There are many types and styles of journalism, but the ability to operate any of them with what amounts to an entire studio in a bag is game changing. Add to that the concepts and tools of open source, decentralized, and blockchain technologies applied to journalism education, content creation, data verification, distribution and cooperation... yes, that mouthful needs refinement.
The point is, we have an opportunity unlike anything humanity has ever experienced before.
That is not an understatement.
A new paradigm with respect to learning and creating has happened. Instead of allowing the gatekeepers to retain their power to shape public opinion, we can own our media for the first time in humanity.
We have the tools.
Basic skills
Journalism is all about digging up the truth and telling the story. It is true that there is a lot to learn and it will certainly take a lifetime to master if that is what you want to do. That said, mountains can be moved by the power of novice journalists that will stop at nothing to do the right thing and tell the truth.
Theoretical and practical (research, writing, and editing) skills can be open sourced. We have everything we need to work collaboratively to build a society built on the ability to find and discern the truth.
Reporting:
- Communications skills: How do we best learn good communications skills? Use them.
- Audio and video production: Linux has all the tools you need.
- Story Telling: The really secret sauce. Use all of the tools you can to tell your audience the best story possible.
- High quality, blockchain based, censorship proof media distribution platforms are already here.
- Content Management System (CMS): As of today, the most used distribution platforms are web apps like WordPress. I wonder how to use #Hive and #LBRY to recreate some of the tools available to platforms like Wordpress in a way that can take advantage of the power of these blockchain (censorship proof) solutions.
Data:
Journalists are quickly becoming increasingly adept at coding and using data to corroborate their stories.
Investigation techniques:
This is where courage, ambition and experience is combined to create real value. There are a lot of very interesting examples in the true crime podcast arena (for example) where everyday people with a stake in a story find ways to find truth. It is indeed very interesting how the paradigm of self interest can out perform so called experts.
How can investigations be regulated by blockchain to deal with very important issues as chain of custody and others like issues around disclosure of evidence. There are several of these very important issues that need to be worked out.
Ethics and regulations:
Potential roadblocks exist here. People will have a difficult time accepting any platform that is not the State. How to we lay down the foundations to a voluntary consensus that we can all live with?
Development:
Although tools like GitHub started out and continue to be used mostly for software development, this versioning platform is excellent for compiling cooperative works.
I continue to wonder if some sort of open source front end could be developed using #Hive and #LBRY to create a data collection, indexing and distribution platform catered to use for journalists.
This sort of an app would be for journalists, but as such, would probably have a wide use case for groups that wanted to curate all sorts of niche information. Nextcloud, Hive and LBRY I think could do it.
Partnerships
We need to develop partnerships to encourage apprenticeships. There is a lot to learn about journalism and we need to work together to create the kind of mass and power to shift things in our favor.
The Next Topic Will Be About Open Justice
Clearly, that will be an interesting challenge.
Posted from my blog with Exxp : https://communication.diggndeeper.com/the-age-of-backpack-and-blockchain-journalism-is-open/
