Ernie : Also in reference to the posting Chris provided- which, BTW, was quite informative. You seem to be thinking in terms of professionals to work with. Maybe you call them amateurs, and as journalists that may be true, but I simply cannot make that kind of assumption. Maybe better, what I know about news publishing per se, as opposed to a business journal or something similar where anyone interested will have serious background and probably ( or certainly ) a college education, this isn't necessarily the case in news. All kinds of folks think they know all about news when, in fact, they don't understand it at all, or only see the surface and little else. Some have less than a college education also, and while this is not an absolute bar, without that kind of learning experience people have 2 and 1/2 strikes against them. Its like an incident I once read about. A psychologist was interviewing an inmate prior to a parole hearing. The question was what kind of gainful employment was the individual qualified for on the outside. "I can do what you are doing," said the inmate. O sure, its a breeze, all you need to do is talk, Uh huh. With actual amateurs this sort of thing is commonplace. They -- a lot of them-- simply don't grasp what its all about. Yet some may well be good sources for X or Y or Z in terms of access to hard to get information. There are professionals in my world, but ask any teacher, there are more non-professionals than otherwise. This is necessarily so, 90% of students are anything but professional . Maybe some year they will get there, and that is the challenge and reward of teaching, but in the meantime, well, they are amateurs, nothing more. In a free speech group who mostly gets involved are de facto students, people who, at some adult stage in life now decide to express themselves about politics or culture, most never having seriously studied any such thing before. I've actually been talking about this with someone who has some of the skills necessary, and my head is filled with ideas to try out, but I still can't say when anything will happen. Whenever it is, though. it won't be with a staff of seasoned journalists, it will be a one man band for a while, until others can see the "product" often enough to get a good sense of what its all about and make judgements about the underlying philosophy. It is one thing to promote a "normal" product, say software or a new device. You can believe in anything you want, from pacifism to anarchism, as long as you are good at making the product, so what ? In news, however, philosophy is the name of the game. But getting consensus about philosophy = nailing Jello to the wall. So, yes, this is "my" problem, but that translates into similar problems for thousands of others with much the same aspirations. Good material to look over, but as much as I think well of Graham's essay especially, and think well of the e-publications, I am still at a more basic level While at the same time being miles down the tracks with concepts I hope to turn into reality some day. Billy ================================================ In a message dated 12/1/2009 3:51:26 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, [email protected] writes:
Hi Billy, On Dec 1, 2009, at 3:42 PM, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) wrote: I like her article. But in terms of the real world problem being posed it comes up short. Meaning it doesn't solve *your* problem. :-P Actually, the real issue you are facing is that you are a *startup*. Thus, you need to start thinking like an entrepreneur: a) What is your primary mission b) What is the business model to make that sustainable c) How can you bootstrap it d) Whom do you need on board to make that all happen Those aren't problems that anyone can solve for you. Though, Paul Graham would be an excellent place to start: _http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html_ (http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html) In fact, he touched on this very issue recently.... _http://www.paulgraham.com/publishing.html_ (http://www.paulgraham.com/publishing.html) What happens to publishing if you can't sell content? You have two choices: give it away and make money from it indirectly, or find ways to embody it in things people will pay for. The news isn't very encouraging for those hoping to raise money for journalism, but that's just hard cold reality. Though, Arianna did highlight a few models that seem to be working: And all across the country, passionate entrepreneurs are doing just that, experimenting with new and creative revenue models. _TechDirt.com_ (http://www.techdirt.com/) is monetizing its engaged and highly informed community by turning them into focus-groups-for-hire. _ProPublica_ (http://www.propublica.org/) is using a not-for-profit model to produce impact investigative journalism. And there are many different powerful local journalism models, including _Voice of San Diego_ (http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/) , which supports its award-winning local journalism with a combination of advertising and public radio-style contributions from foundations and users. The new paths to success are still being charted -- and much remains uncertain. But this much is clear: we can't use an analog map and expect to find our way in a digital word. Did you look at any of those to see how they work, and what might be applicable to your situation? _http://www.TechDirt.com/_ (http://www.techdirt.com/) _http://www.propublica.org/_ (http://www.propublica.org/) _http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/_ (http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/) -- Ernie P. = _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected] http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com Archives at http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/
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