Jtm-call-notes

Here are informal, unedited notes of a teleconference Sept. 19, 2006 among:

Stephen Silha, JTM Peggy Holman, JTM Sue Ellen Christian, Western Michigan Univ. Michael Stoll, Grade the News / San Jose State Rene Rau, Univ. of Missouri Bill Densmore, Media Giraffe Project

Looks good but needs to be strengthened in terms of outcomes and deliverables. Too process oriented right now. Need to include more concrete aspects.

Sue Ellen Christian, journalist at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, where the j-program in communications is interested in creating a PhD program about citizen engagement.

Bill Densmore: Objectives probabably should be called methods:

1) Evangelism 2) Convening 3) Expermenting 4) Training

Intented outcome is more a mission:

"To create a vibrant, self-sustaining Journalism that Matters community of practice that contineus ot articulate and implement emerging principles of a journalism in which stories told serve us well."

Try changing it to this MISSION:

"To create a community committed to journalism which fosters partiicpatory democracy and community amid a changing media environment."

Bill's comments:

Deliverables is really more methods.

1) Convenings 2) Web site is Communicating 3) Newsletter is Communicating 4) TEaching/consulting/modeling is Training

Expected impact is reallhy a list of deliverables, or outcomes:

1) Numbers of experiments underway 2) Quality of conversations 3) Impact on positive individual and community change 4) Levels of ongoing particpation by people in the network

A few thoughts from Sue Ellen Christian

outcomes:

More people voting? More subscriptions?

She says any touchy-feely language doesn't resonate.

Michael Stoll:

Lot of repetition; five pages could be cut down to three pages with some reorganization. Change history to "Accomplishments."

Stephen Silha:

Looking to create a network rather than an institutional home. MPR, Univ. of Nevada Reno, UC Bekeley, UMass, Western Michigan, Univ. of Missouri.

Bill: Would be much stronger if it were a consortium.

Peggy Holman:

Would it be of interest to set up a phone call to talk about a consortium? UMass, Western and Missouri are on the call now.

Sue Ellen: Yes, interesting. Need to tweak the language so it plays better with funders.

Rene Rau -- University of Missouri -- a need for academic editing to even have the research model at least outlined a little

bit. That can be done really easily by find out what measurable outcomes will be listed. Thinks that when you look at who the audience will be for it, it is important that a lot of those questions never become questions; it is answered within the body of the document.

It was agreed by those on the call that we would attempt to gather some language around mission, objectives and results: