Mob journalism

The Northwestern, like the rest of the Gannett chain, is embarking on an experiment in what's called "crowdsourcing," a fancy term for what might also be called mob journalism.

Like all experiments, this one should be interesting to watch. The basic idea might be a good one, but that doesn't mean it won't blow up in your face.

Over the last couple of days, the Northwestern has been getting some blowback for its effort to get the community to help the newspaper investigate the case of the local 13-year-old who was allegedly locked up in her attic four two years.

Here's what one person wrote in response:

I am asking the people of Oshkosh to just stop! I know that the Northwestern has asked you to help investigate, but that is not our job. We pay taxes to have the people that know what they are doing to do this job! Let them do it! The criminal report shows that the parents are not trying to hide the fact that they have committed this crime. There are holes in the story, but that is what the investigators get paid to do, investigate. Stop the speculation and craziness!

And another:

“Help us investigate” ??????

Why is this forum appropriate to investigate? If you know anything notify the proper AUTHORITIES!!!!

From reading all the other posts it cracks me up that everyone seems to be the expert in this situation. I was not there, I don’t know the family, I was not there in December when the Grandma was cited, I’m not a member of the School district or a teacher at Grace Lutheran Church, I’m not a neighbor in that neighborhood, I wasn’t at the hospital when they took their daughter there, and I wasn’t there when police interviewed the parents once they were in custody……where YOU? So just as I we would only be guessing what happened….and if you’re basing your information just off of what the newspaper says you have another problem.

In this day and age many things happen around us that are wrong, illegal, dangerous, and should be stopped. Likewise today is very different than ten, twenty, and fifty years ago. How many of us know our neighbors or ask them over for dinner or a cook out? Where do your neighbors work? Is their family in the area? What do they like to do in their free time? How many parents know who their kids play with and what kid of family your kids friends are like? What do their parents do? Where do they work? Times have changed. We no longer have the time or even care to know the people around us….OK maybe a few of us do….

With that being said unless you are personally involved in this crime who are we to judge what was or wasn’t done? I too have many questions, but I know in this forum they will never be answered.

This still developing story has a rough parallel in the case of Shawn Hornbeck, the Missouri boy who was missing for years but living in plain sight of his neighbors, who for some reason never were bothered enough about the incongruities to notify police.

The New York Times opted to investigate this situation the old-fashioned way: by sending a reporter door to door to get the story.

In cases like these, where criminal charges have been filed, there are limits to what a newspaper can safely publish. If it goes much beyond what is in the public record in trying to verify what exactly happened in that house, it is straying into very dangerous legal waters.