1. Participatory
Journalism
I’m David Cohn
www.digidave.org
www.spot.us

2. Some Good Company.....

3. AT MY VERY BEST
10 presentation points to the first person that names this character.

4. I HAVE GREAT NEWS!!!!!
“The era of a passive reader isn’t
over............

5. • it never existed.
R.E.M.L.

6. What do we mean
when we say.....
“Participation”
Cliffs Notes: It means doing things together.....
Easier now: Just imagine organizing last nights drinkup without Twitter.

7. Participation has many forms
Distributing the work load
Citizen journalism
User generated content
distributed reporting
Pro/Am
Lends itself to certain types of reporting

8. Community Funded Reporting!
• Distributing the financial load
This is a form of participation....

9. Community Funded Reporting

10. What’s the public perspective?
Transparency and Control
They
set the
agenda
a menu

11. Spot.Us Community
Making Contact (NRP)
“it made me feel empowered”
East Bay Express
Won a national award from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency

12. Oakland Tribune
The I “Hella” Hate
Potholes Bike Hunt

13. From the Journalism Side
• Freelancers pitching the world

14. Freelancing 30 years ago
• Not that different today.
• It is an opaque process

15. Seven Small News Organizations
KALW New American Media
Oakland Local Placeblogger

16. Reporting Happens in Public
• The process of writing this crowd-funded story and of blogging
about it is going to be a new experience for me. The old method
of writing a story was to get approval from your editor, and then
the story was something of a secret except for those who needed
to know. When you were done, you published your story and you
wowed the city with it, and made your competitors at other Seattle
daily newspapers curse that they hadn't thought of it first. (Or, at
least that was the fantasy that we journalists had.)
• So what's the process now? It's developing, that's for sure. I would
be very interested in hearing suggestions for aspects of the story
to cover, or things you'd be interested in reading in the blog.

17. What about Scoops!
Transparency
• “For well-informed participation to
occur, it is argued that some version
of transparency, e.g. radical
transparency, is necessary, but not
sufficient.”

18. Why Experiment?
• Rule of the Internet: Cheaper/
Easier to try than to debate
about trying.
• Stems from “Agile and Iterative”
Fail early, fail often - try again.

23. You can steal this idea!
• No joke: There are several ways - ask me how.
www.youcapital.it
www.spotus.it
www.youcommnews.com

24. P.S. It’s My Birthday!!!
You have a choice
Buy me a beer later
Donate to Spot.Us
Or clap extra loud
as I finish....