The Ash spills got me thinking about this even more. There was a blogger who was going to head over to Kingston to do some coverage and I vaguely recall that they were paper-affiliated. Anyway, so they’re over there and so are other small paper folks and it occurred to me. Twitter & blogs are almost to the point that they could be used for some collaboration work. Say a few reporters want to cover a big story but they all can’t go. Someone from West TN and someone from Knoxville and someone from Shelbyville end up going.
They collaborate on a long, fact-filled, infographic & photo covered piece, the kind that would fill several pages if printed all at once. Then it gets broken up into smaller pieces and serialized over three or four days. But, it prints over Monday through Wednesday in papers in Martin, Collierville, Jackson, Centerville, Clarksville, Shelbyville, Lebanon, Cookeville, Cleveland, Maryville, Rutledge & Kingsport in Tennessee, plus several cities in Kentucky and Alabama that might be interested - all of them far enough from each other that their coverage doesn’t overlap.
Each of the papers might pay a fee for the rights to run the story that gets split among the three reporters and whoever handles distribution. Now, other papers can also run the same serial if they so desire later in the week if it’s not as big a draw for their town but the other papers still don’t cover there, and pay a lower fee.
Jim Voorhies ponders on collaborative efforts between journalists and citizens.
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