Note: I am not disappearing from NewAssignment.net, Beat Blogging, NewsTrust or Broowaha, but I am taking a serious step back to work on a new project: Spot Us, which will be a nonprofit that enables community funded reporting. I will use the lessons I have learned from the above sites and my personal blog to build something that I hope is unique and empowering for journalism.
THE NEWS: I have won a Knight News Challenge grant to build a site that will support community funded reporting. For those who just want the news via the Knight Foundation go here. If you want to see for yourself what I hope to build, go check it out: Spot Us!
If you want to know my more organized thoughts, keep reading. Also note: my next post (which will be at my personal blog and Spot Us
will be a video explaining the idea of Spot.us in more detail and how I
see the organization growing…with your input. So stay tuned.
Below you’ll find.
- A small brain-dump on the state of journalism as I see it and how I got here.
- Where the idea for Spot Us came from.
- What Spot Us is in a nutshell.
- How you can get involved…. more coming soon.
The journalism blogosphere has matured over the years. We are no
longer in a state of pure panic. Surely the news industry has issues it
needs to figure out, but I like to think we are self-aware and moving
forward. There is a strong community of people who are ready to push
forward at all costs. I believe that is the very community the Knight
Foundation wants to find and support with the Knight News Challenge
grants.
Yet, so much of our conversation is directed towards those who lay outside our echo chamber.
I propose a new course of action, if only to myself. ‘To geek out on journalism.’
What do I mean to ‘geek out’?
The Urban Dictionary:
“To engage in a conversation of a highly technical nature, typically
with some other members of the party you are with, completely (and
usually inadvertently) alienating others in the process.”
Geeking out doesn’t mean you are talking about computers. To geek
out, as I understand it, is to be passionate something, in this case a
craft and dedicated to developing your skills and knowledge.
You can geek out about Star Wars, computers…. why not journalism?
Where’s the social space to geek out about news in your community?
Another (and better) way to put it: “be the change you want to see in
the world.”
The road lay ahead of me.
I’ve been incredibly lucky in my young career having worked on many interesting journalism projects. NewAssignment.net
has been, without a doubt, the largest platform from which I could jump
beyond myself into the void of what journalism could become in the
future. I don’t know what journalism looks like in the future – but I
am certain it is participatory in some form or other.
As Jay Rosen said (not a direct quote) from the beginning of
NewAssignment.net: We aren’t sure what the answers are, but we know we
can learn by trying. Even if in failing we can post up a skull and
crossbones sign saying “don’t go this way” – we have contributed to the
future of journalism.
It was through NewAssignment.net that I met Jeff Jarvis who let me co-organize the Networked Journalism Summit.
If NewAssignment.net was a ladder I climbed, organizing that event was
the fun jump into a cannonball splash. At the end of it, I felt I had a
better understanding of the journalism community, industry and social
media in general.
If I am a ‘journalism’ geek’ I’m also a bit of a tech-geek as well.
I’m no hacker – but I love technology. I am a journalist born on the web. My first
real writing gig was for Wired.com. While working at Seed Magazine I
dove in further – using Web 2.0 tools to aid and abed my reporting. It
started with Digg (which turned into working for Propeller and NewsTrust.net)
and other social news sites. After finishing at Columbia’s J-school I
was more interested in donating time to a citizen journalism network, Broowaha,
than working for a newspaper. The pay would have been better at a
newspaper – but I feared that at an organization I wouldn’t be able to
push forward.
That’s where I’ve been. So what’s next? Spot Us will be a nonprofit to test a new business model – community funded journalism.
After Assignment Zero, Jeff Howe
hired me as his research assistant for the upcoming book
“Crowdsourcing.” One area that I researched in-depth and became
fascinated with was the chapter on ‘crowdfunding.’
I learned the narratives of Kiva.org, Prosper, Chip-in,
DonorsChoose, Fundable, SellaBand and more. It was in the thick of this
research that I began to wonder how this revolutionary business model
could be applied to journalism.
The technology couldn’t be THAT hard, I thought to myself. I
wouldn’t be creating a NEW type of technology – I would just be
utilizing the power of the web, to aggregate like-minded people (and
their pocketbooks), and apply it towards journalism – or more
precisely, towards the processes of journalism.
What I’m going to build will be a marketplace for journalism.
News organizations (old or new media) can use the space to support
their most enterprise projects. Community and civic organizations can
come together, take a stand and let the media know what is being
under-reported. Independent journalists can get paid to do what they do
best – report on local stories, all while building up their portfolio.
It’s often said that blogs lowered the barrier to opine on anything.
What we need to do is lower the barrier that lets people direct
reporters towards issues that need more than opining – but real
in-depth reporting. Currently the barrier to entry is very high – you
have to be an editor with a budget. Very few people have that luxury.
Other options to fund journalism are starting to bubble-up including nonprofit models such as ProPublica,
which I support. But, if the Sandler family can donate $25 million to
create a news organization, then the Smith family should be able to
donate $25 towards an independent journalist. And if enough Smith
families all put down $25 – that should say something to us!
What I want to empower are the principles of journalism that make it a
public service. It is what we often call “enterprise reporting.”
Journalism that makes a difference by informing, connecting and
exposing. The type of journalism that keeps our communities strong and
democratic.
I’m currently working on the details, which as you can imagine are
many and varied. I built this as a nonprofit for several
reasons – one was just to ensure the wider journalism community that I
am not in this for money – I earnestly want to build something that
will empower journalism.
How you can help at this stage.
- Sign up for an email update when we launch our public beta. Or subscribe to the blog. Do both at Spot Us.
- Contact me. I
might not be able to respond to every email but I will read them and I do want feedback.
For now. I intend to geek out on: the principles, business and process of journalism in an open and distributed world.
ONWARD!!!!
Congratulations Dave, you most certainly deserve it. I’m really looking forward to seeing what you accomplish with Spot Us.
Congrats Dave! I look forward to seeing this project develop.
Congratulations, Dave. I’m very happy to see this.
Congrats on the grant! This is a very interesting concept.
That’s great, David! Congratulations!
Congratulations, David! Sounds like an amazing vision and project.
Holy shit, man! Congrats!
Congratulations, David! I am impressed and absolutely sure you will do a great job!
Sounds increbible. Gratz!
hey D…you rock 🙂
Congratulate for your good work. Very nice post.