Idea Lab

To Save Journalism We Need More than New Software Programs

by Todd Wolfson
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

In the recent edition of Times Magazine Matt Vilano looks at the role computer nerds can play in saving journalism. The piece details the forward looking work of the Knight Foundation and allied journalism schools like Northwestern's Medill, which have created specialized degrees in journalism for software programmers, in order to find solutions to the crisis in journalism. The assumption is that whiz kid programmers are going to develop software, like Everyblock, that will make journalism both relevant and financially solvent in the age of the Internet. While this article is definitely worth a read, and there are some important...

• June 8, 2009
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Community Journalism in Times of Economic Crisis

by Todd Wolfson
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Media Mobilizing Project recently started a new initiative: Community Journalism in Times of Economic Crisis. The initiative is a response to both the economic crisis, which is hitting Philadelphians hard, and the growing problems with the for-profit journalism model, which is making it difficult for local newspapers to cover stories about the struggles of everyday people during the economic downturn. The goal of this project is to report on and collect the real stories of Philadelphia and beyond on MMP's community blog, so we can begin to get a picture of the economic crisis from the ground up. Here is...

• May 28, 2009
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Philadelphia's Community News Portals

by Todd Wolfson
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

As part of Our City Our Voices, Media Mobilizing Project (MMP) in partnership with Juntos has launched a new drupal based participatory website. The Our City Our Voices portal is part of a network of community portals MMP has developed to create dynamic spaces for communities across the city to tell and share stories and get information. The aim of the network of community portals is to develop new spaces for folks disenfranchised by the digital age to have a place to speak and listen. The project entails 4 steps: 1) find and distribute low cost internet access to...

• January 30, 2009
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Study on Digital Inclusion and Civic Engagement

by Todd Wolfson
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Hey folks, I wanted to tell you all about a study I am wrapping up with Peter Funke, Dan Berger and a few other folks in Philadelphia. We received a grant from the Social Science Research Council's (SSRC) "Necessary Knowledge for Public Sphere" initiative to study the Media Mobilizing Project(MMP) and their use of new media and digital inclusion to promote civic engagement in disenfranchised communities across Philadelphia To offer some background, MMP was launched in 2005 as a strategic initiative to partner with local organizations, facilitating grassroots media production to advance socio-economic justice through the (self) empowerment of...

• December 16, 2008
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Participants of 'Our City Our Voices' Release First Videos

by Todd Wolfson
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

The participants of Media Mobilizing Project and Juntos's Immigrant and Low-Wage worker video project have finished their first batch of videos. The videos tell a wide array of stories focusing on health in the community, discrimination against immigrants, the role of unions in protecting immigrant workers and community outreach. Please check out the first video Does Discrimination Exist Against Immigrant Workers

• July 16, 2008
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Our City, Our Voices Graduates Second Round of Students

by Todd Wolfson
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

On Sunday April 13th, Media Mobilizing Project (MMP) and Juntos will graduate a second round of twelve students from an English Speaking video and web workshop. The graduation will take place at Songhai City Cultural Center at 3117 Master Street in Philadelphia at 3pm. Like their counterparts from the previous Spanish speaking workshop, members of this class learned web skills, video-making skills and media literacy.

• April 10, 2008
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Philadelphia's Latino Immigrants Tell Their Life Stories

by Todd Wolfson
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

We finished the first round of video production training! On Monday December 3rd, 20 Spanish-speaking immigrants received diplomas for successfully completing the first in a series of workshops in which they were trained in video production and basic web skills. This project, developed by the Media Mobilizing Project with Mexican immigrant community based organization JUNTOS is called, Our City, Our Voices: Immigrant Newscasts in the Digital Age. To remind people, the goal of the project is to give Philadelphia's newest inhabitants the capacity to tell their own stories and document their struggles through short digital videos. At the forefront...

• December 7, 2007
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Our City, Our Voices: Video Newscasts in the Digital Age

by Todd Wolfson
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Here is an image of the posters and flyers we have put out across Philadelphia as we prepare for the beginning of our video and basic web trainings on November 11th. The Media Mobilizing Project is planning to start with two classes of approximately 8-10 people which will take place from November into early December. In these classes people will learn how to use a video camera, write a script, edit and many other skills. Thus far we have been getting the project off the ground while holding a series of forums/conversations within the Mexican immigrant community to find...

• October 15, 2007
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