I just finished doing a short end-of-school segment on Vocalo, Chicago’s new collaborative radio station, with my friend Dan Weissmann, and at roughly the same time came across this post from Mediashift (a PBS blog) about “Collaborative” Radio, which sounds like an audio version of what we’re doing here to some extent and most directly over on District 299.
My initial reaction is that for collaborative media to really work (audio or print), readers have to be willing to share information as well as opinions and analysis. Right now, the facts (such as they are) come mostly from the press and the researchers. In a perfect world, readers (collaborators) would provide more information -- documents, emails, things they’ve seen and heard -- to go along with their opinions. I’ve learned a ton of things reading comments on this blog and my other one, but the tidbits of real live information come here and there.