Broowaha, Where I’m The New Editor

Through the Networked Journalism Conference with Jeff Jarvis I was introduced to a young programmer in Los Angeles who had built a citizen journalism network from the ground up.

The site, Broowaha is clean, sleek and has passionate contributors. But Ariel, who was featured in this Los Angeles Times story (original link not working), has no real background in journalism.

On the other hand, I have no experience in programming. I’ve often talked about my desire to learn how to program – but I still lack it in total. 

The two of us seem to have a Ying/Yang relationship. He has a strong idea about what he wants to get from the site in terms of journalism, and I have ideas of citizen and networked journalism that I would love to try if only I had the programming talent.

My first interaction with Broowaha was as a simple judge in a writing contest, but in fact Ariel was looking for an editor and I think he was testing the waters with me.

As of yesterday – I am that editor. And I couldn’t be more excited.

For now it’s a pro-bono gig. Don’t start thinking I’m an Editor n’ Chief now with a budget and I’m sitting jolly on easy street. I didn’t take the job for money anyways.

Why take on another project?

Broowaha is a space to experiment. If you remember or heard about Assignment Zero, one of the biggest complaints was the subject matter "crowdsourcing" was just too vague and no fun to report on.

I do believe the future of citizen journalism is in networked reporting – groups of people working together on larger investigations. I don’t think the key to unlock that potential has been found. Will Broowaha find it? I don’t know – but Ariel and I are of similar minds and between the two of us we have the skill set to take a good whack at it. One of the reasons I was eager to take the job was Ariel’s insistence that I could use Broowaha to try experiments. I say "Woot!" – I hate blogging about ideas – I’m all about experiments.

Broowaha is already a vibrant community with writers across the world (literally from Los Angeles to Paris). We’ve already started making tweaks to the site together and soon we hope to launch a quit and simple "Assignment Two."

Right now Broowaha writers are centered in LA, SF, NY, Miami and other cities around the country. I hope that we can tap into stories – even simple stories like "the dying 1950’s diners" and report on them in cities across the country.

So – if you believe in citizen journalism, want to start writing/reporting about issues or events in your neighborhood check out Broowaha. It’s a growing network with nothing but potential.

I’ll probably write more about the progress of Broowaha as Ariel and I launch different experiments. For now – join Broowaha, or at the very least, give the site a good strong look. I can admit the content isn’t 100 percent perfect, but Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither was NowPublic.