Can The Public Really Help The Newsmakers?

A NEWSPAPER IN THE UK is now posting their story budget for the next day's paper, hoping that readers will see the story list and contribute to it.

Is this a good idea?

"What if readers were able to help newsdesks work out which stories were worth investing precious reporting resources in?" the national news editor of The Guardian wrote yesterday. "What if all those experts who delight in telling us what's wrong with our stories after they've been published could be enlisted into giving us more clues beforehand? What if the process of working out what to investigate actually becomes part of the news itself?"

Is this a bright move, inviting citizens to become active participants in journalism? Or is this a gimmick?

Is this a ploy to get citizens to do the actual legwork that journalists used to do?

The story list began running today. Check it out here.