Hosting Interactive Networked Journalism

Communication networks now allows everyone's voices to be heard. Chances are, however, that your voice isn't louder than ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.

Collectively we maybe heard.

But how do we do this? It won't be easy but perhaps this could be an outline of sorts. I'll make it specific for education but this could apply to any public affairs journalism. Such as health care, environment, and of course politics.

A moderator or host of a website formally meets the PTO president of every school in the school district. Also the principal, the high school newspaper and any other interested parties

We engage them and ask them for input. We want their interaction. We as journalist need their interaction.

They need to tell us their concerns for the schools. They need to tell us about their experiences. They need to tell each other about their experiences.

We as journalist need to facilitate conversations based on the important issues that effect our lives. We foster communication.

Each school has a network leader who they can inform about a concern. The issue could then be examined as whether it stays in that particular network or whether that issue is for concern for the large school district network. Eventually this could work it way up to the state and federal public sphere.

The size of the network only has to be relevant to the size of the issue.

This is the underlying structure of the network and doesn't get in to the web design or technical logistics.

What it means is that we can ask elected officials and educators the hard questions and get real answers. If the people in power ignore our questions they are simply not doing their job.

Perhaps some might think that this gives the moderator a lot of power to set the agenda or give priority to personal issues. But that is no worse than it is currently. Furthermore this is an improvement because every bit of information can be posted and is open to examination.

The host play the role of a hub linking the nodes with relevant information that impacts their education or child or taxes. We are all involved whether we like it or not. We need to take advantage of our communication to realize our collective goal.