KCRW's Public Insight Network
KCRW is working with American Public Media's Public Insight Network (PIN) to expand our journalistic reach. PIN helps ordinary people bring their unique experiences, stories and insights to newsrooms around the country searching for fresh perspectives. With over 100,000 sources and counting, PIN allows a new voice to rise in the world of journalism: your own.
Here at KCRW, we are excited to be using the PIN network across a variety of news and culture shows, such as Good Food, To The Point, Which Way LA?, The Business, DnA and UnFictional. PIN helps bring your voice into our coverage, be it your favorite pie recipe, feedback on breaking news, or simply a story you feel needs to be heard.
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If you are interested in becoming a KCRW PIN source, click the "Become a Source" button above. PIN will ask you for some basic information to set up your source profile, which is kept confidential. With your profile, you can keep track of KCRW PIN questionnaires, your responses, and the stories you helped inform, as well as adjust your PIN settings. You can also become a KCRW PIN source by filling out any of the questionnaires you see below. Though submitting a questionnaire automatically makes you a PIN member, we still recommend you set up your PIN source profile through the "Become a Source" button— it makes keeping track of PIN easier and more fun.
Our Promises to the Public Insight Network
1. We won't publish, broadcast or distribute your responses without your explicit permission.
Unless you give us permission to publish within your response, we will email or call you. We do this for two reasons: First, we want people to be comfortable telling us inside information without the fear that we will immediately publish it or attribute it to them. Second, we want to minimize the chance that someone is using a fake identity or scamming us. We want to know there is a real person behind the response.
2. If you give us permission to publish your comments, we may edit them before putting them on air or on the web. Also, we aren't required to use them and we have the right to reuse or republish them later.
3. Your personal information and responses will only be seen by PIN partner newsrooms, APM editorial staff, and contractors who perform technology related tasks, research or database work for or on behalf of APM systems. If APM does so, those contractors or researchers will be required to sign a confidentiality agreement.
4. We will not use your information for marketing, membership or promotional purposes. The journalism-business firewall means that as a source in the Public Insight Network you will receive:
● No spam messages;
● No invitations to participate in fundraising or membership activities;
● No invitations to participate in promotional events; and
● When we talk about the Network with our colleagues, your personal information is kept confidential.
5. APM and its newsroom partners work together to ensure that you receive, on average, one query a month from the Public Insight Network, unless you specifically agree to more regular contact.
How do I join the Public Insight Network?
If you respond to a questionnaire, you'll automatically become part of the network. However, if you want to actively manage your account (which we encourage you to do), click the “Become a Source” button on our KCRW PIN home page. After signing up, you can access your PIN Source profile, where any information you have submitted to PIN will automatically appear, as well as links to stories that were inspired by your reporting and other questionnaires you may want to fill out. You can also alter your personal settings there.
Why is KCRW collaborating with APM's Public Insight Network?
Since 2003, American Public Media has been working on a network designed to connect newsrooms around the country with ordinary people who have interesting stories, perspectives and insights to share. The resulting Public Insight Network (PIN) has over 100,000 sources and continues to grow. Here at KCRW, we think that PIN is a great platform for expanding our journalistic reach.
When you respond to PIN requests for stories and information on KCRW or one of its show's websites, you are offering up information to KCRW and APM newsrooms within the PIN network. That means you help us and other newsrooms enrich our reporting by sharing your perspective as a source.
What happens once I join the Public Insight Network?
When KCRW needs your help making sense of an issue, reporting on the news, or telling a new story, we'll send out an e-mail to you. The e-mail will tell you about an issue we're examining and will ask you to share your insights in an attached questionnaire. If the request isn't relevant to you, please forward it on to someone who you think will have expertise on this topic. You should expect an e-mail about once a month.
Other newsrooms like Marketplace, the Center for Public Integrity and ProPublica are also building the Public Insight Network. On occasion, you may receive requests to help them, too. The full list of Public Insight Network newsrooms can be found here. When you sign up for PIN, you can declare KCRW as your primary newsroom, which will ensure that we and the folks at America Public Media are the only journalists who contact you. Or, if you'd like, you can elect to become a source for all the newsrooms that utilize PIN in your PIN Source profile settings.
Who reads the information I share?
Your responses go to both Gary Scott, supervising producer of KCRW's' Which Way, LA? and To The Point, and the producers and reporters covering related issues or subjects. You can reach Gary with any comments, questions and story ideas at gary.scott@kcrw.com or 310-314-4683.
Will my information be public?
We won't quote or cite you without permission. Your information is privately and securely stored. It is not shared outside a group of journalists who agree to maintain its confidentiality. Here is the privacy policy for the Public Insight Network.
What if I just want to pass on information, and I don't want any future requests?
You should know that KCRW reporters have many sources who are not members of the Public Insight Network. If you have important information you want to share with a KCRW reporter and don't want to field any future requests, please e-mail Gary Scott.
Will I get flooded with spam?
Absolutely not. You're going to get smart, focused emails from working journalists seeking help covering the news. You won't get any unwanted solicitations, nor would we ever even think of selling your information or sharing this list with any other group.
Why do you ask me about my interests and expertise when I sign up?
We're usually looking for insight and information about a variety of topics. Just a little information about you and your interests makes it possible for us to better direct relevant questions your way. Also, it's important that we know who is responding to our requests.
May I share your questions and call-outs on my blog, or through Facebook/Twitter or local listservs?
Please do!
How do I unsubscribe?
If you want to unsubscribe, send an email to support@publicinsightnetwork.org with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line.