Despite the recent growth of the digital world and the countless ways in which we can communicate, the news industry has dramatically shrunk. One association (Unity) estimates that more than forty-six thousand U.S. journalism jobs disappeared in just 20 recent months. This comes on top of a long-term trend of cost-cutting and staff reductions at news agencies. You can see the impact. Newspapers today are tiny when compared to newspapers of the past. Just pick one up in almost any town. Count the locally-produced original stories. There will not be many. While some might say that newspapers are dinosaurs, the point I'm trying to make is that less actual news is being produced. True, there's more commentary today, but there's a lot less original reporting.
I believe that in order for democracy to thrive, people need a source of absolutely credible information. The problem is not how to produce good journalism, there are many talented people of many different experience levels who can produce good journalism... the question is how do you pay for it. That's what we've been focusing on.
We believe that part of the answer lies in marketing news issue-by-issue to the communities who care the most about that issue - and who feel that today's media does a woefully inadequate job on their issue. That's an under-served market. If they buy into our idea, and support us, we will produce something that simply doesn't exist now - a high quality stream of credible, objective, and rigorously non-partisan information on their issue. (Which might, for example, be environmental stories in the state of Texas.) Because their subscriptions support us, our reporters focus on areas largely ignored by the mainstream media. We produce stories that wouldn't be produced otherwise.. and the best reports are distributed to a mass audience through a network of partners we have in the mainstream media. We're embracing both old and new media in order to have the largest possible impact.
So, to answer your question, we've found a way to fund journalism. As a result, we inform the public by producing truly important stories and disseminating them through both niche and mass media. These are stories that would not have been produced by the mainstream media today.
As stated earlier, I think it's crucial for the general public to have access to good information. I think a lot of today's problems are made worse because of poor reporting and either intentional or unintentional distortions in the journalism that people currently consume.
Finding a way to support the production of good journalism, and disseminating the stories to a mass audience, does - in my book - help bring about a better world.
As far as doing this for the entire planet, we'll start local and think global. We are trying to prove our concept in my home state of Texas, and then to expand our concept as much as possible. I'm working with partners who are literally connected to the world - my wife (and cofounder, Jade Kurian) was born in India, one partner is Dutch, one partner is English, one lives in Colorado, another in Texas. Our goal is nothing less than to bring about a better world, even though we'll have to smart small.
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Please explain why your idea/project, is suited/perfect to using... 'media' ...to bring about A BETTER "WORLD"...the entire planet...? Thanks4now~! a.
Thanks for the question.
Despite the recent growth of the digital world and the countless ways in which we can communicate, the news industry has dramatically shrunk. One association (Unity) estimates that more than forty-six thousand U.S. journalism jobs disappeared in just 20 recent months. This comes on top of a long-term trend of cost-cutting and staff reductions at news agencies. You can see the impact. Newspapers today are tiny when compared to newspapers of the past. Just pick one up in almost any town. Count the locally-produced original stories. There will not be many. While some might say that newspapers are dinosaurs, the point I'm trying to make is that less actual news is being produced. True, there's more commentary today, but there's a lot less original reporting.
I believe that in order for democracy to thrive, people need a source of absolutely credible information. The problem is not how to produce good journalism, there are many talented people of many different experience levels who can produce good journalism... the question is how do you pay for it. That's what we've been focusing on.
We believe that part of the answer lies in marketing news issue-by-issue to the communities who care the most about that issue - and who feel that today's media does a woefully inadequate job on their issue. That's an under-served market. If they buy into our idea, and support us, we will produce something that simply doesn't exist now - a high quality stream of credible, objective, and rigorously non-partisan information on their issue. (Which might, for example, be environmental stories in the state of Texas.) Because their subscriptions support us, our reporters focus on areas largely ignored by the mainstream media. We produce stories that wouldn't be produced otherwise.. and the best reports are distributed to a mass audience through a network of partners we have in the mainstream media. We're embracing both old and new media in order to have the largest possible impact.
So, to answer your question, we've found a way to fund journalism. As a result, we inform the public by producing truly important stories and disseminating them through both niche and mass media. These are stories that would not have been produced by the mainstream media today.
As stated earlier, I think it's crucial for the general public to have access to good information. I think a lot of today's problems are made worse because of poor reporting and either intentional or unintentional distortions in the journalism that people currently consume.
Finding a way to support the production of good journalism, and disseminating the stories to a mass audience, does - in my book - help bring about a better world.
As far as doing this for the entire planet, we'll start local and think global. We are trying to prove our concept in my home state of Texas, and then to expand our concept as much as possible. I'm working with partners who are literally connected to the world - my wife (and cofounder, Jade Kurian) was born in India, one partner is Dutch, one partner is English, one lives in Colorado, another in Texas. Our goal is nothing less than to bring about a better world, even though we'll have to smart small.
Paul
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