Three years ago, around this very same time, I sent out my declaration of independence from big media. I thought it was worth a smile, but I was also trying to send a serious message. Amidst the soaring newsprint prices and declining ad revenues, the media corporations have more to worry about.

Douglas Fisher recently had a great post about the Hartsville Today citizen journalism project. They've put together a pretty informative PDF of what they've learned in the first year. Heh. Maybe I need to get off my duff and do the same thing in a more organized manner. ;)

Spent a lot of today talking and listening about new media and, specifically, citizen journalism - or maybe grassroots journalism. Both terms and more were brought up. Motorola, I guess, is scouring the globe, talking to people about the so called 'citizen journalism' movement. (While we're on it, what can we replace that term with? I don't think it should stick. Is it too late? Too early to name it?) Anyway, somehow, Muncie Free Press was brought up in enough other spheres for the company to send someone down to Muncie, IN to talk to me. (Still not newsworthy, though, I guess. Maybe I need a bus that pulls up to bars to do breast-shot vids ... Anyway... ;)

Lots of things to think about lately. Have a local issue I'm semi-involved in starting up. There's another CAFO wanting to be built in East Central Indiana. This just may be a bigger issue, though. It's happening all over the state, I think, as the large farming corporations are getting pushed out of the East Coast because of all the problems with CAFO. See, I'm already a little one sided on the issue.

This is more on my pro list for doing a free weekly when we get to the print level with Muncie Free Press. The story that got me thinking about it was - Baltimore Sun carriers quit abruptly to work for Examiner (Thanks to Romenesko for the refer...)

First off, when I think of immersion journalism, I think of literary journalism. They're closely related. Anyway, I noticed this piece over at Romenesko about WestWord's Storytime: The dailies are looking for characters, and I immediately thought about how Citizen Journalism could possibly help with the lack of immersion journalism and/or literary journalism in the world today. (The side discussion would be the whole chicken/egg debate about the apathetic state of the audience...)