Greetings from the start of Day 2 of the Media Giraffe conference at UMass-Amherst, where a presentation about the American Press Institute's "Newspaper Next" project is going on as I write. This $2.7 million initiative of the API, supported by the work of Dr. Clayton Christensen, a specialist in "disruptive innovation," has as its goal "to develop a practical, learnable innovation method for newspaper companies."
I am happy to see that the newspaper industry is focused on innovation -- as is much of the business world -- since an innovative definition of what all forms of news organizations cover is what I'm looking to contribute to this conference.
I wrote in yesterday's blog that I consider the current model of journalism to be incomplete...that in addition to stories that attempt to stop bad things from happening that we also need stories that attempt to help good new things happen. (And, yes, I know I started by saying "obsolete." This upset some readers, and I apologize for doing that. I see now that my stylistic device of saying "obsolete" but then evolving my thinking within the piece to say "incomplete" didn't work. Okay. Lesson learned.)
You might be interested to know that I have begun testing this more complete reporting model in my conversations with other conference attendees, and people are responding positively to this outside-the-box definition.
One person I spoke to is White House correspondent Helen Thomas. I told her that my expanded vision of journalism is based in part on the point Tom Friedman makes in the "Imagination" chapter of his book The World Is Flat. In a world where Tom essentially says we are in a battle between optimism and pessimism for which global mindset will shape the future, I believe journalism has a role to play -- in its choices of what stories it covers -- in helping influence which mindset will win. She said she didn't like the fact that Tom Friedman supported the Iraq War (I told her neither do I), but she said she admired what I'm doing. I also told her I am a fan of the Unity08.com political movement: an effort to reach out to millions of Americans who are concerned about mainstream challenges like the Federal budget deficit. I believe Unity08 is an example of innovation applied to the political process.
That's my report for now. Today's main event is the "Future of Journalism Roundtable Summit." I'll report on that tomorrow.