News vs. Policy analysis

Again, another exciting and sensationalistic headline. Surely every one is sitting on the edge of their seats waiting to read the sizzling drama in the following words.

Two great sources of information battle it out to give YOU empowering knowledge. Which shall win?

News… because that’s what I primarily want to do. (And my advisor told me to.) Eventually, policy analysis would come into play.

Right now this blog is helping me form the concept of running a citizen journalism website devoted to local education. Again another thrilling adventure story jumping out of the screen. Sorry for the sarcasm I’ll stop it now.

It would seem the “news” is something everyone can cover. See it and write about it. On the other hand, policy analysis would take a lot research and intellectual talent. I’m not up for that anytime soon. I doubt anyone would just jump up and take this task on without any pay right, so this won’t happen. (See, there absolutly never a need for sarcasm...doh.)

Students, parents, teachers and administrators could report an original breaking story. Perhaps they would try to keep their biases out. Note I don’t write “objective.” These stories will be posted and each would have a discussion board attached so everyone could dialogue on the topic.

That seems like a good start for the news aspect of this project. But I imagine more than just news. Policy analysis and wiki/community defined terms related to education.

I touched on policy analysis so let’s move on to the wiki thing for a moment. An anecdote explains this well:

Teachers, according to state legislation, must live accordingly to community morale standards. Otherwise they can be fired. One teacher in Austin got fired for some artistic photos of her half nude. But how can we define what the whole community believes to be “moral.” Perhaps a wiki can help. Most likely not but it can’t hurt. At least we might get some intelligent discussion on the matter. And if not, intelligent at least public discussion.

I would like to get in to Habermas’ concept of “Public Sphere” but that could get so exhilarating it might be obscene.

Again let’s read what you have to say. I would love to read something about possible news stories written by the public.