This document discusses the role of new media makers and participatory journalism in informing the public. It outlines how the news ecosystem now includes fact entrepreneurs, creative technologists, citizen media makers, philanthropic foundations, universities, advocacy groups, and government. It describes how "news work" goes beyond traditional journalism to include sharing information, facilitating conversations, crowdsourcing stories, data visualization, and more. It also provides examples of successful community news startups and new types of news sites that have been launched in recent years.

1. Participatory Journalism
The Role of New Media Makers
in Informing the Public

2. McLean, VA: Library Closing

3. McLean Ear: New VenueFound

4. J-Learning.org: Site in a Box

5. News Ecosystem > New Players
 Fact entrepreneurs
 Creative technologists
 Citizen media makers
 Philanthropic foundations
 Universities
 Advocacy Groups
 Government

6. Venues for Participation:
Journalism vs. “News Work”
Journalism:
Collecting, validating,
producing, publishing news

7. “News Work” – not just for journos
Sharing information
Facilitating conversations
Crowdsourcing stories
Smart curation & aggregation
Data mining & visualizations
News games
Lists & resources
Social shout outs

8. Community News Start-ups
Since 2005, J-Lab has:
 Funded more than 45 “New Voices”
community news projects
 $25K grants: $17K + $8K, if matched
 1,534 applications

9. Success through the years
…we’ve seen
some great
projects.

10. Findings over five years
 Of 46 projects funded, 76%
launched and found success

11. Findings over five years

12. Newest trend: Pro-jo’s
launching news sites
 Hyperlocal Startups
 State-based Investigative
News Sites
 Niche Sites

13. West Seattle Blog

14. Davidson News

15. Metropolis

16. CaliforniaWatch

17. WisconsinWatch

18. Investigate West

19. Metro News Sites

20. Politico.com

21. Global Post

22. Fact Entrepreneurs

23. Advocacy Journalism:
Sunlight Foundation - transparency

24. Council on Foreign Relations – global hot spots

25. Public School News

26. Creative Technologists: NYTimes | Document Reader

27. SeeClickFix.com

28. University – Community News

29. Networked Journalism

31. New Media Makers Toolkit

32.  Citizen Media Resources
 KCNN.org - Knight Citizen News Network
 J-Learning.org - How-to publish
 J-NewVoices.org - Folo startups
 J-Lab.org - Cool ideas
 NewMediaWomen.org – Grants