Session Host: Elwin Green
Reporter: Carmen Lee
Participants: Carmen Lee, Lauren Harbury, Paradise Gray
Elwin described his website, Homewood Nation (www.homewoodnation.com), a website devoted to Homewood, the neighborhood in Pittsburgh’s East End where he lives. The website is the outgrowth of “My Homewood,” a blog he wrote on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s website from October 2005 through March 2010.
He described the Homewood 100 initiative as a journalistic experiment inspiried by NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen, who suggested that innovation in journalism could be sparked by attempting to cover 100 percent of any given subject. The Homewood 100 initiative attempts to answer the question, what would 100 percent coverage of a neighborhood look like?
After highlighting some of the website’s features, Elwin asked participants for thoughts on how to improve it or build it out.
Suggestions included:
Posting a video of himself telling why he started it.
Placing links to “Homewood Nation” on other websites
Posting videos of “Homewood Nation” members telling why they are part of “Homewood Nation”
Sending the link for “Homewood Nation” to Rachel Maddow, who profiled the neighborhood on MSNBC recently.
Improving the graphic design
Include video uploads from One Hood on the site
Partner with One Hood to have the students they work with work on the site
Sell “Homewood Nation” branded merchandise: t-shirts, buttons, mugs, etc.