New Year, New Role

For the first time in two decades I'm not on the payroll of a large media corporation. As of today I'm on the payroll of a one-person company, comprised of me, but media is still on my agenda.

As many of you know I'm going to work hard on a project to inspire, enable and create what many have been calling a new kind of journalism. In the new world that I and many others believe is coming, the grassroots will have a fundamental and crucial role in the process -- a change that I tried to outline in my book, We the Media, which appeared in the second half of 2004.

For me, this departure is challenging and exciting. I've left what surely is one of the best jobs in mainstream journalism, and will miss my former colleagues immensely (not to mention the pay, benefits and freedom to say what I believed).

I'm also jazzed. Yes, this is a chance to truly walk my talk. But the opportunity to be in on what I consider a pivotal shift, and to be involved just as it begins to happen, made my decision easy.

To help get this project off the ground, I'm fortunate to have early support, financial and otherwise, from some first-rate folks -- people whom I admire and whose work has inspired me:

• Mitch Kapor combines a passion for excellence with a conviction that change must come from many places -- and that when communities are given a way to coalesce they can accomplish great things. He and his colleagues at the Open Source Applications Foundation, Mozilla Foundation and Level Playing Field Institute are making a difference every day.
• Pierre Omidyar and his team at the pathbreaking Omidyar Network also believe in the possibilities when everyday people can use emergent networks to create communities and do things for themselves. As Pierre told Business Week in a recent interview, "Long-term sustainable change happens if people discover their own power."

I'm grateful, moreover, for the good wishes that have poured in since I made my intentions public several weeks ago. I'll do my best to justify all the kind words, but I won't accomplish much by myself. This will be a collaborative effort.

Next Steps, and a Caution

This project is still very much in an embryonic state, however. I have to emphasize that point, because some of the online chatter and speculation has raised absurdly high expectations, certainly in the short term. I have many ideas, including some quite specific ones, but the larger framework has yet to be developed, much less built.

In the longer term, who can say? But I do know one thing: If anything worthwhile comes of this, and I strongly believe it will, the achievements will be ours, not mine. They will be the result of many people's ideas, good will and effort. If I can help clear a path for people who want to join the vast, global conversation, I'll be happy.

For the immediate future I plan to use this blog to ponder the present and future of grassroots journalism; to begin to figure out what we might do together in this new world; and, in general, to have the kind of conversation that this huge topic requires.

Of course, I'm far from the only person who's thinking and talking about this stuff. I'll point you to the best work I see, and count on you to let me know when I miss something important.

Anyway, enough of this lecture. Let's start talking, and figure this out together.

Comments

[Sean Gilligan]

Dan - Good luck with your new venture. I'll be rooting and watching with interest. I wonder how well you will be able to implement the PR and marketing rules from Chapter 4 of your book. ;-) If you do them well, you'll make rooting and watching easier and more fun!

[iman razavi]

Dear Sir

I read your blog from Iran. I am student of industrial management at Mashhad university but I love working as journalist. Can you help me send me some free web site on internet that teaching journalism for free or other resources.

regards
Iman razavi

[Jeff Clavier]

Happy and Healthy New Year, Dan, and best of luck with the new startup. I look forward to reading/hearing more about it, and enjoying your thoughts on this blog.

[Jozef Imrich]

Bring on the extra journalistic sunlight, Dan ... the best disinfectant in the world.

Ram Dass made once an excellent existential point about what men and women really are - almost 90% of water ... There are two waves drifting along in the ocean, one a bit bigger than the other. The bigger wave suddenly becomes very sad and upset. The smaller wave asks what's wrong. "You don't want to know," the bigger wave says. "What is it?" the small wave asks. "No - really - it's too terrible. If you knew what I knew, you'd never be happy." The small wave persists. Finally the big wave explains: "You can't see it, but I can see that, not too far from here, all of the waves are crashing on the shore. We are going to disappear." The small wave says," I can make you happy with just six words, but you have to listen very carefully to them." The big wave doesn't believe it -- what does the small wave know that he doesn't -- but he's desperate. After a while of doubting and mocking the small wave, the big wave finally gives in, and asks the small wave to tell him. And so the small wave says: "You're not a wave, you're water."

[Alex Williams]

Way to go, Dan. Where will citizen media go? I don't know. But I know who I will look to for guidance and thoughtful analysis.

[Tim]

Congradulations for having the guts to give this a try, and best wishes for making it a success, or at the very least learning a lot from the attempt. If I can assist in any way, please let me know.
Thanks,

[Allan Moult]

For the sleepy backwater that it is, Tasmania [the tiny island state of Australia], has a vibrant citizens journalism endeavour in the Tasmanain Times that gained Lindsay Tuffin, its individualistic editor, the Tasmanian Journalist of the Year award in 2004 from his peers.

In similar vein is Leatherwood Online, Tasmania's Journal of Discovery, which is more of a communal magazine with a growing support base of advertising. Disclosure: I am editor of this one.

Dan, I think that there are many models for citizen media, and all are valid. At last the price of entering publishing has dropped to the point where any group can have a go. And, having read your columns now for several years I can see you'll be helping us all explore its limits.

Congratulations, and good luck with the adventures ahead.

[Allan Moult]

For the sleepy backwater that it is, Tasmania [the tiny island state of Australia], has a vibrant citizens journalism endeavour in the Tasmanain Times that gained Lindsay Tuffin, its individualistic editor, the Tasmanian Journalist of the Year award in 2004 from his peers.

In similar vein is Leatherwood Online, Tasmania's Journal of Discovery, which is more of a communal magazine with a growing support base of advertising. Disclosure: I am editor of this one.

Dan, I think that there are many models for citizen media, and all are valid. At last the price of entering publishing has dropped to the point where any group can have a go. And, having read your columns now for several years I can see you'll be helping us all explore its limits.

Congratulations, and good luck with the adventures ahead.

[Charles Jo]

I pray that your move is a start of a beautiful trend in journalism: report more stuff that matters to us rather than infomercials.

[mohsen khatami]

Dear Dan:
Thank you for such a great work.
Yes, we can do it.
will contact you soon and share some ideas and feelings.
My approach to the whole thing is that, UNLESS we do not work on HUMAN EMOTIONS, we are in the same rut! 'Hatred/love spectrum' can be the BASIC issue we can work on, in MEDIA.... a different approach altogether!
love and light....
until soon
mohsen

[Jeff Ooi]

Dan,

You are a role model that inspired me into blogging, and I told you when we last met at Harvard meet that, for a person of your stature to make the move, it's ground-breaking.

I am overawed at your courage to walk the talk. This sets me miles apart from you. The selfish part of it is that I will continue to see you lead at the fore, if merely trying to keep pace.

[billy]

good luck. you have faith.

[José Guardia]

All the best of lucks with your new projects, Dan. Hope to see you again soon.

[Steve Cisler]

I found this web log because your final column in the print edition did not say too much about the citizen journalism project. I remember in the 90's there was a surge of projects usually with the keyword "participatory" including
participatory journalism (supported by Pew)
participatory GIS
participatory rural appraisal
community networking. I hope your project has better legs than some of these, not that they did not bring about change.

If I can help in any way, please contact me.

Steve Cisler

[Tim Oren]

Congratulations on taking the plunge, Dan. I think this is the year to dream big.

(Hello, Steve Cisler, long time no see!)

[Steve]

>

Whats not to like! You already look 20 years younger Dan.

♫ ♫ What a difference a day makes. ♫ ♫

[Scott Rafer]

Welcome to entrepreneurship! I can't wait to see how you "challenge the reactionaries." We'll all benefit from your efforts.

[Bruce]

Hi Dan! I've read a couple of your columns in the Merc, probably the only widely circulated Californian paper worth reading anymore (although I haven't checked out the Sacramento Bee). Yours has always been a relief to read. I wish you the best, and now I don't even have to subscribe to see you! :OD Happy New Year!

[Grant Bowman]

Congratulations on your new adventure, Dan. I look forward to seeing how this evolves.

[Barney Lerten]

As someone who was given a wonderful chance to pioneer local, online-only news (http://www.bend.com - we recently put to bed, at least for now, a weekly print paper that was costing more than it was worth) I, too, am hopeful that I am not an exception that proves the dead-trees rule, but part of something that will prove inspiring and much more of, as Jeff Jarvis likes to put it, "news as a conversation."

It took some re-doing of the thought processes for a 20-year journalist who thrives on objectivity as a goal (never an absolute) to engage in that dialogue, and share my own views, while showing I can divorce them from telling the news fairly and with balance.

But after five years, we've carved a key niche in our fast-growing community (the local TV station had me on for two years now, to talk about the local issues of the year just past). We are struggling with all the issues everyone else is - how to make a buck at it, how to allow all to participate in a lively, thriving conversation without abuse of the platform poisoning things, etc. etc.

Best wishes, Dan. To all of us!

[Guillaume du Gardier]

Best wishes from Paris Dan for your new venture, I won't miss to follow every day your new blog. You've been one of the first to leave a comment on my blog few months ago, I've been following your work since my very first blogging days, there will be a lot to learn here also.

[HT]

In addition to all the laudatory comments above, to which I add my voice, I'd like to say that your new blog is very handsome, and easy on the eyes. Congrats to the designer, whoever s/he may be.

[Glenn McGee]

We started a blog on bioethics and have been blown away by the response, not just from here at Penn but from all over the general intellectual community, and what everybody says, Dan, is that we should watch what you do and imitate it. We are your greatest fans here and we offer our congrats and good wishes!

[Jack Dinkmeyer]

May I please respectfully remind everyone that media is plural, describing more than one medium? "Media are..., not media is...." It's an important distinction only in that we who have spent our lives in the media should describe it correctly.

Lecture ended.

Thank you

[Greatest American Lawyer]

I agree this format has tremendous potential. Like everything else 'internet' it will likely take longer than we all hope to take form. The end-users are always the ones who must embrace new formats for them to become mainstream. We are seeing early signs of strong readership. Let's hope the internet continues to bring us towards a more open and informed world.