The deal with The Media Consortium

Another reason the whole "my computer died" episode has been a real pain in the ass is that my day job at The Media Consortium is changing. More accurately, it is being expanded. And expanded work duties = more need for functional computer = great tragedy when computer stops functioning. But I suppose now is as good a time as any to explain to you all What It Is I Do.

I am the first reporter for a Media Consortium-sponsored project called The Reporting Project of The Syndicated Reporting Project. It works a bit like a wire service or a column syndication. We did some analysis and found that the biggest progressive media outlets actually do not have significant overlaps in readership (i.e. they're not, to any significant extent, competing with each other)--and, as such, we realized that this presents a fantastic opportunity for content sharing.

One way for the member organizations to share content is to just share content. Existing content. Specifically, if The American Prospect feels as if it doesn't run enough race-related content, they can, in theory, snag some articles from, say, Colorlines, who in turn can run some articles on the policy roots of inequality from The American Prospect, or whathaveyou.

It's an idea that has, I think, considerable merit, notwithstanding some very serious drawbacks--but more on that in a different post some time soon. The other content sharing model is the one we've started--wherein a reporter is assigned to a beat that the existing outlets simply don't have the resources to focus on with any regularity, and his or her dispatches are shared by the subscribers.

And we've created a model that seems to be working. Just about every time I link to an article I've written--such as this most recent one about the REAL ID Act--it's something that is (or can) run on any of about a dozen websites. Usually it runs in about four or five.

There are some limitations. Because the editing process is brokered and takes a bit longer than it would if I were writing for a single magazine, it's very difficult to write competitive articles about breaking news. Instead, I've been writing about one or two more deeply researched and investigated columns a week. The articles are edited, distributed, and then, after 24 hours, posted to this website. A clearinghouse, if you will.

But with one reporter writing a handful of articles a month, The Reporting Project--and The Media Consortium more broadly--hasn't really obtained a visibility, or a brand, of its own. Until now. Just this week we've rolled out a parallel project. The articles continue, but members can now draw content from what might just be the Internet's first open-source blog. The posts runs on the same website as the clearinghouse--a site that's not particularly designed to generate tons of its own traffic--but the members can cut and paste the posts directly on to their own websites. The goal is to allow a greater number of readers to learn about, say, the latest from the GAO on Iran sanctions, without each publication shelling out a great deal of money to staffers/freelancers to write the articles independently. To have, for instance, a live-blog up and running on five or 10 fairly large websites simultaneously, and for very little money.

It's all fairly experimental. But it will prove instructive either way: I didn't get into the blogging business early, and I regret that. But reporting (and reporting in the progressive media most specifically) is changing--there's tons to cover and scant resources, and syndication of some source is one possible solution. And though it's tempting to wax exaggerated--"this is nothing short of revolutionary!"--I do think it's a significant step for "the media" writ large. Our iteration may not prove to be the first one to stick, but I'm happy to be in early, and flattered to think it might be influential.

At any rate, apologies for not explaining that in great detail before, And, yeah. I wish my computer hadn't died.