Phenomenal reporting by the New York Times on the pay-to-play network that aims to fill local news gaps/ Published today: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/18/technology/timpone-local-news-metric-media.html.

Follow Davey Alba's (Times reporter) Twitter feed for more insight.

COMIG seeks panel proposals for AEJMC New Orleans 2021

 Dear Community Journalism folks, 

 

We need your help brainstorming and planning panels for COMJIG for AEJMC 2021. We want our conference programming to be about you and relevant to you. So, think about the topics that interest you, the concerns you would like discussed at a national level and ideas that have emerged in your classrooms or excited your students. 

 

There are several large issues facing community journalism right now and, as an interest group, we want to include and represent as many unique voices as possible in our conference programming. 

 

Here is a template to guide you through the process of pitching panels. 

• Panel Title: Give your idea a creative name. 
• Panel Type:  
• If your panel idea is more academic in nature, pick Research.  
• If it's more about involving students or revolves around pedagogical practice, pick Teaching.  
• If it's about freedom of speech, the journalism profession, or ethical issues, then PF&R (Or, professional freedom and responsibilities) is what you want to select. 
• Panel Sponsorship: If you think there is another AEJMC division or interest group that might be interested in collaborating with COMJIG for the idea you have suggested, please list them. Consider which groups might compliment the idea of what will be talked about during the panel you’re proposing. We will follow up with the division or group you suggest when finalizing the panel proposals. 
• Description of Panel: In 150-250 words, describe what this panel is about and the discussion points you would like covered. Consider that we’ll use this description to help attract other divisions or interest groups.  
• Possible Panelists: Consider an array of diverse people and perspectives when pitching who you think would be good to invite. You don’t need to have your panelists locked down yet, you can treat this as who’d you like if the panel is accepted.  
• Moderator: You can recommend someone else or yourself for moderating the panel, should you intend to attend AEJMC in New Orleans next year.• Contact: Provide the best way for me to get in touch with you should I need additional information or clarification for the panel you have proposed. 

Please provide the information outlined in a Word document and email it to me at christina.smith1@gcsu.edu by September 10. 

 

I am excited to hear ideas from all of you. It is with your input and ideas that we will be able to create a program that truly represents the voice of its members. Once the program has been finalized, we will send you the details via email and post it on our blog as well as our Twitter and Facebook pages. 

 

Thank you for your continued support of COMJIG! 

 

Christina C. Smith 

Vice Chair 

Community Journalism Interest Group 

Thanks, and congrats to the new officers

Still coming off that Chicago conference high while dealing with the normal workload at Hometown U.? Yeah, I know, me too. So that's why this missive is a few days late (got home Sunday night and it's now Wednesday).

Supposedly Newton once said that if he saw far it was because he stood on the shoulders of giants. I know what he meant. If there was any success at all during our Chicago conference workshops it was due to the effort and hard work put in by the other COMJIG officers because it seemed to me that I spent my time chasing down mundane details. The big pic -- and the application of the small stuff that they sweated -- was handled by everyone else.

I also want to thank the other officers for all their help this past year when I was head of the interest group. We had an interesting discussion about the future of COMJIG during our members' meeting in Chi-town, but I'll let the new head of the group, John Hatcher, fill everyong in about that. It is said that the devil is in the details, but this time the excitement will be in the details. John will tell everyone more about it.

In the meantime, I hope everyone has a great start to the semester and a fulfilling academic year. See you in D.C. in August.

Thanks,
Joe

More conference details

Here are some details on our refereed paper session and our scholar-to-scholar session at the August conference in Chicago:


Refereed Paper Research Session: From Shoe Leather to Cyberspace: Evolving Community Journalism



Moderating/Presiding: Eileen Gilligan, SUNY Oswego

"Undocumented Workers and Immigration Reform: Thematic vs. Episodic Coverage in a Rural Kansas Community Daily," Michael Fuhlhage, Auburn

"Conversation Starters: A Study of Interactivity on Community Press-Supported Facebook Pages," Michael Clay Carey, Ohio

"Student Experiences in Community Journalism: A Case Study of Two Universities," Lisa Paulin-Cid, North Carolina Central

"If You Build It, Will They Come? An Exploratory Study of Community Reactions to an Open Source Media Project in Greensburg, Kansas," Samuel Mwangi, Steve Smethers and Bonnie Bressers, Kansas State

Discussant: Eileen Gilligan, SUNY Oswego


Scholar to Scholar session:
Topic — From the Past to the Future: Evolving Community Journalism

"Making Hyperlocal News: An Exploration of the News Values and Perceived Roles of Journalists Working in Local, Independently Owned Online News," Michael Horning, Bowling Green State

"Youth Connection: Promoting Community Ties and Positive Values in Scholastic and Non-scholastic Online Youth-generated News," Jeffrey Neely, North Carolina Wilmington

"Fighting Spirit: Competing Hyperlocal Sites Outmatch Legacy Newspaper’s Efforts," Barbara Selvin, Stony Brook

“ 'Letters From Home,' ” Intimacy in the Norwegian Community Press," John Hatcher, Minnesota-Duluth

Discussant: Bill Reader, Ohio

Welcome, COMJIG members

If yo are coming here as a result of the postcard sent in cooperation with the Texas Center for Community Journalism, welcome. Whether you are a new member or one returning and rediscovering the blog, we're happy you're here.

If you are a new member, you also should have received an email from me (Doug Fisher) about our Yahoo group, which we use like a listserv to get information out to members from time to time (no, we don't bombard you with emails).

Please read that email closely. We need you to select one of three options so I can get you on the list.

And don't forget to visit here often, or to put our RSS feed in your reader or to subscribe to an email feed of posts.

-Doug Fisher 

Welcome back

As we scurry about getting ready for a new academic year, and as we recover from traveling home from St. Louis (I don't know about anyone else but storms delayed my connecting flight home by several lonnnnnnnnnng hours), the temptation is to put off COMJIG matters until we've relaxed and are ready. But, really, why not now? So, with that in mind, let me propose a few things here and now:

1.) In my remarks when I was voted in as COMJIG head last week, I was remiss in not thanking Andris for the wonderful job he did as head of the interest group last year. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. It was great working with him this past year and I am also looking forward to working with our new officers this upcoming year. A special thanks, also, to Doug Fisher who maintains all things webby.

2.) At our meeting last week we talked about raising our profile. So when I get back from several meetings this afternoon I plan on e-mailing our good friends at TCU and asking them to mention us in their new online journal. I'm also going to ask them if they would be willing to co-sponsor a postcard mailing to get our name out there and try to increase submissions for panels and papers.

3.) And that brings me to this point: We really should be thinking about doing more at the mid-year meeting in Oklahoma and at the Southeast Colloquium (in Richmond next spring). Any ideas? In the past we have talked about shared panels and such. I think this is an opportunity to attract those eager grad students who can swell our ranks and get us thinking in new directions.

4.) We really should be doing more with diversity. I spoke with Heidi Flowers, the head of the PR/advertising division, because they are also looking to do a panel on a diversity issue. So this might be a way to pool talents and save a chip at December's chip auction/planning session. Any thoughts?

5.) I also spoke with Kirsten with CCJIG and we're both confused about our IG members' wishes for next year. Our impression was that since we share some members that we want to at least get together socially. Is that the thought? It may be logistically impossible to sked two rooms close together at the same time so that we can meet together either at the start or end of the biz meetings and then also meet individually with our own group. So please, send me your thoughts on that.

6.) I'm not very tech savvy, but we've been trying to get a syllabus exchange for several years now. During an assessment review with AEJMC last week I asked if they could offer any help on getting such an exchange going and they suggested a web site. I don't think my school would sponsor such a site, but does anyone else have any ideas?

So it seems as if I asked more questions than offered anything. But let's talk.

Thanks for your time and patience.
Joe

New COMJIG Facebook group

As another way of reaching members, we've created a Facebook group.

We've trying to give you as many ways to access us as possible

What happened to my COMJIG blog?

Yes, you might have noticed it has a new look - a logo, new stuff on the sidebar, etc.

We have switched from Blogger's old, HTML-based template to its new XML-based templates that have "gadgets" (another name for widgets) that mean we don't have to go in and hard code everything whenever we want to make a change.

We've kept all the old features and added some others, such as the ability to mark a post recommended or not recommended.

The logo was adopted at this year's business meeting. It's nothing fancy, but it incorporates what we are all about -- community AND communication.

Please, let Doug know if you have any suggestions or comments.