TEMPLE: New site's hues are red, blue

By John Temple, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published January 19, 2008 at 12:30 a.m.

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Veteran blogger-journalists Joel Mathis, left, and Ben Boychuck moderate redblueamerica.com.

Today's column is an invitation and a story. An invitation to try a new political and cultural Web site, redblueamerica.com, that made its public debut this week.

And a story of the journey I've taken outside the bounds of this newspaper to create something that I think is missing in the national conversation.

Redblueamerica.com is a place for people interested in what the other half thinks on the important and compelling issues of the day. It's a place where they'll always find the best thinkers on their own side stacked up against the best thinkers on the other side, a place for a lively and civil conversation about the topics people are talking about - or should be talking about.

My experience as a journalist has taught me that it's far too common today for people to listen only to voices that reinforce their own views.

Thoughtful people on both sides have lamented this problem.

"We are talking past each other, the left and right in America," Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan wrote. "The new media did not divide us. The new media gave voice to our divisions."

"With just a few clicks, you can find dozens of Web sites that show you are quite right to like what you already like and think what you already think," is the way Cass Sunstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago, described the current conundrum. Sunstein questioned the impact on our democracy of people dividing in this way, arguing that it pushes them to become more extreme in their views.

"There is a general risk that those who flock together, on the Internet or elsewhere, will end up both confident and wrong, simply because they have not been sufficiently exposed to counterarguments. They may even think of their fellow citizens as opponents or adversaries in some kind of 'war.' "

I don't think that's where we want to be as a country.

So since 2006 I've been working on creating redblueamerica.com.

It will be a site for those who believe there's a value in talking with one another, a site where people with different views can be united by their desire, not to vilify others, but to learn from them.

My own company, E.W. Scripps, which also owns the Rocky Mountain News, is supporting the venture through its Entrepreneur Fund, a pool of money set aside in the newspaper division to create new content businesses.

A small team - Editorial Page Editor Vincent Carroll, Interactive Editor Mike Noe, Assistant Design Director Stephen Miller and Linda Sease, former marketing VP for the Rocky who now plays that role for the newspaper division - designed the Web site and showed sample pages on glossy paper to potential users in small groups.

The result was positive. The test audience - educated people who vote regularly - told us they would use the site.

"It's a great concept," one said. "There is no one resource that provides this type of information," said another. "I have to look at multiple sources to find both sides," said a third.

Key to them, and to us, was that the site had to provide equal representation from both sides and it had to be thoughtful and intelligent. This wasn't to be a place for screamers.

The fund provided a second round of support to allow us to build an actual Web site and test it with more of the same type of people.

Again, we confirmed that there was something missing in the information universe. "It's for me," one user said. "It has both sides right here. It's handy."

We hope hundreds of thousands - actually millions - of others feel the same way.

So working with pingVision, a Boulder Web development firm, we've built a site that takes into account all the feedback we've received so far.

It's moderated by two veteran blogger- journalists. They're doing what search engines can't, assessing the quality of opinion and aggregating it for users.

On the red side is Ben Boychuk, a former managing editor of the Claremont Review of Books, editorial writer for Investors Business Daily and blogger on infinitemonkeysblog.com.

On the blue, Joel Mathis, former managing editor for convergence at the World Company in Lawrence, Kan., perhaps the most adventurous local media company in America. He's a veteran reporter and editor who's also won a national award for his blog, Cup O'Joel.

They'll be editing the site, but we hope that its users will bring it to life.

Redblueamerica.com is a place where everyone can share their thoughts on topics and blogs, polls and a form of truth test we're calling, "Truth or not?" After completing an easy sign-up, participants can have their own blog in an environment where the goal is to engage with others constructively. Users also can sign up for a weekly e-mail of special content that will better equip them to take part in the country's conversation.

To get to this day has been a long process. We've been driven by the goal that's long motivated editors in this company: "Give light and the people will find their own way."

Or, more simply: Help people become smarter. That's what I hope users feel redblueamerica.com does for them.

I encourage you to try it out and let me know what you think.

John Temple can be reached at editor@RockyMountainNews.com or by mail at 101 W. Colfax Ave., Suite 500, Denver, CO 80202.

• January 21, 2008

  9:08 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  jackwoehr writes:

  Since you asked, John, a cupla thoughts about redblueamerica.com:

  1. Too much javascript, visual content, etc., just about locked up my browser on a dual core machine.

  2. You write "Again, we confirmed that there was something missing in the information universe. "It's for me," one user said. "It has both sides right here. It's handy." Democracy reduced to a spectator sport and only two teams in the darned league, eh? No wonder the Libertarians have a hard time getting coverage.

  3. Okay, so salon.com is for intellectuals and this redblueamerica.com is for folks who get their "news" from KOA. If that's the intent, Scripps may be onto a moneywinner.

  John, you need to put your feet up on the desk and open a nicely bound volume of Edmund Wilson, say, "Europe without Baedecker", certainly one of the gems of 20th century journalism. It may not change the financial and technology bind that mainstream media finds itself in, but it will give you a lively sense of what we're losing.

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