Uncategorized - by Patrick Thornton on Tuesday, June 30, 2009 18:09 - View Comments

BeatBlogging.Org’s funding runs out Sept. 1

Friends,

I regret to inform you that BeatBlogging.Org’s funding will be running out in about two months.

It has been a great ride. We’ve chronicled a lot innovative beat reporters and news organizations and have helped highlight best practices. I hope through the work that we have done that we have helped journalists learn how harness the power of social media, blogging and other Web tools to help improve beat reporting.

BeatBlogging.Org will not, however, be disappearing. There is still work to be done and innovation to be chronicled. BeatBlogging.Org is too strong of a brand to let die.

Unless a journalism non-profit or university steps up to bring BeatBlogging.Org in house, this project will most likely be going volunteer only. If it is the latter, I’ll obviously have a new day job, and if that is the case, I’ll need assistance in carrying out BeatBlogging.Org’s mission.

I’m asking for all of you to help me brainstorm what to do next with BeatBlogging.Org and the best way to move forward. Collectively we can figure out how to not only have BeatBlogging.Org survive but also thrive.

NYU’s Jay Rosen especially deserves a big thank you for coming up with the idea of BeatBlogging.Org and for also securing funding for the project. Rosen is one of the most innovative and forward thinking journalism professors around, and I’m eager to see what comes out of his new Studio 20 program.

As for me, I don’t know what I’ll be doing once BeatBlogging.Org’s funding runs out. Obviously, this a tough job market, but I hope to remain in journalism. Ideally, I’d love to remain focused on journalism next and helping to push journalism forward.

Even if that is not possible, rest assured that I will still be active within the journalism community through posts on BeatBlogging.Org, at Wired Journalists, my personal site and within the larger journalism community on the Web.

Thank you for all your help and support with this project. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to working on the Leaderboard.

Sincerely,

Patrick Thornton
Editor of BeatBlogging.Org

Subscribe to BeatBlogging.Org via RSS.



  • http://www.ozarksunbound.com Christopher Spencer

    Patrick,

    It would be a real loss to the journalism community if beatblogging.org were to go dark. I want to say thank you so very much for all time and effort you’ve put into this site.

    I discovered this Web site through a fellow reporter and read it intently while I was working for a daily paper, trying to discover ways to implement the practices explored here in my county beat reporting. I even linked to several of your posts from our paper’s intranet, hoping to share the posts with my fellow reporters.

    I was laid off in April and continue to read this site enthusiastically. It’s been part of the inspiration for me to form a local media site, Ozarks Unbound, that I hope to grow into something self-sustaining in the coming months.

    I’ve been in journalism for almost ten years and these changes affecting our industry are severe and profound. I have no doubt that your talent will land you in a continued role as a reporter in some capacity.

    Thanks for everything.

    Christopher Spencer
    Ozarks Unbound.

  • http://mediascaper.wordpress.com Anthony Salveggi

    Patrick,

    I’ve been following Beatblogging since January and would hate to see it go away. I wish in the five minutes between reading your latest post and typing this comment I had a brilliant idea to offer on how to keep it viable. Your coverage of the work done by reporters to engage their online audiences has been invaluable.

    Regards,

    Anthony Salveggi

  • http://sarahhartley.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/links-for-2009-07-09/ links for 2009-07-09 « Sarah Hartley

    [...] BeatBlogging.Org’s funding runs out Sept. 1 | BeatBlogging.Org "I regret to inform you that BeatBlogging.Org’s funding will be running out in about two months. It has been a great ride. We’ve chronicled a lot innovative beat reporters and news organizations and have helped highlight best practices. I hope through the work that we have done that we have helped journalists learn how harness the power of social media, blogging and other Web tools to help improve beat reporting. BeatBlogging.Org will not, however, be disappearing. There is still work to be done and innovation to be chronicled. BeatBlogging.Org is too strong of a brand to let die. Unless a journalism non-profit or university steps up to bring BeatBlogging.Org in house, this project will most likely be going volunteer only." (tags: newspapers blogging resources beatblogging funding) [...]

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About BeatBlogging.org

BeatBlogging.org was a grant-funded journalism project that studied how journalists used social media and other Web tools to improve beat reporting. It ran for about two years, ending in the fall of 2009.

New content is occasionally produced here by the this project's former editor Patrick Thornton. The site is still up and will remain so because many journalists and professors still use and link to the content. BeatBlogging.org offers a fascinating glimpse into the former stages of journalism and social media. Today it's expected that journalists and journalism organization use social media, but just a few years ago that wasn't the case.

About the Author of this post
Patrick Thornton is the editor and lead writer of BeatBlogging.Org. He is @pwthornton on Twitter.