The Opportunity
The Opportunity
The premise of this paper is that journalism must be re-imagined for a net-worked world. There are three key elements of that re-imagining:
- Experimentation
- Collaboration
- Engagement
In a time of technological disruption, it is difficult to know what might advance local journalism. So the first priority is experimentation—try everything, learn from what does not work and build on what does.4 Experimentation is needed in new business models for journalism, in new strategies for public and non-profit journalism and in new funding strategies for foundations.5
The second order of business is collaboration. Competition is necessary for a healthy news ecosystem, but may not be sufficient.6 Modern news and information is an intensely interactive ecosystem in which all elements interrelate, making collaboration essential.7
The third priority is public or community engagement. Digital technology enables news consumers to participate meaningfully in all of the traditional functions and purposes of journalism. Engagement is at the heart of re-inventing journalism, but it requires journalists to rethink their role. They need to enable people to act collectively in networks that create and share information.8
Jeff Jarvis of the City University of New York, said it well in 2007:
The tools journalists can use are constantly expanding. Links and search enable journalism to be found. Blogs allow anyone to publish and contribute. Mobile devices help witnesses share what they see—even as it happens—in the form of text, photos, audio and video. Databases and wikis enable large groups to pool their knowledge. Social services can connect experts and communities of information.
This, I believe, is the natural state of media: two-way and collaborative. The one-way nature of news media until now was merely a result of the limitations of production and distribution. Properly done, news should be a conversation among those who know and those who want to know, with journalists—in their new roles as curators, enablers, organizers and educators—helping where they can. The product of their work is no longer the publication-cum-fishwrap but instead a process of progressive enlightenment.
So, the means, economics, architecture, tools and technology of journalism all change. What I hope changes most, though, is the culture. I hope journalism becomes more open, transparent, inclusive, flexible.9
Incremental change will not suffice. The necessary transformation requires that those who would advance quality, skilled local journalism embrace a sense of inquiry and possibility, rather than certainty or fear. This is a moment of discovery, a time for questions.
What can citizens and journalists do together? How does the role of journalism change in an interactive news ecology? What fosters experimentation? Why does an experiment work in one community and not another? How can we measure the level of engagement people feel with content, and what drives their feelings of connection? How can we take the long view, even as economics pressure us to respond immediately? What is the measure of leadership in such a moment?
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