Convened by Michelle Ferrier
\nReporter: Stephen Silha<\/p>\n
Participants: Mike Green, Jeff Brown, Anne Stadler, Stephen Silha, Lisa Loving, Michelle Bach-Coulibaly, Kaylee Tomay, Ed Madison, Emmalee McDonald<\/p>\n
How do we change the focus of journalism from advertising \/content to community \u2013 whether it\u2019s geographical or interest or university
\nStakeholder mapping \u2013 ? Journalists, community activists, bloggers<\/p>\n
Lisa ~ What about kids as part of the ecosystem? Journalism is the entire ecology from the sky to the ground<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s JTM\u2019s mission now: Journalism That Matters (JTM) is a nonprofit that convenes conversations to foster collaboration, innovation and action so that a diverse news and information ecosystem supports communities to thrive. We believe journalism matters most when it is of, by and for the people. <\/p>\n
Anne: JTM does its best work when it is experimenting and fostering experiments to serve both journalists and communities.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a new idea about English teachers using journalism to teach English and media literacy.<\/p>\n
Michelle: We\u2019re here to cultivate a journalistic sensibility in education, community, etc.
\nHow do we articulate the value proposition?<\/p>\n
Should we be more purposeful about training the trainers\u2026 and shifting to the unusual suspects?<\/p>\n
Lisa: I will be doing \u201cHow to be a citizen journalist\u201d class for older people.<\/p>\n
Jackie: Kids \u2013 you gave me an a-ha moment. I\u2019ve been immersed in the community working at an ethnic grocery store in Phoenix; and at my work at the library, it was a totally different group of people (mostly older, white). When we said, \u201cbring your kid\u201d to the library to do a reading event, we got 50 percent families of color.<\/p>\n
Anne: In your mission statement, is convening conversations self-limiting? What about fostering the emergence of the form journalism takes in the evolving society.
\nConversation is only one methodology.<\/p>\n
Time has come when you have critical mass and outreach. <\/p>\n
Anne: I didn\u2019t understand last night\u2019s world caf\u00e9 until I went to bed. Then I got it.<\/p>\n
Michelle: The developmental evaluation in this gathering will help us illuminate experiments in a deeper way. Why is this project (that emerged from JTM) working?<\/p>\n
Lisa: Only one person from Willamette Week here, but nobody from Oregonian and OPB. Why? [Later, she spotted someone from OPB]<\/p>\n
Michelle: We\u2019re focusing on a new role for journalists. Ethnographic practices, etc. We are trying to figure out the role. They (MSM) don\u2019t now see this as their role right now.<\/p>\n
Lisa: And they don\u2019t see how they can make money by doing that.<\/p>\n
Anne: We have a new media ecosystem: more diverse, less mass media, more open. What is a daily newspaper\u2019s role in a metro area? <\/p>\n
Stephen & Jeff: At the Benson, no newspapers are visible. But they will provide the paper on your device, they say. I\u2019m not inclined to go there on my device because I have my own sources.<\/p>\n
Anne: If tragedy happens, you have to go to CNN.<\/p>\n
Jeff: How do we leverage local knowledge? What\u2019s the minimum viable product? I think it\u2019s empowering other organizations.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m a business guy. I see you have people talking business models, commerce, economization. But no infrastructure of people who can discuss that from the non-journalism side. Not from the perspective of \u201cI\u2019m crafting the word\/message\u201d<\/p>\n
Mike Green: I think disruption comes from without. They big guys aren\u2019t here because we\u2019re the disruptors.<\/p>\n
Minimum viable product: we work together to thrive. If jtm could be an honest broker.<\/p>\n
Jeff: Also value in not playing nice, but breaking shit.<\/p>\n
Michelle: If we were to reinvent journalism today, how would we do it?<\/p>\n
Jeff: What about a national startup weekend for journalism?<\/p>\n
Michelle: That was the intent of the Create or Die series. We had a hip-hop journalist at Create or Die Greenboro. Is he an activist? Yes. Is he a journalist? Questionable.<\/p>\n
Public broadcasting Listening Post where people tell their own story \u2013 Story Corps.<\/p>\n
Jeff: Data journalism is huge, but I haven\u2019t seen one coder here. I don\u2019t think you can commit journalism in the modern age without techies.<\/p>\n
Mike: Next year in August, National Associations of Black and Hispanic journalists will meet. Tech companies in DC are interested in media space. What about a startup weekend there?<\/p>\n
Michelle: New U has been an effort to bring those folks into the digital age. What can we do differently?<\/p>\n
Also bring in open government \/ transparency people\u2026<\/p>\n
Jeff: Could you imagine journalists and technologists coming together to hack government in DC?<\/p>\n
You have empire builders and silo-creators who are jealous of their audiences in the tech sector.<\/p>\n
Anne: You have people at the edges of the self-satisfied group, who, if they came to a JTM-style gathering would get piqued.<\/p>\n
How about telling your own stories at a gathering?<\/p>\n
Innovation, Startups, Disruption are recurring themes. <\/p>\n
Jeff: From Think-Tank perspective.<\/p>\n
Lisa: The work you do doesn\u2019t fit in a bag or box. If you take stock of what\u2019s happening, then set the agenda. <\/p>\n
Michelle B-C: I\u2019m looking at my own community. (Brown University) How do we make a difference? Everybody is siloed, it\u2019s an old boys\u2019 club, glass ceilings are big, they say they look to us artists for innovation, but we\u2019re in an era of metrics. \u201cWe have to measure your effectiveness, your ability to communicate.\u201d I came to understand systems.<\/p>\n
How does academia look at these ideas of innovation, community engagement. We want to change the system. Education is failing. I\u2019m in the business of building community partnerships, taking students outside the bubble. How do we measure?<\/p>\n
Some people say, so what? What happens after you shake up a system? Who are you partnering with and who cares?<\/p>\n
How do you measure success? I have more questions than I can even ask.
\nHow do they become learning organisms?<\/p>\n
Anne: (to Michelle) Your work is about embodiment. It\u2019s about how do we embody journalism that matters? We need this to plum the depths of our systemic system.
\nStephen:<\/p>\n
Stephen: Some alternative futures for JTM:<\/p>\n
Are we doing the work that\u2019s meaningful within the community?<\/p>\n
Anne: What\u2019s urgent in the field that might give us something to focus on?<\/p>\n
Jeff: What\u2019s the \u201cbig pain\u201d \u2013 the pain point?<\/p>\n
Michelle: I started a Facebook post to honor women journalists of color \u2013 now a list of 100+ journalists who have been midwives to this story, holding a place for them \u2026<\/p>\n
That small acknowledgement helped affirm many people\u2019s desire to move forward. How can we support one another?<\/p>\n
Stephen: Sounds like Media Giraffe Project.<\/p>\n
Lisa: We don\u2019t have enough journalists on the ground. When the Oregonian laid off a photographer, I thought, this is a pain point. The heart & soul of our community is gone. They laid off people, then hired all these new people without institutional memory.<\/p>\n
Michelle: How do we build a SETI system?
\nHow can we improve journalism by giving the power away?<\/p>\n
Mike: The pain point: Journalists often think of themselves as employees of someone else\u2019s business. I think journalists have important networks, institutitonal knowledge, skills, that other people don\u2019t have. They don\u2019t have entrepreneurial skills.<\/p>\n
If they did, they could produce their own product. <\/p>\n
Changing the mindset of journalists may be the best thing that could happen. There is opportunity, but we\u2019re not thinking about it that way. JTM could be the training platform.<\/p>\n
Lisa: Putting the knowledge on the shelf. Training. Holding space for people who have done this work, not recognized.<\/p>\n
Jeff: Society no longer values the work of journalists, yet the need for traditional journalistic values is greater than ever.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think you can pidgeonhole yourselves. You can be stewards of institutional knowledge, the think-tank for institutional journalism.<\/p>\n
Can you respond to major media crises? Wrap it in mission. You could have revenue legs.<\/p>\n
If there were another mass shooting situation, in many areas you don\u2019t have journalists with local knowledge. The coverage is from the national level down. It needs to be local. How do you find and put those people out there so they are able to provide that context. Who pays? Local government? <\/p>\n
Being at the front line\u2026<\/p>\n
Lisa: I can\u2019t imagine a local government doing that. To push media literacy to local government seems impossible.<\/p>\n
Mike: We need to pick up the phone and find out.<\/p>\n
Anne: Suppose you\u2019re in open space. Each who steps up can take responsibility. The system is diverse and chaotic. You work from : taking responsibility for what you care about.<\/p>\n
Mike: What if several entities in Roseburg were interested in facilitating conversations in open space? No one is bringing the community together in a safe space.<\/p>\n
Jeff: SWAT team seems like a program. How are you going to survive another year?<\/p>\n
Michelle: A-ha: Part of my dissertation work is how we make communities visible. I developed a way to do that by using a quilt metaphor. <\/p>\n
Thinking about this when Katrina hit I was so frustrated by the media\u2019s portrayal of what was happening. From a distance, I used this to have people create a piece of fabric to identify who you are \u2026 people could put in their photo and <\/p>\n
What emerged was the counter-narrative. <\/p>\n
Jeff: Are you interested in serve people or organizations. B to B B to C?<\/p>\n
Michelle: B to E? business to emerging \u2013 our \u201ccustomers\u201d have not emerged yet in the system. <\/p>\n
Anne: You could crowdsource. The quilt metaphor is huge. Facing homelessness, using tight shots of homeless people where they can write something about what they need. There\u2019s a power in this medium to bring in some revenue stream. You have to have a setting where people come in to expect that.<\/p>\n
Lisa: I keep chewing on the Roseburg idea. You can\u2019t parachute in. Can you reach out to small dailies, weeklies, offered to amplify what they are doing.<\/p>\n
Mike: They don\u2019t have money.<\/p>\n
Jeff: By the time you get there, the conversation would have changed.<\/p>\n
Lisa: MSM are desperate. Can you try to build community with them?<\/p>\n
Anne: you have a collection of innovators now, people working the edges. There\u2019s something about JTM that caused them to come here. Not just friendships. I think JTM needs to wake up to what has attracted this group, and <\/p>\n
Jeff: If you want to be the leader in innovation, that\u2019s cool. And you could monetize that. But it doesn\u2019t fit your brand now. JTM IS the thought-leader for innovation in journalism.<\/p>\n
Universities are placing innovators and entrepreneurs in residence. You could be the glue that binds those programs together. That may be your best income stream.<\/p>\n
Michelle: Teaching educators about that system. At Ohio we are bringing in entrepreneurs to teach, and to get new ideas for the enterprises.<\/p>\n
Hack journalism, academic \u2013 and entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n
Journalism schools are potential customers \/ partners.<\/p>\n
JTM provides connector that enhances the impact.<\/p>\n
Anne: Treat this as a microcosm \u2013 this is the Agora \u2013 public square where people come in an have conversations. <\/p>\n
Lisa: When you need something call us. <\/p>\n
Jeff: There\u2019s no lack of help. There\u2019s a lack of revenue. I would look at a membership model. I\u2019d pay a fee to have access. Would pay a fee for conference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Convened by Michelle Ferrier Reporter: Stephen Silha Participants: Mike Green, Jeff Brown, Anne Stadler, Stephen Silha, Lisa Loving, Michelle Bach-Coulibaly, Kaylee Tomay, Ed Madison, Emmalee McDonald How do we change the focus of journalism from advertising \/content to community \u2013 … Continue reading