ICM interview: David Cohn, spot.us

David Cohn has been a prolific proponent of community or networked journalism. Additionally, he’s been a friend of college media, speaking at the 2006 New York CMA convention and offering to judge a category in the ICM contests. Recently, he won a Knight Challenge Grant for a project to fund journalistic reporting. I chatted with David via instant messaging last Friday. This is the edited transcript of that interview.

ICM: Okay, so first question: What’s been going on with you this year aside from the Knight grant, which we’ll talk about later?

Cohn: Sure. This has been a busy year. I finished at Columbia’s J-school and moved back to San Francisco. During that time, I’ve still been working with Jay on NewAssignment.net projects. The main two being BeatBlogging.org and OffTheBus.net. I’ve played a very small role in OTB and a more day-to-day role in beat blogging. I’ve also been working with the folks at NewsTrust.net as a contributing editor. That’s been the bulk of my time.

ICM: What have you learned about networked journalism and the “future of journalism” during this time?

Cohn: There is so much I’ve learned that it’s hard to boil it down. A few things.

1. People will always be more important than technology. We have amazing technological tools and one can do amazing things with them, but if the person wielding them doesn’t have the mind or skill set to use them for online organizing, which is essentially what networked journalism is “online organizing” - then the tools are useless. I don’t know what the future of journalism will look like, but I do believe it will be participatory in some form or other. It’s important to keep in mind that none of this is a science and it may never be. Clay Shirky recently used weather prediction as an example: We know what elements need to combine to create a storm, but we can never be 100% certain that a storm is coming until we feel the rain drops - that’s what building online communities is like - we have an idea of what elements are needed, but it’s still a guessing game. But we are in the early stages - so the best thing to do now is try.

ICM: So what’s been your greatest success over this year?

Cohn: Well, with BeatBlogging it’s about small success. In a strange way - just getting a non-web journalist to sign up for twitter and then a month later telling you how they use it and it makes their job better/easier is a big success. With OffTheBus.net - the Mayhill scoop was huge and talking with Amanda Michel, who runs OffTheBus.net, I think we did the right thing by running it. And while the Mayhill thing was a big note worthy happening - I’m still more moved and happy with the personal changes. A lot of what I do is “consulting” - although I hate that word. And it’s nice that when you work with someone to get them on the web they finally see the power and what it has to offer.

ICM: You mention the Mahill scoop. Any regrets with the way that turned out?

Cohn: No. There are lots of alternatives, none of which I like: Imagine if we didn’t run it - but then later somebody found out we did have that information and consciously didn’t run it. Not to mention - I could imagine a situation where that same information could have been leaked on YouTube. Think back to the macaca moment. The fact is - there is no “off the record” anymore unless you say the words.

ICM: Cool. So what have you learned this year that will benefit student journalists … I mean, a lot of people have jumped on the “multimedia” bandwagon, but you’ve stayed in the more esoteric area of journalism. How can that help college media?

Cohn: That’s very true ie: digital storytelling versus community management. I have some digital storytelling skills - but I’m no ace.

The main thing I’ve learned - which I think applies to people who are great digital storytellers or people who want to stay on the community side of things, which can be described as esoteric I suppose. It is possible to make your career outside of mainstream news organizations. Wether you are Brian Storm or Michel Tippet - who to me represent digital storytelling and networked journalism very well - it’s possible to make your own career still. So far I haven’t worked for a MAJOR news organization. The largest company I’ve worked for was Wired.com - and that was before they were owned by Conde Nast. The point is: Follow your passions - do what you are good at and just DO IT. I know it’s becoming cliche - but that’s because there is truth to it.

Don’t get disheartened. Journalism needs smart people - so you will be in demand.

ICM: okay, so tell me a little about your Knight grant, and how that relates to what you’ve been doing recently.

Cohn: Sure. The Knight grant is for Spot.us - which is community funded reporting. I’ve been working mostly on the content side of networked journalism but I always wondered how it could be sustainable. Spot.us is still participatory journalism - but the participation from the public is by donating money. It’s very similar to Kiva.org or DonorsChoose which have raised millions of dollars for their causes. It’s also a chance for freelance journalists to get paid while building out their portfolio - while doing what they do best: reporting.

ICM: What has been the response so far for your proposal? I know Len Witt got a lot of negative reaction to his idea of “representative journalism”

Cohn: So far I’ve only gotten positive reactions - but I think that’s because those with negative reactions haven’t confronted me. I am told that my proposal was the most contentious of all the winners. From what I understand all the web judges loved it and all the journalist readers didn’t. But I am anticipating the negative reactions and I have responses - both verbally and in the site. I am building the site keeping their concerns in mind.

ICM: So what are your goals for the site?

Cohn: Short term goals: Just have a proof of concept. It’s unknown whether people will be willing to put 10-25$ down for journalism. I think they will if the pitch is right. So - in the beginning I’m just going to focus on getting a few good stories funded and published. It will focus on the SF Bay Area at first. Ideally - if it’s successful after the first year we will expand to other cities. What I’m building is a platform that any journalist can use.

But it’s going to be small steps to get there.

ICM: Bringing it back to our core audience, how can college journalists learn from this?

Cohn: A few things.

1. Apply for the Knight grant. Seriously. Four of the other winners were undergraduate college students.

2. Once you are done with college, if journalism is something you want to persue Spot.us is a tool that might be useful for getting started. There are others too.

3. If you have a cool idea - share it. That’s what I did and it worked out. Len Witt, who you mentioned earlier, had a similar idea and blogged it - and then somebody gave him 51k to make it happen. Share your entrepreneurial ideas and you never know what might happen.

ICM: What are your plans for this year: just work on spot.us, or other projects?
Cohn: Yes, Spot.us is going to be where I put the lions share of my time. I’m not going to disappear from NewAssignment.net or NewsTrust, but I am going to take a serious back seat. In some ways this is an extension of what I’ve learned at NewAssignment.net.

ICM: Are you seeing a change in the way journalists embrace the Internet? Are the “wars” over? Is this a good thing for college journalists as they work on their campus media outlets?

Cohn: I do think the war is over. There is still a sense of panic though. The industry isn’t going to die - but it is going to re-invent itself. That’s a good thing for students. The belief that it was going to be a battle is over - now it’s about learning to adapt and that’s where young recent grads can come in and really shake things up. Again I’ll point to the college students who won this year. One of them was telling me he wanted to apply to Columbia’s J-school. I love Columbia but I was telling him not to. As I see it - if he can leave UCLA having revamped his university’s CMS - he can walk into any organization he wants. So while working on your college media outlet - see what you can do there to embrace the internet. It’s a great opportunity to experiment.

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