GROUP 3 PROTOTYPE

The concept

Our group identified two major problems: the disappearance of local journalism institutions and a public disconnected from journalists. So we wondered, “how might nomadic journalists work and how would community life continue to be successful?”

This idea builds on Group 2 (inadvertently), mixes Spot.Us, Innocentive.com, OhMyNews.com, uWeb/iTunes/iNews and other journalism movements: public journalism, citizen journalism, etc.
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This is my first post to this blog, so allow me to preface it with a brief introduction. My name is Jay Balagna, I’m a 19-year-old freshman studying journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno. I’m also the Assisstant News Editor for The Nevada Sagebrush. I’m originall from Denver, Colo. but I grew up in Winnemucca, Nev. But that’s enough of that. Lately, Mike Higdon has dominated this blog with arguements for the idea of charging micropayments for online news content (like iTunes for news).
While I like that an idea to save the industry I hope to enter is finally gaining speed, I fundamentally disagree with it. Don’t get me wrong, journalism needs to be fixed, it’s very broken and I am a firm believer that the status quo is NEVER the best option. That being said, I feel that journalism is a public service, and forcing people to pay for the news they consume does a grave disservice to the public sphere. [...]

David Carr of The New York Times is either an asshole or genius. He discusses the idea of making an iTunes for distributing news and information (click here for Michael Hogan’s take). Wow, it’s about time. [...]