Writers

[Rule]

It's an interesting idea.  But honestly, it seems like 99%+ of the "news" blogs on the internet are word-by-word plagiarism, or at best, a paraphrase of another news/blog article.

It would be hard to rally the truly excellent bloggers/writers into one group.  And after that is done, you'd need a couple talented editors.

I'm skeptical about the "bias" voting system.  Articles that are merely reporting facts will get bias votes, if these facts do not support reader positions.

But interesting idea.
 

[truste1]

I've read a lot on the impending downfall of non-localized print news, and it seems as if this is the perfect time for something like this to come into existence. I don't know if something to the same extent is already being done, but I don't believe so. Of course there are a lot of details that would need to be worked out as planning this seems quite cumbersome.

[while1]

One word:  Money

Paper doesn't print itself or fly off of trees onto newstands or people's front porch.  There's a billion reasons the traditional news medium is dying.  Most obvious reason is because it's not profitable anymore.  The online medium and bloggers are part of the reason, in conjunction with decreasing consumer appeal with instant gratification brought on by the internet.  Why pay for a newspaper when you're already paying for an internet connection which provides you need?  I don't agree with this rationale, as I personally prefer reading the traditional newspaper over reading news the internet (easier on the eyes, I can read it on the go and at the breakfast table, etc.)  But due to lots of different reasons, it's mostly financial viability that's going to be your problem.

Even if you're going to use the rationale that you'd save money because you don't have to pay bloggers, you're wrong.  Most successful bloggers are getting paid whether directly from a blogging media company or through their own ad generated revenue, etc.  And surely, more bloggers than not do it for free, I don't disagree.  But part of the appeal of blogging is the freedom given to the blogger.  Bloggers are at a leisure, and some might not like the idea of having to have someone else edit their work, answer to someone else, and all the shit that comes along with adding bureaucracy- restriction of personal liberty.  Not to mention, once you add a business model to it and a company and a larger more visible entity to sue or target... gg.  You go for a non-profit kind of thing... but the work involved doesn't justify the ends if it's not going to be profitable.

[iago]

Even if you're going to use the rationale that you'd save money because you don't have to pay bloggers, you're wrong.  Most successful bloggers are getting paid whether directly from a blogging media company or through their own ad generated revenue, etc.  And surely, more bloggers than not do it for free, I don't disagree.  But part of the appeal of blogging is the freedom given to the blogger.  Bloggers are at a leisure, and some might not like the idea of having to have someone else edit their work, answer to someone else, and all the shit that comes along with adding bureaucracy- restriction of personal liberty.  Not to mention, once you add a business model to it and a company and a larger more visible entity to sue or target... gg.  You go for a non-profit kind of thing... but the work involved doesn't justify the ends if it's not going to be profitable.

That's actually a pretty good point. A couple years ago, I was the editor for a corporate blog (for Symantec), and it was my job to find one post/day from a few dozen bloggers. You'd think that'd be easy, but it isn't -- when they aren't being directly paid for it, real work takes priority. They'll blog when they feel like it, no matter how much you hassle them. It becomes really difficult to make your quota.

I'm not saying the idea is doomed to failure, but when you try to make bloggers work around your schedule, you're going to run into problems.

[truste1]

Does anybody want to help get this started? Obviously there are a lot of kinks, so I think some good brainstorming sessions would be useful. I definitely see the potential for it, though, it would just take work to get it off of the ground. I'm really not even sure how to go about it.

[Camel]

I actually didn't think anymore about this, at least not in more detail, but here's the brief initial idea that I had.

Recognizing that many people now receive their news from blogs, and other social networking mediums, where oftentimes the stories are more complete (niche blogs writing about what they're passionate about) why not have a "newspaper" which is essentially a collection of freelance blog articles. Bloggers currently write for free, so there would not be a cost associated with the majority of the news articles written (except perhaps a link back to their home blog.)

In my mind's eye this would allow for a seemingly endless ability to cover all sorts of stories, covering any sort of niche. It'd be pretty much the reader's paper: Of the people and for the people.

To keep it neutral a bias voting system could be implemented where needed (ala FairSpin.org) although articles wouldn't only pertain to politics.

Thoughts?

Brilliant, it's a wonder no one has thought of that before.

Oh wait, slashdot.

[warz]

hehe. exactly, have you forgotten the masses of RSS feed agregator websites that popped up a few years back? they all advertised the idea of "organizing your own news" pretty much. you could take this idea, though, like 2-3 times a day hit the feeds, and store unseen stories but then require moderators to go through and only allow quality articles to make it to the site.