If you could rip up your newsroom and completely start over, what would you do differently?
That is the central question and challenge that will be presented to a group of about 150 people today, the first of two days of the Media Giraffe Journalism That Matters: D.C.
The goal of JTM’s D.C. sessions is to prepare to the model for “a news-gathering organization from scratch – with new assumptions, new people, and new technology to build a 21st century newsroom in a local community.”
We have some guidance, in the form of a working draft business plan compiled by Journalism That Matters Co-Founder Chris Peck, editor of The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tenn. The document drew on six years of conversations with some of the best minds in journalism.
Peck outlined the three main problems facing journalism today – “the need for a new revenue modes, the shift to digital technology, and the rise of a pro-am journalistic cooperative.” In the introduction, he wrote:
The Next Newsroom will tell stories. The work of its professional and amateur journalists will be organized as a digital periodical. The news will be local, built around the lives of people who live in a geographically-defined place but who are also connected to the world. The Next Newsroom isn’t a Web site, nor just a collection of databases. It is all of this, and more. The Next Newsroom will build on the strengths of a digital publication, in a real community, telling stories that engage and empower, with new revenue streams to support local newsgathering.
In addition, The Next Newsroom will be locally sustainable, collaborate with the community and ultimately answer to local citizens. It will be based in a relatively wealthy and educated community that is largely overlooked by mainstream media (outside the suburban coverage zone of a major metro daily, for example). Revenue would come from both traditional and less traditional revenue streams – advertising, a community stock-option plan and “tiered and tailored” content by subscription (though much of the basic coverage provided by The Next Newsroom would be free.)
The draft document essentially proposes pulling the rug out from under journalism as we know it, catching the best parts and rebuilding the rest. The draft business plan is available as a pdf, and the wiki version (a working second draft) is drawing strong interest from conference attendees.
Both the draft and the wiki are very worth your time to read. I’ll be blogging as I can over the next two or three days about these conversations (time and wireless access permitting). I'll also be pointing to blog entries from some of the other JTM attendees. Stay tuned.