terms, and I think it would be a good idea for Woodstock to also have four year terms. The Woodbridge Board of Education has nine members, and that seems like an appropriate number of members for the Board of Education. I don’t really see a value in cutting it back to seven members. More importantly, I think that prematurely terminating the terms of the current Board of Education members is a bad idea.

Digging deeper, it appears as if there are a handful of people that have had long standing battles with the Board of Education, and this is just the latest in a long history of skirmishes. Reading blog posts and local newspaper stories, it is possible to draw a more complete view of the issues surrounding legal costs and tuition costs.

What is especially interesting is that The Hartford Courant, still the paper of record for the State of Connecticut commented on the election. In Mr. Green’s column, he pointed to two websites, The Woodstock Café and Woodstock Truth. There has been an ongoing battle between these two websites about the board of education. As Mr. Green notes, the battles aren’t always pretty, but it is good to see people more engaged.

I should also note that the Woodstock Villager has provided good coverage of issues around the local board of education as well. All of this points, I believe to the importance of the state paper of record, the local papers, and the blogs, all providing different perspectives about the events in our state. While I wouldn’t wish the drama of Woodstock on other towns in our state, I do wish that other towns had people as interested in the board of education as it appears people in Woodstock are.

As a final note, according to the Woodstock Café, the referendum failed 61% TO 39%