Clay Shirky’s prognostication for the future of journalism:
“Things are going to get weirder before they get saner.”
And he adds:
“In real revolutions things get worse before they get better. .. One of the bad things I think is going to happen is, I think civic corruption is just [...]
I am at the Future of the News: Creating a New Model for Regional Journalism in America at Minnesota Public Radio. It is being livestreamed here.
Lots of people in the forefront of the journalism change movement are here.
I will be Tweeting bits and pieces at [...]
This from Jay Rosen:
I was asked to speak recently at a conference organized by Yale University with the title “Journalism & The New Media Ecology: Who Will Pay The Messenger?” This irritated me. The question should have been “who will subsidize news production?” because news production [...]
I am at the Yale University Law School for the Journalism & The New Media Ecology: Who Will Pay The Messenger? conference. I have my Flip camera with me and will be doing some, I hope, brief interviews with some of the key people trying to figure out the [...]
Today as I write this, Jeff Jarvis is running his livestreamed NEW Business Models for (Local) News conference at CUNY.
On Friday I will be at Yale for the Journalism & The New Media Ecology: Who Will Pay The Messenger? conference and then on Monday I will be [...]
SoCon10, our annual social media, social networking unconference scheduled for January 29-30, 2010, is now open for registration. Our conference space maximum at Kennesaw State University is 300 participants and last year we hit that number and had to shut down registrations early. Don’t miss out, register now.
[...]
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is planning a Public Workshop/Roundtable on December 1-2, 2009 entitled: From Town Crier to Bloggers: How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age? Your comments are invited.
Federal Trade Commission Chairman John Liebowitz says by “…bringing together stakeholders — bloggers, journalists, economists, university faculty — [...]
After the announcement that the bean counters would no longer publish Gourmet Magazine, my wife sent me an email with the subject line:
End of the world as we know it
And the text:
Just saw that Gourmet is ceasing publication, a victim of the times. Sigh.
Thirty [...]
Ever since I started talking about the network weaver concept, the idea of social networks has intrigued me. It is time now for me to dive deep into the pool. So far I have had my foot in the water with the likes of the Tipping Point by [...]
The Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy releases its report today in Washington DC, setting a vision for healthy, informed, democratic communities.
The Commission report has 15 policy measures “to help Americans meet their local information needs.” They include:
Recommendation 1: Direct media policy toward innovation,competition, [...]
I spent last week at the 2nd International Congress of Communication for Peace sponsored by Universidad Santo Tomás in Bogota, Colombia. I presented a paper entitled: Journalism, Public Deliberation and Democracy: Advancing High Ideals in Challenging Times. It is in the process of being translated into Spanish for [...]
On Sunday night at 5 p.m. I was a member of the last of three concurrent panels at the Decatur Book Festival in Decatur, Ga. The topic of the panel: The Future of Newspapers.
I anticipated that maybe a couple of dozen people might show up. So I was [...]
The Pew Internet & American Life Project just released a report entitled The Internet and Civic Engagement and it is filled with interesting information. Who would have guessed that 10 percent of the American public in the last year sent a letter via snail mail or email to a [...]
Here is a big prediction based solely on my own experience. Everyone knows the story of people sitting in their cars waiting for a favored piece on public radio to finish playing before turning off the radio and getting out of the car. Well, thanks to the iPhone those days [...]
It’s August 4 and our Reinventing Journalism and Yourself: One Tweet, One Friend at a Time AEJMC Pre-Convention Conference is set to begin at 4 p.m.
I have been away from blogging most of the summer. I’ve been busy with this conference, some grant writing and getting to move [...]
This from the BullDog Reporter:
New Nonprofit Investigative News Network Launches as Investigative Journalism Groups Lay Groundwork for National Effort
Nearly two dozen nonprofit news organizations nationwide, including the Center for Public Integrity, have joined in announcing plans for creation of a new Investigative News Network for watchdog journalism. The agreement [...]
YouTube launches YouTube Reporters’ Center, a new video site where news superstars like Katie Couric provide reporting tips for citizen journalists. Here are just some of the interviewees and their subject matter:
Katie Couric on how to conduct a good interview Tips from Bob Woodward on Investigative Journalism [...]Martin Langeveld, Jeff Vander Clute, Joe Bergeron, and Bill Densmore unveil CircLabs Inc., a concept to help sustain journalism. They will be exploring paid-content models for newspaper Web sites. Written details are here or you might want to hear Densmore in a Nieman Journalism Lab interview.
[...]I am now sure that no one understands the power of this new digital era better than Robert Mackey, head writer of The Lede blog at the New York Times. Watch this video of the death of Neda in Iran to see [...]
The Lede, The New York Times news blog, via its Iran protest coverage, demonstrates the extreme power of new media forms working in conjunction with traditional media. The main traditional stories are the anchors, and the Lede is the minute-by-minute conversation with an interactive audience.
I love sections like [...]
So why is the so unlikely Twitter such a blockbuster medium in exposing what’s happening in Ira? Here is what Time says:
So what exactly makes Twitter [...]
The Knight Foundation announced its nine winners for the 2009 Knight News Challenge. The total award for this year was about $2 million, which is substantially less than awards in years 2007 and 2008. Those two years had a combined total of about 40 awards as compared [...]
There is a nice little story unfolding from Kennesaw State University. Twenty-year-old Matt Nagy, a rising junior, was a second alternative for the regional U.S. Open qualifier here in Georgia. Being an alternative meant that for him to get a shot at the qualifier, someone had to be a [...]
This from a Knight Foundation press release:
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation today announced a $15 million initiative to help develop new economic models for investigative reporting on digital platforms.
Alas all but $3 million has already been granted.
The three newest grants were awarded to:
Center for Investigative Reporting [...]The Reinventing Journalism and Yourself: One Tweet, One Friend at a Time conference is now open for registration. This 4 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. networking thinkfest will be held Tuesday, August 4, 2009 at the Sheraton Boston Hotel.
The cost is just $40 for AEJMC members who are [...]
As an editor, Michael Kinsley has worked for news chains, families and nonprofits. He doesn’t think of much of the chains or nonprofit models. For me I worked for family owned papers most of my career including the Carroll County New Hampshire) Independent, [...]
The Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University has posted a downloadable copy of the American Press Institute’s ‘Newspaper Economic Action Plan’. Here is the report’s self description:
In this report, API provides models and recommendations for the migration of online content from free to paid. They are intended for the [...]
It will be no surprise to me when, as David Carr stated a couple of weeks ago, the big news media players will be going all in. It’s just like a poker game and the chips are dwindling and your only chance to avoid a slow death is to [...]
Ruth Ann Harnisch, president of the Harnisch Foundation, gave my Representative Journalism project a jump start early in 2008 with a gift to get LocallyGrownNorthfield.org its own community supported journalist.
Ruth Ann was willing to wait to get a community supported journalist for the Coaching [...]
At least 180 community, family and other foundations have contributed nearly $128 million in grants to news and information initiatives in the United States since 2005.
That’s according to a report released today by J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism. The press release adds:
The information is contained in a [...]
As you might know I have been videoing nesting Red-shouldered hawks in my Marietta, Georgia neighborhood. Seeking more information I stumbled upon one of the nicest personal blog sites I have seen on the internet. The site is titled Vickie Henderson Art. She is keeping a photo, text [...]
So yesterday I watched my daughter Emily’s graduation from The Journalism School at Columbia University. Tonight I am on a panel here in New York City to help freelancers understand their future and the future of journalism. Here is more information:
May 21, 2009
Brave New World of Media [...]
I can’t help myself, I see new amazing use of technologies everyday and imagine how they will change everything. More than two years ago I first used my GPS and I saw the end of news advertising. Most [...]
I must tell you this citizen media stuff is a blast. I have been shooting a Red shouldered hawk with her three eyas — until yesterday I thought there were only two. Last night the mom flew off the nest and I do believe raided a blackbird nest. This did [...]
So I am sitting in my backyard in Marietta, Georgia with my new spotting scope honed into the nest of a pair of Red-shouldered hawks. There are at least two baby hawks in the nest. I see what looks like [...]
So the year was 1992, my wife and I had always wanted to buy a farmhouse in New Hampshire. But alas the prices were always too high, then a great recession hit New England and the prices dropped just enough that we could afford our retirement house. We bought the [...]
If you are interested in executive coaching, business coaching and life coaching and are an experience journalist who wants to get involved in community supported journalism, here is an opportunity for you as described at the Poynter Institute jobs site:
The Community Support Journalist will report on a variety of [...]
The new Center for Sustainable Journalism at Kennesaw State University is pleased to announced two more job openings. One is for a:
The Business Development Officer will assist in commercializing sustainable journalism or media enterprises and will advance for-profit and nonprofit efforts aimed at promoting high quality, ethically [...]
This is a blog, so I can make a prediction based on personal experience. When high quality news and information became scarce, I went to great lengths to get it including paying lots of money for it.
Let me explain, I lived in Minnesota for 18 years and was addicted to [...]
Folks like Jeff Jarvis have been pushing the idea that charging for information won’t work. I have been saying what else will work.
Rather than listening to the information-is free crowd, we should all be trying to figure out this dilemma as written about in The New York Times [...]
Last Friday night Lyle Harris, formerly of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and I hosted a journalism salon at my house in Marietta, Georgia to talk about what might save high quality journalism.
Mike Schinkel took the photo below plus many more and Urvaksh Karkaria wrote a blog post at the [...]
Jay Rosen is asking that people go to their local newspapers and actually count the number of local stories that appear. He is keeping count here.
Here is background from Rosen:
Let’s find out what the printed newspaper on the local level has been able to deliver recently, so [...]
Anyone interested in the future of powerful long-form journalism, should give this Q&A with Brian Storm of MediaStorm a read. Here is an example of a great insight:
We have to get better as journalists. From my perspective, this actually helps long-form in-depth journalism since the crowd is less [...]
I am pleased to announce that a job posting has been listed for the Director of our Center for Sustainable Journalism at Kennesaw State University. Please spread the word.
You can learn more about the Center here.
The job description is:
Kennesaw State University invites applications for the [...]
Fast Company ran a story last week with this subhead, introduction:
The most successful hybrid of old and new media comes from the last place you’d expect. How NPR’s digital smarts, nonprofit structure, and good old-fashioned shoe leather just might save the news.
Here is a key passage about the [...]
It’s sad, but fitting that an old white guy, Editor and Publisher Roger Oglesby, bids good-bye to the Seattle P-I, as it goes to press for the last time before going online only tomorrow.
Compare this video with this upbeat, let’s bring out the talking points of the [...]
The State of the News Media 2009 report states emphatically:
This is the sixth edition of our annual report on the State of the News Media in the United States.
It is also the bleakest.
Here is where the hope resides:
The problem facing American journalism is not fundamentally an audience [...]
Clay Shirky writes that the unthinkable, a world without newspapers, is the reality. Here is what is key to me:
Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism. For a century, the imperatives to strengthen journalism and to strengthen newspapers have been so tightly wound as to [...]
A map with a related article entitled: As Cities Go From Two Papers to One, Talk of Zero gives a graphic overview of the state of the newspaper crisis in the USA.
The article and the graphic are a grim reminder of what is happening. It’s a reminder [...]
Thanks to a $10,000 matching grant from the Harnisch Foundation, MinnPost is trying a micro sponsorship plan to underwrite the work of David Brauer, who reports about Minnesota media. Just click on a button for a $10 or $25 donation. As of this posting, $1,415 has been raised.
Want to see journalism change in action? Then take a look at these two wikis started by folks interested in finding alternatives to failing newspapers in Seattle and San Francisco.
Here is the Seattle wiki started by Chuck Taylor, who helped found Crosscut in Seattle. The home page’s [...]
As I said yesterday, I am getting all my leads these days from Twitter, and this one comes from Doc Searls.
It’s a website called Cats that Look like Hitler. It’s very amusing. Plus, there is a lesson there that [...]
Okay, so my last few posts here at the PJNet.org were all produced from Twitter leads, including today’s Top 50 Photography Websites, which I linked from a Serena Carpenter Tweet.
Indeed, with all the smart people linking to great information, soon everything I need to know I will [...]
Having trouble keeping up with all the stories about journalism woes and breakthroughs? Well, the Poynter Institute has found a way to make your life just a little less complicated with its Transformation Tracker Resources by its librarian David Shedden. He is posting story links daily.
I [...]
J-Startup News is a nifty little site, with this introduction:
Welcome to J-startup news, a place for news people to discuss, rate and share news and commentary about journalism startups, new business models for news, hacker journalism and anything else that falls along these lines.
Here is its widget:
Its [...]
Last Saturday, February 21, 2009, I was on a panel entitled: The Future of Public Media News: A Vision and A Plan at the Integrated Media Association’s Public Media Conference in Atlanta. There is lots of good information.
You can first hear Kinsey Wilson, Senior Vice President and General Manager, [...]
A National Civic Review article Community Blogging: The New Wave of Citizen Journalism highlights our Representative Journalism project, now going under the bigger umbrella name of Citizen Supported Journalism. Locally Grown, the blog in Northfield, Minnesota where our journalist/fellow Bonnie Obremski presents her journalism, is given as an [...]
Kim Lau has a list of nifty Twitter applications. Given that I am gaining weight, TweetWhatYouEat might be perfect for me. How did I learn about Lau’s post? Of course, at a Twitter account.
[...]Interested in micropayments and journalism’s future? You might want to read: What Would Micropayments Do for Journalism? A Freakonomics Quorum
Here is the set up:
We asked a group of people who have given a lot of thought to micropayments — William Baker, Alan Mutter, Clay Shirky, and Marshall W. [...]
Embedded in a long interesting tome addressing the future of the internet, Jonathan Rosenberg, senior vice president, for product management at Google, provides excellent advice for journalism sites:
…The experience of consuming news on the web today fails to take full advantage of the power of technology. It [...]
Rusty Tanton has posted more Podcasts from SoCon09 on generating leads, public relations, the future of social media and using social media in business to business transactions. SoCon09 was an unconference which took place Feb. 6 and 7, 2009 in Metro Atlanta. Sessions [...]
The Georgia Podcasting Network, via Rusty Tanton and Amber Rhea in photo below, now has the first four audio podcasts of SonCon09 online and Amani Channel has the livestream SoCon09 archive also available. So relive the moments or hear and see parts of what you missed.
[...]
The Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University takes a look at our Locally Grown project in Northfield, Minnesota and likes what it sees. Here is a snippet of what Mathew Ingram writes:
This is a fascinating effort, I think. Since the [...]
Nikhil Moro conducted an excellent in-depth IM interview with me inquiring about our new Center for Sustainable Journalism at Kennesaw State University which is being funded with $1.5 million by the Harnisch Foundation.
The interview is an excellent way to learn more about the new Center and what our plans [...]
Yesterday I wrote of Twitter’s overriding presence at our SoCon09, social media, social networking conference. Today I want to direct you to some blog posts and stories that have grown from SoCon09.
Here is a really worthwhile essay about Socon09 at GRABBINGSAND:
Nobody [...]
More than 300 people were at our SoCon09 event yesterday and maybe I heard the word blog used a few times. This year it was all about: Twitter, Twitter and more Twitter. Indeed read all about the full day Saturday [...]
Wow, Lauren Booth who is taking care of the logistics told me just now that we have 325 people crowded into our SoCon09 unconference that is happening now. To get a glimpse of what is happening go to MyUrbanReport.com. Amani Channel has been doing livestreaming.
[...]I am extremely pleased to announce that the Harnisch Foundation, thanks to its founder and president, Ruth Ann Harnisch, is providing the Kennesaw State University Foundation with a pledged gift of $1.5 million for me to start The Center for Sustainable Journalism here at the university.
Ruth Ann and I [...]
SoCon09 Atlanta’s top social media, social networking conference continues to thrive in its third year, despite the bad economy. We inadvertently turned off the registration for a couple of hours this morning and received a barrage of emails and calls from folks who wanted to attend. Well, you still [...]
On The New York Times op-ed pages yesterday there was an opinion piece about setting up a $5 billion endowment to perpetually provide the Times with a $200 million annual payout to support the newsroom. I have a better idea.
Right now the Times has approximately a circulation of about [...]
Henry Blodget at Silicon Valley Insider advances his Plan to Fix The New York Times in three steps:
Cut costs 40% by 2010. Continue to raise print subscription prices Explore charging an online subscription feeI am most intrigued by the idea of no firewall but still a fee. Anyone can link [...]
I am at the University of Missouri for the RJI News Collaboratory which bills itself as Entrepreneurial journalists in action.
The RJI News Collaboratory mission:
We work with entrepreneurial journalists, citizens and organizations to create strategies and tools for high-quality Web-based journalism.
Information is being livestreamed right now.
[...]Robert Niles at the the Online Journalism Review writes that it is time to rethink some of journalism’s traditional ethical assumptions, saying:
The central tenet of journalism ethics (in my opinion) remains: Do what’s best to empower your readers with truthful information. Everything we do ought to flow from [...]
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is providing 21 communities with $5 million in total funding “to help community foundations support creative ways to use new media and technology to keep communities engaged.”
Here is the information from a Knight Press Release:
Twenty-one innovative ideas that will help [...]
The word is out information freeloaders, if you want journalism, you better get used to paying for it. Yesterday I posted David Carr’s words on paying for journalism. Here is more from Philip S. Balboni, who just launched GlobalPost with 65 correspondents in 45 countries, plus a [...]
American Public Media which grew out of the Minnesota Public Radio juggernaut has had a very good day today. This from the Minneapolis/St Paul Business Journal:
American Public Media announced Monday it has received a three-year, $2.95 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
The grant will [...]
Two years ago I was one of the few voices saying that if we wanted high quality ethically sound journalism, we would have to pay for it. I said advertising would totally decouple from the news. Lucky for me, Ruth Ann Harnisch of the Harnisch Foundation heard my [...]
Just a reminder that registration is open for SoCon09, the Southeast’s biggest Social Media, Social Networking (un) conference hosted by Kennesaw State University, Feb. 6-7, 2009.
Registrations are on track to match or exceed last year’s SoCon08 and also SoCon07, which means we will close registrations at 160 for [...]
Maybe I should title this Public Journalism Advocate Makes Good, While Traditional Journalists Don’t.
Who would have thought that a public journalism scholar, now a citizen media scholar could sit on a panel that commands a $75 ticket? Check out: Journalists and Social Media: Sources, Skills, and the Writer: [...]
Alberto Ibargüen, president of the Knight Foundation, which underwrites many journalism related projects, addresses the state of the foundation in the video below. In part he says:
Knight Foundation has become a leader in media innovation; meeting the information needs of communities and helping journalism evolve into its best possible [...]
Seeing that I am situated in Kennesaw, Georgia, I am often asked why I decided to try my first Representative Journalism trial so far away in Northfield, Minnesota. When the question arises I say that I have worked for years with Griff Wigley, who probably understands online community building [...]
For a long time, I have been pushing the idea that science journalism would be the perfect place to try out Representative Journalism. For example, see the video below which I did about a year ago with Anton Zuiker from North Carolina, home of the Research Triangle [...]
There is a bit of a dust-up at Jeff Jarvis’s Buzzmachine about GateHouse suing Boston.com over its linking to GateHouse stories. Of course, this is a suit worth watching and discussing because if GateHouse wins, it would have major ramifications across the web.
Most of what is being written [...]
BusinessWeek.com highlights both Spot.us and Representative Journalism in an online feature aimed at describing alternative business models to underwrite quality journalism.
Here is what reporter Douglas MacMillan wrote about Rep J and its Locally Grown project in Northfield, Minnesota:
Rather than sponsoring a story, what if you [...]
Ever since I finished reading Clay Shirky’s book Here Comes Everybody, I have been dropping his name a lot. Now the CJR does a long Q&A with him, which is a must read, but if you can’t read it all, be sure to go to Part II and [...]
Last week it was Spain today Representative Journalism gets attention in the United Kingdom, via Journalism.co.uk, the go-to website for journalists in the UK. Here are couple of highlights from the Q&A done with me:
As mass journalism markets un-bundle and become niche markets, news operations - if [...]
Registration is now open for SoCon09, the third annual social media, social networking conference hosted at Kennesaw State University. The Big Eating, Big Thinking, Big Networking dinner is on Friday, February 6, 2009 at Magianno’s at Cumberland Mall and the full day conference is Saturday, February 7 at Kennesaw [...]
This from Aldon Hynes at his blog:
As the first snow of the year started coming down here in Connecticut, word slowly leaked out that the Journal Register Co. has shut sixteen of its weeklies in Connecticut and laid off twenty-one reporters and editors. These are different papers than [...]
Yesterday, I promised the official press release on the $250,000 that the Harnisch Foundation presented to Kennesaw State University for our work aimed at journalism innovation.
Here it is:
Kennesaw State awarded $250,000 grant to advance community-based journalism
New business model envisioned to combat erosion of traditional news media
KENNESAW, Ga. [...]
I am very pleased to announce that this morning the Harnisch Foundation provided a $250,000 gift to Kennesaw State University to help advance my Representative Journalism concept.
Bill and Ruth Ann Harnisch awarded the check in New York this morning. The university will be putting out a formal press [...]
This from a Knight Foundation news release:
MIAMI – Four online community news sites will expand their local reporting staffs and bring their communities more content, with a combined $390,000 investment from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
The grants aim to help the non-profit sites draw a larger [...]
Spot.us and Representative Journalism received international attention today in ADN.es, a Spanish publication read widely in Spain. Plus there is a sidebar here.
I will try to get it translated soon.
[...]This from a Knight Foundation news release:
University of Minnesota researcher Christine Greenhow and Seattle-based news aggregator News Cloud will test new ways to engage youth in news and information by launching two social media publications on the popular social networking site Facebook. The project is being made possible by [...]
An open letter to David Carr, media columnist for The New York Times:
David, you are a hell of a reporter and columnist, you are especially good at pointing out what’s wrong. From now on could you point out how to get things fixed? Focusing on Illinois Governor Rod R. [...]
Doug McGill’s journalism class at Carleton College produced a video about our Representative Journalism project at the Locally Grown blog in Northfield, Minnesota. Rep J reporter Bonnie Obremski and Locally Grown blogger Griff Wigley are highlighted.
McGill’s students have been posting an impressive series of local journalism [...]
Ah, it was a good day at Kennesaw State University. More than 70 of our Department of Communication students were among the approximately 1,600 students who graduated from the university today. Later in the day the AT&T Foundation presented the department with a $47,500 check to underwrite new equipment for [...]
In the video below Bonnie Obremski talks about her role as resident Representative Journalist at the Locally Grown blog in Northfield, Minnesota. Bill Densmore, who has been an advisor to the Rep J project, also answers some of the questions asked at the recent Information Valet [...]
