Strength In Numbers: Multi-media collaboration from Blog to TV to Mobile

Submitted by ericgalatas on Sat, 06/05/2010 – 12:20pm

Session Convenor: Eric Galatas

Example of multi-media collaborative event.  Free Speech TV collaborative coverage at US Social Forum:  Free Speech TV wants to collaborate with journalists covering the US Social Forum.  Our goal is to amplify important untold stories through our television and internet channels.  Journalists would be teamed up with camera operators for live reports throughout the conference.  Live reports would be streamed live online, and available on-demand, through Livestream platform.  All video content would be available to all participants, to post to social media sites, blogs, either through embed codes (for the live players) or on-demand files.  Some of the programming would also be televised on satellite and cable channels.  Trainings at USSF for using smart-phones as live television cameras.  Students from Wayne State documentary production class might pre-produce stories that would be rolled-into the live feed.

What makes collaborations work?  Shared interest, individual and collective gain.

What do we get from collaborations?

One on one interactions

Contributing to coverage around an event, becomes a unifying factor.  Individual interests can be served if you can share tools.  Limited in scope, particular time frame around specific goal that make sense to pool resources, shared contributions and shared benefits, regardless of individual interests.  How can those principals apply to projects with broader less defined parameters.  Time Magazineproject should die.  Maybe there should be Detroit Story, blog for peoples stories that can find their way to various news platforms, brings authentic voices.  What’s the organizing principal, and how can it be sustained.

Third entity, community centric, how to court people usually relegated to the comments section.

What are obstacles to collaboration

Discussion about Time magazine Assignment Detroit model.  Questions about what was disturbing in presentation.

Arrogant to think community would gather around non-representative voices, old gatekeeper model

Outside perspective can be valuable.

Is there an opportunity, to seize the name and the infrastructure (the house), to help AOL/Time Warner, turn it into a service to community PR win for them?

How to bring Detroit media community together.  If goal is to get community to participate, how do you communicate to community the value and to participate.  What vehicles?

Perhaps some of the processes used at Journalism that Matters conference (Open model)

Idea: Bring in High schools, universities, journalism, English and social studies as a citywide project, training to become future journalists.

Knight Foundation possible.  Creative Corridor, Mark Denson.

Goal: two parts, one has to do with redefining image of Detroit.  Self-defining one’s own image.  Second, genuiniely, people are looking for solutions and opportunies to solve problems that are really humongous problems, and are looking for forums for solutions not coming from above.

Incorporate Detroit Hero, citizen journalist reports and access.

How can community have real buy-in?  Should offer vision of what is possible, where we’re going.

Assignment Detroit: we have an assignment here, and it’s to add more pixels to the picture.

Next steps solicit a team of professional media leaders and independent journalists to recruit them into the concept.  Present overview of vision, or let these groups articulate the idea themselves.  Room for WXYZ to do stories, big umbrella. Pitch project tomorrow, plan on creating pitch.

Is there a timeline, or does into continue?  Birthday Detroit works because it’s limited.  Success for this project would mean that citizens of Detroit claim it on their own.

The old forms of gatekeeping was inspiration for outrage and this new idea.  Space for creative storytelling.  Challenge is to make it a forum where people’s voices can be heard.