Convener: Jim Shaffer
Note taker: Jim Shaffer
Initial attendees: Ralph Gage, Bill Krasean, Nora Paul, Chris Peck, Steve Silha, Dueane Stoltzfus,
What future action?
Ralph: Here’s a wild ass idea: I know ________, Chris’s brother, who’s a hardworking journalist at a small daily. Hasn’t had a day off in years, why not create a SWAT team of journalism professors and students that could take over his paper for a week and give him a vacation? The idea would be a match people with portable skills that need experience with temporary experiences.
Duane: Another idea would be to develop an economic template – a cookbook – for journalists that don’t know the business side to fill out the blanks and test the economics of the new venture ideas.
Bill: I’d like to see a website that connects us all. Who’s doing this now?
(Dan earlier volunteered to add this to his school’s site with links. Need Dan.)
Nora: We need to free ourselves up with a planning grant …
Steve: Kellogg said they were interested.
Nora: Would like to do more research on different models of news “ownership.”
Chris: We need to re-think who needs to be connected to develop last night’s idea.
Several: Let’s ask Fetzer to help us flesh out last night’s idea and write a grant proposal to Kellogg.
90-day window?
Nora: We need a real live organization to work with.
Chris: So we need to
- Identify and convene the key people to flesh out the vision
- Polish the vision
- Go for some foundation money to plan
- Go for a existing news org partner that needs help with the future
(Peggy Holman joins)
Nora: Thinking about Forum Communications, they might say, “Take our newsroom …”
Several: Averse to big media organizations. Too slow … Need agile partners.
Peggy: Too soon to choose target partners?
Jim S: Could at least choose criteria as part of the grant proposal. Fetzer can help us find …
Duane: Remember PM in NYC? It attracted energy and talent from many journalists. Such experimentation DOES tie with healthy journalists.
Ralph, Chris: (Once the planning grant $$ is in) start with a specific proposal to a target organization. Ralph: Caveat! First one or two shouldn’t be in a competitive market. Need fault tolerant environments.
Peggy: Create a model that would help …others … rescue markets.
Nora: Like college towns. Receptive to journalism.
Peggy: Editor of Biloxi looking …
Jim S: Switching subjects, how to keep the connectedness?
Peggy: Perhaps a monthly conference call, open to all interested …
JS: Combine with dynamic website for all to watch during the call?
(Dan Gilmor joins, Jim reviews)
Dan: Can offer a group blog w/ discussion capability, maybe internal e-mail
Nora agreed to work with Dan to set up a community site, categories include:
Healthy Journalists
New economic models
Duane: Be sure to allow for personal connection
Ralph: Make it searchable so we can go back and extract… interest… around various topics
(Lew Friedland joins)
Dan: Keep this private? Or allow public.
(discussion)
Peggy: Whoever comes is the right person …
Chris: But need to clarify the purpose of the site …
Nora: 3 threads?
Continuing the work of this retreat
Planning for a project
World wide white board
(Linda Grdina joins)
Peggy: Q is how “contained?” The energy sits in the room, but more a field than a bowl.
JS: Time’s almost up. Let’s review Monday morning tasks.
- Ask Fetzer for one more round with eye toward creating
Foundation $$
Operating partner
Platform for continuing this energy
And PROJECTS
- Nora and Dan to work on web-based communications platform. (Peggy to be available to advise.)