Comments on: Newsroom as a cafe

By: A librarian for news | Andrew Spittle

A librarian for news | Andrew Spittle — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 15:49:50 +0000

[...] of walking in and asking for help with your project.Perhaps it resembles the concept of a newsroom as café. Regardless, this news librarian is approachable, friendly, and community-focused. The [...]

By: Greg Linch

Greg Linch — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 18:30:20 +0000

I found this Fast Company article yesterday (still catching up with Google Reader), which includes the cafe idea and screens on the walls:

http://bit.ly/70HEx

(via CICM blog)

By: William Hamilton

William Hamilton — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:07:08 +0000

All the high tech stuff is great, but don’t underestimate the value of hanging a few whiteboards on the wall and stringing up some whiteboard pens (so people don’t just walk off with them by accident). Just have staff wipe them clean every morning. That will keep things fresh.

By: Dan C.

Dan C. — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 02:22:57 +0000

Check these out:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/11/technology/internet/11iht-papers.html?_r=1

http://lofihistyle.com/2009/06/prague-futuroom-and-new-hyperlocal-news-hybrid/

By: Josh

Josh — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:22:53 +0000

Dan – it’s not such a hypothetical. During the RNC in the Twin Cities one local media group – The Uptake – rented out a huge space in downtown and subletted it out to a range of local and national independent journalist groups who were in town. When the protests and journalist arrests began their big open space became a central hub for news and information and journalists began working together and collaborating across outlets to report on the events.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:31:01 +0000

Definitely. The concept of a newsroom as a cafe most importantly presents a framework to me for how I might think about the physical space associated with a community news operation (or any news operation whose community is a geographic space). There are principles (such as the cafe should have open conversations that anyone can be a part of) and components (realtime local data streams visualized on the walls making the space immersive), but the execution of both is going to depend on circumstances, scale, etc.

Hypothetical scenario: you’ve got a police shooting at one of the bus stations. I think it would be more likely that you’d get the information by police blotter, someone calling in, etc. but that information could be visualized on the walls, thus making whomever is in the cafe at that time as much of a person to parse the information as the reporter. The coffee drinker spots the event in progress, notifies the reporter, and anyone who wants to gets to help generate a list of the questions the community might want answered about the incident.

By: xarkGirl

xarkGirl — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:42:06 +0000

Love it. I have always been enamored of the salon, the mingling of disciplines like o’keeffe and stieglitz. It’s an interesting concept for journalism.

By: Dan C.

Dan C. — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:33:51 +0000

This is an idea with legs… even if I don’t fully comprehend its details, it resonates.

Mebbe it has something to do with my memories of Neal Stephenson’s “Quicksilver,” which stuck with me because the London “Exchange” was as much an information nexus as it was a financial transactor. The coffee houses? Places where people went to get news. A boat portage on the Thames? Speculators shout down to the new arrivals seeking information that could affect their investments. And so on.

What we’ve learned from years of experimentation in cyberspace is that connections made online become more valuable when translated into meatspace relationships. Could the digital commons spark a return to some kind of physical meeting space? It’s all very abstract to me at the moment, but it has the marking of a good idea because it MOVES.

By: links for 2009-06-14 | James Mitchell

links for 2009-06-14 | James Mitchell — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:35:08 +0000

[...] Newsroom as a cafe "David Cohn pegs a newsroom as a cafe where people can hang out and, through food and drink purchase, provide an alternate source of revenue for reporting. Twenty percent of every coffee you bought might go to reporting in your local community, or something like that. For Steve Outing, the newsroom as a cafe is a place for your people to connect so that you can have greater access to your community." (tags: journalism community newsroom social+media future) [...]

By: Digidave

Digidave — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 23:33:58 +0000

Yea – I still think about this. If I wasn’t doing Spot.Us – hands down this is what I’d be trying to figure out. I did a follow up post or two (I’ll try and dig them up). It would take a lot of startup capital – but man – it would be cool!!!!!!