And then, suddenly, the emergency dispatch scanner crackles to life:

“Calling all cars. Calling all cars! We’ve got a 10-41 in progress at 15 S. Main Street, First Community Bank. Once again, that’s a one-zero-four-one at one-five South Main Street. All officers on duty report immediately to 15 South Main Street for a 10-41 in progress. SWAT team, please deploy immediately!”

Welcome to Newfourth’s new Breaking News Exercise — an interactive, experiential learning activity in which students are confronted with real-time, high-pressure journalistic decisions, racing to “Get it first, but get it right.”

I had the opportunity to host a session of the exercise today at Riverton High School in Utah, where a team of student journalists pushed themselves to meet the demands of this experiential learning exercise. I’m proud of this tool, and pleased to offer it as part of Newfourth’s expanding library of learning tools.

You can find the exercise at http://breakingnewsexercise.blogspot.com/

And please don’t hesitate to <a href=”mailto:mlaplante@sltrib.com”>contact me</a> if you have any questions about how to implement it in your classroom.

Matthew D. LaPlante is founder and executive director of The Newfourth Organization.

The article in question resulted in McCrystal’s resignation as head of U.S. forces in Afghanistan — even before it was published. That made it a hot commodity among news makers and news consumers. Discontent to wait for Rolling Stone to hit the streets, Time and Politico acquired copies of the article and published it on their websites. Both news organizations pulled down the article after Rolling Stone complained, but New York Times media columnist David Carr writes that, by that time, the damage was done:

“If some of the biggest names in the business are not above cut-and-paste journalism when it suits their needs,” Carr wrote, “how can they point a finger at others?”

Rolling Stone is certainly not the first victim on the block. As anyone involved in the professional media knows, trying to protect content from cut-and-paste usurpers is an exercise in futility.

Sadly, the lesson that some citizen journalists will take from this debacle is that it’s better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. In addition to being ethically wrong, though, that approach could cause them some legal troubles. As the work of citizen journalists further encroaches upon the power of the professional media, the pros are going to fight back.

Time and Politico can afford to weather the legal battle that is likely to ensue following their blatant theft from Rolling Stone. But could you?

The day has come in which citizen journalists must not just adhere to the standards exercised by their professional counterparts — they must exceed those standards.

—   Matthew D. LaPlante is founder and executive director of The Newfourth Organization.

CNN has done a great job giving a voice to people who want to help write the first draft of history. But the network is setting a bad example for the standards expected of citizen journalists, particularly in its policy of using quotes from anonymous iReporters to juice up its own reporting.

“One of the few enumerated, delegated and specified duties and powers given to the federal government in the Constitution is to provide for the common defense of the nation,” one iReporter opined in a recent CNN.com article about a newly passed immigration law in Arizona. “In this they have failed by not securing the border and by not keeping immigration law up to date with the needs of our nation.”

As man-on-the-virtual-street quotes go, that’s not bad.

Problem is, we don’t know whose opinion it was. CNN reporter Emanuella Grinberg credits the quote to “Tom B., a defense contractor in Iraq who didn’t want his last name to be used for security reasons.”

While Tom B. might have some very good reasons to want to keep his name out of the public arena, CNN had no good reason to run with his quote — particularly because it was clearly an opinion that could have been gathered from any number of other identifiable people.

Under any journalistic standard (and certainly under the standards to which CNN should ascribe) mundane opinions don’t qualify for anonymous sourcing — even when those opinions are articulated as catchy quotes.

“It may be true that important stories wouldn’t see the light of day if not for anonymous sources,” journalist Mark Schaver wrote on his blog as he introduced a Web application he developed to track the use of anonymous sourcing in the mainstream media. “But if you visit the site you’ll see anonymous sources are often used for the mundane: witnesses at crime scenes who don’t their names used, interesting but hardly vital comments from third-parties to stories, minor scoops on new products or sports trades.”

Anonymous sources, Schaver wrote, are “a lazy alternative to doing the work required to get someone on the record.”

Schaver was surprised by CNN’s use of an anonymous iReporter to register an opinion because he thought that mainstream news organizations were starting to move away from allowing anonymous comments in general.

“My sense is that this was starting to run its course because everyone was finding that it was really more destructive than it was useful,” he said from his home in Kentucky. “Anonymous comments in general have little value because you can get them anytime, anywhere.”

The New York Times has a rather complex policy on using information from anonymous sources, but it all comes down to one simple rule: “We will not use anonymous sourcing when sources we can name are readily available.”

That’s a good standard for any journalist. And it would be a good standard for CNN to apply when it uses information from its iReporters.

Matthew D. LaPlante is founder and executive director of The Newfourth Organization. Is he walking the talk on the use of anonymous sources? He welcomes your criticism.

Even as Newfourth’s curriculum projects are being piloted in traditional brick-and-mortar classrooms, the organization is continuing to pursue opportunities to engage students in the ways in which they learn best. And in the future, that will undoubtedly include online learning.

“This is a great opportunity for some citizen-level journalism. Here’s a project you can complete in about 10 minutes: Go online and find the number for the public affairs representative from the waste disposal company. Let them know, politely, that you have a blog and ask them to explain why the same truck that picked up your trash also picked up your recycling. Ask them to provide route records and/or dispatch logs to verify their answers.”

There are small journalistic projects like this to be done all around us. We all ask questions — journalism is simply seeking answers, and then publishing those answers for others.

What can you do in your neighborhood to play your part as a member of the New Fourth Estate?

Matthew D. LaPlante is executive director of The Newfourth Organization.

Like Agent Orange and Gulf War Illness before, toxic burn pits appear to be the emerging health crisis of the nation’s latest wars.

But only a small number of professional journalists have taken on the challenge of reporting on the myriad of health problems — and several untimely deaths — suspected to be linked to the fumes from burning plastic, chemicals and medical waste in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yesterday, I came upon the Facebook Burn Pit page — a grass roots effort to network victims and their families. The site probably wasn’t intended to be and act of journalism, per se, but that’s exactly what it is. The site is chock full of personal stories, information, opinion and images. It is interesting and informative. It is journalism.

As traditional media organizations cut back, The Newfourth Organization believes that home-grown efforts like this site will help fill the void. And the more we can help prepare Americans to fill these roles, the better the transition will be.

Matthew D. LaPlante is executive director of The Newfourth Organization.

Ever get that feeling? I do, all the time. It happened just today, in fact. It’s election day, and my daughter and I were standing at the front door of our precinct, trying to figure out how to get inside. After staring at the locked door for a few moments, a sign hanging haphazardly on a nearby fence caught my eye.  It said “Vote Here” and had arrow pointed toward the back of the building.

We walked through a gate; over some brick pavers; across a soft, mushy lawn; and into the backdoor of the building, where we found our polling workers. I signed in, cast my vote, smiled proudly as the precinct manager gave a red “I voted” sticker to my two-year-old girl, and walked away.

But something just didn’t feel right. And by the time we’d gotten home, it hit me: Our neighborhood includes a lot of older residents — many whose eyes aren’t as sharp as mine and some who can only get around with the help of walkers and wheelchairs. If they wanted to vote, they would have to figure out where to go, then navigate through a minor obstacle course to get there.

I happen to know the county elections clerk, so I called her office, dropped a few names and invoked the Americans with Disabilities Act. The person I chatted with said the clerk’s office hadn’t been informed that that  precinct had been moved from the front of the building to the back and promised to look into it. Always skeptical, I promised that I’d look into whether or not they’d looked into it.

That’s how acts of journalism get started, sometimes — something just doesn’t seem right and so we decide to look into it.

How will I do that? With three very basic methods of gathering information.

1) Interviews

One of the first steps to  news reporting is gathering information from people who are “in the know.” For a story on the local high school football team, that might mean chatting with the coach, the quarterback, the defensive coordinator and, depending on the angle of the story, maybe a coach or player from the team’s next opponent. For a story examining whether my local precinct violated the law when it moved the polling location from the front to the back of the building, I might contact the city clerk, a lawyer who specialized in disability law and perhaps a few older people from my neighborhood to see if they had any trouble finding or accessing their designated voting place.

How do you conduct an interview? First, you should always identify yourself and explain if you are taking notes or interviewing. Some people believe that you should explain that you are working on a story for publication — and indeed, this is the policy of the newspaper for which I work — but in the social media age, I would argue that, for citizen journalists, explaining that you’re taking notes or recording a conversation is enough to put any reasonable person on notice that their words might end up online.

Make sure to take down the person’s full name (double check with them to make sure you have the spelling correct) and have them tell you their official title, as well as describe to you what they do.

Ask open-ended questions and listen carefully for opportunities to ask follow-up questions. If someone answers with a simple “yes” or “no,” don’t be shy about asking them “why.” And if you don’t feel they’ve answered your question, rephrase it and ask again.  Be tough but respectful. And always thank the person you spoke to for their time.

2. Documents

Interviews are a good start, but I encourage citizen journalists  to always back up their reporting with documents.

Let’s go back to that football story: The coach tells you that the team has doubled its average points per game over the last season. That’s a good opportunity to dive into the stat book. A cursory glance might show that the team has scored an average of 36 points in its first three games of this season, compared to an average of 18 points per game last season. On the surface, it would appear that what the coach said is true — but is there an opportunity to dig deeper?  What opponents has the team played so far this year? The three worst performing defensive teams in the league?  Well, maybe that statistic isn’t quite so impressive after all, is it?

In the case of my voting precinct, what documents might help me better understand the situation?

Have their been complaints made about disabled access to polling places in my county? If so, those records should be available to me under my state’s public records disclosure laws.

Does the county provide guidance for how to set up polling places? If so, I should be able to get those records from the county clerk’s office.

And even if I find a lawyer or disabled rights advocate to tell me that my suspicions were correct — that the set-up of my precinct does violate the Americans with Disabilities Act — it’s always a good idea to take a look for yourself. The full text of the ADA is available here.

3. Observations

So now I’ve got a notebook full of interviews and a backpack full of documents. Am I ready to write? Not quite. If I want to make my story engaging — and relevant to my readers’ lives — I’m going to want to add some color.

It goes without saying that to write a decent story about the local football team, I should probably watch them play. Let’s say my angle is that despite what the numbers would seem to suggest, the team’s offense might not be performing any better this year than last. What better way to illustrate that point that to describe a situation in which the team blew an easy opportunity to points on the board?

As for my voting precinct, if I’d realized what it was that “just didn’t seem right” early enough, I might have stuck around to watch for people coming and going who were confused as to the location of the polling place  or who were having trouble getting to the back of the building.

Why is that so important?

Take these two examples of “leads” I wrote about an imaginary football team.

Coach Hiro Nakamura says his team is scoring more points this year than it did last year. And that’s true. But the American High School Rangers haven’t been tested against any of the league’s top teams yet this season.

- or -

It was first down and inches to the goal line. American High quarterback Peter Petrelli takes the snap and leans into the offensive line — and he’s stopped.

He rolls out for a pass. It’s incomplete off the fingers of receiver Matt Parkman.

Petrelli hands off to runningback Noah Bennet. He’s stopped for a loss.

Kicker Micah Sanders steps up. It’s an easy 18-yard shot. But he misses wide.

Coach Hiro Nakamura says his team is scoring more points this year than it did last year. And that’s true. But the American High School Rangers haven’t been tested against any of the league’s top teams yet this season — and they’re missing opportunities to score against some of the league’s worst.

Which story has more impact?  I worked hard on that second lead, so I hope you’ll agree that it better describes the situation.

When something just doesn’t seem right, that’s the journalism fairy telling you that it’s time to put on your reporter hat. Arrange some interviews. Search through some documents. Make some observations.

And then share it all, for the whole world to see.

Matthew D. LaPlante is executive director of The Newfourth Organization. He claims to vote in every election — but you can search through public voting records to find out for sure.

The phrase, which refers to the phoneme at the beginning of each word, was ironic, of course, because two of the words don’t actually start with the letter ‘R’ — as anyone with a basic education in the Three Rs would know. But the term helped identify the fundamental parts of American education in a way that went largely unchallenged for centuries.

We’re here to issue a challenge. At The Newfourth Organization, we believe that the revolutionary shift in the way we communicate demands a “Fourth R” — reporting.

With at least 20 million active bloggers in the United States and tens of millions more publishing online with social media status updates, podcasts and videos, the power of the press has been seized by a new kind of journalist.

This coup could not be more consequential to our republic. It comes at a time in which once-mighty media empires are imploding and tens of thousands of journalism jobs are being lost. And indeed, it might even be causing — or at least aggravating — a situation in which the traditional press has been left unable to adequately fulfill its democracy-sustaining responsibilities.

But where power goes, will responsibility follow?

We founded Newfourth to make sure that it does. As educators and journalists, we envision the rise of a new Fourth Estate, an entire nation of reporters fully prepared to engage as educated producers — and informed consumers — of journalism.

But we believe strongly that you cannot create a civic duty without education. And for the moment, journalism education in the United States remains focused on those with aims to “go pro.” Few, if any, American high schools offer journalism as anything more than an elective course — usually centered on the antiquated process of producing a weekly or monthly school newspaper. At hundreds of “J-Schools” across the country, curriculum remains centered on students who will graduate to seek work as professional journalists in traditional media enterprises. And in a frightening irony, thousands of journalists who have lost their jobs have returned to the classroom — not as students, but as teachers of old media ways to learners who live in a new media world.

Yet there is great value in America’s centuries-old journalism tradition: lessons in news judgment, ethics, communication and storytelling that can — and should — be passed down to the New Fourth Estate. And these lessons are not just for those who would seek to contribute to their communities, their nation and their world as citizen journalists. At its most basic level, reporting is about collecting and synthesizing information — skills that are so important to every aspect of our communication-intensive world.

And that’s why, at Newfourth, we’re asking schools across the country to implement curriculum that adds a “Fourth R” to our world.

Reading. Writing. Arithmetic. Reporting.

Matthew D. LaPlante is Executive Director of The Newfourth Organization.