We create the stories of the connected society

At a time when newspapers are hemorrhaging employees and questioning their survival, they are adopting a more stable role in the community through new media – namely, citizen journalism. Newspapers are helping communities connect, reach out, learn more about their resources through their sites. The goal is to foster a way to make the community [...]

Project:Report, You Tube’s partnership with the Pulitzer Center, is one of the most promising expressions of We Media to emerge between traditional and everyday journalists. Essentially a journalism contest funded in part by Sony and Intel, Project:Report was created for non-professional, everyday citizens to tell stories that might not otherwise be told. The simple and [...]

Earlier this month a New York University student went “undercover” into her own journalism classroom to report on the class for Mediashift, a blog published by the US public television network PBS. She didn’t tell the professor or fellow students what she was up to, or ask their permission. In her report, student Alana Taylor [...]

Jay Rosen has posted his cogent take on “semi-pro journalism” on TechPresident. Provocative metaphor about the news tribe and its survival drama.

At this week’s Personal Democracy Forum, a sponsor distributed a low-tech, but highly effective stress toy to attendees willing to listen to their pitch: a rubber ball on an elastic string that connects to a velcro band. Strap the band to your finger and you can play catch with yourself. Which is what I came [...]

Here’s a chance for members of the We Media Community to get involved in something new, practical and ambitious. Bread for the City, a food bank, health clinic and social services provider for the poor in Washington, DC, wants to use the tools of media creation and distribution to help its clients and community members [...]

We’re about to start this panel, located on a floor accessible only by two elevators, so people are coming in in batches of 8. The topic: “Who can you trust in the We Media landscape? Where’s the line between commerce and information? No more is it a question of parsing the biases of individual media [...]

For the second year in a row we’ve documented a devastating lack of satisfaction with journalism in American – and an opportunity to do something about it. Here’s the formal press release of the new research, which we discussed in the opening session of this year’s We Media Miami Forum and Festival. The good news: [...]

For class, I had my students watch the wonderful documentary, Revolution OS. It features a cast of characters that could people a graphic novel — Richard Stallman the GNUman, Gandolf to Linus Torvalds’ Aragorn. Eric Raymond, a sort of Bilbo Baggins, moving between the Cathedral and Bazaar, Bruce Perens, appearing as an Elrond figure–anyway, the [...]

The social web depends on content, tagging and utility created or improved by the good will of the people formerly known as the audience. Where does good will end and greed take over? That depends on whether you’re a giver or taker. Dan Gillmor at the Center for Citizen Media is bothered by the free [...]

washingtonpost.com’s “On Being” project is simply stunning: real stories from real people based on the simple notion that “we should get to know one another a little better.” An elegant design and interface, enhanced by professional video production standards, bring to life the musings and passions of ordinary extraordinary people. This is how journalism from [...]

Unaware of a shooting in a dormitory that left two people dead, Virginia Tech graduate student Jamal al Barghouti headed across campus to meet with his advisor. Nearing Norris Hall he ran into police, guns drawn, rushing inside. As al Barghouti took cover, he pulled out his Nokia camera-phone and started recording. Then came the [...]

I’ve been reflecting on our experiences at We Media Miami and digesting a great deal of reporting and analysis about what happened. It’s ALL been helpful. The diversity of viewpoints again underscores the eclectic and complex nature of “We” – and the promise of invention and innovation driven by the We Media community.A number of [...]

“Are blogs really that important?” asks Jemima Kiss in this post. That’s the question renowened pollster John Zogby addressed during his presentation on the results of the We Media-Zogby poll. During his presentation, he indicated that: – “Only 27% of the public said they were satisfied with the news but 76% of people inside it [...]

During the panel discussion about “The Power of Us”, Craig -aka Craig of Craigslist- mentioned his support for a brand new initiative recently launched by the Sunlight Foundation. Out of curiosity, I buttonholed Craig after the conference to find out more about this initiative, how it illustrates “the power of us” to improve democracy, and [...]