Cit Journalism Progress Report

Dan Gillmor sums up his recent keynote speech at the Citizen Reporter’s Forum.  Great, must-read for us as we move forward. Link.

I’d like to reaffirm the fact that I’m not overly enthused about our idea.  It’s too general, too broad.  For instance, the woman who is working on geotagging for blogging is actually building a blog site that includes the geotagging concept.  This seems a bit more concrete than our idea of “somehow getting reporters to geotag their stories.”

Of particular interest is Gillmor’s “7. Some Experiments to Pursue.”  Here, he touches on mobile technology as an area ripe for development.  He also recommends using existing technologies, rather than creating something from scrap.

I’d like to once again go on record in support of the cell phone citizen journalism app.  It’s a concrete idea in an area that is sure to grow.  The geotagging concept is intriguing, but daunting.  I don’t even know where to begin, so I don’t.  I’ll help as we move forward on it, but I can’t spearhead it because I don’t fully understand or have a lot of enthusiasm for the idea.

For the Cit Journalist skeptics out there, note that Gillmor addresses many of the standard concern.  He couples that topic with the idea of promoting media literacy – first educating, and then entrusting both the citizen journalist and the citizen reader (the same person, of course) with some trust.

Read the article.  I think it’s hard to read and not get a few ideas.  Chew them over and spit them out here.