The Networked Journalism Summit brings together the best practices and practitioners in collaborative, pro-am journalism. It's about action: next steps, new projects, new partnerships, new experiments.
It’s 3.22, and the 15 black folding chairs meant to accommodate attendees of the data session meant to start 7 minutes ago are all empty.
3.23 - Attendee #1 walks in, asks a student what this data workshop is supposed to be about. Student answers: “I really don’t know, I’m guessing how to make technology work for your product?”
Attendee #1 smiles politely and says, “Maybe I’ll check in later.”
He won’t be coming back.
A question from the politics discussion:
We talk about citizen journalism. But how does a citizen benfit? “I get nervous when we talk of crowd sourcing,” said a participant. “That what we’re talking about is crowd harvesting. We have less money, we’re getting our budgets cut. Here’s free labor. It’s a cynic’s view, but I worry about it.”
Politics: Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake; Micah Sifry of Tech President;
Mike Krempasky of Redstate. Moderator: Micah Sifry
Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake:
“What happened with the Libby trial is we had had so many readers interested in the case, stacks of court files, people saying conflicting things. We developed a group of people obsessed with the case who would go through all the stuff. When it came time for the trial we had a group of core people with such a knowledge base, that we became the people to go to, to analyze testimony for consistency, for factualness. Many of the journalists admitted that they followed the case through our live blogging. It wasn’t something we set out to do. If you listen to community stories will bubble up.
Merrill Brown, Chairman of Now Public interviewed by Rachel Sterne of Ground Report
Organized, assigned citizen journalism
We start with mic troubles…
It’s better now and we’re off.
Brown is addressing, “this whole business model question.” Says that Now Public just completed a $10.6 venture capital fundraising effort, not because they’re well connected or have rich parents or are particularly good at fundraising, but because the category of citizen journalism is expanding all the time and there’s lots of interest.
Participants: Michael Rosenblum of Rosenblum Associates; Jim Colgan of the Brian Lehrer Show (WNYC); Mike Sechrist; Brian Conley of Alive in Baghdad; Robin Sloan Current TV.
Moderated by: Steve Safran of Lost Remote
1:26 Safran welcomes the crowd. He has covered convergence media since 2000 for Lost Remote.
1:28 Safran says we have to talk about the money here. “Is there hope for it?”
Jarvis facilitated the discussion on this one. The panelists, listed below, explained that we need new business models, smart ways to pay people, good web design.
Featuring-
Mark Potts of Recovering Journalist and Backfence. Potts said Backfence was the “Paris Hilton of all of this.”
Debra Gallant of Baristanet.com, with 100,000 users.
Crowd sourcing. Going out, talking to those you cover and running with what they suggest.
Fort Meyers News-Press example of enlisting community….Fought a long costly battle in court with FEMA. Got the records on how the $$ was spent, flowed info into database and turned it to the public by posting immediately. The paper had it and the public had it. The public goes though, chooses which stories to investigate. 60,000 searches in database in 48 hrs.
A big sales force (Washington Post) selling ads for blogs and moving beyond it’s old school system? Jeff Burkett of WashingtonPost.com says promoting bloggers on their own property is a unique offering. WaPo not focused on local but national. It’s a cycle, he said. You’re promoting them and driving your traffic up.
The ad part has gone well he said but they have not gotten to the point of doing a great job. “Theoretically” it can bring traffic to both.
Know your audience says Reuters. Compiling demographic info for the bloggers and for the advertisers is something they have taken on.
The local pioneer panelists are all involved in print in some way. Jarvis calls it a “great irony.” Jarah Euston of Fresno Famous sold the site to the Fresno Bee and now the paper includes a page devoted to site content. Is the collaboration between online and print a testament to the inability of the internet to be totally self-sustaining or just the MSM’s desire to stay connected?
Debbi Gallant of Baristanet said she was considering going to paper in order to get more advertising. But she also said she was finding that “the digital game” was becoming the biggest game.
Sending traffic back and forth is suggested. Partnerships between newspapers and sites? Baristanet and the Star Ledger? Gallant said she’d rather be on the front page of NJ.com.
One attendee said being the hub is the most important thing.
jarvis introduces-
190 participants! there’s a lot of interest in this topic.
“journalism can and must expand. only one way is to collaborate, pro-am…do things together more than apart.” -jeff jarvis
This is the place of the best practitioners. The fondest hope is to talk about what’s next. it’s all about experimentation.
first conference, bloggercon with dave winer. “there is no panel, the room is the panel.” -dave winer
skip past the powerpoint, go right into the conversation.
invite the elephant in the room- revenue.
-georgia kral
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