Wired News: Gannett to Crowdsource News. Other large publishers are already experimenting with bringing readers into a more participatory role, and a host of citizen-journalism projects like NowPublic and NewAssignment.Net have sprung up in the last few years. But because of its reach, Gannett’s move could bring these issues into the mainstream.
This is truly remarkable, and it puts Gannett squarely into the lead in the newspaper business.
No doubt, a major part of this initiative is to save money. Gannett is famously careful with its spending, to put it mildly.
But the company’s move is pathbreaking. It will just possibly change the newspaper industry, in a good way, forever.
on Nov 4th, 2006 at 12:58 pm
“No doubt, a major part of this initiative is to save money.”
I completely agree with you. May I draw your attention to the following part of the article?
The compensation is usually far less than what an employee might make for performing the same service.
on Nov 4th, 2006 at 3:43 pm
[…] Update 4 (6:40 p.m. 11-4-06): Dan Gillmor, an icon in citizen journalism, notes that the move might be seen as a cost-cutting measure, “but the company’s move is pathbreaking. It will just possibly change the newspaper industry, in a good way, forever.” […]
on Nov 4th, 2006 at 5:51 pm
[…] Citizen journalism pioneer, Dan Gillmor, says Gannett’s move is “pathbreaking” and great positioning by the company. He also notes that it’s likely to save Gannett a lot of money in production costs. […]
on Nov 4th, 2006 at 7:41 pm
Of course, the databases are the gold mines fueling the business models in this scenario and how well they are structured, mined and managed will be one of the keys to rolling this plan out. I like how their thinking clearly values that reality and that they will invest in the interactive and participatory strategies.
Many journalists will want to talk first about how their jobs are changing, naturally. Well, that’s good but I like how the values are are focused on investing in community participation in a never-ending feedback loop.
That can lead to some remarkable results and good journalism. Look, what Gannett is really trying to do here is build a new model around their key assets – customer data – deep, local customer data. News, community and marketing data.
Managing structured data is the linchpin in executing a vision like this.
I know that sounds like gibberish to some but, mark my words, getting real smart about managing all of your companies databases will be the key to making this work.
on Nov 5th, 2006 at 4:47 am
Sounds as though they were taking careful notes at the Wake Up Call conference.
on Nov 7th, 2006 at 1:35 am
Gannett Roundup: The Blogs…
There was far more commentary than I could begin to digest, but it seemed like a worthwhile project to try to build a compendium, however incomplete, of the more trenchant takes on Gannett’s Seven Desk Plan. I’ve split reactions into…
on Nov 8th, 2006 at 2:14 pm
[…] Since some of my usual suspects — Editors Weblog, which breaks down Gannett's seven-desk plan, Dan Gillmor at CitMedia and of course Jeff Jarvis' BuzzMachine — are already in Howe's working compendium, here are some more reactions: […]