PJNet

Want to see journalism change in action? Then take a look at these two wikis started by folks interested in finding alternatives to failing newspapers in Seattle and San Francisco.

Here is the Seattle wiki started by Chuck Taylor, who helped found Crosscut in Seattle. The home page’s first paragraph says:

This is a place to imagine what a next-generation Seattle news outlet might look like. It’s open to everyone. You can participate in discussions of topics and even edit pages.

He was inspired by the San Francisco Post-Chronicle wiki, which says on its home page:

The Post-Chronicle is a wiki that’s building a model for the daily news organization of the future. It began as a response to the possible demise of the Hearst-owned San Francisco Chronicle. Our city by the bay might soon have no newspaper.

I have been saying for a long time that journalists have the reporting power to actually do the research necessary to start new models. Of course, these wikis provide that platform.

I will be paying very close attention to The Seattle Post-Post-Intelligencer wiki because its contributors are looking at community ownership, in a way similar to what I advocated for here at PJNet.org back in January. They are fleshing out the idea — including the Green Bay Packers of newspapers — with real crowdsourcing research.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 9th, 2009 at 12:06 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.