'The Norgs Manifesto'
So what's a Norg, anyway? During the [Unconference], the participants said it's a newsgathering operation that is:
- Continuous; 24/7.
- Credible.
- Risky. Composed of risk-takers. Stretching the limits of technology, content and money.
- Willing to embrace and seek failure.
- Willing to see the union as a partner.
- Interactive. Gives voice to the readers.
- Realizes that journalism is not always a story. It might be a database.
- Multiplatform, including a free print edition. Multimedia; offering different platorms for different audiences.
- Not a one-way street. Not print into multimedia—both ways.
- Ethical.
- Transparent.
- Allows reporters to express what they think and feel.
- A watchdog of the eternal spin machine. Please, of state government.
- Committed to freedom of information, financially and legally. Builds it, buys it and lobbies for it.
- Investigative.
- Financially viable And generous with the money it makes. Supports the acts of journalism.
- PERSONAL. Facilitates actual human interaction.
- Distributed widely – transit.
- Devoted to Media literacy – not how to use the media, how to BE the media.
- Should empower its users to be citizens.
- Has a voice. Have a personality.
- Enables the community to inform each other.
- May offer layers of journalism: Old-school, trained journalism; community journalism.
- Owned by the community.
- Uses a new metric for measuring success. Clicks are not the only way.
- Should enjoy first-amendment protection.