** Conference News **

Join us for

Journalism’s ideals meet Silicon Valley’s tools in a three-day, conceptual mashup hosted by the Journalism That Matters Collaborative, the Media Giraffe Project, the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) and Yahoo! Inc.

www.NewsTools2008.org is three days to describe and invent tools for sustaining "journalism that matters." Strip away the legacy platforms, and what remains of journalism that is needed to support participatory democracy and community?

JOURNALISM THAT MATTERS hosts conversations with a purpose.  It engages the entire system of journalism – reporters, editors, publishers, camera people, photographers, academics and audience, from newspapers, radio, television, and online media, including both mainstream and alternative sources – with the changing nature and definition of news in a changing world.  The point is to recommit journalism to what is fundamental for connecting news with its audience so that it serves and sustains us.

Our Purpose

To revisit the purpose and practice of journalism so that the stories told serve us well.

The New News Ecology

The future of journalism centers around the power of storytelling to create healthy communities.  Specifically:

Cultivating “healthy journalists”, renewing the inner life of the journalist;

Preparing the next generation, with an eye towards the emerging citizen journalist; and

Inventing a new economic model.  As one participant put it, “Rather than further compromise the work, it’s time to separate journalism from its current funding sources and find a new model.”

Some of its seeds include:

·        Journalism as a conversation – a groundbreaking shift from journalism as a lecture;

·        Shaping a new “master narrative”— Recovering the mythic story of journalists as conveners and navigators through a changing world prepares them to support communities in shaping a new national “master narrative” for our times.

·        High tech/high touch journalism – Whether on the web or in the café, new storytelling forms are emerging that engage us on cell phones and iPods, and in gathering places with food, music and the arts; and

·        Ready, Fire, Aim – A strategy of “just do it,” moving from idea (ready) to implementation (fire) without months of planning (aim).

 By metaphorically removing the newsroom walls and taking the journalist out of the cube, the qualities of the new news ecology emerge:

Learn about the project

Get involved

Contact Us
jtm@mediagiraffe.org
425-746-6274

[ Home ] [ Background ] [ Connections ] [ Taking Action ]

Send mail to webmaster@journalismthatmatters with questions or comments about this web site.
Last modified: 11/27/06