WeMakeTheMedia Contract

This quarter Portland Media Lab is working with the non-profit investigative news group WeMakeTheMedia to produce a Communications and Technology Strategy and website mock-up for its new non-profit news publication [name pending].  The new publication is tentatively scheduled to go-live in December of 2010.  Portland Media Lab has been hired to research best practices and make recommend a strategy for using online and social media technology to engage and attract audience to news stories and the news-making process.

Portland Media Lab is working with the creative team at the Hallock Agency to produce a mock-up website and social media tools that will produce the look and feel as well as frame work for the final WMTM news site.

The products of the PML and Hallock contract will also be used in the WMTM capital fund-raising campaign this fall.

The WeMakeTheMedia represents an exciting opportunity for members of the group to help create a new chapter in news innovation. Groups like ProPublica, The VoiceofSanDiego and the TexasTribune have advanced the story on the way 501c3 organizations preserve the vital functions of investigative news and the fourth estate in the internet era.  The PML project hopes to make a contribution to the way that technology is used to this end.

Social Media Portal to Replace The Sentinel

Portland Media Lab’s second project is a social media portal called the North Portland Neighborhood Network.The project is funded by the Lester Viles Fund and will be an automated news portal that will replace some functions of the Sentinel site when it is locked down on August 1st of this year.

The NPNN will be a social media and blog RSS aggregator. The site will pull feeds from various community groups into a single site via a series of widgets like iGoogle’s dashboard.  A user will be able to customize the site in order to prioritizes on the feeds they want.  The project is also hoping to continue the Sentinel’s community calendar function and to include a search window that will lead directly into the Sentinel archives.  However, negotiations with the NPNN host organization, North Portland Community Works are still working to resolve the details on what level of service they can provide. North Portland Community Works is also the fiscal agent for Portland Media Lab.

The NPNN will be up and functioning by August 1st when the Sentinel site is mothballed.

PML is currently investigating ways in which to sustain the Sentinel’s online news service.  If you would like to make a contribution, or get involved in helping keep the Sentinel’s work alive and publicly accessible, please contact go to the Sentinel’s contact page and select “Portland Media Lab” from the pulldown menu. Or simply email portlandmedialab@gmail.com

Checks and donations can be made out to
Portland Media Lab
PO Box 3316
Portland, OR 97208

Mission
Portland Media Lab is a nonprofit news center that seeks to preserve, promote and advance excellence and innovation in news reporting in the Portland Metro Area. Portland Media Lab will provide direct support for investigative journalism, establish training and support services to citizen reporters, freelance journalists and new media producers, and establish a laboratory for innovation in emergent news media technology and its many applications.

When I heard about Portland Media Lab and the We Make the Media Conference a few weeks ago, I was admittedly a bit miffed that the organizers hadn’t reached out to a fledgling non-profit investigative news source that’s been showing promise much of this year. So to calm my hysteria, Cornelius suggested I write something here.

I edit and report for TheLundReport.org, a source of investigative healthcare news for Oregonians. Created by Diane Lund-Muzikant, who directed the Oregon Health Forum for 17 years, The Lund Report is a 501c3 non-profit with both an issue and geographical focus. We do some aggregating, but mostly original reporting and commentaries.

Since April of last year when we launched, we’ve been catching the attention of the press and many others in the way the Oregon Health News did under Diane’s leadership for so many years. For those not familiar with her work, Diane is well known as a bulldog reporter, sparking controversy from time to time with the healthcare industry. We’ve already earned the reputation, among the Oregonian editorial board at least, as a healthcare watchdog. And with the recent folding of Oregon Health Forum, our importance will only increase. I am currently the sole paid staff person. I serve as the web editor and contribute a large part of the content. We also pay for occasional freelance work.

Diane’s reputation was clearly a big factor in our ability to solicit contributions even before we had a Web site. We now put out occasional calls for donations. And Diane, for the moment, is dead set against accepting sponsorships or underwriting. I personally don’t agree with this position if the site is to reach full potential. I think for sites like ours, free content with revenue from advertising – especially for those without name recognition — is the right way to go. For idealists, just limit the advertising to friendly sources.

I also think all sites like ours and other non-profit watchdogs that rely on the Internet to get their word out could benefit from a whole lot more communication and networking. Basically I would like to see a version of Alternet.org created for Portland or Oregon where content from a regional association of alternative investigative news sources was aggregated at a single source. Articles would be organized by issues and communities.

Through this site, readers could choose to sign up for individual email alerts. Sites could in turn share their own email lists to create a master list of possible readers for this gateway site. If successful news outlets don’t want to contribute, that’s okay. There are plenty of us struggling who can still produce strong content.

This opens the door to a business opportunity, which is fine as long as contributors are compensated. Alternet and many others such as Truthout.org have shown they don’t have to compensate anybody even if they run the whole entire article. A mutual advertising model similar to Google ads but for liberal bloggers exists in several ventures such as this one: http://web.blogads.com/advertise/the_liberal_prose The same model could also work for underwriting support for our collection of non-profit news outlets.

As our old sources of media crumble before our eyes, journalists are splintering off more than ever these days. I think the job of the current generation of reporters and people who care about journalism is to bring these efforts together in order to recreate the credibility and widespread dissemination that newspapers and other traditional news sources have enjoyed. Without it, we’re peeing in the wind.

We all want quality journalism. And we’re all good at pointing fingers at news outlets in Oregon we think fail at providing that substance. But is it possible for our journalism community as a whole — not just startups or existing publications — to fill that gap? Ron Buel, who helped found Willamette Week, has turned that question into a conference: We Make The Media. Buel wants the event, which takes place on Saturday, to be a sandbox for local journalists who want to explore what it would take to create a nonprofit news entity.

The event isn’t designed to actually create a nonprofit. That will be left to the participants, says Buel. “They undoubtedly will bring in outside resources to help, but there is no “control group” who will carry this forward. Future action will only be taken by conference participants who are committed to act, to carry out the plans made at the conference and approved by the entire group.”

At the conference site, Buel and other organizers have posted a series of papers that look at the need for a new organization, and some of the ways it could be funded. Their rallying cry isn’t anything new to those of us who are already concerned about the loss of enterprise and investigative reporting that’s occuring as traditional news organizations shrink. But their intent isn’t just to inform — it’s to get journalists off their butts and doing something.

The kind of journalist who will get the most out of We Make The Media, says Buel, will be those “who see the larger role that journalism plays in our democracy, holding our corporations and institutions and elected officials accountable — journalists who understand that journalism is the community writing about the community.”

Sign up for We Make The Media here.

Disclosure: I’m one of the conference organizers.

By Melissa Chavez
Most commonly associated with programs found on cable access, Portland Community Media partners with local nonprofits and community-based organizations in Portland to bring media access to local neighborhoods, produce local programming, and offer media education opportunities.

Now PCM is using the digital media realms of Facebook, Myspace, and YouTube to encourage the public to share stories about the community. Winning a recent matching grant from Mount Hood Cable Regulatory Commission for more than $300,000 and partnering with Central Northeast Neighbors are just the first steps PCM is taking toward expanding its reach.

PCM’s new project, SmartAccess, will launch six centers offering classes to the community on emerging social media platforms and how to produce and share videos.  In this way, multimedia community content can by delivered beyond PCM’s six cable access channels, reaching underserved people throughout the city.

With the grant, SmartAccess administrator Cece Hughley Noel said PCM is looking to “diversify our reach into the community through our partnerships – people of color, refugees, seniors – people on the other side of the [media] divide.”

“SmartAccess is a program [PCM’s] CEO developed last year when applying for grants,” she said. “It brings community together. More people will be using digital media, using computers for storytelling, and expanding the local voice.”

Over the next three years, PCM plans to partner with a total of six community-based nonprofits – opening a new SmartAccess Center with each partner – to extend social media and digital technology opportunities. CNN is the first announced partner, and Hughley Noel adds that the public should “expect to see an announcement of additional partnerships in this calendar year.”

PCM received a Mount Hood Cable Regulatory Commission grant of $306,750 for capital expenses for the SmartAccess program, with the stipulation that PCM match that funding for operations costs. In fact, the total budget for the project is a little more than $614,000, since PCM “went above and beyond” in matching the grant money, Hughley Noel said.

The funds will be distributed over the three years, as is stated in the proposal, and will be used to open and operate the new centers, and to purchase additional equipment – video cameras, lighting, and MacBook Pro software for editing, since the cameras are file-based and don’t use tapes.

Though CNN is specifically a northeast neighborhood organization, the SmartAccess center operated with them is open to all.

“It’s absolutely open to the public,” said Alison Stoll, executive director of CNN. “With the work that we do, neighborhood associations are geographically based, but there are immigrant and refugee communities all over town that aren’t in one specific area – they’re culture based, and we want them to be able to tell their stories, too, so we are welcome to everyone.”

Stoll said that with the new center, CNN is “hoping neighbors in the area can come here and take classes to learn how to use a camcorder to tell their stories through social networking. Once they take the [SmartAccess] training, they can use PCM’s equipment, and do it really pretty professionally.”

To register for training, each two-hour class is $10, but the SmartAccess Center offers a discounted price of $25 for all three courses currently offered. These courses are slightly reduced in price than ones PCM offers, as the community partners are supplementing the activities fee of $50.

Hughley Noel says that PCM is also looking into offering a field production course at the center, which would certify new videographers to rent or remove equipment for use.

She added that new courses and possibly more centers could be introduced to PCM’s outreach goal because the response from the public was so great.

“It was a true upswelling of support,” she said. “We’re looking at opportunities to seek additional funding to expand the program further.”

Central Northeast Neighbors
4415 NE 87th Ave
Portland OR 97220
(503) 823-3156
www.cnncoalition.org
Portland Community Media
2766 NE Martin Luther King Jr Blvd.
Portland OR 97212-3036
(503) 288-1515
www.pcmtv.org

On Sunday, October 25th, the day after the SPJ Regional Conference, the University of Oregon is hosting the first ever BarCamp Redefining J School.

The idea is simple: to host a solid conversation about how J schools across the country can be catalysts for innovation, experimentation, and positive change in the news industry. Not that they haven’t been in the past; rather, the conversation will be about how they can be at the forefront of the future of news. We’ll cover the latest in digital tools, strategies for finding work, and ideas for how J schools can better prepare students to launch their own projects

.

For those who have never attended a BarCamp, there is a method to the madness. A BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. Another term for it is “unconference.” With a traditional conference, the sessions are planned well in advance and panels selected by the conference organizer. BarCamps give the attendees a bit different of an experience. The sessions are brainstormed in advance, but the schedule isn’t set until the morning of the event and is determined in “open-grid” fashion. If an attendee feels qualified to lead a given session, they’ll write it on an index card and post those on the grid schedule.

A list of the sessions we’ve brainstormed thus far:

1. What courses should you take to supplement your journalism education or career? What are good minors to a journalism degree?
2. What do students want from professors? How can students take initiative and enhance classes?
3. Crowdsourcing, and leveraging the knowledge of the community to put together a story
4. Where’s the link between PR and journalism?
5. Digital basics (blogging, RSS, Twitter, Google Alerts, etc.) and how those tools can be used
6. How to get paid internships (i.e. kickstarting your career while you’re in school)
7. Where’s the line between work and life when building your brand online?

Join us. Brainstorm more sessions on the wiki, get involved with the planning process, or RSVP for free. We’ll go from 12 pm to 4 pm on Sunday, October 25th and welcome all students, faculty, and professionals.

Dedicated to the support, proliferation

MISSION
Portland Media Lab is a nonprofit news center that seeks to promote excellence, innovation and the preservation of quality news reporting in the Portland Metro Area. Portland Media Lab will provide direct support for investigative journalism, establish training and support services to citizen reporters, freelance journalists and new media producers, and establish a laboratory for innovation in emergent news media technology and its many applications.

Over the past six months Portland Media Lab has conducted a series of in- person, online, and group discussions and “salons” aimed at developing a needs-assessment study for the “journalist community” in the Portland, Ore. media market.  The following projects represent services, resources and support that PML believes the media market needs in order to sustain robust public-benefit reporting and journalism.

Portland Media Lab advocates for these project areas whether they are programs of the PML or ventures undertaken by other groups, publications, or individuals.

CORE NEEDS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SUSTAINING AND PROMOTING JOURNALISM

NEED- Direct support for investigative journalism:
RECOMMENDATION- Create a Newsroom or Cooperative Editorial Resource:

A) create an editor-driven newsroom that can act as either publishing entity or “wire service.”

B) establish a co-operative editor who can assign and edit news work for multiple news organizations and across platforms.

NEED- Address transition to multi-media journalism and maximize the social benefits of citizen reporting:
RECOMMENDATION- Establish Training and Support Services

C) cultivate a “support” network for reporters, bloggers, publications and media venues that will promote, aggregate, and improve the quality and quantity of rigorous disciplined reporting in the region.

D) teach basic multi-media skills including field recording, editing, file compression, and posting of video and audio to the Internet and for broadcast.

E) host workshops for freelance reporters and media producers (such as: on how to query, promote or monitize their work)

F) train citizen reporters,  bloggers, and media producers on the fundamentals of journalistic ethics, rights, standards and practices, style, and due diligence.

NEED- News media organizations must evolve as quickly as IT technology itself:
RECOMMENDATION- Provide a Laboratory for Innovation in Emergent News Media Technology and its many Applications

G) cultivate relationships with Portland’s “tech” and “open source” community.

H) incubate, develop, and test emergent media technology and test how platforms like mobile and social media can be used by news groups and media producers to empower citizens.

I) offer technical assessments, consulting, training, and development around emergent media technology for the benefit of news groups or media organizations in the Portland media market and export territories.

If you are interested in more information email PML at portlandmedialab@gmail.com.

Sponsored by the Portland Sentinel . This is a “vision statement” page.  The creators of The Sentinel launched a similar “vision statement” page in 2004 dedicated to the emergence of “digital journalism.”