Participation »

  • Share
Underwritten by John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

Idea Lab is a group blog by innovators who are reinventing community news for the Digital Age.

Read more about Idea Lab »

  • Check out Idea Lab Sponsorship opportunities!

  • Follow us on Twitter »
  • Each Idea Lab blogger is a winner of the Knight News Challenge grant to reshape community news.

    Learn more about the Knight News Challenge »

    Bring On The Clowns

    Knight 2007 News Challenge Winner

    Sometimes I wonder exactly what we're offering our citizen journalists in return for their hard work. We don't pay them. Reporting can be challenging and time-consuming, and sometimes it's not nearly as exciting as the movies make it out to be.

    On the other hand, last week I was able to introduce a citizen journalists to one of our business' greatest pleasures -- the random famous-person interview.

    Here's how it went: The citizen journo, Jack Newell, was working on a feature about a local artist who makes theatrical masks. The artist told an anecdote about the time he spent traveling in Russia with Patch Adams.

    So Jack unexpectedly found himself on the phone with Patch Adams, verifying the details. And now he has a really weird story to tell his friends over cocktails.

    Rate this entry

    • Currently 5/5
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    Rating: 5/5 (1 votes cast)

    Check out MediaShift Sponsorship opportunities!

    Featured Comment

    The problem is that the remedies proposed would undermine the characteristics of the Internet that have made it such a fantastic engine of innovation -- primarily the right to innovate without permission from an incumbent who may be threatened by your innovation.

    bradburnham
    #DontBreakTheInternet: How the Web Became a Political Force vs. SOPA

    Monthly Archives