All the RepJ information so far could be categorized. For example, and “economy” link leads to “business stories” leads to “taking the pulse of our business network” (which is what I’m working on now). At the final destination, there is a page that has all the goodies we want, including an ongoing wiki.

What d’ya think?

Jeff Jarvis: The building block of journalism is no longer the article

I want a page, a site, a thing that is created, curated, edited, and discussed. It’s a blog that treats a topic as an ongoing and cumulative process of learning, digging, correcting, asking, answering. It’s also a wiki that keeps a snapshot of the latest knowledge and background. It’s an aggregator that provides annotated links to experts, coverage, opinion, perspective, source material. It’s a discussion that doesn’t just blather but that tries to accomplish something (an extension of an article like this one that asks what options there are to bailout a bailout). It’s collaborative and distributed and open but organized.

Think of it as being inside a beat reporter’s head, while also sitting at a table with all the experts who inform that reporter, as everyone there can hear and answer questions asked from the rest of the room — and in front of them all are links to more and ever-better information and understanding.

This is the way to cover stories and life.

Martin Langeveld: Why not Wikify?

… why not allow readers to edit the wiki as well, with the reporter who “owns” the issue keeping an eye on it to prevent abuse? It works at Wikipedia itself, why would it not work at a local newspaper wiki?

Once established, readers could add new topics, including pages on the history and amenities of the area, on elected and appointed local officials and legislators, on businesses and non-profit organizations, on schools and churches, on clubs, bands, rivers, mountains, parks and what-have-you. Every new news story might come with a series of wiki references to allow readers to explore the backgrounds of not only the issues but also the personalities, buildings and organizations involved.

I’d like to point out that an increasing number of MSM reporters have blogs in which they do a little post-mortem on a story AFTER its been published and also engage with the readership a bit, too.

But I don’t know of any reporters who are engaged with the readers WHILE a story is being worked on.