Archive for Democracy

What is BCNI?
BarCamp NewsInnovation Philadelphia is the national conference in a country-wide effort to reinvent the news industry.
Using the BarCamp open grid format (what’s that?), some of the greatest minds around will discuss new ideas on how to reenergize and innovate the news industry. This is NOT a journalists-only event! Invite any friends from various industries who are concerned about the future of news. Even your friend that complains about the biased media. Especially that guy. There will be representatives from news organizations all over the country.
The event is FREE and will be hosted at Annenberg Hall on the campus of Temple University in Philadelphia, Pa. Doors will open at 9 a.m. and the presentations will start at 10 a.m. After an hour break for lunch at 1 p.m., the last presentations will start at 5 p.m.
What to expect:
Doors will open at 9 a.m. and there will be hour to grab some coffee and meet your new best friends. There will be a blank presentation board and a stack of post-it notes. Write down your topic and post it in the time slot of your choice. Be sure to get there early to get the time you want.
At 10 a.m. presentations will begin in one of the four floors of Annenberg Hall. Each classroom has a projector and computer, some have more than a dozen machines. There is even a TV studio if the desire so strikes you. Presentations will continue until 1 p.m. when we will break for lunch. There are dozens of lunch trucks, pizza places and restaurants on campus at your disposal.
Presentations will resume from 2 p.m. until 5 p.m. with the event closing at 6. After-party details to come.
http://bcniphilly.com/

They won't charge for news.
I got in trouble with my newspaper-loving friends again today, when I started my morning by re-Tweeting a a video link showing Jeff Jarvis on the CBC last night, talking about The Decline of the Newspaper.
In response to those who still think the old newspaper company model can be saved by charging for online content (if it ever could), I argued that discussions on the future of economically sustainable journalism have been raging for years – from SXSW to blogworldexpo to Twitter to local barcamps (like this one, upcoming soon) and more. But the newspaper deciders haven’t even shown up, as if in total denial while readers shift online.
Meanwhile, I once watched a panel of successful independent bloggers pounding their fists with laughter about how much money the newspaper industry was leaving on the table.
I can’t imagine anybody paying for news again anymore than they will pay for search engines or online classifieds. Instead, we should be looking at how Google, craigslist and others make a fortune without charging us a dime. That’s the future of business, whether we deliver the news in print or online.
Jarvis’s book – What Would Google Do – articulates my argument exactly. Also, I polled my Twitter following a while back, asking “Will you pay to read The New York Times online?” They will not.
I’ll be OK if I’m wrong; I’d honestly love to go back and work in a post-desperate newspaper industry, but I can’t fathom the possibility, at least not before I see the execs embrace some new strategies.

My helmet, by Cindy Kane
Artist Cindy Kane has included a helmet for me – with some of my photos from Iraq – in
The Helmet Project, opening March 25th at the
Cheryl Pelavin Gallery in New York. I am honored to be considered in the company of some great journalists.

The Helmet Project
In her artist statement Kane writes: “The Helmet Project” was born out of my desire to pay tribute to journalists through my work as a visual artist. I began this project by inviting fifty foreign correspondents whose work I admire to join me in a collaboration which involved using their original notes from their travels as journalists.
After years of considering various icons which could support the notes and paper detritus which journalists save, I decided on the military helmet to provide the backbone of the installation. I have always been drawn to the role that journalists play in informing us about the events which shape history, and to the great tradition of the war correspondent.