The NewStandard shut down, which is very, very sad for me. And I callously take the opportunity to promote PWGD, hijacking the last blog post [1].

Making the last blog entry the unofficial forum...

First, everyone should check out Steve Anderson's Eulogy to the NewStandard [2] and COA News [3] itself, which counted The NewStandard as an affiliate.

Next, I want to make the observation that all the job postings I see on, for instance, the grassroots radio coalition listserve, seem to be for promotion and outreach-- never "reporter." Partly this reflects the unfortunate financial realities and also priorities of independent media, but more than that this is the difficulty in making one's voice heard about anything.

I think we need a powerful amplifier under democratic control, and that with that, top-notch projects like the NewStandard will easily find the support they need.

Oh, my solution for all that is a web site. With e-mail lists. The difference from what's out there: front page, how many people get e-mailed, which RSS feeds carry a message would be decided by the subscribers. Not the people with the time and internet connection to vote on everything, but by a random sample of the people affected. That's a hack to make many-to-many communication possible-- and once we can massively communicate with each other, on the scale that media elites can propagandize at us now, we can plan, and act, together and for our collective interests, like has never been seen before.

Just imagine knowing you have the support you need *before* you launch your project. Imagine how many valuable projects would be launched.

I'm still in denial. I want one more thing from the NewStandard collective, if they won't restart next week like I keep dreaming: let us know in detail what level of support is needed to produce hard-news journalism on the level that you-all did? We know we didn't quite provide it, but you must know where the crucial levels of readership and of financial support are.

It could be an inaugural project, or just an example project, listed with "resources needed" at the slowly forming network of all people who give a damn [4].