Twin Cities Media Alliance and the future of newspapers

With the implosion of the two city newspapers and the weekly City Pages, all victims of corporate takeovers that included mass firings and layoffs of experienced journalists, the print news outlets in the Twin Cities have gone down the tubes. Sure, I still pick up copies in the cafes, out of habit, but there's nothing there any more. It's sad and frustrating because I have always loved reading newspapers. I don't subscribe at home any more because I hate adding even more to my recycling, but I would still buy a paper or pick up someone's discard every day.

But the changes in the works in the Twin Cities media world right now are very exciting. Journalists had already been exploring the possibilities of new kinds of news delivery through online formats for the last few years, and now several new groups are moving to reconfigure our media landscape. There will be a forum on Nov. 3 that I plan to attend called "life after newspapers", organized by the Twin Cities Media Alliance and sponsored by the Minneapolis Public Libraries.

One venture that has been around for a little while, that I like very much, is The Twin Cities Daily Planet, which bills itself as "local news for global citizens." It is a site that aggregates stories from the smaller papers and hosts blogs and community announcements. It has a strong component of citizen journalism, and links to a few sites with discussion forums in their Planet Cafe. Here is a list of their media partners. You can get your news in Spanish, Hmong, and Somali on this site as well. It's a project of the New Media Alliance.

The Twin Cities Media Alliance brings together media professionals and engaged citizens to improve the quality, accountability and diversity of the local media.

We envision a participatory democracy in which citizens from all segments of society and especially those who have been traditionally denied access are able to use the media as a tool to share information, hold the powerful accountable, build community, and work together for the common good.

Our community newswire and syndication service, the Twin Cities Daily Planet www.tcdailyplanet.net, features the best work of the neighborhood and community press and local independent journalists, and provides a public forum for engaged citizens. Our goal is to produce citizen journalism with professional standards, and to become a national model for other communities.