“Block by Block” Community News Summit Begins Today

Map of Chicago neighborhoods

The two-day “Block by Block” (BxB2010) hyperlocal news summit hosted by Michelle McLellan and Jay Rosen begins in Chicago this afternoon. Here’s an agenda from the Chicago Community Trust, which kicks-off the summit. The proceedings are streaming live on the web. Expect a robust Twitter conversation with the hashtag #bxb2010.

The conference blog is already chock full of great resources for journalists, entrepreneurs and citizens looking to become more engaged in the civic life of the community.

Check out the following:

• Knight Media Policy Fellow Jessica Durkin’s piece, Community News Start-ups 2010: Where Do We Go From Here?
• J-Lab’s new resource module, How to Launch a Nonprofit News Site
• Five things you need to know about starting a local news business and  Six keys to local news start up advertising revenue success, by Howard Owens
• Voice of San Diego founder Scott Lewis on The Nonprofit Edge

Additional materials to watch for — McLellan’s list of promising local news start-ups at the Reynolds Journalism Institute; results of her RJI survey research, New survey: Community news site users more satisfied compared to their local mainstream news sources; and a forthcoming series of reports on the news media landscape in Chicago commissioned by the Chicago Community Trust.

As the Knight Commission observed with some optimism in its Informing Communities report, this is a time of considerable experimentation in journalism. Furthermore, government and other entities ought to support this experimentation in ways that do not pose new barriers to innovation.  To follow up on the Knight Commission’s recommendations related to local journalism, the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program will release a white paper later this year with practical steps for implementing those recommendations. Register to receive this and the other white papers on public media, civic engagement, open government, digital literacy, online community hubs, universal broadband and community information assessments.

BxB2010 is further evidence that there’s a lot of energy surrounding community news start-ups–reason enough for optimism about the future of journalism.