New Haven Independent

They’ve launched a citizen-journalist-driven project called Purple States to cover the current election campaign in a new way. Purple States is the creation of Cynthia Farrar, who wrote a book on Athenian democracy and has gone on to direct Yale’s urban academic initiatives and organize area civic conversations among randomly selected regular citizens. Purple States is going to bring that approach to TV and the Internet in having a diverse group of citizens cover the primaries and debate the issues. Farrar has taken a leave from Yale to direct this project.

“Our citizen journalists,” Farrar said, “are not going to, so to speak, just put down their plows, and start covering the candidates. They are being paid, and they have been selected by research firms in the five early primary states, so that they do reflect America and its concerns.”

(Click here to view another effort to enlist citizen journalists in coverage of the presidential campaign; and here for the site of a new nationwide network of student reporters covering the election.)

At a marketing and launch event at the Lawn Club Tuesday night, Farrar (second from left in the photo, along with co-producer John Kennedy and citizen “stars” of the original Purple States pilot, Louise Endel, far left, and writer Molly Worthen) said they were motivated by an exasperation with TV coverage, which she described as “extensive monologues and not enough engaged debate.”

Purple States’ five citizens are a young florist from Iowa, a laid-off manufacturing exec and libertarian from New England, a 33-year old Baptist mom of three and former teacher, a Cuban-American health insurance agent, and a grandfather from Orange County who traded in his SUV for a motorcycle for environmental reasons.

They will pursue candidates with questions, debate among themselves, and interview experts on subjects of general concern, such as the war in Iraq, but also of local concern in the five primary states running from mid-December to Super Tuesday in February.

Molly Worthen, a journalist, described the enterprise as a genre-busting combination of reality show and citizen journalism. But Farrar was at pains to point out that reality shows are highly scripted, and Purple States’s segments will not be, although they will be professionally edited and offered to networks and internet outlets.

To date, according to co-producer Kennedy, NYTimes.com has signed with Purple States to produce 13 short videos to air during the primaries. More possibilities are in the works. It’s a for-profit model; thus far friends and family have contributed seed money. In the words of supporter Roxanne Coady (pictured), one of Purple States’s financial advisors, this is a “double bottom-line” initiative. That is, it’s making a meaningful contribution to the civic dialogue and it’s profitable. Farrar said that the project needs to raise a half-million dollars to cover production costs.

Farrar said that the for-profit model was chosen to test whether there is a market exists for this kind of effort. “While there are other projects that tap into the energy of the electorate, there is nothing like Purple States. The idea is to create a civic structure on the internet that doesn’t exist yet.”

Kennedy said that in addition to the five-minute segments and longer pieces to be aired, all the raw footage from every piece will also be uploaded and available on the Purple States site. Moreover, the five citizen journalists will have blogs in which they can interact with the producers. They can note whether they think the segment reflects the whole of an exchange with candidates, for example. The public can back-and-forth with the citizen-journalists as well.

The initial segments will have some back story on the citizens. They will receive no journalistic training, learning on the five weeks’ job of covering the candidates with questions that matter. The hope is the public will care about them, but not in the reality show “setting people up for a train wreck” manipulative sort of way.

In the segment shown at the launch, New Havener Bert Sobanik, who’d been laid off from manufacturing jobs, told John McCain and Mike Huckabee he was sick of free trade. He solicited answers from the candidates as to how and where they would create new and solid middle-class jobs. He also interviewed Tom Friedman, asking the smooth pundit what the large percentage of workers who haven’t figured out the new economy should do.

Those interested in seeing more or supporting the project can email organizers here.