Congresspedia Keeps Growing (And Now It's Your Turn!)

By Conor Kenny

Since CMD's co-launch with the Sunlight Foundation of Congresspedia, the "citizen's encyclopedia on Congress," our new site has quickly become one of the most valuable resources on the web for constituents to learn about their members of the U.S. Congress.

On election night, November 7, 2006, more than a dozen volunteer bloggers helped us update races, add links and work on member profiles. This election not only focused the electorate and altered the congressional cast of characters, it gave Congresspedia all the more work to do to keep up with members' deeds, misdeeds, and, yes, statistics.

Congresspedia profiles every member (along with some former members whose actions, often corrupt, live on in committee investigations and reports), offering information about voting records, campaign contributions, committee assignments, interest group ratings and contact email addresses and phone numbers. We have issued special reports on 15 current and former members under investigation for everything from covering up sex scandals to accepting bribes.

Since its launch in April 2006, the number of articles has climbed from 539 (one for each member of Congress and the four non-voting delegates) to more than 750. Congresspedia articles quickly climb to the top of Google search results, be they searches for "Dennis Hastert," "network neutrality legislation" or "Mark Foley" and the congressional page scandal. Internet traffic to CMD's primary website, SourceWatch, which includes Congresspedia, has more than doubled to as many as 80,000 visitors a day. We welcome associate editor Elliott Fullmer, who has recently come on board to help with this expansion.

Scandals aren't everything, and they can even distract from the actions that have a much more profound effect on people's lives. In that vein, Congresspedia editors have been working with citizen journalist contributors to provide coverage of some of the significant bills considered by Congress in the last six months, including War on Terror detainee legislation, the federal marriage amendment, the flag burning amendment and network neutrality legislation.

However, Elliott and I cannot do it alone. If Congresspedia is to become a truly comprehensive resource, we need our citizen journalist list to keep growing to fulfill the promise of "many hands make light work." It doesn't take a lot of time - many volunteers will come on for just 10 or 15 minutes and make valuable edits. SourceWatch and Congresspedia are built on a "wiki" platform, which allows users to draft, edit and otherwise participate without complicated computer programs. It can be as easy as seeing something in the morning newspaper that you think ought to be permanently documented, finding an appropriate article on the website, and clicking the "edit" tab at the top of the page. Those needing a primer on how to get started can click the "help" link at the top of any SourceWatch or Congresspedia page. The paid editors are also always happy to assist citizen editors with any questions they might have (I can be reached at conor@sourcewatch.org).

The current, fairly low ratio of volunteer contributors to readers means that there is no better time to get involved in Congresspedia if you are seeking to get the word out on a specific issue or viewpoint. Citizen journalists can create Congresspedia or SourceWatch articles, which will then rise through Google and potentially be read by tens of thousands of people who find their way to the website every day. It is also a fantastic way simply to keep tabs on your own member of Congress. In fact, one of the most effective uses of the website for many citizens is to occasionally add a few lines to their representative's or senators' profiles any time they see something in the news that deserves to be remembered. Your contribution to the website may be the one that provides essential information to voters in the next election -- or on a day-to-day basis, helps constituents (and journalists) keep up with issues.

In addition to citizen journalists, Congresspedia offers activists, academics, bloggers and students a unique opportunity to get their research and writing out to a much larger audience than if it was posted only on their own websites (or not posted at all). We are actively reaching out to various communities of potential contributors. If you or someone you know might have an interest in participating, please contact us so we may assist you in utilizing this powerful resource.

Citizen Journalism in the Classroom

Every year, millions of university students research and write papers on Congress, national politics and the federal government. Usually this research is turned in, graded and then put in a file drawer to gather dust. The Congresspedia Student Contributor Program seeks to harness these millions of hours of underutilized research in a way that contributes to society's understanding of government while providing an avenue for students' work to be viewed and supplemented on Congresspedia and SourceWatch.

This can take one of two forms: either posting full-length writing assignments as articles or parts of articles on Congresspedia or posting summary points from papers in Congresspedia papers while linking back to the full papers (CMD will provide a place to post the papers if needed).

The program can be used as a way to introduce undergraduates to research practices since they will have to provide information not already on Congresspedia and build upon the research of others. Congresspedia can also serve as a teaching tool in and of itself by doing away with the intermediary step and making direct contributions to the wiki the assignment itself rather than first writing a paper.

While students still retain the copyright to their papers in the program, the license Congresspedia operates under does allow others to use the research for their own purposes. All writing contributed, however, is registered with several counter-plagiarism tools used by professors.

Wonks Invited

It is often the activists and organizations working on an issue (or the academics studying it) who know it best. While maintaining a website is now requisite for organizations, it is often difficult to get readers to that site. Congresspedia provides an avenue for activists and organizations to re-post material to a place where there is often significantly higher traffic and where topics like proposed or actual legislation are linked back to congressional profiles, enabling local citizens to make the connection between their representatives and the behind-the-headlines deals. However, all information must meet Congresspedia's sourcing and fairness standards.

The Internet has offered increasing opportunities for academics to be more involved in public debate if only by raising the level of debate and injecting research once isolated to scholarly journals into the discourse. Congresspedia and the public at large would greatly benefit from the contributions of academics who are experts in areas relevant to current debates. These need not be only political science professors -- an ecology professor, for example, may have valuable insight into the effects of proposed environmental legislation.

Local Muckrakers and Opinion-Makers

As valuable as it is having staff in Washington, D.C. to keep an eye on Congress, nothing can substitute for the expertise gained by long-term observations of one's local members of Congress and the ability to document how national legislation affects local communities. In that spirit, CMD is actively reaching out to bloggers and other citizen journalists who write about national politics from a local perspective. The tools available on Congresspedia can make that journalism more powerful by centralizing information, for example, by bringing together how a member of Congress votes with the identities of their main campaign contributors. By cross-posting the results of their research on Congresspedia, citizen journalists also help create a permanent history of their representatives, which then allows other citizen journalists to build on that research and help build a more vibrant, fact-based citizen journalism community.

Congresspedia also provides links to local blog and discussion sites that cover that member on Congress, helping citizens discover the sites and driving up their readership. Additionally, Congresspedia's cosponsor, the Sunlight Foundation (sunlightfoundation.com), is constantly developing new, free tools and resources that we make available to all the blogs on our list. If you operate a local blog, please contact us to make sure you're on it.