WeMakeTheMedia.org - Conference Summary
More than 150 people attended, and more than 50 stayed to the very end.
Three work groups were set up by consensus
- Investigative reporting
- Saving traditional journalism values in Portland
- News Incubator - An online and physical meeting space to foster collaboration among professional journalists and encourage innovation.
About 25 people are working together on objectives, strategies and action plans, such as raising money, thinking through start-up strategies, liaison with OPB and the community media folks.
Open follow-up meetings are set on December 8 and December 15 for the first two work groups. An effort will be made to communicate between the two groups, and perhaps they will join forces. Contact eharris@opb.org or ronb@donavoncards.com if you want to participate in either group or both. The incubator group is doing much of its work online at Google groups, or they can be contaced at wemakethemedia@googlegroups.com.
A fourth innovative motion aimed at creating a state-level public records dissemination organization. This new team would gather hard-to-find records into a searchable database and make them available through a staff of 8-11 people. Revenue would be subscriptions, pay per document, pay for specific research and pay for subject-specific alerts. While people liked the idea in the plenary session, no one showed up to the work group, except the entrepreneur who proposed the good idea.
See the keynote speech by Steven A. Smith.
