Activities at JTM, JTM News

Create or Die 2

Disrupting the Status Quo
with Journalism Innovation and Entrepreneurship

June 2-5, 2011
University of North Carolina Greensboro

Register for Create or Die 2 in Greensboro, United States on Eventbrite

We are creating a mashup of journalists, technologists, community activists, educators and others to help us reimagine a media landscape that speaks to diverse communities and underrepresented populations.

The three-day event is a design/build/pitch “unconference” format. Participants will create sessions based on the passions that they bring with them. Our goal is to put the right people in the room to create journalism innovations and entrepreneurial ideas from the event.

We are particularly focusing on bringing together the nation’s best thinkers and doers to help address “media deserts” – places with little or no access to local news and information. We are focusing on examples of community news and information sites outside of traditional media that may serve as examples of sustainable community journalism.

If you are interested in innovations in community news and information, bring your perspectives to add a unique dimension to the event conversations.

And spread the word — invite the people in your networks who are passionate about great journalism and community stories.

For more information, visit www.createordie2.org.

Activities at JTM, Home Page, JTM News

Beyond Books

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Democracy in America’s Libraries

A work session for journalists, librarians and the public

April 6-7, 2011 / MIT / Cambridge, Mass.
(immediately prior to the National Conference for Media Reform)

For more information and to register go to:
http://www.biblionews.org

For three centuries in American towns large and small, two institutions have uniquely marked a commitment to participatory democracy, learning and open inquiry — our libraries and our free press.

Today, economic and political realities – or fashions – invite a thoughtful examination of their roles, and the opportunity for collaboration among these two historic community information centers, one largely public, one largely private.

Journalism That Matters, (the American Library Association,) the MIT Center for Future Civic Media, the Media Giraffe Project at UMass Amherst and the New England News Forum invite you to join in a work session for civic information transparency that builds from and beyond books.

With via a pre-event social network, an evening agenda-setting dialogue, a day of roundtable planning and closing action commitments, we’ll discover what’s possible at the intersection of public spaces, open documents, citizen reporting and journalistic purpose.

Among the questions we may ask:
• What might libraries do to facilitate community social news networks?
• Must free speech be absolute within a taxpayer-supported institution?
• Should librarians be more partisan than reporters? Reporters more partisan than librarians?
• Are libraries poised to become public-access media centers as cable fades?
• Should a library operate a news collective, non-profit or citizen-journalism service?
• How can libraries help preserve a free digital information commons?

JTM News, Projects

What support do journalists need? *Survey now closed, stay tuned for results*

2 Comments
[UPDATE] The survey is now closed. Thanks for all who participated! Results coming soon.
As part of the Journalism That Matters Pacific Northwest community, we’d like to hear from you!

What do you think our region needs, or is doing well?

In partnership with Lisa Skube, Fellow at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, we’re reaching out to learn more about the tools you use to get your work done, questions on your mind, and areas you’d like to know more about.

As one outgrowth of last January’s Journalism That Matters conference in the Pacific Northwest, a small group of us are working with Lisa.  We’re in the early stages of creating a “Seattle Journalism Commons” to connect people and ideas in person and online in order to catalyze journalists and the public in creating, disseminating, and engaging with news and information of, by and for people in our region.  We hope it becomes an example for other communities.

The idea for the commons began with Mike Fancher, retired executive editor of the Seattle Times and author of the just released Seattle: A New Media Case Study which is part of the Pew State of the News Media 2011 report.

The survey will take less than 10 minutes to complete. Click here to participate
Individual responses to the questionnaire are confidential.
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We will share what we learn in a summary that will be posted for your review here on JTM’s site.
Thanks for your support!
JTM News

Ways to Connect and Participate

Welcome to Journalism That Matters

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Join over 1200 journalists, activists, citizen journalists, and civic leaders around the country already involved with JTM.

Connect, experience an unconference, publish your own blog, find support for a new media idea, join an initiative, follow our sessions, get inspired, develop resources, cross-pollinate ideas with community activists … there are all sorts of ways you can participate in on JTM activities.

Are you in print journalism? Online media? Television? Are you a blogger? Educator? Community activist? Photographer? Media Reformer? Check our members list to see who shares your interests and geographic area.

To be notified of upcoming unconferences, initiatives, and other events as well as to blog, please sign up!

JTM Online

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JTM Online is currently being developed to assist JTM members by providing social networking technologies including member profiles, a searchable / sort-able members directory, friend connections, and public and private messaging between members.

At the social heart of JTM Online are activity streams – one for each member and one collective activity stream for all members. Members can publish updates directly to their activity streams, reply directly to others’ updates, collect a list of favorite updates, recommend others’ updates, and so on. Activity stream updates are also published automatically to mark events such as a member joining JTM Online or two members becoming friends.

Multimedia including photos, videos, and documents can be directly embedded, i.e. viewable within JTM Online, simply by pasting a link into an update from popular sites like YouTube and Flickr. Each activity stream update has its own permanent URL, useful to people and to search engines alike, enabling direct references and a well seen architecture.

JTM Online enables members to:

  • Have a member profile
  • View all public JTM sessions and the rest of JTM Online
  • Mark activity updates as favorites and build a list of favorites as references
  • Be listed and “discoverable” by others in the JTM members directory
  • Create online sessions to discuss topics
  • Create sessions to organize and develop projects and initiatives
  • Share interests and membership in other organizations

Each online session has its own activity stream, which is both the primary means of communication within a session and a record of all that has occurred in a session. JTM Online members can publish updates to either their own profiles or directly to any session of which they are a member. Each update is given its own URL.

Sessions members can:

  • File share documents, images, audio and video files, and archives comprised of other files.
  • Categorize documents
  • Receive notifications of session activity via email, including weekly digests and receiving an email for every update
  • Create a session events calendar for meetings and other events
  • Track one or more outside RSS feeds, creating activity stream updates automatically for each new item in the RSS feeds. Sessions may thus act as virtual water coolers, created to discuss the items in one or more RSS feeds, or as official, JTM-based representations of outside organizations.
Home Page, JTM News

Students nationwide take “TAO of Journalism” Pledge

Journalism students at Whitney High School (CA) take the TAO of Journalism Pledge.

“We want to show our readers and the larger journalism community that we stand by the ideals of being Transparent, Accountable and Open in our reporting and all of our practices as student journalists.” — The Roar, Whitney High School, CA

“Journalistic ethics are becoming even more critical to the practice of journalism as the field evolves….[We] like the simplicity of the pledge and the fact that it can apply equally and easily to citizen journalists, students, bloggers, professional journalists in all media.” — The Kerronicle, Kerr High School, Houston, TX

“Why are we doing it? Well, because we should.” — The Purple Tide, Chantilly High School, VA

Almost 1,000 student journalists from coast to coast have now taken the “TAO of Journalism” Pledge, promising to be Transparent, Accountable and Open in their practice of journalism. More than 850 of them nationwide took the Pledge during the Journalism Education Association’s Scholastic Journalism Week (Feb. 19-26). The quotes above are among comments emailed to the Washington News Council, which originated the TAO of Journalism concept and trademarked the TAO Seal.

The TAO Pledge and Seal allow journalists to make a public statement of ethical principles to help instill trust among their readers, viewers and listeners. The JEA endorsed the concept at the organization’s annual national convention in Kansas City last November. Kathy Schrier, executive director of the Washington Journalism Education Association and executive assistant at the WNC, attended the convention and led the endorsement effort. The TAO Pledge also may discourage school administrators from imposing prior review on student publications, JEA leaders believe.

The TAO Pledge — which is open to mainstream journalists, independent bloggers, freelancers, newsletter writers, or anyone else committing “acts of journalism,” asks journalists to publicly promise that they will be “Transparent” about who they are, “Accountable” and willing to correct any errors, and “Open” to other points of view. The idea, originally introduced at a Journalism That Matters gathering, is steadily gaining traction with media organizations and individual journalists worldwide as a way to help maintain public trust. (See Directory page on TAO website for a list of pledgers so far.)

After all, journalists want everyone they cover to be transparent, accountable and open. So why not them? It’s a two-way street. Those qualities always increase credibility and public trust in any institution or organization that adopts them. The same will be true for journalists and media organizations.

Any media group or individual journalist who takes the TAO Pledge gets listed on the TAO of Journalism website with a link to their publication and/or website. They can then post the TAO Seal in their masthead or on their website.

For some examples of how some sites are using the TAO Seal, see:

1. Spot.us

2. Common Language Project

3. De Standaard, Belgium

4. B-Town Blog

5. Fremocentrist

Student journalism organizations may take the TAO Pledge and display the Seal for free. Independent individual journalists are asked to donate $25 per year and media organizations (three or more staff) are asked to donate $50 per year to help support the TAO project’s website, maintenance and outreach. The Washington News Council is a 501c3 nonprofit organization, so donations are tax-deductible.

JEA is encouraging schools and student media to sign the Pledge and to invite their school administrators to sign on, as well. Students receive a color poster of the TAO Pledge that can be displayed as a reminder of their commitment. In addition, student publications that took the TAO Pledge during Scholastic Journalism Week receive temporary stick-on “TAOttoos” of the TAO seal for all members of their staff. The Washington News Council ordered 3,000 of these to be mailed to TAO pledgers nationwide.

The TAO Pledge and Seal are open to anyone who is interested. Just TAO it!

This article was originally published by John Hamer on the Washington News Council‘s site.