Open News Wire

Marta Buscaglia wrote, “The dialog is started. Now we have to move forward. … What should our next steps be?”

Tim Porter wrote earlier: “Anyone want to start a we-news service?”

Last year Rusty Foster (founder of Kuro5hin), Matt Haughey (founder of Metafilter and proprietor of the PVR blog) and I were talking about starting a participatory news service, but got sidetracked by other projects. We planned to call it Open News Wire. Unlike other independent journalism efforts, such as IndyMedia, Open News Wire would not have a political agenda but rather serve as a source of independent news from grassroots contributors and from bloggers.

Such a project would require considerable time and effort to get it off the ground, but it could be done. Last I heard, Rusty was checking into obtaining funding for the endeavor from a journalism foundation, but I don’t think he got any bites. He estimated it would take $20,000 to get it off the ground.

With all the firepower at MediaMorphosis, it may be an idea worth reviving. Funding help, anyone? Part-time volunteer help? I can email the correspondence that Rusty and I had to anyone who is interested.