Portland Media Lab

12.01.09
PML Quarterly report 11.11.09

What PML folks have accomplished since the last meeting:

*DigiJourno is obviously going strong- Abraham has totally rocked it and has Steve Woodward and Nozzl Media doing a demo next month which will be UNBELIEVABLE!

*We Make the Media conference is coming at the end of next week and I must say I had my reservations at first but now it looks pretty cool to me.

*Michelle Rafter attended the new news media conference and reported back on her blog.

*Abraham spoke at SPJ’s Build a Better Journalist major jamboree.

*Daniel Bachhuber held a wicked BarCamp the next day on rethinking J-school

*Bill Fitzgerald posted a blog featuring some of the new aspects of his Knight Drupal project, some of which might dovetail with Publish2

*PML has built capacity

*PML has registered as a state non-profit. We have one 501(c)3 fiscal agent and I am working on developing another that will give us greater leeway to apply for more grants.

*I’m also cc-ing Melissa Chavez who is our first official PML volunteer staffer: Hurray!
She is editor of the Portland Alliance (fittingly).

*I’m aslo cc-ing Dexter Gauntlett, who is our grant writer for Knight News Challenge or, should we decide to defer on that opportunity he is basically on retainer for another grant.

*We have a few commitments for Board Pro Tempore, and we still need to talk about who can help to round the temporary board out.

*Next steps are strategic plan which includes 5 year business goals and fundraising strategy- that’s sort of a mid range project

*There is all ready one grant that PML has applied for to train citizen bloggers and journalists.

Promotion for WMTM

Abraham is going to do a guest blog for WMTM for PML and the Sentinel site

Also, JoAnn thought PCM might be able to record or televise the event- again, not a lot of time at this point and I’m not an event organizer so… I’m passing this offer to Abraham via PML group. KBOO and PCM would be looking to be listed as sponsors.

I would love to see PCM and KBOO invited or involved in the conference.

The existing community media infrastructure in Portland already makes training citizen reporters in video and audio journalism possible. It’s a grass roots asset and I think there is a professional distance between mainstream media and community media that is no longer productive if the goal is the survival of the fourth estate.

Roger and I wrote the very fist PML grant (over two years ago?) around a cooperative training project that moved trainees through PCM-KBOO and the Sentinel as a cross platform working training/internship. It would be cool to pick those threads up again. The original grant is still in tact and has letters of partnership from KBOO-PCM

If a print journalism course could be offered and coordinated through PCM-KBOO this would achieve project D and F of the PML recommendation study

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

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

Also Becca and Abraham are working on a potential Think Out Loud show about media innovation in Portland as a follow-up to the event.

Michelle and I are working on a co-guest blog for Rick T’s blog about…hmm.. not sure, tech- business models…not sure where else it will go. It would also be nice to have that up before WMTM

Funding and future bootstrap projects

I was going to bring up the grant idea at PML meeting. Ostensibly was question how to ‘think tanks’ get their funding.  A have two new research projects ideas that might help advance the local and national conversation, but I think they need to be sounded out by the group.

Recruitment
Lastly, who else should be on this list and be invited to the PML salons?

Ok, so that’s what I see happening out there in media land. Let’s stay in touch and keep coordinating. Everyone is doing great work and at the very least it’s good to keep a coordinating or at least a tracking effort going.
- Reported notes by Cornelius Swart

11.19.09
PML conducted a salon on Wednesday the 18th of November at the offices of The Sentinel.  Institutional framework strategies, potential projects and We Make the Media were topics of discussion.  The group approved the Quarterly Report which will be posted shortly. PML participants intend to attend the We Make the Media conference and look forward to seeing these conversations brought about the future of journalism brought to new level.

10.23.09
PML filed for non-profit incorporation with the State of Oregon. This process will trigger the recruitment of a Board Pro Tempore. The board will be charged with creating the bylaws for the organization.

9.29.09

From guest blog at Digital Journalism Portland
Last week I had the honor of being the first presenter at the new weekly DJP/SPJ social hour. It was very exciting and humbling to be speaking before such a group. However, the event was very informal and jovial and it was great fun having an opportunity to meet others in the field and hear about their projects. It turned out to be a great opportunity to talk about the project Portland Media Lab and the need to support, train and provide technical assistance to journalists during this time of radical technological transition. It is the hope that the Portland Media Lab projects can be of some assistance in preparing multi-media journalists, citizen reporters prepare and learn skills for the emerging digital news era.

I was happy to see a healthy mix of print journalists, bloggers and tech people there, with lots of familiar faces from BarCamp, Digital Journalism Camp, and the PIE opening.

As the publisher of The Sentinel, I essentially own two small media properties. One a monthly print publication covering N/NE Portland with a circulation of 27,000 units. The other is a hyperlocal website at www.portlandsentinel.com that is one part news blog, one part open-publishing bulletin board. The site gets approximately 1 million hits a month. For the last two years I have tried to use both properties as laboratories for experiments for multimedia and interactive journalism and reporting.

These experiments have led to the supposition that there may be a need for a larger not-for-profit news center for the Portland media market.

While I tend to be a bit hammy when I speak in front of groups, I did my best to explain the Portland Media Lab concept as one dedicated to advancing journalism for the entire local market.

So far the PML has been a conversation amongst journalist, tech folks, and new media producers. Many of the participants at PML salons are active in the digital media conversation both locally and nationally.  Over the last six months the PML has conducted an informal needs assessment survey.

The PML has posted recommendations for projects and resources that the participants believe are needed to continue and expand robust public-benefit journalism. It is my hope that these recommendations can serve as a framework for those in the media market who are actively trying to assist the fourth estate regardless of what the current crisis the digital age has brought. With luck, an active community can not only coalesce to support and preserve the social benefits of journalism, but help journalism advance and evolve along with the potentialities new technology brings.

The PML recommendations fall into three categories:

9.23.09

Cornelius Swart is scheduled to discuss Portland Media Lab at Digital Journalism Portland’s first journalist social hour, this Thursday at 7pm, in SE Portland.

8.27.09
Bill Fitzgerald, Daniel Bachhuber, Abraham Hyatt and Cornelius Swart met this week to discuss the release of the latest round of Knight News Challenge grants.  Both Fitzgerald and Bachhuber detailed their experiences with the process.  All agreed that it was a one year application process from filing the application to receiving the funding.  A proposal idea was discussed that involved training for citizen reporters and new mulit-media journalists.  Further refinements pending.

7.23.09
The Portland Media Lab discussion on Tuesday July 14 was attended by Daniel Bachhuber, Ben Foote, Cornelius Swart, Roger Anthony, Rebecca Robinson, Abraham Hyatt and Bill Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald is an open source Drupal developer who recently received a Knight Drupal Initiative grant for a project that will create a simplified Drupal installation process for magazines and newspapers.

The conversation this month revolved around refinements to the mission and scope of the PML. Swart put the idea to the group that constant innovation in technology was wedded to a news organization’s ability to stay in front of the public. So PML could have a technology development and support function as well as a journalism training function.

The idea could be that PML would be a training center for both news techniques and news media technology.

It was felt that there was value in being a resource to train citizen reporters. There was also a strong sense that there was demand for helping existing professional journalists gain multi-media training. There was subsequent discussion of Abraham Hyatt’s digital journalism camp to be held August 1 at the offices of the Oregonian. Lastly, it was felt that PML might find a unique niche in helping small news organizations assess/design/build/maintain news media platforms and strategies [heretofore referred to as 'news IT']. Community organizations and citizen blogs could also be potential clients.

Some criteria would need to be established in order to determine what organizations could qualify as PML clients.

There was some discussion about whether this mission was too wide in focus. There was discussion about whether PML would create content as a result of its training programs and if so where would that content be exhibited? Giving stories and content away to other media organizations was seen as ideal [references made to creative commons practices and propublica.org]. However, at the start it was believed this might create logistical and proprietary challenges.

The staff model that was discussed was a 3 full time staff operation:
1) news IT coordinator- who would coordinate volunteer developers on news IT projects for community and news group
2) master editor/editor in residence- who would be in charge of training programs [potential newsroom]
3) executive director – who would handle organizational work and fundraising.

It was generally felt that the best market for this project would be the four county Portland media market. However, the news IT division could potentially serve clients outside the market.

7.12.09
Portland Media Lab meeting this Tuesday July 14th at 6:30pm, 8371 N Interstate Ave, Portland Ore 97217.

Agenda:

Discuss- technology frontier for news media 18 months from now.

Present and discuss an ‘evolved’ vision for the projects, one that places emphasis on professional journalism, citizen reporting and new media/technology. Specific services and non-profit models will be discussed. Discussion of composition of a Board Pro Temp and the potential role and utility of an Advisory Group.

Break

Foundation building issues:

• Board make up: seeking board members with backgrounds in one or more of the following: grant writing, bookkeeping/accounting/CFO, managing editor, IT/Web development, print journalism, broadcast television and radio journalism, marketing, non-profit law
• Budget Discussion: annual and start-up Budget Creation, to include board insurance $1,000 (annually), administrative expense $3,000 (monthly), initial CMS website built $4-6,000 (one time), incorporation legal expense $2,000 (one-time), Staff expenses (master editor, executive director/development director) $100,000 (annually), project budgets (see below)
• Partnership agreements/letters of intent with other organizations
• Grant and revenue source identification-business models
• Website development including: CMS platform, e-commerce capacity, crowdsourcing mechanism.

Pizza and drinks will be provided.

6.30.09

Arrianna Huffington’s recent views on citizen journalism/reporting that she posted as part of Youtube’s Reporters’ Center that just launched this week.

6.16.09

PML Minutes – 6/15/09

Introductions:

-Cornelius Swart – Publisher/Managing Editor of the Portland Sentinel; “founder” of Portland Media Lab

-Mike Andersen – reporter for The Columbian; working on his own start-up

-Abraham Hyatt – freelance writer and editor/DIY PR consultant; organizing PDX Digital Journalism Camp; recently left Oregon Business Magazine after several years there.

-Roger Anthony – veteran of The Oregonian, Portland Tribune, and the Portland Sentinel

-Ben Foote- the man behind PDX Stump (search engine/directory)

-Becca Robinson – freelance writer; News and Online Editor for Portland Sentinel

-Alex Blackwood – Webmaster for Portland Sentinel; interested in the technical aspects of making PML work

-Daniel Bachhuber – Former U of O J-school student; current blogger, Publish2 intern, entrepreneur, ED of CoPress, which provides tech resources to college news outlets

-Theresa Boze- Twitter and social media activist; decades of marketing/PR experience, former Oregonian reporter

-Michelle Rafter – freelancer; blogger, PR, publishing industry background (WordCount: Freelancing in the Digital Age

Swart stated that the vision for PML came out of the Sentinel’s mothballed internship program.  The program at one time, mentored journalist with decades of career experience in daily newspapers with recent school graduates and young journalist.  Swart stated that the Sentinel was launched in part as a laboratory for multi-media journalism.

[ED NOTE- The vision for PML is to create a multi-media news room and training ground for professional journalists and citizen reporters- see www.portlandmedialab.com.  The resulting discussion emphasized the importance and potential of incorporating “social media” and wiki technology into the vision. The meeting ended with a summary that the PML vision could be expanded to include both a journalism, multi-media and news media technology laboratory and education organization.]

Discussion: The future of journalism, and other heady ideas

Michelle asserted that news as curation is a good model for web portals, i.e. a site that is constantly updating with the best of media from across the web. Ben referenced the Huffington Post’s model, which combines the news as curation idea with a sophisticated synthesis and contextualization of said curated news.

Roger pointed to the usefulness of bloggers who are experts on certain issues (i.e. Jonathan Maus of BikePortland.org); unlike a reporter, who often has to cover a much broader scope of issues and areas, “expert” bloggers can focus on one issue and cover it from numerous angles.

Abraham posed the question: what is the future of journalism specifically in Portland? Cornelius followed up with another question: is there some issue/demographic/etc. that is not being covered?

The conversation then turned to Twitter.

Abraham said that there’s no better way to follow the city’s tech community than on Twitter; others said they thought Twitter had the potential to inform reporting.

Ben, a Twitter skeptic, said he felt that the signal-to-noise ratio is low, and wondered if it’s really worth the time for reporters to wade through thousands of Tweets.

Daniel mentioned Twitter’s impact on the Iranian election protests in Tehran, noting that Twitter even postponed scheduled maintenance so that Iranians could continue to use the site to communicate with one another. Clearly, Daniel argued, Twitter is impacting both the news and cultural landscapes, and needs to be acknowledged as a contributor to news coverage.

Roger said that he only saw Twitter working for certain types of stories, mostly spot news. Abraham added that he doubted social media’s ability to play a role in long-term investigative reporting, because it would be impossible to establish standards of quality/accuracy for such a varied and disparate group of contributors.

Theresa said that often the first place she hears about important goings-on is through Twitter. Also, she said, it’s really all about who you choose to follow.

Cornelius shifted the conversation by asking, can you wiki Portland, and if so, what value does that provide to journalists and the communities they serve? Daniel said that a wiki updated daily by reporters could help them create a collaborative center for sharing story information. He also talked about how when he first learned of the swine flu epidemic, the one place he could get a comprehensive synthesis of the issue was wikipedia.

Abe questioned if there were enough big funders in PDX to sustain something like PML. Becca argued that big funders don’t have to be the sole source of revenue, and that crowd-funding and/or some sort of subscription model could not only make up for lack of deep pockets but could actually create a more sustainable revenue stream.

Cornelius asked if there were other funding models other than philanthropy that people were aware of.  He stated that he regarded membership media non-profits such as KBOO and OPB were essentially ‘micro-philanthropy’. References were made to www.spot.us www.lwn.net www.gigaohm.net that used membership or crowdfunding models.

Abe stated that hyper-local niche media will always be successful. Roger and Cornelius concurred, saying in essence that everyone likes to see their name in the paper. Daniel said the trick is to create a hyper-local news service that is complementary to the more mainstream outlets by covering the beats that they don’t cover.

Ben said simply, “People fund success.” He made reference to a business model where a single company handled all back end advertising and business administration for bloggers, who could blog under their own brand. Theresa said that service was worth paying for.

Cornelius asked if there’s a market for a journalism laboratory that just experiments with new forms of technology.

The issue of digital journalism’s exclusion of lower-income people was raised. Theresa said she thought it might play a large role, just because poorer folks may not have access to mobile platforms and other ways of utilizing technology and social media. Others agreed that this is an issue to consider.

The group agreed that the discussion was ‘on the record’

Cornelius asked that people who were interested in being on a board Pro Temp to contact him.

Daniel and Teresa believed the group should hold monthly meeting to discuss ideas and issues around new media and journalism.  Teresa recommended an advisory group be formed. Some expressed that they wanted to see a more specific vision articulated.

The group agreed to meet again to meet again on July 15th, at 6pm at the Sentinel office,  to further discussion and refine ideas expressed at the June meeting and articulate a clear vision and set of action items.

6.16.09
On June 14th, Daniel Buchhaber posted a podcast discussion involving himself and Susan Merrit of  Public Media Collaborative and Cornelius Swart. The three discussed the BarCamp model of education about social media to undeserved communities, the  PML’s mission, Merrit’s new project Oakland Local and the potentials and challenges of  ’wiki journalism’

6.16.09
Last night an exploratory  meeting occur at the offices of the Sentinel to discuss potentialities for the Portland Media Lab. The conversation made it apparent that a project such as PML should also include a strong social media component as well project areas described on the graph to the right. These comments come at a time in which media reports that even the US State Dept has asked that Twitter not go offline for servicing during the Iranian electoral crisis. It seems as though Twitter has officially been recognized a part of the new global ‘fourth estate’.

Meeting minutes pending.

5.29.09
An ‘exploratory’ meeting of journalist, bloggers and social media users will convene on June 15th, at 6:00pm at the offices of The Sentinel at 8371 N. Interstate Ave, Portland Ore 97217.

The outcome of the meeting will be to determine if there is interest in creating a board ‘pro temp’ for a state non-profit (the first step on the way to becoming a full 501C3).

Topic ideas would be open, the meeting small and informal;  however, this is more of a ‘congress’ than a conversation for conversation’s sake.

Some areas that will be on the agenda:

First half of the meeting:

Social imperative: what, if any social need not currently served would PML provide?
examples: help preserve traditional 20th century journalism in Portland
: promote intensive hyper-local news
: empower citizen journalists

New media: what potential in new and social media platforms might PML explore?
: social media and journalism
: wiki journalism
: multi-media journalism
: cross platform partnerships with other community, non-profit or commercial media
: promote creative commons

Second half of the meeting:

Organizational structure: the basic lowdown on how PML might be structured as a state non-profit and what that would or would not empower it to do.

Dollars and Sense: What funding models are feasible for a potential new non-profit?
: Philanthropy
: Grant development
: membership
: advertising/media property

5.21.09

The future of news from SPJ Oregon/SW Washington on Vimeo.  This is a conversation between Steve Smith former editor of the Spokane Spokesman-Review, Frank Mungeam from KGW TV and Steve Engleberg of the non-profit news site Pro Publica.  This conversation brings together some of the vital threads of the technological, historical and market treads shaping the ‘new fourth estate.’ What is most relevant in this conversation is the message Smith delivers again and again, that journalism is not ‘content’ nor is it a ‘platform’, but a practice.  The practice of journalism is what Smith and Engleberg are focused on preserving.

5.2.09

REFLECTIONS ON PORTLAND BARCAMP DISCUSSION ON JOURNALISM, BLOGGING AND THE NEWSPAPER INDUSTRY Reflections and impressions from a very exciting national ‘flash conference’ called BarCamp, which held a gathering today in Portland. -Video interview with Cornelius Swart from Daniel Bachbuber

4.20.09

Read a recent interview between blogger Ryan Fish and Sentinel Publisher Cornelius Swart about Portland Media Lab, and passing on print style journalistic traditions to a new generation of media bloggers and citizen journalists.

WHITHER THE MUCKRACKERS?
How Citizen Journalists and Professional Journalists can work and play together online

I spend a lot of time reading about how my chosen profession is destined for doom. Today’s reading: “End Times,” by Atlantic Contributing Editor Michael Hirschorn.

Hirschorn says we should all prepare for a world without the print edition of the much-heralded “Gray Lady,” The New York Times. He also lambasts the internet for lowering readers’ expectations of journalism, as well as fostering the development of passive news consumers. He writes:

The Internet has done much to encourage lazy news consumption, while virtually eradicating the meaningful distinctions among newspaper brands.

I certainly think there is truth in it. Many people get their on line news from aggregator sites such as Yahoo!, AOL, home pages. These types of sites often simply promote the most topical and trendy ‘drive-by’ news stories of the hour.

However, couldn’t one also argue that the Internet also encourages curiosity, by empowering words or phrases with links that take you to a new web page – and, potentially, another corner of the world? So much more information is at our fingertips so much more quickly than many previous generations ever could have imagined.

As for the “meaningful distinctions among media brands,” I beg to differ. Many, many people can still discern between The New York Times and The New York Post – what exactly is so meaningful about distinctions among media brands? The question may be, do people even care about the distinctions between media brands anymore?

Hirschorn, like so many others in the links menu on our homepage, begs the same question: how much longer will the current news paradigm be relevant? The Internet has rapidly globalized and democratized not just the consumption but also the creation of information. For example, a small village in Nicaragua I visited in early 2007 had questionable plumbing but highly functional, if slow, Internet. The proliferation of news websites in the last three years alone has been astonishing, as has the range of communities they cover.

The sheer number of participants in the creation of Web news content suggests a willingness, and even a hunger, on the part of many to play an active role in the journalistic process. On the one hand, this is tremendously exciting; often, “citizen journalists” are more in touch with the communities they live in and report about than most professional journalists can be, and they provide a valuable on-the-ground perspective to the coverage of events large and small. Indeed, many would argue that the citizen journalism that emerged almost immediately after last November’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai greatly enhanced the global comprehension and experience of the attacks because of the citizens’ ability to update news organizations on new developments almost instantaneously, as well as post photos, audio and video from locations that would have proved inaccessible to print and broadcast journalists.

On the other hand, there is an inherent bias present when people are reporting on either their experience of a particular situation or a community, organization, or issue in which they have a personal stake. Whereas professional journalists are generally assigned (or should be) to stories in which they have no prior personal associations (unless they are columnists, critics or others whose job it is not to report but provide commentary) citizen journalist may arguably have a greater tendency towards bias.

In  Hirschorn’s opinion, the Huffington Post is the “prototype for the future of journalism: a healthy dose of aggregation, a wide range of contributors, and a growing offering of original reporting.”

I agree, but only partially. I think the Huffington Post is a valuable blend of aggregation, opinion, serious analysis, and wry humor (it’s there, I swear…check out Andy Borowitz).

However, the scope of HuffPost is national, and there is a real need for what’s been trendily deemed “hyper-local” reporting – journalism that provides information and news in a local, community-focused context. Can professional reporters do this? Certainly – but only to a point. I worked for a year at a paper in a small Vermont town with roughly 16,000 residents, and even with a relatively small focus our staff couldn’t even come close to covering all the newsworthy stories developing right under our noses. The same applies to Portland, on a macro (citywide) and micro (neighborhood-specific) level.

Based on this experience, I contend that people readily consume hyper-local news – and, given the myriad suggestions we received at the paper from readers, I’d wager many would be willing to create some of it too.

The main case against citizen journalists is based on the fact that they are usually untrained and inexperienced in the ways of news gathering and reporting. Drawing again from my experience in newsrooms, I firmly believe that some knowledge of how to research and report news, no matter the medium, is essential if one is to share his or her findings with an audience who assumes what it reads is truthful and accurate.(Not to mention knowing one’s rights and responsibilities as a journalist, which is crucial both for the safety and credibility of the reporter and the news organization he or she represents.)

That’s why one of the key components of Portland Media Lab is to “teach citizen journalists the fundamentals of professional journalistic ethics, standards & practices, style and due diligence.” This serves as empowering to the individual, the community, and the news organization. What’s best is that this education will come from professional reporters and editors, most of whom will likely be freelancers like myself or former full-time staff journalists and refuges from ‘Big Media’. It’s a mutually beneficial situation – and just might be the future of journalism. Times or not, we think it’s pretty exciting.

-Becca Robinson