The sooner we accept this as a relic of the past, the better. Image from State Library of Queensland's Flickr page.
…is not just full of doom and gloom.
Michele McLellan, a longtime editor at The Oregonian, posted a summary of her recently-competed study of just over 100 promising journalism web start-ups on The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard’s website. I would encourage anybody interested to read the full Nieman post (it starts out with an extended tree vs. sprouts metaphor, a tried-and-true indicator of good writing).
McLellan and her research partner, Adam Maksl, established a criteria for admission onto the list (the production of original news in ways that attempt to be fair and transparent with demonstrated effort in finding a sustainable revenue model) and divided their findings into four categories:
- New traditional - sites dominated by original content produced by professional journalists. The newsroom staff may be smaller than in a traditional newspaper newsroom, but tends to have more journalists than two of the other categories, community and micro local. Many are embracing digital connectivity with their users while keeping traditional journalism as their bread and butter.
my selected highlight: The Texas Tribune. A self-described non-profit, nonpartisan public media organization. Its mission is to “cover every line in the state budget” and to promote civic engagement and discourse on matters of statewide concern through original reporting and on-the-record, open-to-the-public conversations with elected officials and other newsmakers. With a staff of 27, the site advocates reading this as a supplement to your local newspaper, since it has probably cut back on political reporting. Funding comes strictly from donations, no advertising. The site itself is beautiful.