Representative Journalism (RepJ) team descends on Twin Cities, Northfield

By Griff Wigley, on March 14, 2008, 7:00 am

The Representative Journalism (RepJ) team paid a visit to Minnesota yesterday. (See the initial RepJ blog post for details on the project.)

Left: At the offices of the Bush Foundation, L to R: Bill Densmore (RepJ collaborator, Director of the Media Giraffe Project, U of Mass, Amherst), Peter Hutchinson (President of the Bush Foundation), and Leonard Witt (RepJ founder, Communication Chair and Associate Professor, KSU, Atlanta, Georgia)
Left center: Len mugs for a MinnPost.com billboard in a downtown St. Paul skyway
Center: Afternoon coffee break: Len and Bill with Andrew Haeg, director of Minnesota Public Radio’s Public Insight Journalism Network.
Right center/right: Me, Bill and Len, relaxing in MPR’s listening pods

Left: Recording a Locally Grown radio show/podcast at KYMN studios: Bill and Len with (center) Chris Peck, RepJ collaborator and editor of The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, TN. (Earlier in the afternoon, Len and Bill also paid a visit to John Schott, Chair of Cinema and Media Studies at Carleton.)
Left center: Present in spirit throughout the day: Ruth Ann Harnisch, President of the Harnisch Family Foundation, which has funded RepJ.
Center: Relaxing at the Contented Cow: Bill, Len, and Chris with Tracy Davis, LG co-host and head honcho of GuildCraft Carpets and Northfield Carpets International. We then dined at Chapati.
Right center/right: Late night RepJ strategy session in the lower level Archer House conference room: Ross Currier, LG co-host and Executive Director of the Northfield Downtown Development Corporation (NDDC) with Bill, Chris, Tracy and Len.

We recorded next week’s episode of our radio show/podcast, Locally Grown, focused entirely on the RepJ concept, of course.

Click play to listen (30 minutes). The show will air next Wednesday, March 19 at 5:30 PM on KYMN 1080 AM. You can also subscribe to the podcast feed (or one click subscribe with iTunes). We seek your comments and suggestions.

Update 3/15: The RepJ team had a few more collegial visits in the Twin Cities yesterday.

Left: Len Witt with Joel Kramer, CEO/Editor of MinnPost.com
Center and Right: Len, Bill Densmore and me with Bernadine Joselyn, Director, Public Policy and Engagement, Blandin Foundation.

Representative Journalism - Blog - Meet the Northfield Representative Journalism Team says:

March 14, 2008 at 8:06 am

[...] place. What a great group of people they are: Griff Wigley, Tracy Davis and Ross Currier. You can see and hear us on a podcast from the local radio station KYMN in [...]

Networked Journalism Summit » Blog Archive » Leonard Witt - Representative Journalism says:

March 14, 2008 at 4:58 pm

[...] Representative Journalism is Leonard Witt’s project to experiment in new business models of journalism. You can listen to the podcast where Leonard and the rest talk about the idea here. [...]

Leonard Witt says:

March 14, 2008 at 9:35 pm

Thanks to Northfield.

I thoroughly enjoyed the visit to Northfield. Great hospitality, wonderfully interesting people, and I know I can speak for Chris Peck and Bill Densmore when I say we are really looking forward to working with the folks at Locally Grown and all the people in Northfield.

Now the search is on for the perfect journalist. After our meeting with Tracy Davis, Griff Wigley and Ross Currier, we have redefined the role of the journalist for this project and we all believe this is going to be a dream job for the right person.

Griff Wigley says:

March 15, 2008 at 6:55 am

I’m psyched, Len. Thanks so much to you, Chris and Bill for the visit and substantive conversations.

I’ll post a revised job description as soon as we get done editing it.

FYI to everyone else: the RepJ team had a few more collegial visits in the Twin Cities yesterday. I’ve added photos to the original blog post of Len with Joel Kramer, CEO/Editor of MinnPost.com, and Len, Bill Densmore and me with Bernadine Joselyn, Director, Public Policy and Engagement, Blandin Foundation.

Citizen journalism conference in Mpls this week - Locally Grown says:

June 4, 2008 at 9:27 am

[...] RepJ team will be attending, too, and so we’ll be talking about Locally Grown, the Northfield civic [...]

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Representative Journalism (RepJ) team descends on Twin Cities, Northfield

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