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.
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Would this service scoop up stuff that’s already out there, or would it require writers to write new stories for the service. Both are problems to be solved, but one takes brains and the other takes money.
Hi Mark, it would do both. We anticipated a flat-hierarchy system of unpaid or low-paid stringers and bureau chiefs covering niche subjects. But such a shoestring operation would have only sporadic postings if it were limited to volunteer contributions.
So like blogs, which are driven by passion and zeal rather than the pocketbook, we expected that the service would provide an aggregator function and contain an editorial filtering mechanism that would balance grassroots participation against the anarchy of a let-anyone-post free-for-all. The business model was always problematic, but we suspected that an affiliation with a forward-looking university or credible media institution would make sense at the start.
JD–this is definitely related to an idea Mark Graham and I have been talking about,,we should chat–and Dale, this is a good idea!
Could the functionality of a wiki be part of such a wire service, i.e. any item could be corrected (transparently) all the time by anyone with a browser?
I’d like to help start a We Media news service.
Perhaps we can work through a University for funding … I’m currently working with Syracuse’s graduate program to use the BIGr data we discussed at the conference in internships and for the University’s own research. I’d be happy to work on a grant proposal, and I’m sure the gentleman I’m working with in the department would be on board.