Newsrooms don’t usually cooperate, how does that work for you?

Most of our stations don’t really compete against each other with the major exception of KPLU nad KUOW in Seattle. We fit into the areas where they don’t compete. For example both have a strong interest in covering Olympia but neither has interest in sending anyone down. Traffic is pretty heavy and it’s just way more cost effective for them to share one so they share Austin Jenkins.

So all the stations pool their money to pay for the reporters?

Exactly. The feeling of people on this issue of competition has really changed over time. Generally it’s better for public radio to stick together and compete against other media than it is to compete against each other. The listener identifies with certin stations but it’s all one network, it’s all NPR.

What’s your plan for N3?

We have a plan for three more reporters and one more editor. The first is a state house bureau in Boise. There’s also a strong desire to hire a bilingual Latino affairs reporter, there just isn’t money to do it so I’m trying to find grant money to do that. We also have a proposal for a second Oregon bureau. We plan to do that between now and 2014.

How might this work for other news organizations?

It does work for print and it’s called the Associated Press. We are public radio’s version of the Associated Press. We’re not a wire service, that’s the difference. We don’t have to be on top of every story. But it’s the same concept that you share resources and share in the benefits. It would work very well for an investigative arm because it’s extremely expensive. If lots of different news organizaitons pooled their money to share the cost of ivnestigattive jorunlaism they wouldn’t necessarily be competing against each other and would be doing the good work of journalism in the process.

There was talk during we make the media of OPB becoming a model for nonprofit news innovation – what’s your vision of how that would work?

I’m not really involved in those discussions but I do think that it can be analogous in that this network started with a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and it grew organically. It grew because a series of decisions that simply made sense. [...] If you have some upfront money to build something with that eventually will go away, whoever’s using it will eventually pay for it. Our stations didn’t have the money to front this thing, but it happened because of the grant and it was clearly so useful and cost-effective that the stations using the service were willing to pay for it. And it wasn’t some pie in the sky idealistic Pollyanna thing, it was just very specific decisions that made sense to all the people involved at the time.

Advice for other news organization interested in trying it?

Any organization like this has to have a strong editorial ethic, you can’t do this and not be good, because otherwise the stations and organizations aren’t going to do it. There is a real temptation to say “it’s the Internet man”, but everybody needs an editor. And as much editors aren’t liked (or some form of accountability), they make the product better.

Fogarty is a former OPB reporter who took the helm of NNN in September, 2008. NNN is the 7-year-old public radio news cooperative that allows regional stations to share work. It has four bureaus in three states, including statehouse bureaus in Olympia and Salem. But it doesn’t have any “employees”. This is how NNN describes it:

“Instead, each member of our staff is “hosted” by a member station. Technically, they are employees of those stations, which provide administrative assistance, paychecks and health coverage. In turn, N3 reimburses the stations for those costs. This structure saves N3 and its member stations the significant overhead costs of developing a business office, HR, IT support, engineering, etc. The host stations provide these services as part of their contribution to this joint effort.”

Come meet Fogarty as he talks about the different ways NNN is trying to change public radio news in the Pacific Northwest.

Thursday, Feb. 18, 7 p.m.
Invasion Cafe and Lounge
412 Southwest 4th Avenue
Portland, OR 97204

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Contact:
Abraham Hyatt, Digital Journalism Portland
Libby Tucker, Society of Professional Journalists, The Columbian

As the fallout from last weekend’s journalism conference continues, and as the supposed line between “old” and “new” journalists becomes more pronounced, it’s time for the next social hour — and a chance to highlight a company that defies that old-vs.-new dichotomy.

Nozzl Media is an 8-month-old, Portland-based startup that’s creating a platform for what it calls “real-time, local news streams.” To put it bluntly, it’s a reporter’s wet dream: Nozzl’s software robots scour public records and databases for information, and then deliver as much or as little as the end user wants. Hence the name: Nozzl. According to CEO Steve Woodward, the company’s “initial target market is newspapers that want mobile editions or web widgets with streaming real-time content, including advertising.” A beta launch is planned for January.

But lucky for us, we’re going to get a sneak preview on Dec. 3.

Woodward is a former Oregonian reporter with a long history as a journalist. I asked him a few questions via email about Nozzl, and about what it’s like to go from covering companies to being a company.

Did you have the idea for Nozzl before or after you left The O?

I left The O last November and formed Nozzl with Steve Suo, Brian Hendrickson and Greg Griffiths in March this year. Before Nozzl was formed, Steve Suo, another former Oregonian reporter, had the original idea for aggregating public records with a software robot. He had hired Brian, a former Oregonian programmer, to write the software. Brian had his own separate side project, an open-source microblog similar to Twitter. I persuaded them to put the two ideas together, so that we had a Twitter-like stream that could be filled with high-quality content such as public records.

I assume that when you first started, you thought about the project from a journalist’s point of view. How difficult was it for you to learn how to approach it from a developer, and then business-owner mindset?

Having been a business reporter and editor for a dozen years, I thought it would be relatively easy to run a company. But there’s a big difference between reporting on a multimillion-dollar corporation and running a small business. Running a small business is much harder. Thankfully, I was smart enough and humble enough to join the Portland Ten entrepreneurs bootcamp, which was the tough-love equivalent of getting an MBA in three months.

As for the development piece, that’s my biggest weakness. I don’t code, and I doubt that I ever will. I rely on Brian and Steve for that, and Greg has a background in software product marketing. But I still have to understand enough as a project manager to know whether we’re on track or not. So I often end my days with throbbing headaches.

Come join Digital Journalism Portland and the Society of Professional Journalists Oregon and SW Washington Chapter on Dec. 3 to see Nozzl in action.

Thursday, Dec. 3, 7 p.m.
Rose and Thistle Pub
2314 NE Broadway St
Portland, OR 97232-1611

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Contact:
Abraham Hyatt, Digital Journalism Portland
Libby Tucker, Society of Professional Journalists, The Columbian

Full disclosure: I’m one of the people helping to organize We Make The Media. Over the last few months, I’ve watched a core group of passionate journalists — lead by Willamette Week co-founder Ron Buel — turn their desire for quality news into an event that they hope will inspire the rest of us to take action. I asked Buel via email a few questions about his vision.

What kind of journalist will get the most out of this conference?

Journalists who will benefit most are not wedded to newspapers, and are able to see a future in news and investigative reporting on the Internet. Journalists who want to work in multiple modes – text, video and audio. Journalists who see the larger role that journalism plays in our democracy, holding our corporations and institutions and elected officials accountable. Journalists who understand that journalism is the community writing about the community, not an ivory tower for the journalist to do his/her business in completely detached fashion.

Is this new journalism enterprise intended to take the place of existing media outlets?

This new enterprise is aimed at the current condition in the Portland Metro area – significantly fewer paid journalism resources doing investigative and enterprise reporting. It does not assume that newspapers are going out of business, or that TV News won’t someday reform itself, or that radio will move from more talk to more news someday. It assumes that there are gaps which a new enterprise can fill today in the public interest.

What will happen after the conference? Who will be charged with moving the project forward?

The participants in this conference will be charged with moving the plans forward. They undoubtedly will bring in outside resources to help, but there is no “control group” who will carry this forward. Future action will only be taken by conference participants who are committed to act, to carry out the plans made at the conference and approved by the entire group.

Have you signed up yet? You only have one more day…

This week we’re moving the meet up to the Rose and Thistle Pub in NE Portland. Bring a friend. Bring a coworker. We’ll see you there at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Oct 29.

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Contact:
Abraham Hyatt, Digital Journalism Portland
Libby Tucker, Society of Professional Journalists, The Columbian

Topics at the conference range from watchdog journalism to business reporting to how to transition from a print to a digital career. The new media sessions are equally diverse, says Libby Tucker, tech chair for the Society of Professional Journalists Oregon and SW Washington Chapter, which puts on the conference.

“We have a track for video — you’ll be producing and editing,” she says. “But in that same track we have a session on business models where you’ll get to talk about where the industry is headed.”

The names of some of the speakers will be familiar to anyone who attended Digital Journalism Camp this summer: Kenneth Aaron, Mark Briggs, Marshall Kirkpatrick. But you’ll also hear from people like David Wolman, a contributing editor at Wired; Orest Pilskalns, CEO and founder of MapWith.Us; and Ed Bisquera, a video blogger and social media business consultant.

You’re going to learn about “how to use your cell phone when you’re out in the field, [and] uploading a photo using geolocation,” Tucker says. “The focus is really how to cover communities using these tools.”

Check out the full list of speakers and panelists here, and sign up here. Registration is $25 for SPJ members, $35 for non-members, and $10 for students.

Earlier this year Jeremiah Kastner and Jeff Martens launched The Portlander, a news site that mixes original content and aggregated news stories from around the metro area. Neither Kastner nor Martens has a journalism background; Kastner’s resume includes stints at Yahoo, Intel and Adobe, while Marten comes from Synopsys and Nike.

“We felt that there wasn’t a great community news outlet in Portland that was not a blog but not The Oregonian,” Kastner says. The goal was to create “something that was in between, that would appeal to the masses: half aggregate, half community-driven.”

How did they develop this burgeoning site and where is it headed next? At our next social hour on Oct. 29 Kastner is going to explain it all. Come ask him questions, have a beer and hang out with your fellow journalists.

For more on The Portlander, check out this story by Mark Briggs (who also was a presenter at Digital Journalism Camp).

October meet up

When: Oct. 29. 7 p.m.
Where: Rose and Thistle Pub, 2314 NE Broadway St. (map)
Presenter: The Portlander

Social Hour Contact:
Abraham Hyatt, Digital Journalism Portland
Libby Tucker, Society of Professional Journalists, The Columbian

As part of Banned Books Week, the Multnomah County Library is hosting a panel this Saturday called “New Media, Old Media and the Future of Investigative Journalism.” They have a fantastic lineup of panelists: April Baer, Stephen Engelberg, David Sarasohn and Al Stavitsky, with Tim DuRoche from Portland Center Stage as the moderator.

The panel is going to focus on a well-worn topic: the challenges the media faces and the implications for investigative journalism. But because of the speakers’ varied backgrounds, I think we’re going to hear some interesting perspectives.

Baer, for instance, says she’ll be talking about “the key differences between non-commercial broadcasters and print media, and whether those differences can let pubcasters continue to grow to meet the needs of the market.”

Stavitsky, on the other hand, will be talking about what he describes as the changing news ecology. “That is, the traditional top-down model, in which major national newspapers and networks set the news agenda that trickles down to local markets, is eroding as audiences migrate to digital platforms and social media spread information virally. It has significant implications for “accountability” journalism.”

Clockwise from top: David Sarasohn, Al Stavitsky, April Baer, Stephen Engelberg

Baer is a reporter and producer with OPB. Engelberg is the managing editor of ProPublica.org, a nonprofit newsroom that focuses on investigative journalism. Sarasohn is a columnist and associate editor at The Oregonian. Stavitsky is the senior associate dean at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication, as well as the director of the school’s George S. Turnbull Center in Portland. DuRoche is an artist, writer and arts and culture advocate.

You can find more information here.

Café Banned
Saturday, October 3, 1–3 p.m.
Central Library, U.S. Bank Room
801 S.W. 10th Ave.

Stay tuned later this week when we announce next month’s presenter and a (quieter) location. Mark it on your calendar now: Oct. 29. 7 p.m.

I was happy to see a healthy mix of print journalists, bloggers and tech people there, with lots of familiar faces from BarCamp, Digital Journalism Camp, and the PIE opening.

As the publisher of The Sentinel, I essentially own two small media properties. One a monthly print publication covering N/NE Portland with a circulation of 27,000 units. The other is a hyperlocal website at www.portlandsentinel.com that is one part news blog, one part open-publishing bulletin board. The site gets approximately 1 million hits a month. For the last two years I have tried to use both properties as laboratories for experiments for multimedia and interactive journalism and reporting.

These experiments have led to the supposition that there may be a need for a larger not-for-profit news center for the Portland media market.

While I tend to be a bit hammy when I speak in front of groups, I did my best to explain the Portland Media Lab concept as one dedicated to advancing journalism for the entire local market.

So far the PML has been a conversation amongst journalist, tech folks, and new media producers. Many of the participants at PML salons are active in the digital media conversation both locally and nationally.  Over the last six months the PML has conducted an informal needs assessment survey.

The PML has posted recommendations for projects and resources that the participants believe are needed to continue and expand robust public-benefit journalism. It is my hope that these recommendations can serve as a framework for those in the media market who are actively trying to assist the fourth estate regardless of what the current crisis the digital age has brought. With luck, an active community can not only coalesce to support and preserve the social benefits of journalism, but help journalism advance and evolve along with the potentialities new technology brings.

The PML recommendations fall into three categories:

I’m willing to make a bet: There are multiple journalism projects here in Portland that you’ve never heard of, or if you have, you have no idea what they actually do. I’m talking startups, non profits and even the big guys — cool stuff is happening and we have no central place to find out about it.

Let’s fix that. Digital Journalism Portland and the Society of Professional Journalists Oregon and SW Washington Chapter are teaming up to bring you an informal social hour that showcases local, innovative digital journalism projects. Come hang out with your peers, have a drink and learn about the people who are changing our industry.

September meet up:

When: Sept. 24. 7 p.m.
Where: Lucky Lab Brew Pub: 915 SE Hawthorne Blvd, Portland, OR 97214
Presenter: Portland Media Lab

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October meet up

When: Oct. 29. 7 p.m.
Where: Rose and Thistle 2314 NE Broadway St.
Presenter: The Portlander

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Contact:
Abraham Hyatt, Digital Journalism Portland
Libby Tucker, Society of Professional Journalists, The Columbian