Arrived a few minutes late to Digital Journalism Camp, organized by Abraham Hyatt, and these are my notes from the first session about news entrepreneurship in Portland. Steve Woodward and Carolyn Duncan, of the Portland Ten, led the session.
Steve Woodward of Nozzl Media argues that the drop in newspaper revenue is a metrics problem. Newspapers need to work more with metrics and be able to prove their value such that they can reengage their advertisers. The tools for metrics in print are much less than the tools for metrics online.
Discussion about Perez Hilton. Carolyn Duncan asks “who the hell was this guy three years ago?” Chuckles from the audience as someone asks “who the hell is this guy now?” The same guy asking that question follows up with “if you want to be in this business, trust is the word. If you don’t have trust, you’re not going to make a dollar.”
Pete Forsyth on trust and citing sources on Wikipedia: “you want to have a clear, transparent editorial process.” The producer of the content has to adhere to a published set of standards that others can audit.
Cornelius Swart, Publisher of the Portland Sentinel, talks about the takeaways from this morning’s journalismsessions at BarCamp Portland, introduces the ideas behind the Portland Media Lab, and presents one reason why he’s optimistic for the future of news and journalism in Portland. Learning about the Portland Media Lab on Thursday personally made my day. The skeleton of what Cornelius is proposing seems very similar to the type of community empowerment work Jackie Hai and Richard Caesar are doing with the Amherst Wire, and I can very easily see the Portland Media Lab becoming an incubator for the type of journalism Portland needs.
Costs of WOPR outweigh the benefits – Daily Emerald
The Daily Emerald Editorial Board argues that the environmental consequences of the Western Oregon Plan Revisions, a plan to increase logging on “more than 2 million acres of public land” including old-growth, are far more significant than the short term monetary benefits.
6 Newspaper sections rendered obsolete by the web – 10,000 Words
Argues that there are at least 6 sections “rendered obsolete” by the web, which I think opens an interesting discussion about the newspaper itself. One conclusion is that, if newspapers tank, all we really lose is the local hardball news. Both the post and the comment thread are worth reading.
Web Sites That Dig for News Rise as Watchdogs – The New York Times
The good news: there are online-only news organizations springing up to take on the responsibility of investigative journalism. The semi-bad news: there isn’t enough advertising revenue to make them financially sustainable (many are non-profit and foundation-supported).
Haiti Can’t Face More Defeats – IPS News
In short, the four hurricanes which hit Haiti this year didn’t help at all with rebuilding efforts. Haiti needs a serious cash infusion for even medium term food security and environmental stability.
Daniel Bachhuber is a photographer, hacker journalist, and vagabond based in the beautiful state of Oregon. He's currently the intern at Publish2, and co-founder and Executive Director of CoPress.
Large monitor in the office that provides a real-time stream of information about and relevant to the company is awesome. If each person had access to one of these, it might even make remote working more effective.
