IVP Wiki - User contributions [en]

Jtm-pnw-fri-sessions

2010-01-09T17:08:53Z

69.91.138.61:

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[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw WIKI HOME] /
[http://www.jtmpnw.org CONFERENCE HOME] /
[http://www.jtmpnw.org/program.cfm PROGRAM SCHEDULE] /
[http://www.ustream.tv/channel/journalismthatmatters VIDEO STREAM] /
[http://reynoldsjournalisminstitute.wordpress.com RJI BLOG] /
[http://opensciencefoundation.com/jtm/ BLOG AGGREGATION]
[http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23jtmpnw TWITTER STREAM]
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/mediagiraffe/sets/72157623164340954/ PHOTO STREAM] /
[http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=jtmpnw&m=tags&z=t PHOTO TAG]
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=FRIDAY SESSION NOTES (click on the headline to post your notes)=

<big>Listed below are the breakout sessions called by JTM-PNW participants on Friday. In each case, by clicking on the title, you can see whether notes of the session have been posted. Any session participant can use the wiki to add notes, or email notes of a session to [mailto:jtm@journalismthatmatters.org jtm@journalismthatmatters.org] Sessions with titles in '''bold''' have completed and file session notes.</big>

==10:30 sessions==

*[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-generation-gap How do we bridge the generation gap in journalism and information acquisition? - Paul Lowenberg (G)]

*[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-audience-respect Do we respect the audience? And if so, how do we show that respect? - Kristin (A Olympic)]

*'''[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-possibilty-journalism What is "possibility" (solution) journalism and how do I do it? - Sarah van Gelder (B Olympic) ]'''

*[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-common-challenges How can we make it easier to publish and find proven solutions to common challenges (such as environment, education, energy) that integrates global, national and local levels with biz, government, education and other sectors? - Pam (O)]

*'''[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-hyperlocal-journalism What place does mass media have in hyperlocal journalism? - Dale Steinke (L)]'''

*'''[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-local-blog How can I continue to grow my local blog and sustain it as a business? - Scott Schaefer (K)]'''

*[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-sustain-freelance How can we create sustainable freelance communities in an increasingly decentralized newsroom? - Daysha Eaton, Superstringer (D) ]

*'''[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-truth-accountability Truth and accountability in the news - Rob Moitoza (M)]'''

*'''[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-issue-advertising Can "issue advertising" be leveraged to support new forms of "issue" journalism? - Bart Preecs (H)]'''

*'''[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-traditional-media What aspects of traditional media journalism need to be preserved and what should we jettison? - Sanjay (E)]'''

*[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-new-news-eco How can we re-imagine the WNC to bring more citizens into the new news ecosystem? - John Hamer (J)]

*'''[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-science-curious Are you curious about science? and How can scientists restore trust? - Lion Kimbo/Sally James (F)]'''

*[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-emerge-particip Emergent participatory curation systems - Brad deGrat (I)]

*[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-water-qual How can we take back our water quality? - Mutsue Cook (C Olympic)]

*'''[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-gov-online Can open government online help sustain the new news ecology? - Daniel Lathrop (N)]'''

==1:30 sessions==

*'''[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-support-comm How can journalists support community and remain fact-based truth tellers? Bllu Densmore/RJI (O)]'''

*'''[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-city-hall How can we pay for "city hall beat reporters" & Olympic gavel-to-gavel coverage? Sarajane Seigfriedt/Community Policy Network (E)]'''

*[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-academia-news What can academia do for "the new news"? Jessica Durkin (N)]

*'''[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-trust-medical How to strengthen transparency and trust in medical research - Susan Adler/News Association for Biomedical Research (F)]'''

*[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-investigative-journ How do you make investigative journalism collaborative & sustainable? Rita Hubbard/Invetigate West (H)]

*[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-most-import How can media do a better job of pointing out what news (in all of the din) is the most important? (help people weed through the info overload) Ilona Meagher (J)]

*'''[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-tech-journ How can technology better serve journalism? Chuck Taylor (C Olympic)]'''

*[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-gov-bus How could relationships change between govt/business to support the ermerging news ecology? Ken LeBlond (L)]

*[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-free-econ Can you survive the new "free economy"? Tom Bangasser/Vashon College (A Olympic)]

*[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-holy-grail Is News the wrong holy grail for "journalism"? Schuler (G)]

*[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-artist-envision Disturbance, disruption, and the artist: enivisioning out brilliant future. Cameron Hall (K)]

*[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-comm-outside What communication is possible outside the internet? Zines?Murals?street art? Shala McDonnel (M)]

==3:00 sessions==

*'''[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-not-hyperlocal After the crash, how can we re-connect local audiences with quality journalism that's not hyperlocal? Alex Stonehill/CLP (D)]'''

*'''[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-journ-wiki How is journalism different when the tool is a wiki? Michael Andersen (H))]'''

*[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-info-sec Information Security 101. How do we protect data privacy in the age of information omnipotence? Jacob Caggiano/Independent Media Practitioner (N)]

*'''[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-free-open How software made free and open sustainable: an open culture-based business model for journalism. Brian Glanz (I A/V Room)]'''

*[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-waht-want What do you want? For those that don't know what role does reflection, intention, discussion play in this process? Bee and Hive Metaphor (J)]

*[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-news-perf What is the potential for news as performance? Maurreen (A Olympic)]

*[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-app-journ If you could have an application build to support your journalism what would it do? Casey (F)]

*'''[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-journ-20th What should journalism be in the 21st century? (And what should community be?) Mike Kitross (K)]
'''
*'''[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-service-corp Report for America - creating a service corp for volunteer reporting hosted by communities. Bill Densmore (C Olympic)]'''

*[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-backto-feelings How do we get back to our feelings? - Mitsue Cook (G)]

*'''[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw-session-diversity-news How do we ensure the new news ecology is infused with diverse voices that are heard? Michelle Ferrier (B)]'''

<hr>
[http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Jtm-pnw WIKI HOME PAGE] /
[http://www.jtmpnw.org/program.cfm PROGRAM SCHEDULE] /
[http://www.ustream.tv/channel/journalismthatmatters VIDEO STREAMING] /
[http://reynoldsjournalisminstitute.wordpress.com JTM-RJI BLOG] /
[http://opensciencefoundation.com/jtm/ BLOG AGGREGATION]
[http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23jtmpnw FOLLOW TWITTER COMMENTARY]
<hr>

Jtm-pnw-session-free-open

2010-01-09T17:07:13Z

69.91.138.61: New page: == How software made free and open sustainable: an open culture-based business model for journalism. == I (Brian Glanz) hosted a session with this title today at JTM PNW. We could call it...

== How software made free and open sustainable: an open culture-based business model for journalism. ==

I (Brian Glanz) hosted a session with this title today at JTM PNW. We could call it “considering an Open Journalism business model.” We defined a context comprised of open culture, free and open source software, and the successful [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemium “freemium” business model] favored by Internet start-ups, Web 2.0 companies, .coms, call them what you will.

We noted the failure of The New York Times to make work the model of charging for access to their content. We also noted the futility, considering NYT, of journalists still wondering how to make their content compelling enough that people will pay to get it, online.

So what does work? One answer is freemium. At flickr.com for one example, viewing photos shared by others, the content, is free. You can also share a number of your own photos for free (200). For most flickr users, what is free is enough.

A minority of users, on average across sites of the like it’s 5%, will pay for access to premium or professional quality features, such as being able to upload more photos or videos on flickr. That’s freemium. It has been enough for flickr and many other ventures and I submit that with the right mix of features this model could sustain a news site.

We discuss hiring more people from software into journalism, a ready option in the Seattle area and something well underway at some levels, as with MSNBC.com in Redmond. In other circles though, too many journalists seem stalled blaming and avoiding technology. “If you can’t beat ‘em, kvetch” is just not as catchy, so I’d say join ‘em.

My professional background: I’ve worked on web sites since the 90s heyday and in software, primarily also for the web. If it’s features that sell on the web, not content, then what features might sell on a news site?

I shared a few examples of features which are not unreasonably expensive for a news site to develop or purchase, or with enough expertise, borrow from existing free and open source software. We brainstormed further and some popular ideas included:

* [http://www.seattlepi.com/ seattlepi.com] offers Reader Blogs, i.e. blogs written by readers and published at the web site alongside pro journalists’ work. It’s my understanding these blogs are free to create and publish. They could instead be free but limited in some ways, beyond which contributors would need to purchase features or services. As with the flickr example, some readers might pay to have a photo or video heavy blog hosted because they wanted to exceed the server space allotted to a free blog. (I do not know the actual terms of publishing a P-I Reader Blog. This was meant as a general example and might not be relevant to their own business model, for example if they too much limit the number of reader blogs.)

More potentially freemium news site features:

* the right to have your stories featured, to some degree in a dedicated space on the home page
* early access to stories, like getting to read everything 30 minutes earlier than non-subscribers
* editorial input on stories, maybe the right to comment within the first hour a story has been public or with some privileged consideration
* editorial input above stories, helping to decide what gets covered, getting a vote in some form
* personalization of one’s own version of a site or home page, such as styling parts of it differently, using the color or font or size of font you prefer, or rearranging the sections — put sports at the top of the page, hide sports completely and forever, show me soccer and not basketball
* paying “to load everything at one time,” like to reduce the pagination of stories and the site, being allowed to change how the site acts
* paying to turn off ads

Chris Norred raised the examples of Demand Media and David Beers’ “The Tyee” from Vancouver, B.C. A general note: I’m writing these notes largely after the fact, so my apologies in not attaching everyone’s name to their contributions.

Technology-based business models for journalism challenge some of traditional journalism’s culture but do not necessarily compromise its integrity. We discussed that much of this is common to Open Journalism and Open Science. I described my work with the [http://opensciencefoundation.com/ Open Science Foundation] and the guidance of our sponsor, the science media and journalism company [http://www.realscience.us/ REALscience]. Science and journalism both have their authority and publishing business models seemingly under siege from free and open source technology and culture. The response of sustained angst over integrity is a red herring; one underlying issue is that still too many in science and journalism fear what they don’t understand, and know too little about what the emergent open culture has made possible in technology and in business. Both stand to gain greatly by embracing, not fighting it. Think judo, perhaps or “Trust the Force, Luke. Use the Force, Luke.”

One problem in science (and opening science) is that of “dark data” or “negative data” (and it’s called other things in various fields), essentially that failures are not published. Most qualified estimates are that this is effectively 90% of all scientific data. I might frame that as 90% of all science has learned not being shared, including what did not work and what is not the answer, which leads other scientists to repeat mistakes and waste resources. Some recent, Open Science efforts against the grain range from the specific and formal, such as the Journal of Negative Results in BioMedicine and the general, such as Open Notebook Science.

A journalism-relevant correlation was not apparent until we considered opening journalists’ notebooks. In Open Notebook Science, the record of science research is shared publicly and as it is being recorded, generally with a blog or site. Journalists might share their notebooks, whether with everyone or in a freemium model. Those who are interested enough to read a journalist’s notebook might be more likely to pay for that, too. Similarly, many photos or other information not used in a given story are never shared, but would be valued by some with specific interests. Upon reflection we thought there are dark data in journalism, too if it’s less of a problem per se.

We also discussed market intelligence as a source of revenue, Chris Norred again shared several examples. One half baked idea of mine was that a hyperlocal blog could loft test balloons for businesses interested in their market. Say Starbucks considers opening a cafe in Ballard, and pays My Ballard to post potential locations for reader consideration, even feedback. We discussed balancing the like with journalistic ethics: would a designated, sponsored content section be required? or is enough of a service being performed that readers would more appreciate participating? Perception is critical. We talked also about the value in data that news sites can collect and in aggregate, sell. It’s well understood that this affects advertising revenue potential on a site but the general point here was that those data and a site’s audience have other value, too.

Many pre-JTM PNW events have had conversations stall at “How do we get people to pay for our content?” and even at JTM, some have expressed that “Nobody is talking about business models” i.e. because nobody has one for online journalism and/or investigative journalism. In this session, we identified features we had not yet seen tried in a freemium news site, if we’d seen some elsewhere or in the news but without the business model. Couching these issues in the language of more established areas of open culture — software, education, government policy — at least gets the conversation percolating for science and journalism, and may be what puts those questions to bed.