Folks,
Take a bow. You did it.
Today, as part of our Ben Franklin Project, our 18 daily newspapers and their websites were sourced, produced and printed using only free web-based tools. Surely, a first in U.S. newspaper publishing history and one we have shared in a press release to the world http://bit.ly/aINhEB.
On this Independence Day, you have declared that our Company’s future will be freed from expensive and restrictive proprietary publishing systems but more importantly that our Company will be freed from the old way of thinking about how we do business. You have ensured we will become a Company with a future and one that will continue in its mission to serve our communities with compelling local journalism.
And while the tools you have found and adapted are an achievement, it is our new approach to journalism which is the true revolution here. The Ben Franklin Project is the beginning of a new era of an open and transparent newsgathering process. Our publications harnessed the power of their audiences to tell stories of importance to their communities. Those stories ranged from childhood obesity to property taxes.
Your enthusiasm on taking on this ambitious project has been wonderful. While some of the projects were very serious you didn’t forget to have fun along the way. Check out Editor Phil Heron’s crew at the Daily Times as they talk about the project http://bit.ly/96aHW7. And the fun Editor Barbara Lombardo’s team was having at the Saratogian http://bit.ly/9ptL0a.
So now that we have started this revolution we must continue it because I believe the fight to save our industry is also a fight to ensure the continuance of quality local journalism. In our communities we intend to be at the core of a local network of news and information providers from bloggers to institutions. We can only do that by being open and transparent and freed from the old legacy process of producing newspapers.
Let me leave you with what might well be our Declaration of Independence as outlined by the Daily Local’s production chief Karl Sickafus. Karl – whose office is a collection of I.T. bits and pieces, hammers, saws, pliers, string and gaffer’s tape (accompanied by Jazz music playing in the background) – has outlined some next steps for our Company in our search to be completely independent of proprietary systems.
Have a read of Karl’s thoughts below. Until next time, John.
.
It was a difficult process, but the payoff was worth all of the extra hours of sweat and toil.
Congratulations to everyone at JRC for executing the Ben Franklin project.
Here is my contribution, both on The Trentonian’s WordPress “website” and our regular website.
http://trt.jrcbenfranklin.com/news/07/03/the-pit-bull-problem/
http://trentonian.com/articles/2010/07/04/news/doc4c2fa25b512af457229390.txt
People really got into the idea of crowd sourcing.
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This is great! I’m so glad that a local company is the first to show the Internet things can really change! –chris le, sellersville, pa
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First, let me congratulate those who successfully created a publication, start to finish, and using only free software. I applaud you.
I find it very interesting, the Pottstown Mercury currently has a poll up asking readers what they think of the Ben Franklin Project.
As an avid reader of The Mercury, and as an editor that shares a lot of content with the daily paper, I have read and watched as they worked towards the Ben Franklin issue. Since the beginning, The Mercury has been posting stories and calls out online looking for community involvement. They have tried to keep their readership involved as much as possible on what they are working on.
The poll (http://www.pottsmerc.com/?poll=288&total=0) response has 38 percent of responders asking “The What Project” and another 44 percent saying “Who Cares?” There is even 13 percent of responders that don’t care.
Of those responding, only six percent are impressed.
While this is a huge step in the right direction of us as a multimedia news corporation, our readership just wants to read the news. They don’t care about how it gets to them or the process we take in making the newspaper. All they really care about is there local news.
However, the bigger picture of the Ben Franklin Project was not for our readers. We wanted them to get involved, but in the end, the finished project was for us, Journal Register Company.
As we continue on, and as we work towards a freer future, let’s remember that the number one thing our readers want is news, and their news. Not news about us.
Congratulations again to the 18 daily papers who successfully completed the Ben Franklin Project.
I’m not a tech guy–and as a writer I didn’t get into Scribus–but I think my comments relate to Karl Sickafus’ above.
Clearly, we can use free web tools like Scribus to publish online and in print, because we did it–and we should be justly proud of that. But I wonder if Scribus and Google Docs are a destination or vehicles to get to where we want to go. It seemed there were a number of concerns that these free programs were not as ready for prime time as we’d like them to be.
Why not create our own proprietary software, which would incorporate our particular needs and wishes? If 10 lines of code can import text from a database, then our IT people must be able to take open-source software and create our own systems to our specifications. For example, Chris March was suggesting that rather than Prestige + TownNews, it would be great to have a content-management system that handled both web and print publishing, so that we aren’t importing copy from one to the other.
This is probably just repeating what Karl said, but I just hope we’ll move in the direction of making this free stuff suit our needs rather than having to adjust to its limitations.
What a great feeling of accomplishment by all involved with the Ben Franklin Project. It also is great to see and read all the positive press JRC has been receiving over the last four months. We are a company with a future and we must continue the mission of transforming a newspaper company into a Media company. JRC has come a long way and has captured the attention of our competitors. We are the leader in innovation and all the others can start following us.
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I get AP’s Facebook feed. So it looks like they’re buying into JRC vision of crowd-sourcing idea, by asking parents of 8- to 14-year-old boys about their book-reading habits.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?profile=1&id=21091459508#!/APNews
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?profile=1&id=21091459508#!/APNews
Sorry for the last 2 links. I believe this one will take you straight to AP’s page.
http://www.facebook.com/APNews?ref=ts