Hey guys,
OK, new idea. Not sure how many of you guys are familiar with websites like DeviantArt or Newgrounds, but they all are based on a model where art or photos or cartoons are created and rated or judged by other artists within the community. The best rated or newest creations are posted to the front page which is where most people will arrive and get their fix. Once you are looking at something you can also easily see other stuff by that artist or look at their favorites section, which usually links to similar stuff which is very useful.
At their core these places are communities. Artists often team up on projects or emulate each other and really strive to create better art as a community. Most of them do it for fun, in their free time, but there are a few professionals who make a living off of either flash cartoons or artwork or photography. Thanks to creative commons licensing they can post their professional work to these sites and sell them or license them to companies or whatever. Kind of like the whole creation nets concept.
So I was thinking, how can we do this for journalism? How can we do it effectively? And I'm not just talking about citizen journalism. It should be a place where any journalist can post their stories, or photos or whatever and have them looked at and commented on or reviewed by a large community of fellow journalists (amateur or professional). The best content would be promoted though some system to the portal area where anyone can look at it. The problem is of course that news is fleeting. It might not be any good after a couple of days so the content would have to be "evergreen". Not just todays headlines but really analytical, in depth pieces. I'm also not sure if there is a community out there willing to put all that time into reporting without any prospect of a paycheck. I think if people used it, it would help to elevate our field and provide a community for freelance journalists but there are a lot of problems.
For instance, OhMyNews has citJ by individual reporters but they aren't very thoroughly checked or reviewed by the community. Most of the stories are also about very recent events and focus on the who, what and where instead of the why.
WikiNews is a good place to put together all the articles on a news item that are already out there together and strain out the facts and important info, but don't expect to get much credit and don't expect a lot of original reporting. Its also heavily focused on the latest happenings rather than the slow ongoing stories you might find in the New York Times or watching Frontline or something.
So yeah I don't know if this kind of thing is possible or realistic but it would be cool. Probably asking way too much at this point.
2 comments:
Rob...I really liked the WHY part of this post. I think if we incorporate the WHY into our idea, we can have an idea that is different and innovative enough...there isn't enough WHY out there. Even though the WHY is the last on the list (Who, What, When, Where, WHY??) doesn't mean it should be treated last. I think if we take the idea a little farther south of citizen journalism (or is it north?) this would be a super innovative idea. But I really think we should focus on the WHY aspect...let me know what you think...great post!!
Well i think that the WHY is the most important part of journalism. If you don't learn something from the story that applies to bigger issues then whats the point? Thanks for the response, we need to figure out our project soon. I don't think we're gonna have enough time to make something cool unless we all put a lot more time into this and get together like we did with the travel thing.
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