Five news organizations have joined a new "networked journalism" project put into effect by American University’s J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism and funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
The one year project will consist of lessons that foster collaboration between journalistic outlets, both small and large, to maintain a high quality of informational output of local journalism.
"In these days where anyone can publish local information, we hope that a guided partnership between local newspapers and local bloggers or citizen journalists can increase the amount of local information available in a community and raise its quality. We see this as a win/win for the community," said Gary Kebbel, the Knight’s Foundation’s journalism program director.
The five pilot news organizations who will take part in the program will be The Seattle Times, The Miami Herald, The Charlotte Observer, Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times, and TucsonCitizen.com, which is classified as a "web-only citizen journalism outlet."
After each organization reaches out to at least one "hyperlocal" journalistic outlet, they will work together based on lessons constructed by J-Lab that will teach effective ways to collaborate with other journalists when working on pieces.
Among the topics that will be covered in the lessons will be how to find the right people to collaborate with, how to tailor news for more mainstream outlets and share content, and how to maintain a sense of ownership of one’s work while working with a network of other writers.
"A growing number of web-based journalists now help to fill the need for quality news coverage in many communities," said Rick Thames, the Charlotte Observer’s editor. "We’d like to see if partnerships with these journalists could lead to richer, more relevant content for all of our audiences."
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation was established in 1950 and seeks to promote a worldwide excellence in journalism and has allocated more than $400 million in grants towards journalistic causes.
J-Lab is a section of AU’s School of Communication that specializes in incorporating digital technologies into the practices of more traditional news organizations.
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to fund J-Lab program encouraging journalistic collaboration
On August - 25 - 2009