* What makes this idea unique? * (no more than 350 words)
Inclusiveness, democracy, and convergence make "Community News Of, By,and For People Wanting Greater Democracy" unique.
The goal is community news and information for everyone. We intend the pilot project for suburban Natick, Massachusetts, where we already have a critical mass – but we also have partners to launch parallel pilots in New York City and San Francisco. Most exciting is growing into neighboring Framingham, used in studies as a one-town representation of the United States.
People Wanting Greater Democracy (PWGD) Community News will be technologically and organizationally open to everyone. Not only will we solicit news and information from both existing sources and newcomers, but we invite everyone to share the editing roles. PWGD News is therefore inclusive of all sources, stories, and viewpoints.
Existing newspapers, town government, or the guy down the block can recommend stories. Readers can choose to subscribe to their own mix of stories, by 'editor' and by category. Everyone will also have the opportunity to criticize, highlight, and comment on aspects of the news content. At the same time certain items can be considered so important by the participating community (through a petition and voting system) that even people not presently receiving a particular topic or editor's news would receive the story voted to be vitally important. In this way, PWGD News is democratic not only in how the news is created, but in deciding what news is important to the community.
PWGD's news model allows for all parties with a public interest, personal, or financial stake to come together for mutual benefit. Not only will PWGD be able to cover its own expenses through modest transaction fees (on local goods and services exchanged through the site, not information), but PWGD can help local reporting and investigative journalism be financially sustainable. Donations or advertising revenues, for instance, could be divided among content providers based on the number of people subscribing to or seeing the content through votes of importance. In these ways, PWGD News will bring together writers, editors, and readers along with buyers, sellers, and investors.
Who else would want to use it, and why? * (no more than 150 words)
People, organizations, and businesses in towns and neighborhoods (that may or may not be true communities yet) will use Community News. This includes, but is not limited to people who want to blog about the night life or report on local issues; people who want to get all their local news and information in one place; town governments, civic groups, businesses, religious and other organizations that want to reach their members through a easily accessible medium; and organizations who could further make use of PWGD's collaborative editing and democratic decision-making tools to produce their newsletter for members or general news.
A centralized place for community information is far from a new concept, but the philosophy is – an open, nonprofit philosophy, combined with the sophisticated technology for enabling everyone to participate in both contributing information and deciding about it's level of distribution is what makes PWGD News radical.
Why are you the best person or organization to develop this project? * (no more than 350 words)
If quality local journalism is to thrive in the 21st century, it will have to be in a mutually beneficial relationship with myriad other ways to share information locally. This coalition led by PWGD is best suited to re-embed journalism in the local exchange of information. A nonprofit organization dedicated to true democracy is better suited for this task than a for-profit or even a nonprofit dedicated to any specific purpose.
We have excellent technical talent available. The real challenge is bringing organizations that are just getting by with their current methods of communication and outreach to make the small changes needed to their practices in order for them to participate in a common on-line system. PWGD and its partners are uniquely suited to build a vibrant on-line community that reconnects people to their physical community.
Common formats for sharing news and information can be achieved on the local level in ways that have yet to be realized by the semantic web, metadata, and microformats. PWGD will be able to adopt open standards for on-line publishing because we can talk face-to-face with the decision-makers, such as a nonprofit's communication director, a concerned citizen with a web site, a local newspaper editor, or the town librarian.
Our organizational and technical partners already include Omni-news.net, SpaceShare.com, MyNatick.org, and the Center for Information Awareness (COAnews.org), ArtForChange, and Amazing Things Arts Center.
Local news and information – increasingly lacking in many communities – connect people to what's going on in their neighborhood, and democratically moderated discussion areas will help people shape it. Planned PWGD enhancements such as community ridesharing boards and 'meet other people interested in...' services will explicitly encourage community-building in the real world. Amazing things can happen when most people in an area share a common space for information– especially, as PWGD and an ever-increasing number of partners feel, if that space is fundamentally under the nonprofit, democratic control of the people, by the people, and for the people.