(Photo from Don Phelps)

First off, a reminder that we need some more people to vote in the most recent Audeamus awards, something I'm doing here to highlight social entrepreneurs.

Second, I'm starting to get ideas about creating a news agency and I'd like to hear people's thoughts on this. This is a bit grandiose at the moment, so stay with me. What I'm thinking is creating a hybrid profit/non-profit news agency with journalist fellows in positions around the globe somehow funded in a similar way as Ashoka fellows, and a wire service mainly designed to provide non-profits and magazines with objective, journalistic content and coverage of events, news and analysis around the world. Sort of like a Bloomberg agency, but instead of financial news, providing news non-profits (or even mainstream media) would be interested in that they could subscribe to for their websites, publications, and other sources: international development, sustainable development, profiles on social entrepreneurs, global warming, international crisis, etc. One of the problems with foreign correspondence through the mainstream press is that besides the agency wires like AP, AFP, Reuters, there are only a few major papers that have correspondents abroad, and those are mainly in major cities and capitals. So these correspondents have to cover a wide area, and much of the time they are in those major cities covering major policy. Even the wire agencies don't cover a lot of these systemic stories in a way that is meaningful. There is also little support, other than through freelancers, to do extensive work in the field, following stories over a long period.

The idea would be to choose journalist fellows who have ideas for projects, or a place they would want to be based, say in Sudan, or maybe Sri Lanka, or Congo, and give them support through a fellowship grant that would provide for basic functioning, with the rest of their income earned through commission of what is bought through the wire service or through contracted agreements with organizations for specific coverage. They would basically be "freelance" journalists, solo journalists (SoJo's ... see Kevin Sites Hot Zone where I started to get more ideas about this) in the sense that they would be hunting down and pitching their stories to the agency, and given great freedom to roam and cover things in the depth they feel is needed for the stories. So instead of a piece of breaking news from the Congo that you'll forget an hour after reading it, you might have a series of stories that could be bought by an organization to feature on their website over a matter of weeks or months.

Basically the biggest issues would be funding all this from the start, finding organizations who have a mission to fund independent journalism, and finding the journalists to do it. I think the way citizen journalism is going through blogs and other home grown news sources is a good thing, but there is something to be said for independent, trained professional journalists being able to do their work and have support for it. Citizen journalists wouldn't have to be filling these gaps if the gaps weren't there. Another part of my idea would be that the SoJos would be using a wide variety of media, not only print and writing related, but audio and video as well, through podcasts and other such media. I'd also expect the journalists to keep a blog, mainly for transparency issues and to discuss stories with their readers or put up pieces or small items they don't have time to report on.

This is something I've been thinking about for a while, but only recently gave more than passing thoughts to. Seeing what Clare is doing at Exceptional Lives has really inspired me to think more about how something like this could be developed, eventually be self-supporting and fill those news gaps.

These are pretty rough ideas right now, so let me know what you think and if you think it is something worth pursuing. I'd envision having an office in Brussels (where I was based for a year and where we already have some sort of infrastructure set up) and either San Francisco (since I live near there) or D.C.

In some other news ...

*Swallowing First World pride in Glasgow.

*"The ethics of cashing in" at the Guardian.

*The Hollyhock Leadership Institute for Social Change will have a cross culture leadership conference in September (20-24) in British Columbia.

*IPI urges greater emphasis on independent media in British government's thinking on African development issues.

*Kiva and some questions at Tech for Democracy.

*Paper: "The Fundamental Role of Science and Technology in International Development: An Imperative for the U.S. Agency for International Development"

*Some recent philanthropy coverage at Forbes.

*Blogging Biodiversity covers the ILA conference.