Plans for a news organization incubator

Just before Christmas, I was contacted by University of Missouri convergence journalism student Kelsey Proud about holding a regional BarCamp NewsInnovation at the Donald W. Reynold Journalism Institute in Columbia, Missouri.

In the process of trying to work out a date (which should be known soon), I was contact by Jane Stevens who gave me a heads-up on a one-day talkfest being hosted by the institute called “Putting Feet on the Streets for Journalism”.

Journalists, entrepreneurs, academics, and experts from the worlds of technology and business will gather on January 21, 2009 at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute for a one-day Talkfest called “Putting Feet on the Streets for Journalism.” The participants’ challenge: to develop plans for the RJI Collaboratory, a news organization incubator.

One working concept is to get entrepreneurial journalists, citizens and organizations together to create strategies and tools for high-quality Web-based journalism.

Here some more bullet points that Stevens sent me via email that said still need to be figured out:

• What does a news organization incubator do exactly? We think an incubator can provide advertising strategies and techniques, technology services, business planning, Web shell (information architecture ) and design services, and ethics guidelines. But what else? And how does it provide its guidance and services?
• What roles can other colleges and departments of the University of Missouri play in a news organization incubator? Could computer science students develop online services for entrepreneurial journalists? Could business school students work with entrepreneurial journalists to develop robust organizations?
• What could an incubator do in the first year? The second year? The third year?
• What does a news organization incubator need to get started?
• Does a news organization incubator derive funding from the organizations it nurtures? If so, how? If the news organization incubator is part of the university, what is the incubator’s intellectual property policy?
• How does the news organization incubator develop partnerships with other centers or journalism schools?
• How does the news organization incubator develop partnerships with organizations that might be interested in funding start-ups?

Sounds similar to some of the themes that BarCamp NewsInnovation hopes to tackle.

It sounds like a great conversation and I am excited to attend. Here is more on the program, the list of participants and how you can attend.

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Tags: Donald W. Reynold Journalism Institute, innovation, journalism, media, University of Missouri

Author: Jason Kristufek