“Memphis has always been a place where cultures come together to have a wreck; black and white, rural and urban, poor and rich. The music in Memphis is more than a soundtrack to these confrontations. It is the document of it.”
– It Came from Memphis, a book by Robert Gordon, Peter Guralnick about the Memphis music scene
From Mainstream to New Media: Finding Common Ground to Grow Participatory Democracy
“This is the “home” wiki page for the Jan. 11-12, 2007, Journalism That Matters gathering in Memphis, Tenn. — a structured dialog, strategies exploration and project-launching collaboration among mainstream-media veterans, innovators and reformers. Convenors included Christopher Peck, editor of The Memphis Commercial Appeal; Geneva Overholser of the Univ. of Missouri; Bill Densmore of the Media Giraffe Project at UMass Amherst; Mike Fancher, editor-at-large of the Seattle Times and facilitators Peggy Holman and Stephen Silha. Some 40 participants gathered on Thurs., afternoon, Jan. 11 at the Memphis Marriott to share their aspirations for journalism and for the one-night and one-day gathering. They then met all day on Friday, Jan. 12 at the Memphis Cotton Museum. From this page, you can view photos of the gathering, link to written materials we read in advance and read our running informal notes of many sessions.
If you would like to participate in the next “Journalism That Matters” event, tentative set for Aug. 8-9 in Washington, D.C., send an email inquiry to mailto:jtm@mediagiraffe.org
SUMMARIZING the Memphis Sessions
Links to session notes
What others have written about Journalism That Matters: The Memphis Sessions
- Chris Peck’s essay sent to Romenesko
- Participant Ilona Meager of ePluribus Media
- David Zeeck of the Tacoma News-Tribune
- Ryan Blethen’s view of the NCMR
- Danny Schecter quotes Chris Peck, Ryan Blethen
- Ex-TV news director Ken Schreiner on leaving jouranalism and finding cause
- Remarks of Bill Siemering to the JTM-Memphis Sessions
Other PRE-EVENT links available from this page
From this page you can navigate to other resources used in Memphis. Here are some links:
- Program schedule
- Instruction email
- A list of participants — HTML/ or . . (PDF VERSION)
- Requested and optional pre-meet readings
- Pre-event interview questionsand list of interview pairings
- POST pre-event interview texts
- Participant-proposed topics for discussion
- What the wall posters said
Earlier Journalism That Matters convenings
LINK TO INTERACTIVE PROFILES. . . or . . . PDF DOWNLOAD. . . also . . . READINGS PAGE.
VIEW PHOTOS OF JTM-MEMPHIS
ADDITIONAL PHOTOS