Journalism That Matters

INVITATION: Journalism That Matters comes to Detroit, June 3-6

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:15:50 +0000

06/03/2010 - 12:15pm - 06/06/2010 - 12:15pm America/New_York

How can we reshape journalism so that it engages and serves all people & communities?

Participate in "Journalism That Matters Detroit -- Create or Die: Forging communities that initiate, incubate and innovate."

This focused, three-day gathering of results-driven, action-oriented participants will discover, assess, shape and create forward-looking enterprises focused on key elements of community -- diversity, shared values, tolerance, participation and developing youth.

JTM especially invites persons of color -- journalists, entrepreneurs, programmers, technologists, bloggers, videographers, venture capitalists, artists, funders, educators and all who have an interest -- to explore how voices often unheard or misrepresented can reshape the future of journalism.

Register now!
Learn more
See who else is coming
View evolving program / jtm [at] journalismthatmatters [dot] org (Request program updates)
Travel and Housing
See the Meeting Site

We're meeting in St. Andrew's Hall, a National Register-listed former church, with state-of-the-art TV production facilities next door, and dormitory suite or hotel accommodations. Learn about Detroit's changing economy as a metaphor for the journalism change and opportunity. Arrive Thurs., June 3, at mid-day, begin with an afternoon orientation, buffet dinner and an agenda-setting evening program. Share/work Friday and Saturday using circle-round and break-out "unconference" collaboration; wrap up and commit to next steps on Sunday morning.

The evolving relationship between news and technology provide a great opportunity for innovation. We’ll open by connecting journalists and technologists through identifying essential elements of journalism. Then journalists and technologists together conceive projects and form design/development teams to conceive or deploy the best tools to put those values and elements into practice.

You need to be part of the conversation. Don’t let this moment pass without taking action. Whether you are a part of a legacy media organization or an individual ready to create something on your own, this conference will create a space for energy and action.

WHAT WE’LL ACHIEVE

New and unexpected cross-sector collaborations
Broadening a community of practice among people who care about journalism innovation
Nurture and develop journalism entrepreneurship especially for underserved communities and people of color
Learn from stories of successful projects
Discover and engage financial/funding sources to seed new projects

For nearly 50 years, American journalism was financed by an historically unprecedented consumer-driven economy. This put pressure on editors, producers and reporters to focus on mainstream audiences attractive to advertisers. Cable television, and now the Internet, have made it economically feasible to profitably market to niche communities. For the first time, poor, ethnic and disadvantaged communities and under-represent constituencies of all economic strata are no longer too marginal to serve. Diverse constituencies must seize the opportunity to innovate with technology and services, legacy media must learn to include these new, niche audiences. Both creators and consumers die -- figuratively, they lose influence or visibility -- unless they understand the need to diversify.

Why Detroit?

Nowhere are economic and media changes in America more stark than in Michigan and Detroit. Time Inc. has placed a year-long emphasis on studying how Michigan will reinvent the American dream. Newspapers in Detroit and Ann Arbor are no longer home-delivered daily. With change comes opportunity, and the changes in America's industrial heartland are an object lesson for change now reaching media and journalism. Create or die, community and diversity are the messages of Detroit.

Pricing Information -- Stipends available

Early-bird registration is $300 through April 1. Special rates are available for non-profit organizations, students and the unemployed. You can also pay $25 and apply for a full-registration stipend/grant, which will be awarded based on need and the capacity of our sponsors after May 3.

REGISTER NOW

For general information, contact jtm [at] journalismthatmatters [dot] orgjtm [at] journalismthatmatters [dot] org (.)

What questions do you have?

Mike Fancher — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 16:44:25 +0000

The first full day of JTM/PNW was possibility day -- a series of conversations about questions. Here are some of the topics:

JTM-PNW

mind stretched open - eyes wide

jamesian — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 23:56:16 +0000

I was the host of a session that I did not want to host.

(cue music from Twilight Zone) because someone came up to me and asked, "Will you host a session>"

First surprise.

His name is Lion, and he has a scientist's education but a philosopher's questions. Why do people fracture into pro and anti-science?

Because of his leadership, we had about seven people who could not stop talking. My role as facilitator was easy.. they talked and talked and talked.

Thanks to the JTM group for bringing this new process in and helping us accept that the right people are there at the right time.

I learned something new.

Second surprise.

JTM-PNW

Look Who's Coming to Journalism That Matters/Pacific Northwest

Mike Fancher — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:41:55 +0000

More than 200 people are registered to attend Journalism That Matters/Pacific Northwest, which opens today at the University of Washington.

For fun, I arbitrarily categorized how the participants described themselves in biographies they posted on the JTM site. Nobody fits neatly in any one category, so I picked the description that seemed most central to the person's work.

Here is a breakdown:

Civic activists / Community representatives 42
Educators 23
Online journalists 21
Students 14
Newspaper 12
Radio 11
Television 10
Technologists 9
Organization representatives 8
Filmmakers 7
Targeted publications 7
Entrepreneurs 6
Freelancers 6
Public and Media Relations 6
Business representatives 5
Photographers/visual 5
Media Reformers 4

I'm delighted that the largest category is made up of people who don't produce journalism themselves but who care about it enough to attend this gathering. After all, the convening questions for JTM/PNW include:

The Right Conversation

Mike Fancher — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:14:01 +0000

Journalism That Matters/Pacific Northwest is the right conversation, in the right place, at the right time, with the right people.

I say that because of work I've done in the past year with the Aspen Institute and the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy. The Commission identified three key objectives:

Maximize the availability of relevant credible information to all Americans and their communities.
Strengthen the capacity of individuals to engage with information.
Promote individual engagement with information and the public life of the community.

It identified these central points that resonate with JTM/PNW:

Noam Chomsky on Newspapers and Democracy

Steve Hanson — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 16:39:41 +0000

My thanks to the good folks at On The Earth Productions for this clip of Noam Chomsky.

Come examine the petri dish of journalism experimentation -- Jan. 7-10

Bill Densmore — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:24:57 +0000

JTM EXAMINES PACIFIC NORTHWEST AS PETRI DISH FOR FUTURE OF
JOURNALISM AND COMMUNITY -- JAN. 7-10, 2010 -- JOIN US!

WHEN: Jan. 7-10, 2010
WHERE: Univ. of Washington, Seattle

For general information follow this link: http://journalismthatmatters.org/JTM-PNW
Register now at: https://www.123signup.com/register?id=jcvkv
See who else is coming at: http://www.journalismthatmatters.org/JTM-PNW-WhosComing

Twitter hashtag: #jtmpnw -- http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23jtmpnw

Program

Transportation and parking

Hotel Information

Demystifying Advertising in Hyperlocal News Communities

Michelle Ferrier — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:21:37 +0000

Two hyperlocal efforts described their advertising strategies in a recent conversation sponsored by the Journalism That Matters collaborative. Tracy Record of WestSeattleBlog.com and Barry Parr of Coastsider.com discussed the advantages of ad servers, pricing, and some do’s and don’ts of ad sales in the hyperlocal space.

Do
• Publish awhile before selling ads. WestSeattleBlog.com ran for two years before it took ads. Coastsider.com didn’t start selling ads for four years. Having another revenue stream (like a job) helps during the startup phase.

• Develop a page design/platform that accommodates ads…even if you don’t have any yet. That means building in multiple positions – leaderboards, banners, buttons, text ads. The challenge is a design that has enough ad positions…more

Re-imagining News & Community in the Pacific Northwest - January 7-10

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 17:36:48 +0000

01/07/2010 - 2:00pm - 01/10/2010 - 12:00pm America/Los_Angeles

Haggett Hall, University of Washington, Seattle

January 7-10, 2010

Staying connected after the conference

LinkedIn Group
Facebook fan page
Twitter (search for #jtmpnw for conference tweets)

Conference multimedia

jtmpnw.org aggregation page; (and RSS feed)

UStream video

YouTube video

Photos on Flickr (also here) and Picasa

Breakout session notes wiki (includes audio)

Participant blogs

Other conference information

Participant blogs/articles/reports

More conference information

Adding structure to content - to save the news

montgomeryl — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:40:16 +0000

It seems that nearly each week, there is yet another panel convened on the future of journalism and how to save the news business. Much of this centers on asking the question on 'how on earth will we monetize this?'

I attended one of these discussions earlier this year under the auspices of JTM at the Poynter Institute, 'The New News Ecology.'

And I came away profoundly changed, and convinced that applying some structure and metadata to every single piece of content, indeed, everything we do, be it an article, a photo, a blog post or a video - is going to transform the business.

This was after hearing Jim Kennedy, AP Strategic Planner, speak about how the AP was changing, after a century, how it reported, classified - via a new taxonomy - and distributed the news(on mobile platforms)

Here's why: as one of my fellow attendees from the tech sector said: you don't have to decide at the moment of creation what the end product could be. It could be located by searching by region, by keyword, by format type. It could be aggregated by outlets by topic or format for as many content types as possible as well as the topics.