Earlier today, Dan announced that he's leaving the Merc.
I hope to pull together something useful that helps enable -- and demonstrates -- the emerging grassroots journalism that I wrote about in my recent book. Something powerful is happening, it's in the early stages and I have a chance to help figure this out.
I'm not ready to discuss the specifics yet, mainly because I have many more ideas than I could possibly try to put into practice at this point -- and we're early in the process of working out the venture's actual form.
Keep in mind that this project is now in what's known as the seed stage. It's not an operating entity yet, though I expect it will be. But we're some time away from that, with many issues to resolve in the meantime.
Wow. This is a Big Deal.
I have a quick story to tell about Dan...
Back at OSCON this year I attended his presentation about grassroots journalism and his excellent book. At the end of the talk I wanted to go introduce myself and tell him how much I admired what he's been doing. But I had to go somewhere else and there was a bit of a line.
I told myself I'd try to track him down later that day. But I never found him.
Later that evening, Derek and I were at the O'Reilly book signing event (where all the authors stand behind tables and sign their books for anyone who brings one up). I saw Dan come into the room and look around a bit. I wanted to go talk with him, but someone else was at the table chatting with us. Doh!
Much to my surprise, he saw me, came over and told me that he was a fan of my blog, etc.
I was floored!
Dan Gillmor came over to tell me that he liked what I was doing?!?! That was supposed to be the other way around!
I'm going to follow Dan's new venture with great interest. He's right about things changing. Not only did he notice before most of the world, I suspect he's going to be in a great position to lead that change.
Posted by jzawodn at December 09, 2004 09:25 PM
As my friend Tom opined, there goes the best reason for a subscription to the Mercury News. The paper's suffered since the previous publisher left at the end of the dot com boom.
You can always tell when a "grassroots" movement is over, when the pros move in.
That's a great story, Jeremy. Your audience here is quite the jaded group. It's always fun to see somebody jump off the cliff and take a shot at starting something new.
Unfortunately, I have had a different experience with Dan Gillmor. I once wrote to him tell him that his slamming of H1 visas was somewhat one-sided, and he was buying into the protectionist, nativist argument. His response was somewhat dismissive and arrogant, basically asserting that H1 immigrants get paid less, and therefore it impacts Americans. He wasn't even open to considering the positive impact of immigration - his mind was made up and that was that. On other issues, I guess he himself would pontificate from his high perch that *other people* should be held to a higher standard and consider all sides of an issue objectively ... it was quite clear that on this issue, he was pandering to a certain segment of his readership. So why put on that holier-than-thou?
Good story, I've had similar stories on a more local level here in Wisconsin.
