Brian Conley – Alive in Baghdad
Posted on 04. Oct, 2007 by David Cohn.
Your work in networked/citizen/collaborative journalism.
Right now we work with locals in Iraq and Mexico, and produce to weekly programs, Alive in Baghdad and Alive in Mexico, We hope to expand to other locations and are currently discussing other projects as well. Alive in Baghdad looks at the impact of the war from the perspective of Iraqi citizens, we attempt to cover all aspects of the war’s impact on Iraqis living in Baghdad, and have also covered the refugee crises in Syria and Jordan. Alive in Mexico was started in November 2006, when I travelled to Oaxaca to cover the ongoing conflict there. I met two Mexicans who were hoping to start an internet television project showing events in Mexico and it was a natural fit. We worked together while I was in Mexico and they have been trained as well. We launched a weekly show about life in Mexico. The new show covers everything from political turmoil to Mexican culture. Our hope is to provide a more interesting and nuanced look at life in Mexico.
What are your goals?
Small World News is a collaborative between a small American team and journalists in Baghdad and Mexico City. We partner our skills and know-how in editing, video-blogging, dsitribution, and knowledge of journalism, accuracy, bias, etc. with teams of local citizens and journalists, trained to use small DV cameras and shoot for the web. In this way we’re able to produce powerful local content that has a global impact. We hope to continue building bureaus around the world and change the way we learn about different parts of the world, providing windows on as many under-served locations as possible.
Notable achievements?
We have produced a weekly program on life in Baghdad for over a year, covering stories such as the Adhamiya Wall, visually and more fully than done in the media before, and the plight of refugees in the Al Waleed Camp on the Iraq-Syria border, which had previously been seen nowhere else. We have also taken the time to look carefully at the plight of Iraqi civilians in a way not possible in the current TV news climate. We swept the first awards show for Video Blogs, the Vloggies, taking home seven awards. We were also nominated for a Webby in 2007. We co-produced a documentary for BBC Newsnight and SkyNews solicited five of our episodes for broadcast.
Lesson you’ve learned (including mistakes you’ve made)
I’ve learned that, as always, patience is a virtue. Also, it is important to consider the business model and sustainability of a project, as well as its importance to society. We’ve also found that unfortunately, video on the web is not paying for itself yet, and there doesn’t seem to be a clear model for monetization. The hardest part has been dealing with companies’ fickle interest in our content, and trying to simultaneously leverage our blog status, while promoting our journalistic credibility.
Are you getting revenue for this? How?
We have had a variety of revenue sources over the last two years. They have ranged from donations from our viewers, to small grants, as well as speaking fees, and the largest contribution has been by licensing our content to old media institutions. We hope that by putting together a solid plan for continuing to license content, we can build a sustainable company. Our latest plan for ongoing revenue has been to offer voluntary subscriptions to our viewers, we are now making around $200/mo in contributions of 5, 10, and 20 dollars.
What’s next? What do you need to get to the next level?
We are looking for mentoring in journalism, as we have mostly learned this by the seat of our pants and reading books. We are also looking to train news companies looking to make the transition to video in how to do it. We’re hoping to make contacts with companies that need this help, but also with entrepreneurs who may want to collaborate in order to find the funding/financing/horizontal income to make our work sustainable. We’d be excited to speak with anyone looking to collaborate.
Anyone you’d like to talk with, learn from, or work with at the summit
David Cohn, Michael Rosenblum, Jay Rosen, Arianna Huffington, Tom Rosenstiel, Bill Mitchell, Andy Solomon, Emily Gertz, Lila King, Bill Densmore, John Bracken, Rory O’Connor, Brian Storm, Chrys Wu, Blake Eskin, Donica Mensing, Tom Whitwell, Mark Lukasiewicz, Robin Hamma, Edward Roussel, Jeff Burkett, I gues we should just say there are many people I want to meet at this thing, I hope there are enough hours in the day…
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Chuck Olsen – The Uptake
Posted on 04. Oct, 2007 by David Cohn.
Your work in networked/citizen/collaborative journalism.
My work in citizen journalism includes the film “Blogumentary,” the community videoblog Minnesota Stories, correspondent reports for Rocketboom, and work on various political campaigns. Currently, I’m helping launch a video-based networked journalism project called The Uptake.
What are your goals?
Our motto is co-opted from Thomas Friedman: “Will journalism be done by you or to you?”
The Uptake aims to (1) Train video citizen journalists to cover political people and events, (2) Develop an innovative calendar that enables citizen journalists to choose and rank event coverage, and (3) Aggregate CJ video stories and create a show highlighting the most interesting CJ video.
We’re focussing specifically on the 2008 election, including the RNC in Minnesota and the DNC in Colorado.
Notable achievements?
The first presidential YouTube announcement, for John Edwards, was uploaded from my laptop.
Minnesota Stories is the winner of two Vloggies awards.
Blogumentary has screened at festivals and universities around the world.
Lesson you’ve learned (including mistakes you’ve made)
I recently used the phrase “anti-peace” in a vlog post title documenting counter-protesters at a peace march. Although there’s some truth to the phrase, it was inflammatory and upset the conservative blogging community. We quickly changed the title and apologized for the characterization. Perhaps the lesson is, “bias is often unfair.”
Are you getting revenue for this? How?
We are a 501c(4) non-profit in fundraising mode. On the small scale, we’re having a fundraising party sponsored by Drinking Liberally and getting some income licensing and syndicating our video. On a larger scale, we’re presenting our business plan to a number of large organizations and potential investors.
What’s next? What do you need to get to the next level?
We’re looking for funding to help us recruit, train, and equip citizen journalists. The “next level” is empowering our citizen journalists to create stories you won’t see anywhere else.
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Dave Winer – Scripting News
Posted on 04. Oct, 2007 by David Cohn.
Your work in networked/citizen/collaborative journalism.
I started blogging, RSS and podcasting, and have worked with various organizations to level the playing field so that anyone can participate in gathering news.
What are your goals?
Better information flow so we can have richer lives and solve the big problems before us.
Notable achievements?
I’ve created several award-winning products, open standards, and developed new technologies. I was one of the first bloggers, podcasters, online publishers.
Lesson you’ve learned (including mistakes you’ve made)
Progress comes slowly.
What’s next? What do you need to get to the next level?
I’d like to see open newsrooms so bloggers can start working together collaboratively. I think the local professional news organizations should host this.
Anyone you’d particularly like to talk with, learn from
I wrote up the two ideas I’d like to discuss at the conference here…
http://tinyurl.com/3xpkmo
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David Stern – MixedInk
Posted on 04. Oct, 2007 by David Cohn.
Your work in networked/citizen/collaborative journalism.
MixedInk is a startup building a democratic, collaborative, web-based writing platform. The platform is something like a wiki, except that it would allow an infinite number of simultaneous contributors, it enables mass expression of a collective opinion on a subjective or controversial topic, and it generates a final, aggregated, concise text within a limited time period.
Within the sphere of journalism, MixedInk will allow large groups of people to co-author op-eds and news articles. As journalism becomes increasingly transparent, crowdsourced and collaborative, we will help citizens and amateur journalists brainstorm, vet ideas, and craft effective narratives together.
What are your goals?
At a concrete level, our goal is to enable masses of individuals to express their opinions through collectively authored text in a fun, community-driven environment. Speaking more broadly, we aim to help bring about a more democratic public sphere.
Notable achievements?
We have not yet launched publicly and are currently in the midst of early (private) beta testing, so we don’t have much to brag about yet. When the time comes, you’ll hear from us.
Lesson you’ve learned (including mistakes you’ve made)
We have learned that there are often trade-offs between democracy and usability. Specifically, after watching how new users respond to our tool, we have had to compromise on some of our loftiest goals in order to make our platform simpler and more fun to use. If we cannot encourage participation, all our ambitious, idealistic aims are for naught!
Are you getting revenue for this? How?
After launching, we will offer a free, ad-supported version on our site, and a white-label, enterprise version to partners and clients.
What’s next? What do you need to get to the next level?
1) We plan to expand testing over the next couple of months to larger and larger groups. We have the first several of these groups lined up, but will require additional partners to organize testing at the largest scale.
2) We are looking for investment to help build our organization and finalize the development of our software as quickly as possible.
3) We expect to launch publicly in January 2008.
Anyone you’d like to talk with, learn from, or work with at the summit
Pretty much everyone in attendance is doing interesting work, and many are potentially partners, so please feel free to approach me. In particular, though, I would be interested in speaking with Jonathan Weber, John Wilpers, Michael Meyers, Steve Rubel, Mike Krempasky, Micah Sifry, Emily Gertz, and the organizers, David Cohn and Jeff Jarvis.
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Robin Hamman – BBC
Posted on 04. Oct, 2007 by David Cohn.
Your work in networked/citizen/collaborative journalism
I’m a Senior Broadcast Journalist/Producer for BBC English Regions and I blog at Cybersoc.com. At the moment I spend most of my time looking after the BBC’s external facing blog network and giving presentations about social media and blogging across all areas of the BBC.
These days I actually do very little journalism or production but I hope, and the evidence seems to suggest that, my ideas are helping inspire BBC journalists, program makers and editors to embrace social media.
Over the years I’ve worked with developers to create or improve various discussion platforms and have given editorial training for those managing those services or integrating them into their programs.
My primary focus at the moment is looking after the BBC’s network of around 40 blogs, running training courses for those bloggers and encouraging them to think of blogging not just as a publishing tool but as a technique that involves finding, tracking and joining into the conversation with other bloggers.
I’ve also been behind a pilot project in Manchester where we work with local bloggers, helping them to building their audiences whilst, at the same time, giving us the opportunity to highlight and editorialise the very best of their content for use online and on-air.
I’m also involved in a project with BBC Leicester where we’ve recruited members of staff, as well as some volunteer members of the public, to help us create weather content using a clever mix of 3g cameraphones, yahoo’s experimental zonetag software, flickr and twitter. This effort should be launching publicly any day now.
What are your goals?
To help BBC journalists and program makers think creatively about how they might embrace social media, technology and blogging in their work. (Often times a large element of this is simply telling people it’s ok to take risks and it’s ok to use third party services!)
* To encourage BBC people to participate in social media without forgetting that the emphasis is on social rather than media.
* To have fun, and show other peole how to have fun, playing with this stuff!
What are some of your notable achievements?
I’d like to think that I’ve influence the thinking of quite a lot of people within the BBC – in the past in helping them to build and manage successful audience communities on bbc.co.uk and, these days, to get them to think of the whole web, blogs and social media services included, as their canvas (hat tip to Tom Loosemore).
Lesson you’ve learned (including mistakes you’ve made)
I believed, and a lot of others thought, that with the BBC Manchester blog we’d come up with the holy grail – a way to build positive, honest relationships with audience contributors whilst, at the same time, avoiding the usual legal, technical and editorial risks involved with that. I still think the model has some legs to it but we’ve also learned some lessons:
* even cherrypicking content from RSS feeds takes a lot of time
* it’s difficult to motivate yourself to plow through content that isn’t of personal interest, even if that content would be great in the eyes of your audience
* being local requires actually being local (one member of the team, Richard Fair, is based in Manchester whilst I am based out of London)
I think the thing that surprised us most was the reaction from local bloggers who were at first a bit sceptical but who, once they’d seen the model we were using, fully embraced us as part of their community and even helped us where they could.
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Patrick Phillips – The Vineyard Voice
Posted on 04. Oct, 2007 by David Cohn.
Your work in networked/citizen/collaborative journalism.
(The Voice is new. These observations are drawn from two months of publishing.)
I founded and publish a two-way issues and ideas magazine and community publishing platform for the island of Martha’s Vineyard, The Vineyard Voice. Martha’s Vineyard is undergoing a profound change which could force many of its year-round residents off-island. The Voice is way for people to enter into new conversations about the issues that impact them. The community defines the issues — affordable housing, local food, energy, climate change — and I focus them into a monthly format. Community editors and producers generate some of the content, and I assist in audio & video recording and with photography and writing in-depth articles. It’s a lot of work and an opportunity to be completely immersed in the issues affecting the community.
What are your goals?
One goal is to become a deep content site that will, over time, be a broad connector and community resource for both the issues effecting islanders and the people who are effected. In this way people can research issues that effect them and can find out about the people in the community. Over time The Voice will become a live cultural repository. Another goal is to refine The Voice as a distributable magazine and community publishing platform, then share it with other individuals and communities that would benefit from our journalism, technology, design and community-building experience.
Notable achievements?
My notable achievements are modest, but pleasing nonetheless.
Launching is one. The vision of a simple-to-use community publishing site (just click “publish”) has been an infectious one for some time. Focussing the initial topic and research was another achievement. The complexities of the Affordable Housing issue here are vexing, and lot of effort was put into links, interviews, and podcasts and into making the in-depth article a cross-referencable resource. There is tremendous support in the community for this kind of site, and the connections made with people have just taken off. One example is that the second issue on “Local Food” is being co-produced by a community member and writer with deep connections, knowledge and experience.
Lesson you’ve learned (including mistakes you’ve made)
I have learned from others that you cannot take the “build it and they will come” approach. Relevance is key. We are driving community involvement through immersive reporting. The community connections are created through interviews, and subject videos real-time. Every connection forms a deep bond within the community and acts as an outreach program of sorts. I have also learned that in-depth reporting and high standards are key to build meaning in our community. People are highly communicative, and they expect clarity, honesty and even proofing. It’s demanding, but rewarding.
We are too young to know our mistakes. I hope they will not be disastrous. One mistake I have made thus far is being so buried in my own work that I miss the tremendous work done by others — as exampled by searching all of the attendees sites…
Are you getting revenue for this? How?
As yet, no. We are half-launched, really. The component that will drive revenue is our Find feature — to be launched by the end of the year.
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Danny Glover – Air Congress
Posted on 04. Oct, 2007 by David Cohn.
Your work in networked/citizen/collaborative journalism.
My main contribution to citizen journalism thus far has been through AirCongress LLC, the publishing company I founded in November 2006. My Web site, AirCongress.com, serves as a portal to user-generated audio and video content of, by and about Congress. The goal is to give people interested primarily in federal policy issues and politics one convenient place to go for the latest news.
While I write the blog entries, the site really is driven by the content created by lawmakers, candidates, government agencies, advocacy groups, think tanks, media organizations and, last but not least, citizen journalists. I created the site to corral all of that great content into one place so it’s easier for people to access the best audio and video without visiting dozens of Web sites. Via the “Podcast Of The Week” and “Producer’s Picks” features, I narrow the content even further, using journalistic instincts honed over nearly 17 years in Washington to highlight the stories that strike me as most newsworthy and interesting.
I currently work full time as the editor of National Journal’s Technology Daily, and my work there prompted me to start Beltway Blogroll, a blog that tracks the impact of blogs on politics, policy and the media. I’ve been covering the citizen journalism world for a few years now and have spoken about the subject at various events.
What are your goals?
Ultimately, I hope to find a way to feature more citizen journalism on AirCongress. For instance, I envision bloggers from across the country interviewing their local congressmen or political candidates and contributing content to the site. I’d also like to use the site as a venue for getting future journalists (citizen or professional) some nuts-and-bolts experience in covering Washington.
I’ve had preliminary discussions with BlogTalkRadio about how AirCongress and BTR might work together, and I am eager to pursue content and/or business partnerships with innovators in the new media field.
Notable achievements?
AirCongress was one of the first Web sites to discover the “Big Brother” video aimed at Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and generated more than 10,000 hits in a single day. Linking to that viral video resulted in the biggest traffic day by far for the site, and searches for that ad continue to drive traffic to AirCongress.
And I just learned today (Sept. 25) that AirCongress was listed in the “influential blog index” that Adfero Group compiled for an August 2007 study on the impact of blogs on policy debates. The list of more than 150 blogs included neutral news sites like AirCongress, as well as blogs of various political leanings.
Lesson you’ve learned (including mistakes you’ve made)
I’ve learned that it’s next to impossible to start a media business on your own, in your spare time. I initially planned to make AirCongress a nonprofit hobby, soliciting contributions online and posting content sporadically. I did not envision it as a commercial enterprise with steady content until I approached a Web design company that nudged me in that direction. The company offered design and marketing services in exchange for a stake in the company.
Our negotiations ultimately did not result in a deal and I decided to hire another designer and keep the business “in the family.” I’m not yet to the point where I think that was a mistake — but I am wishing I could hire someone to promote AirCongress because it’s impossible for me to work a full-time job while also producing editorial content for AirCongress and promoting the site. For the business to achieve its potential, I need to find a way to get more people involved.
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Mary Mathews – Pound Productions,LLC
Posted on 04. Oct, 2007 by David Cohn.
Your work in networked/citizen/collaborative journalism.
I am an interactive media producer and video blogger. I produce several web series and pieces, from the plight of the single girl in New York City to the work of my neighborhood Christmas tree salesman to American Idol commentary. I am passionate about online video and the importance of people telling their own stories in their own voices.
What are your goals?
My goals are to build an original interactive programming production company, videoblog for a Presidential campaign and essentially, make a good living at producing original online video.
Notable achievements?
The ability to document my life and community online. Launched production company with partner, Liza Persky, development deal with Discovery Channel, featured in the Democratic You Tube debate in July 2007.
Lesson you’ve learned (including mistakes you’ve made)
A) Don’t give it away. Even if you are struggling, just because it’s online video doesn’t mean it should be grossly undercompensated. I am making original content for an innovative medium and should be compensated for that.
b) You don’t always have to be the face of a project just because it’s your project. For something to work, it has to be received in the right way, and you may not be the right way.
Are you getting revenue for this? How?
Not really. We’ve been approached for small distribution deals here and there, always from countries outside the U.S., but nothing that we’ve signed on for yet. We’ve done lots of work for very little money just to get a project rolling with the promise of better funding down the line. Still haven’t seen that better funding.
What’s next? What do you need to get to the next level?
We will continue to create original programming online. To not just throw ideas around but execute them, post them online, try them out. For the next level, we need to meet people who will pay us to create, try things out, take risks, be bold in a new place, in a new way.
Anyone you’d particularly like to talk with.
Andy Carvin – NPR
Ariana Huffington – HuffingtonPost
Fred Graver – VH1
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Dorian Benkoil – Digital Media Consultant/Columnist/Teeming Media
Posted on 04. Oct, 2007 by David Cohn.
your work in networked/citizen/collaborative journalism.
Oversaw blog network, and affiliated discussion boards. Consult to clients on social media, and have written about it, and produced it.
What are your goals?
To learn a lot — the mindset of others, the state of play in the space and especially — where I may be able to add the most value — the possible economic models.
Notable achievements?
Two SPJ awards for breaking news coverage. Other journalistic awards. MBA.
Lesson you’ve learned (including mistakes you’ve made)
Too many to mention. Most of the mistakes I find most important are in either a) declaring something I thought I “knew” when the reality was different or turned out to be so (perhaps a corollary of the fact that journalistic skepticism is not always useful, especially for an entrepreneurial mindset) and b) leading staff in a way that didn’t achieve needed results. I now understand much better how to strategize, lead a team, etc.
Are you getting revenue for this? How?
Not unless someone wants to hire me after meeting me there. I may make money from it if I write a paid column — which is likely.
What’s next? What do you need to get to the next level?
Access to people with technical skills who are excited about ideas and projects and willing to work collaboratively.
Anyone you’d like to talk with, learn from, or work with at the summit
Well, I’m already connected with many of the folks on the list, but ones I don’t know and would like to meet or connect better because I’ve admired their work include:
Dave Winer – Scripting News
Ariana Huffington – HuffingtonPost
Bill Densmore – Media Giraffe
Steve Safran – LostRemote
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Chrys Wu – CBS TV Digital Media Group
Posted on 04. Oct, 2007 by David Cohn.
Your work in networked/citizen/collaborative journalism.
Working with bloggers and mainstream media to bring them together online. Coming up with creative ways to make stories more interactive. Coordinating and distributing live video streams simultaneously across many websites.
What are your goals?
To learn what others are doing, and share and improve upon ideas.
Notable achievements?
Worked on Pulitzer Prize-winning interactive project
Formed large discussion communities online on BBSes and CompuServe (yes, I’m ancient in Internet years…)
Created user-friendly elections information websites for public radio
Lesson you’ve learned (including mistakes you’ve made)
“You’re never really finished, you just run out of time.”
Are you getting revenue for this? How?
Revenue in some cases was for ad exposures, in other cases, was for number of visits and time spent on site.
What’s next? What do you need to get to the next level?
I’d like more opportunities — and the necessary resources — to develop projects and stories that engage readers/users.
Anyone you’d like to talk with, learn from, or work with at the summit
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