A broad topic, for sure. And there were plenty of breakout sessions to make it more digestible -- best business practices for niche websites, lessons from three startup founders, using digital tools to give marginalized communities a voice, video storytelling, audio recording/editing and more. All of it was capped by a superb keynote talk by The Washington Post's national innovations editor, Mark Luckie, who challenged us all to read broadly, think outside the box and find ways to marry technology with innovation.
Four days after the event, I'm still going over my notes, reading what others have said about the camp (see below) and trying to figure out where to begin applying lessons learned and insights gained. It's not a matter of being intimidated or scared, but more an issue of getting past the realization that even though I've learned a lot in the past year, there's still so much that's new to me in the digital world. That's a humbling feeling.
As camp organizer Abraham Hyatt said in his introductory remarks, "The journalism ecosystem has changed a little" since the first camp was held just two years ago. (A subtle sign: Name tags had a space for attendees to fill in their Twitter handle: @georgerede, for instance. Obviously, Twitter was around in 2009, too, but it wasn't as ubiquitous as it is now, with folks tweeting away during the conference and using the hashtag #DJCPDX.)
And how has the journalism ecosystem changed since then? At the risk of stating the obvious:
-- The transition from legacy media to new media is in full bloom. News organizations like The Oregonian and Oregon Business magazine are increasingly offering readers online content, delivered to mobile devices, while anxiously waiting for online advertising to become a bigger share of the revenue pie.
-- It's all about collaboration. All across the country, you're seeing partnerships big and small as national and local media try to maximize resources and build audiences. At my shop, The Oregonian already has a TV partner in KGW and just recently partnered with several independent news web sites under the banner of an Oregonian News Network.
-- It's also all about innovation. It's not easy quitting your day job to launch a startup, but that's exactly what newbie and experienced journalists are doing in order to create their own little niche in the blogosphere. It's a risky business, but the refrain heard over and over is that people would rather have control over their own product and brand and accept less pay than stick with a soul-sucking job.
What's so impressive about the folks who attend a tech-oriented event like this is that it seems to naturally foster a spirit of mutual support, which leads to networking and sharing information. People don't hesitate to ask each other "how" or "why" and that's a great thing. I know I'll be following up with a couple of people I met.
What's also apparent is that the line between professional journalist and citizen journalist is becoming blurrier by the day. Those of us who studied journalism in college, embraced its code of ethics and principles of accuracy, fairness and transparency, and practiced it for decades are having to make room on the same stage for a new generation who proclaim they are not journalists by education and training but journalists by experience.
I can't help but admire the array of technical skills they own and the dedication they bring to the cause of making "unheard voices" heard, whether it's in low-income neighborhoods of Portland or in farflung places like Afghanistan, Libya and Egypt. If these are the people I now look to as colleagues -- in addition to those in my own shop -- I see there's a lot I can learn from them.
More reading:
-- Cornelius Swart, J-Lab coordinator at The Oregonian: "Digital Journalism Camp, "news partners" and other updates
-- Kristen Mira, blogging at Dragonflies in My Net: "Digital Journalism Camp"
-- Andrew Spittle, happiness engineer at Automattic. "Digital Journalism Camp Session Summaries"
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