Participatory World News

The OJR's Mark Glaser has generated tremendous feedback after he issued this challenge on Jay Rosen's Pressthink:

I’m an online journalist, and I write about online media.  Here is what I'm looking for:

• A news outlet that creates new content, aggregates the best outside content, and makes sense of everything, presenting it in a clear, simple format for the consumption of everyone.

• A company founded on the values of serving the public and allowing the public to serve journalism by participating in all discussions of mission and direction.

• A company that answers directly to its readers and consumers and doesn't talk down to them from editorial ivory towers.

• A company that is focused on the value of journalism, the practice, and not only of marketing and stock dividends.

• A group of like-minded people who are willing to start from scratch and build a new way of doing smart, groundbreaking citizen journalism. Not too amateur, not too professional but something in between.

• A company that is flexible and knowledgeable, with people who "get it" and understand how they can tap the latest technology to improve the craft of journalism -- and help it survive. These new journalists would blend the research done online via search and databases, the production process of a content management system, the community involvement of bulletin boards and wikis, and the delivery mechanisms of RSS, blogs and mobile platforms. Rather than teach old dogs new tricks, employ techno-literate people from inception. The "everyone gets it" company.

• A commitment to provide more transparency for all writers and editors, including political leanings, conflicts of interest and other details that will help readers know who they are. A balance of privacy for journalists with the public's need to know who they are and where they come from.

• A staff and board of advisers of englightened media people and bloggers such as Jeff Jarvis, Jay Rosen, Elizabeth Osder, Susan Mernit, Matt Welch, Howard Owens, Robert Cox, Steve Rubel, John Battelle, James Lileks, Bob Somerby, Dan Gillmor, and many others who walk the talk.

• A company where journalists follow the spirit of the rules and ethics of journalism -- and not the letter, as fundamentalists would.

• A company where people realize that the Web audience is potentially global and therefore work together to create stories and packages that cross national and cultural boundaries. [emphasis added]

• A place where news will be a conversation and not a one-way lecture. Where the readers will also report, edit, fact-check and photograph the world around them.

Sign me up! I'll take the Global News Department, please. (Note I don't call it the "Foreign Desk"...on purpose.)

But seriously: participatory media gives us an opportunity to rethink the way we discuss world news. (Note I don't say "report" because that's an old media notion - it will be a conversation.)

Here's is how I'd like our ideal media of the future to conduct a "Worldwide Conversation":

• Unlike almost all American Big Media these days, we will not take our cues about what is important in the world directly from whatever countries and crises the White House, Pentagon and/or the New York Times are talking about that day. We will think for ourselves. Radical concept, though it may seem...
  

• We will facilitate direct communication between people of different countries.  Angry that your job got outsourced to India?  We'll facilitate a direct and public conversation between people like you and people in India who are doing those outsourced jobs. Want to know what ordinary Iraqis think about the fighting in Fallujah? Let's ask them directly, and let the information community (formerly known as the audience) discuss why, and ask follow-up questions.

• Our editors - seasoned journalists with firsthand knowledge of the regions they're responsible for - would be "moderators" as much as editors. 

• Out "in the field" we would strive to combine the best of citizen-journalism with the best of professional journalism: professional journalists would work with the "information community" on their beat to do original first-hand reporting on major stories.

• Back in the office, our moderator/editors - with knowledge and experience to put  blogs from over the world in proper context and evaluate their credibility - would aggregate and point readers to the most interesting and important stories, conversations, debates, and alternative perspectives coming out of blogs from around the world, especially from places that are not covered - or badly undercovered - by professional English-speaking journalists.  (A number of people are already working hard to encourage the growth of a global blogosphere.)
  

That's the kind of Global News Department I'd like to build. Anybody else?

Comments

[Andy Wibbels]

Just making sure you knew about Wiki News. Some similar dynamics at work.

[Rebecca]

Yes I'm very aware of wiki news (commented on it last month here)... this would not be the same. For one thing, my ideal news organization would not rely on collaborative citizen-editing. The editing would be professional. Why? Because I don't think its possible to produce a timely news site when you're trying to edit-by-committee.

[Mark Glaser]

Nice addition, Rebecca. You're on the right track with the Global News Department. I especially think having people on the ground in these countries who actually live and work there -- and are natives -- makes a huge difference in understanding what's going on there. Plus, I also agree on having professional editors vs. the wiki model, but there might be a way to use wikis as adjuncts or reference material, if done right.
When the funding comes in, I'll let you know!

[Rebecca]

Thanks Mark. Look forward to hearing more!!
I agree, wikis for additional, supplementary reference material - and perhaps as a "tipster" forum - could be useful.

[Tom]

Hiyaz..... skimmed and enjoyed the "Participatory World News" item. This seems reminiscent of an essay -- I believe it was from Salon, I can't quite recall now -- calling for CNN to be bought from Time Warner and set up autonomously as a public trust (consider phoning Turner and Soros, methinks).

[Jozef Imrich]

Ach, Networks need to bring more imagination -- and more elbow grease -- to the table in order to avoid becoming even more of an electronic wire service Who gets home from work in time to watch network news?

[Jon Husband]

yeah ... me.

I often wonder if blogs, and wikis, and the blogosphere ... and whatever this all becomes in another 2, 3, ... 5 years ... is what public television should have been (here in Canada, there's always been a bit of a tip o' the hat to "the common good" by having community-based channels offered by the major cable providers, as part of their licensing deal from our equivalent of the FCC).

yes, i want the two-wayness of the Web reflected in news, and yes, i want ethics and standards in the mix in terms of what I understand is news and investigative reporting ... and I think we see the "early weak signals" of this in the ways that the dynamics of blogging are evolving. Bullshit is recognizable, as is the excellent work done by many bloggers ... with basic resources such as an income, I'll bet that many bloggers can put many established journalists to shame.

And back to the two-wayness. I have been privileged to watch many blog hosts turn out to be very very good facilitators of dialogue in the comments sections of their blogs, and I believe much "learning" and building of awareness is created by the conversations, discussions and dialogues (there's a difference between each of these three) that are hosted and encouraged to flourish (or not).

I think that this ubiquitously available two-wayness will come to redefine some important elements of what we understand today as "expertise".