Reply #80: A simplification?

[scottxyz]

I still see much of this as simply a question of moving existing content from the computer screen to paper. (I hear that when you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail - and I've done a lot of work in desktop publishing, so let me know if I'm missing something here!)

There seems to be so much content already out there, being updated on a daily basis on the web. (Pick your favorite websites and blogs.) What if all we had to do was:

(1) Get permission to reprint some of this stuff.

(2) Do the layout in QuarkXPress, print, copy and distribute?

This would be a quick-and-dirty way to get a LOT more people aware of all this great stuff on the web, make the writers happy by increasing their readership - without spending any money on a new website or on paying journalists or hiring lawyers.

Of course, I also like Arendt's main idea about hiring our own investigative journalists to ORIGINATE news stories - because much of the web is just echoes and commentaries about stories researched and written by big papers and TV channels. (Note - let's say right now that this would NOT be a "pay to play" system - we should make sure we separate fund-raising from editorial oversight. We DON'T want a system where the people who pay the journalists get to dictate what the jouralists write - or who gets hired as journalists. In fact, we should probably have some sort of explicit wall between who pays for this system and who decides what to write about. We already have a corrupt system where the payers manipulating who gets hired to write and what they write about.)

I'm just trying to see if there's a way to start this incrementally taking baby steps - get a paper out there on the street for minimal cost (just coordinated editing, page layout and printing and distribution) - and then add to it by raising money on the web and hiring some of our own journalists (and lawyers) and having a sort of on-line editorial board to figure out what needs to be covered.

It almost seems like we could use the existing FREE blog framework (blogspot, moveabletype) to set up a new blog where a bunch of editors (with secure login/password) figure out which "best of the web" stuff to publish every day (making sure we have permission to reprint this stuff from the owners) - then we just pour that into Quark (it really is almost that easy!) - print out on a few dozen laser printers nationwide - print up on rotary presses or at Kinko's if need be - and have a volunteer network who distribute the paper every morning.

A lot of this could be done without raising money - if a good coordinated network were in place making it easy for the editors and page designers to work together. A lot could be donations - donated time, donated computer time, donated laser printer time and toner, donated xeroxing time, donated time distributing around town.

The main logistical point would be trying to ensure maximum impact by making sure that

(1) We have a process for picking the BEST stories to run every day. (Editorial board? On-line vote like the "Best of" category on craigslist.org? Panel of experts like the Koufax awards or the MoveOn.org Bush ads?)

(2) We have a process for laying those stories out into a multi-page newspaper format. QuerkXpress is one program which runs on PCs and Macs - but it would also be nice to have a more "workgroup"-oriented type of page-layout program, so people could collaborate on the editing and page layoug from all over the country or around the world.

I'm pretty sure there are "workgroup" versions of Quark out there, as well as other high-end page-layout systems (Interleaf?) designed to allow a bunch of editors and designers to work together on putting out a publication quickly and efficiently every day. (Do they run over the Internet - ie on TCP/IP? A lot of things do nowadays. Perhaps this a question for some slashdot.org types.)

On the one hand, we need to make sure a bunch of people are involved in writing and editing (and proofreading!) and page layout so we can leverage the people-hours and talents we have available.

On the other hand, it would be great if the final product every morning were THE SAME nationwide. That would really make a big splash and give NYT, WaPo, USA Today a run for their money.

I think some sort of workgroup page layout program (such as QuarkXpress) might be ideal.

Check out these promo websites from Quark. It sounds like lots of companies are already doing this - collaborating remotely on putting together a single publication:

http://www.quark.com/solutions/qps/
http://www.quark.com/solutions/wg_vs_enterprise.html

Quark Publishing System
At its most basic, QPS lets individuals collaborate on document creation while assigning, routing, and tracking revisions of each piece of content for a printed publication....