After reading the Times and P-I articles more closely, I think we are on the right track with trying to get a reaction from the community about what they think of having two newspapers in Seattle. Both papers have quotes only from people in the industry and those who have knowledge of the JOA. I think it would be good to get the perspective of the people who have the most to gain (and the most to lose) from having two newspapers in town: the readers.
We might also ask if readers think something will fill the niche if one of the newspapers closes. For example, will Internet sources be able to take the place of print newspapers? Internet products such as Newsvine and Crosscut have made their mark on the industry, but a lot of their work is still aggregation, rather than original reporting.
I think a good basis for our project would be to interview a couple people with the Committee for a Two-Newspaper Town. Anne Bremner and Phil Talmadge have been quoted in recent articles. We could use audio and/or video of the interviews as an introduction to the site perhaps. They could offer background on the JOA and how they became involved in the litigation.
Next we could introduce the major players categorized by group: The Seattle Times, The Seattle P-I/Hearst, Committee for a Two-Newspaper Town. It might be cool to have everyone listed in a branching format and then when you mouse over a name it will give a brief description of who they are (this would require Flash I think).
We could also have a “What is the JOA?” section. This might be a good place to put the timeline of the JOA. This would also work well in Flash. There would be a timeline that when you mouse over a part of the timeline it would bring up details. I think this is the best way to actually keep it a timeline that shows the relationships between various dates.
We should also decide who is interested in doing what on the project. I think it would be fun to do the Flash timeline and/or the Flash with the major players (I haven’t used Flash so I may need to just do one of these projects). I also could do some of the interviewing, though my time in Seattle is limited so if someone else wants to work on that I could help with the video/audio editing.
KEVIN’S ADDS
I know we can run comments on these, but since we can all administer, I’m just going to jump in here.
The above outline makes sense and isn’t too far from my initial thinking. As you know, we need to focus on a minimal text format – sounds/images most important , so this means we need a home page with the basics:
- The story overview – Two Newspaper Town (I like your idea for that – clever)
- Subheads: Timeline, JOA, TNT Committee, Commentaries, maybe alternative media
- Who we are: KKS, KSK or SKK productions *-)
After this, we get down to the details of what type of layout we’ll use, along with various visual IO. I think it’s important for us to get to yes on how many pages, what’s on them and then divide up the work.
I am available to do some Seattle interview support and can either get stills or video of the P-I/Times exteriors. I think it may be difficult to do an onsite interview with Talmadge, and possibly Bremner so, as you suggest, if we can pull some interview MP3, mpeg or whatever sound/video files on that, great.
I also think that since an area of focus for the extended JOA is the possibility (likelihood?) that the P-I may eventually be produced in a tabloid format is worth consideration for a visual on the site, too. . .
We may need to consider whether or not we want to go down the road of doing a survey of students, per Steph’s suggestion. Am not sure that we have the time to pull that off, nor is it an expectation. However, I’m game with a 5-10 question survey to MCDM students, person-on-the-street interviews and comments from the key players as our ‘research’ component.
Since we are all Flash neophytes, I think it’s important that we take a stab at it, understanding that it won’t be perfection.
STEPHANIE’S ADDS
Below are brainstorming ideas trailering the last conversation and posts-chat at 5pm tonight J
Group name(s): SON (Seattleites take On the News) SKK (Stephanie Kristina Kevin…avoids KKK-like acronym) MCDM Productions
Proposal: Examining the Seattle Times/PI Joint Operating Agreement and broader implications for the future of media ownership. Background info: Blurb on the JOA story??
Questions (send to MCDM mailing list? Interview Com professors? A couple on the street? – depends on what time allows…):
- What do you think of the Seattle Times/PI JOA?
- Do you prefer one paper over the other?
- How do you foresee the future of newspaper ownership?
- Is it vital to have more than one newspaper?
- How do you foresee the future of journalism?
- Do you view news online? Where/what sources?
Yes/No Multiple choice questions???Other ideas???
*Willing to work on interviews
Online Links:
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Seattle Times
Seattle PI
Wikipedia
Media Ownership 