Just found euro-correspondent.com via Rebecca. Looks like this really is a viable idea. Imagine hundreds of specialized blog news agencies, one for technology, one for sports another for finance etc...
9:52:08 PM
My recent trip to Iraq, that I blogged from beginning to end (including video reports) left me with a lot of new ideas about weblogs and BigPub journalism.
For the foreseeable future, citizen journalism, mainly reported through weblogs will not be able to compete with television, radio and newspapers when it comes to the flow of money needed to fund reporters and video/photographers to be dispatched to gather and report on newsworthy items.
It is now my belief that bloggers should not compete against BigPubs, but should be working with them.
BigPubs you see, are also in Big Trouble when it comes to funding professional journalists. In fact, I see most of them doing a great job of building audience by packaging the news. Fox News, as an example, is eating CNN's lunch (ratings) by packaging news into exciting and compelling television, while hardly putting a journalistic dent into the stories themself. Loud headlines win viewership. Sure I'm convinced news packagers like Fox would love to broadcast deeper analysis and better research, but it's just too expensive.
Several BigPubs payed real money for the right to use our text, photos and video when we were blogging our Iraq trip. This set off several lightbulbs in my mind
This is where we can create a win-win for bloggers and Big Pubs by collaborating.
Dave Winer once wrote about triangulation. The process of forming an opinion about an event or story by reading a minimum of 3 different blogs reporting the news. This enables bloggers who also read blogs the unique opportunity to form an opinion based on the 'truth' from different viewpoints. A luxury most news companies don't have, purely due to cost.
Imagine a world where BigPubs could purchase triangulated facts from a single source, an aggregation of weblogs. Just like a news agency.
BigPubs are already used to purchasing news from agencies. If it's from AP for example, a newspaper doesn't care about the depth or truth. If it's from AP, then it's ok. It's a valid source and is credited as such.
All the BigPub does is copy-paste the story, select an appropriate picture (also provided by the agency) and package it to fit their format and audience.
Here's the beauty part: Thje money flow is already aggreed to. Either by subscription or on a piece meal basis.
If information from an agency is used (words pix or video), a payment is made. The agency takes a cut off the top and passes the rest on to the reporters.
BigPubs already scour weblogs for news and often copy-paste directly from those reports. Why not make them pay for it?
Weblogs are everywhere, and it's easy to start a new one if a story breaks in a place where there isn't one. All you need is feet on the street. Technology takes care of the rest, including photos, audio and video.
So what's stopping us from creating this global blog news agency? Nothing at all.
I'm not quite sure how yet, but I think the share your opml vision fits into this somehow. Still digging on that.
9:47:20 PM
Ik vraag mij af of dit binnen het terrein van justitie valt en ben zeer benieuwd naar het vervolg van de discussie. Plunderingen van vrachtvervoer is een van de grootste problemen die we hebben geconstateerd tijdens ons verblijf in Irak. Vrachtwagens worden gestenigd en van de weg af geduwd om vervolgens binnen een uur volledig gestript te worden van elk waardevol of bruikbaar onderdeel.
Een van de weg geraakte vrachtwagen staat binnen tien minuten omringd door honderden plunderaars. Het is zo vreselijk dat amerikaanse militairen niet eens meer de moeite nemen om de plunderaars uiteen te drijven, die steken een wagen liever in brand.
De nederlandse militairen worden verwacht met gevaar voor eigen leven de wagens terug naar het kamp te slepen. Als dat de opdracht is, dan moet er ook een regeling zijn die hen de mogeijkheid biedt zichzelf te beschermen. Desnoods met geweld. Dit was een dagelijks onderwerp van discussie tijdens ons verblijf, en ik zie geen alternatief buiten de amerikaanse methode.
8:52:12 PM
Minister Kamp van Defensie en zijn collega Bot van Buitenlandse Zaken zijn in de nacht van dinsdag op woensdag in Irak aangekomen voor een werkbezoek. Zo te zien krijgen zij dezelfde tour als wij ontvingen en daar ben ik blij mee. Ik hoop dat ze ook uit de wagens stappen buiten de kampen om zelf met de bevolking te praten. Ik ben heel benieuwd naar hun bevindingen en ervaringen.
3:43:44 PM
