Media Re:public

Michael Melillo and Len Witt have launched a session at NewsTools2008 on creating a federation of community journalists or platforms. [warning live blogging, errors ahead]

Len is describing his “representative journalism” project, gets spontaneous applause when he explains how he got funded: Ruth Ann Harnisch saw his blog about the idea and sent him an email offering him funding.

Andrius Kaulikas wants us to consider the different spectrum of values of journalism; resistance from folks who want to talk about business models and services. His list of qualities of journalism
Public Domain…………..Copyright
Visible……………………….Hidden
Work for Free……………Work for Pay
Activistic……………………Voyeuristic
No Castes…………………..Caste (blurred or clear lines between journalists and non-journalists)
Subjective………………….Objective
Relationships…………… Isolation (journalism that builds relationships or creates isolation)
Universal…………………. Provincial (or local or personal)
Timeless………………….. Dated (themes)

Tom Abate suggests that we can build a federation that includes people who are all along these spectrums. Len Witt says we try to find some people to get together. Harnisch
He describes the folks in Northfield, MN who are doing a weblog and podcast, they want a professional journalist to help, so the representative journalism project provides that person and also provides that journalist with editorial support. Also a discussion of whether the reelchanges model can help fund projects like this in the future.

Michael asks us for the next step: a group that is willing to collaborate on discussions of business models, etc. He explains to a new participant that it would be a Kirk Federation (not a Picard one) [further proof of my complete cultural ignorance that I had to Google the names before I got the Star Trek reference. After months at Harvard, I assumed they were the names of more academic sociologists I hadn’t read!] that will bring together resources and mechanisms to support projects that meet media needs for communities whether geographic communities or communities of interest.

Tags: newstools2008, federation, community journalism, Star Trek

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