Last week’s gathering of community news folks, the Block by Block summit in Chicago, left me both psyched about the opportunities I have to make a contribution to the evolution of journalism and overwhelmed about which direction to head. (Check out the blog for the event for oodles of info.)
Here’s what I know for sure:
The word “journalism” itself is problematic. Last year sometime, I tired of the “who’s a journalist” debate and started reframing it with my students in terms of “what is journalism,” figuring it was easier to define a product than a job description. I still find that to be true. But these days, even deciding whether to label a product as a piece of journalism is feeling like a waste of time. What makes an eggplant recipe journalism? If it’s accompanied by a professionally written story about eggplants? If it’s shared by a professional communicator? If it’s published by a person who claims to be a journalist? If there’s a news peg? The discussion becomes useless quickly. Can we just skip it altogether? (Denise Cheng of The Rapidian has a great post up that touches on this.)
Continue reading “What I heard about community news at Block by Block”
