Journalism Education - Open sourced?

in #blog4 years ago (edited)


An exploration.

To be clear; this article intends to explore the education of journalism, not the same as open sourcing journalism.

I believe that lowering the barrier to learning how to be an accurate and accountable journalist will really help our entire society.

Journalism is in a state of upheaval and change. Because of this, our society has an unprecedented opportunity to direct that change toward radical transparency and decentralization. This is our chance to own our media.

The old establishment media conglomerates are going the way of the Dodo. This is happening for a variety of reasons and now is the time that we can take the reigns and distribute the responsibility across the populace. With this radical change in power must also come an equal change in accountability, community input and openness.

With the emergence of blockchain technology combined with what amounts to an entire media production suite in our pockets, we have the makings of a new age unlike anything we have seen before. This could be an age where people are responsible for thinking for themselves and information also comes from the people themselves.

Why open source the education of journalism?

Free to share information.

The essence of journalism is the collection of quality information. In an overcrowded marketplace, it’s ultimately about turning out the highest-value work on a given news topic. To do that, there needs to be high quality research to source. Resources such as the Journalist's Resource could be recreated with thoroughly open source and open license for its content.

Open source culture is a completely different paradigm than the conventional system.

The "teaching hospital method" works, but many schools are not doing enough. Try as they might, conventional institutions are slow to change and modern communications is a world changing at unbelievable speeds.

The ability to change is a hallmark of open source projects. Even back when open source was a concept just for software, it was clear that problems could often be solved immediately, while their proprietary counterparts had to wait for the next release and hope that a fix would make it in.

This is because in an open source project, you can find the developers and talk to them. Those developers have the power to make the changes and push them out as soon as they have the chance to do it. That is just a simple example and there are many more that we can use as an example of the agility that open source is capable of.

With the use of blockchain platforms that reward communities and cooperation like Steem, competition starts to look a lot more like cooperation. Combine that power of the blockchain with the principles of open source and we have a tool set that can keep pace while maintaining a transparent chain of data.

What would open source education look like?

I envision something like a GitHub repository that can be edited communally and shared with anyone. This could be used to develop curriculum for a variety of types of journalism (or anything else). Using decentralized curation tools such as a Steem community, the students of these curriculum can be mentored and monitored to keep their achievements accountable.

Tools

Communication: There are so many tools out there that this becomes a challenging topic, but if we are to stick with the open source theme, which I think journalist of all people should for trust reasons alone, then we can narrow things enough to have a discussion about what a workflow might look like.

Investigative techniques:

A combination of Steem and LBRY.io could be a primary way to decentralize the curation and distribution of curriculum.

Funding

The decentralized nature of crypto-currencies in general make them the obvious choice over politically burdensome Fiat. Beyond that, though there are an lot of tools that have come available in the crypto-sphere that are very well suited for a variety of funding schemes.


Exploring Open Source Journalism Series.

This is an ongoing and regularly updated series exploring as deeply as possible the possibilities of open source journalism. As a picture unfolds as to how this paradigm might work, I hope to start seeing a structure begin to develop where realizing the dream of a decentralized, open and accountable environment arises where people can learn the skills of a journalist, gain experience and reputation as well as funding to accomplish a sustainable lifestyle.




Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://communication.diggndeeper.com/journalism-education-open-sourced/
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Very interesting idea - and very interesting use of Steem.

I wonder if there are any/many professionally trained journalists on Steem that want to get involved with this?

Although you don't have to be 'professionally trained' journalist to write and publish (particularly these days).

When I was involved in an online news service we employed both professionally trained journalists and some who were not. We did hire a consultant editor to help with the legalities at the start.

And all staff were expected to follow the NUJ Code of Conduct...

@pennsif, I have put some effort into looking for journalists of all types and have reached out to a few about some education. No interest yet, but maybe if there was an incentive and a plan, there would be more interest.

I will keep an eye out for any I find on the blockchain. I am sure there must be some here...

Hi Dear Friend @diggndeeper.com.

I think you have a great concept here. I see that you have meditated and are well focused on that idea, which by the way seems great to me.

A combination of Steem and LBRY.io could be a primary way to decentralize the curation and distribution of curriculum.

Wow! Great!
Do you know Steem proposal?
I think you have a great theme to present as a proposal for the blockchain steem.

All best, Piotr.

Hi @crypto.piotr

Thanks! I am very interested in pursuing these ideas and technologies. I have heard of the Steem proposal, but I have to admit, I'm not sure how or what to propose here. I should work work out more details and specific actions.

If you have any ideas or know of other like minded folks, please feel free to discuss here or on our Discord server: https://discord.gg/5fPatJx

It's me again @diggndeeper.com

I just realized that I never actually thanked you for your comment. Big thx.

ps.
I would need to ask you for little favour. Recently I've decided to join small contest called "Community of the week" and I desribed our project.hope hive/community. Would you mind helping me out and RESTEEM this post - just to get some extra exposure? Your valuable comment would be also appreciated.

Link to my post: on steemit or on steempeak

Thanks :)
Yours, Piotr

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