Audio recording of JTM web meetup conference call from 11/20/2008. This was the first meeting of the web meetup group. Sorry there are a few minutes of blank air at the beginning – when I get a chance I’ll edit that out.
Notes:
JTM Web site call 20 Nov 2008 Notes by Maurreen Skowran and Stephen Silha Web site committee (To set policy more than for technical work.) Volunteers – Steve Hanson Peggy Holman Lynn Michelle Ferrier Maurreen Skowran Goals Want to have set-up we’re happy with by Poynter conference in March. We also plan to invite people from previous JTM gathering to the site when it is further along. Goal for site should mesh between mission already on old JTM site and initial statement of stewards. What’s the Google group purpose? Mutual support and connection, mentoring and being mentored, being idea lab for experiments and projects Peggy read JTM mission: Journalism That Matters is a community of media innovators and stakeholders that blazes paths and builds bridges to a new news ecology. We convene, connect, and inspire diverse, engaged citizens that will mold and lead the media of tomorrow. Discussed the relationship for the site and JTM overall between local news efforts and everything else. Plan to keep JTM and the new site as broad umbrella, and a focus within that on the local news projects. Bill: Do we have a consensus that supporting local entrepreneurs and online news communities, but also to support JTM and JTM collaborators? Lynn: use tagline. Josh Wolf: maybe purpose should be to get new people to learn about JTM. Should be Innovative journalism community, including online. Relationship with others Prefer to avoid duplicating other sites and projects (such as Neiman, J-Lab, RJI, New News, Placeblogger). This is a recurring issue. So we plan to check them out and see what they’re doing or plan to do and what’s missing. Let’s do content analysis and talk with people organizing these others. Discussed a few ways to do this. (I’m not sure we made a decision about method. – M) Peggy: Ethic under JTM is to take responsibility for what we love. Don’t want to fill a niche for the sake of filling a niche. In other words, is what’s not being done something we want to do? Bill: Dream that JTM would become nexus for eventual association of local news efforts. One thing apparently missing from related efforts and sites is the openness and conversation, which we’ve had and want to continue. Conversation vs. information – JTM’s role. Wish list Lynn: 1 place to find the answers, find the connections. Community bloggers. Hub where you find every thing you need. Legal info. Plus have community aspect to encourage and inspire. Continuing education. Video streaming. Buttons on front page would link to David Ardia at Harvard for legal stuff… monographs by Jan Schaffer … Bill: we’ll never have a full-time editor. We’re a meeting place. Occasionally can create fresh material. Maurreen: Can we or will we be able to get updates by e-mail? Michelle: Might be helpful to have people identify themselves. Icons. Educators, etc. Brings that spirit onto the website. Peggy: We can also have “wild card” = dice. Stephen: Wants to be able to easily see people’s locations. We also talked about having a place for rejects from the Knight News Challenge on our website! Miscellaneous Peggy, Stephen or Bill should get access to edit. “Organic group” on the site planned for the Web committee. NYT story on local online news communities. Two papers may close down.