Sunday, December 14, 2008
We want you to join our reader panel
Dan Radmacher
Recent columns
- Kaine saw much progress in his four years
- Virginia voted for gridlock on Tuesday
- Project Vote Smart tries to educate Virginia voters
- America should listen to this Cassandra
From the RoundTable blog
When we put out an open call a couple of years ago to find some new local columnists, the response was incredible. We received more than 140 applications for a position that offered only a nominal payment and whatever notoriety a columnist could generate.
Since then, we've been trying to think of ways to tap that apparent hunger among many readers to participate in the conversation here, something beyond a letter to the editor every 30 days or an occasional commentary.
We've also been looking for ways to forge more connections between the printed page and our online offerings, especially The RT, our editorial page blog (blogs.roanoke.com/roundtable/).
We've come up with an idea that we hope will accomplish both goals. In the new year, we are going to launch an editorial page readers' panel. This group of volunteers will receive a question from us every week, and be given a few days and about 300 words to respond.
We'll print several of the best responses each week in the Sunday Horizon section. Most of the rest will go online, possibly in a blog or forum format to encourage further conversation.
We're hoping that a broad cross-section of the population of Southwest Virginia will participate. Young, old, conservative, liberal, blue collar, professional, urban, rural: If you have something to say, you're encouraged to volunteer.
As with our letters to the editor, we'll verify that members of the panel are who they say they are, and anonymous comments won't be allowed. We'll include mug shots with the published responses (and, depending on the logistics, with the online responses as well).
We want this to broaden the conversation, much in the same way as The RT, but with more accountability than the often anonymous commenters on the blog are subject to.
If you'd like to volunteer, send an e-mail to luanne.traud@roanoke.com. In the subject line, make sure to include the words "reader panel."
Your e-mail should include your name, address and phone number, along with a brief biographical sketch: where you grew up, your occupation, a rough idea of your age and anything else you think is relevant. If you have a mugshot of yourself, or can take one, attach that as well.
In addition, send your response to our first reader panel question: "How is the recession affecting you or your community now, and how do you fear it will affect you in the future?"
We haven't thought of a name for this venture yet, so if you have any ideas, include those too.
We don't know what kind of response we'll get, so it's hard to say if we'll have to be selective about membership on the reader panel. My hope is that we will not, and that anyone who wants to participate can.
If you want to be part of the initial launch, send your e-mail by Dec. 31.
We don't expect that every question will speak to you every week, so don't view volunteering as a potentially onerous obligation.
Everything we do on these pages, from staff-written editorials to letters to the editor to commentaries to the blog, is about encouraging a community conversation.
Gannett Newspapers have gone so far as to change the title of their editorial page editors to "community conversation editor." I don't covet the title, but I endorse the sentiment.
Editorials are important, and we want our institutional voice to be influential and persuasive. But we also want to be the best place to come for reasoned and reasonable conversation about the important issues facing our communities, our region, the commonwealth and the nation.
As a journalism professor of mine said, "Reasonable people can disagree." There is a disturbing lack of reasonable debate and dialogue in the nation today, and I think our democracy is suffering for it.
Reasonable people can disagree, and, in doing so, they can listen and learn from one another, re-examine the foundations of their beliefs and come away richer for the dialogue. Occasionally, minds might even be changed.
This reader panel is another opportunity to engage us and each other in such a dialogue.
I hope many of you take advantage of it.
Radmacher is the editorial page editor of The Roanoke Times.
