Four Ideas (aka elements) for the Branded explainer

A tool for demand driven explainers

This element is the most common one among all of us and propublica staff and that is why it doesn’t need explanation as much as it needs elaboration, I believe that this tool can work ideally relying on 4 factors
A.The most common words in relation to news people look for on daily basis using search engines or social media websites like Youtube and Twitter.

B.“Upon your request” style of explainers wanted by Propublica users, this can be done by urging users to submit what they need to be explained.

C.The questions raised by the users commenting on the topic in propublica and in other media websites that published the same confusing news items and this includes questions asked on facebook comments or using twitter replying to propublica or even raising the issue in social media.

D.Editorial decision, we can’t ignore that some investigative journalists who are experienced in explaining complicated topics and have history in predicting upcoming developments in their beats can be very helpful by making suggestions even before the rise of the demand.


Explainers tool kit

This tool should be a collection of all possible types of explainers gathered in one place (slideshows, videos, timelines, fact boxes, Q&A, etc)

Reporters and editors should be familiar to all these tools and should go through them as a part of their work flow to make decisions on which tools can serve their stories the best.

This tool kit can be in the backend of propublica.org where every journalist can go through it before publishing and can feed it with information gradually so that we can fulfill the goal described by Amanda Mitchell as a “Ticker” showing the new developments every day.

Explain it yourself tool

One of the important elements that should be included is creating a way to enable users to create their own explainers and post them online.

As Jay Rosen mentioned in his famous post “The Journalists Formerly Known as the Media: My Advice to the Next Generation” users know more than you do, if we can enable users to send their work and databases regarding a certain topic, this will save a lot of time and effort for propublica editors and will enable users to have their space and freedom to explain, this will require us to create a tutorial to show the users what to do, how to contribute and how to reward those who participate, it is similar to managing online communities.

How the Explainer will be viewed?

Where the explainer items should be found on Propublica? .. will it be viewed as a news item like any other story or as a page with a big banner in the upper half of the home page?

How the explainers will accompany stories that need explanation?
Can we insert explainers inside a new investigative story by clicking some words or some titles or should it be shown as side items?

Navigating the explainer is another issue needs some work because we don’t want it to turn into an archive which was described by Jay Rosen as the easiest way journalists arrange their work.