Blogging BaKaForum & Appreciating Journalism that Matters

I wanted to let regular readers of IrvsEyeView know that I will be blogging the Basel Karlsruhe Forum on educational TV, starting in about two weeks. The program alternates each year between Basel, Switzerland and Karlsruhe, Germany. This year it is in Germany. The actual forum, known better by its acronym--BaKaFORUM--begins on January 29th and goes through February 2nd. I attended BaKaFORUM, in Basel, in December of 2004 and I'm delighted to attending this year in Karlsruhe. We are currently building the blogsite for the conference. Take a look, even though it is a work in progress.

Spending three days with international producers of some of the finest educational programs is both inspiring and encouraging. In this era of cutbacks and bad economy it's uplifting to see the outstanding work being done around the world, with a positive purpose.

Speaking of positive purpose, I attended the Journalism Than Matters (JTM) conference in Seattle this past weekend. It, too, is the sort of gathering that encourages because it is about building rather than diminishing, both tangibly and otherwise. JTM attracted journalists, community leaders, and thinkers (some crossed all the categories :-)) to envision ways to bring together legacy journalism and newer hyperlocal and specialty media for the good of communities. I had a chance to visit with Tracy Record, of the West Seattle Blog. Tracy and her husband Patrick created one of the more successful entrepreneurial news websites in the country. Tracy and I worked together 18 years ago at KNSD. The good news is that some of these local websites are doing well--some even thriving--both editorially and financially.

The biggest take away for me was how legacy media, the big newspapers and TV stations, and grassroots hyperlocal media, like The West Seattle Blog, can help each other. This new "news ecology" as it was referred to, makes sense. The older legacy media can give the local folks credibility and exposure; the grassroots local media can give the big news organizations access to local communities and the sort of heartfelt connections that big media reporters don't often develop. A pretty fair exchange... credibility and heart.