By Jake Batsell

Candidates will be slinging their share of tall tales and fudgy facts at tonight’s GOP primary debate in the Texas governor’s race. And on the real-time Web, it’s more challenging than ever for journalists to sort the truth from the spin.

Tonight, as Gov. Rick Perry and U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison trade barbs on live TV, their staffers will spin relentlessly on social media sites while also using their own campaign sites to host live blogs and chats to “fact-check” (ahem, spin) the debate. Dark-horse candidate Debra Medina will chime in, too, with up-to-the-minute texts.

Journalists trying to give readers a balanced picture of the debate have their work cut out for them. Especially in real time.

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If you are passionate about the new forms that journalism is taking in the digital age, I want you to write for this blog.

Here’s the deal: My startup company, Serra Media, has me focused on emerging local online business opportunities. And while I still remain passionate about journalism, there are only so many hours in the day. So I’ve decided to try something: I’m inviting you, the best and brightest innovative journalists, to take over for me while I turn my attention to writing about entrepreneurial and local online business opportunities (more on that soon).

I’ve shifted the focus of this blog in that direction recently – with some remorse. I still think there is a need for practical guidance on how to practice “Journalism 2.0″ and how others are doing it right now. So I’m looking for volunteers – yes, we are a non-profit operation here at J20 – who want a ready-made audience for their ideas on what’s next for journalism in the digital age.

Ideally, I’d like to form a team of 3-4 writers who will showcase the best examples of Journalism 2.0 – simply put, doing better journalism with technology – and offer their insight and analysis. Each writer will be expected to write one 300-500-word post each week for 16 weeks. If you’re interested but unsure you can come up with enough ideas, don’t worry. I have a stack of them I haven’t been able to get to and I receive new ones in my inbox almost daily.

I’m also hoping to update the blog’s design so if you have experience with Wordpress themes and need a project for your portfolio, I’d like your help, too.

Interested? I hope so. If so, post a 140-character definition of “Journalism 2.0″ to Twitter, then email it to me with your Twitter ID. After all, “Journalism 2.0″ was a category for the 2010 SXSW Interactive Panel Picker and drew 133 proposals. So it’s a concept that has grown beyond my book and this blog and I want to see it live on.

You can help make it happen.

And, as always, thanks for reading.

In a recent “future of journalism” interview, author Clay Shirky said that things will get worse before they get better. He also said that he’s “a network-inhabiting news junkie of the first order” so the world “has been a paradise of additional information, additional points of view, additional access.”

The challenge – and the revolution – is bringing that additional access and information to average citizens in a local democracy. Independent journalism startups, powered by people whose paychecks used to come from mainstream media companies, are one form that will bridge that gap. But another, possibly more exciting, form is taking shape in the student-powered projects that are popping up all over.

They run the gamut, from News 21, a well-funded and impressive collaboration between eight universities, to student startups like NYULocal, which has 15 staffers and gets more traffic than the school’s newspaper site, according to founder and publisher Cody Brown. (Brown is also launching a project called Kommons.com that is provocative in its approach and will be exciting to watch.)

Now it’s spreading to the high school level with projects like The Foothill Dragon at the Foothill Technology High School in Ventura, Calif.

“This is the first year we’ve had journalism at the school in five years, so the kids are raw and they have a long way to go to learn good writing, reporting, videotaping, etc.” Melissa Wantz told me via email. “But I think we have a good platform to build on (and we got 450 Facebook fans in less than a month, so I guess that’s a good sign).”

Wantz is the journalism teacher who built the site (in Joomla) and recently presented the project at a conference at MIT. The site launched in October and the stuents made an introductory video with a great title: We don’t use paper for this. A former journalist, Wantz wonders whether the students truly appreciate what they have accomplished in a relatively short time.

“I don’t think the kids realize what they have with this site and their new journalism class,” Wantz said. “The influence and reach they now have… this generation thinks nothing of using incredibly powerful tools that are absolutely free.”

Maybe their naivete is a good thing. Getting back to Shirky, he wrote in his last book that digital social tools only become powerful when they were taken for granted. (You don’t ask someone if they have email anymore, but 15 years ago you did.) So if our next generation of journalists understands that the power to publish is in their hands (and if they don’t take it for granted), maybe the negative fallout that Shirky predicts can be limited.

One of the bad things I think it going to happen is, I think civic corruption is just going to rise for towns and regions of under about half a million people. Which is to say, I think the old model of the newspaper is going to break faster than the hyperlocal civic reporting can come in its place.

Revolutions are messy. There’s no question that some geographical areas will advance faster than others when it comes to local information and understanding and civic participation. But the potential to create a better-informed society is undeniable.

“I guess this is what it’s like to live through a revolution, the older people (I’m 46) are practically suspended in wonder at the changes and opportunities, and the younger people are just using the new tools like it’s no big deal,” Wantz said. “It’s not like the kids are out in front of me in terms of their knowledge of what’s possible, but in terms of their reaction to what’s possible? I’m not sure it’s possible to get a rise out of a teenager who carries a computer in his pocket. They have no idea when they became (so) connected. They just are.”

If a service or platform or other technological invention connects them and empowers them to inform one another, journalism has a bright future. It will look very different than it does today or has for the past 150 years. It may be viewed as a “social utility” – or “societal utility” – more than a professional craft. But it doesn’t matter what it’s called or who participates in it, as long as we move closer to the rain forest of local information and away from the desert.

There’s never been a better time for innovation in journalism, digital content and community.

So come help Serra Media build interactive digital platforms and communities for local publishers, independent journalism startups and university journalism programs.

My company is looking for smart people who are enthusiastic about local content, collaborative publishing and the future of digital content. We’re specifically looking for budding stars in the areas of community management, social marketing and web development (Drupal experience preferred).

If that’s you, check out the details on Serra Media’s Internship Program. These aren’t traditional news/journalism positions, but will be valuable experience and a good resume builder for anyone looking for work in digital communication.

Thanksgiving turkey leftovers are still in the fridge, but I’m already anxious for the first year of the new decade.

Why? Because 2010 will be the year of the Independent Journalism Startup. (There’s also the Winter Olympics and World Cup soccer, but I digress.)

Several interesting new initiatives have been announced or launched recently, including the San Diego News Network, Albritton’s new DC-area operation, the Bay Area News Project, Texas Tribune and Peer News. When you add these high-profile efforts to the ecosystem of innovative digital news operations already publishing, it’s logical that 12 months from now we will know a lot more about the future of news than we do today.

Each of these new enterprises will have different areas of focus, both topical and (obviously) geographical. In order to flourish in 2010, and for years to come, every independent journalism startup needs to take advantage of its digitally native birth and commit to a new order, one that legacy news companies have struggled with.

Here are 5 commitments that should be part of the core mission from day one:

1. Innovative technology: Publishing in the digital age requires innovation and agility. The tools are out there, but you need skills on staff to take full advantage. The newly launched Texas Tribune gets this, as about a quarter of the staff positions are tech-related. The Huffington Post is also tech-heavy, which explains how they have been able to grow such a huge audience in such a short time with relatively small amounts of original content. Committing to technology innovation doesn’t mean developing your own content management system or building everything from scratch, however. It means being able to execute ideas as quickly as possible and support the other four commitments on this list.

2. Entrepreneurial focus: Whether a for-profit or a non-profit, every news operation needs to find innovative business models. Yes, plural, because the new ecosystem demands a diversified approach to revenue generation. Advertising is one, and some hyperlocals have more demand then they can supply, so don’t start with an “advertising won’t support news” prejudice. Different forms of advertising mixed with income from other digital marketing services, reseller relationships, local events and maybe even specialized paid content strategies can combine to support a significant local news operation. Just ask the Sacramento Press or Pegasus News. Jeff Jarvis and the City University of New York have been doing a lot of hard work in this area and have built a go-to repository of resources and information.

3. Collaboration: Last month, Next Door Media and its flagship local site MyBallard won the award for user community at the Online News Assocation conference in San Francisco. As much as 90 percent of the stories published on the site originate through tips from readers. A few weeks later, the West Seattle Blog’s Tracy Record participated on a panel discussion about the future of news sitting next to MSNBC.com president Charlie Tillinghast. Record is a great journalist, but she wouldn’t be the posterchild for independent journalism startups – and MyBallard wouldn’t have won a national award – if not for their audiences. Record often says they don’t have “readers,” they have a community. The first step in launching a new local news startup should be to identify, meet and begin working with the local community it hopes to serve. As important as the journalism you’re sure to produce will be, you need them way more than they need you. (For more examples of journo-collaboration, visit beatblogging.org.)

4. Mobile: CNN is widely recongized as having developed the best mobile application for a news organization, as much for its iReport features that allow the audience to contribute photos and news as its integrated video streams. That’s a start. Mobile, by definition, is local since more and more devices know where the user is at any given time. Local news organizations need to use that to their advantage, like Media General does with its hundreds of mobile bloggers reporting high school football scores in the state of Ohio. And the viral success of social apps like Foursquare should demonstrate to every local publisher how mobile can build community. Don’t get caught thinking that publishing your existing content on a mobile device is good enough (like news publishers did with the web in the 1990s).

5. Community: Similar to Commitment No. 3 this is about building a trusted network of connections among people with ideas and information to share with one another. It starts with the usual mechanisms like comments on blog posts, news stories and message board forums. But it should extend far beyond that, both online and offline. Online, it means connecting people from where they already communicate, like blogs, Twitter and Facebook. For examples, see ChicagoNow’s blog aggregation and the LA Times’ geographically organized Twitter lists. It also means deploying better technology to facilitate the exchange of information, like The Stranger, a Seattle alt-weekly, has done with Questionland and Electionland. Offline, it means a commitment to educate and entertain, as well as inform. Hosting local events with speakers and panel discussions or meetups and Tweet-ups, based on locally relevant topics, can allow a virtual community to come together physically and be strengthened. (Which is probably why The Texas Tribune has an events coordinator on staff.)

***

The success or failure of these new endeavors will be based on execution, not ideas, of course. The editors, reporters, bloggers and community managers will need to connect with local audiences in a new way. Each operation will find different paths to success, since the “customers” will be different in each market and, therefore, have different needs.

“To maximize a news organization’s social capital and marketability,” I wrote a year ago in an article for the Nieman Reports entitled, The End of Journalism as Usual, “its journalism today must be transparent, authentic and collaborative.”

That still applies to the today in 2009 and the one next year in 2010. The good news is that the tools and technology to make that happen keep getting better. So an effort to be transparent, authentic and collaborative is easier today than it was 12 months ago. And it will be even easier 12 months from now, when we look back on 2010 and see how the future of news developed right in front of our eyes.

It’s hard to pinpoint the single best thing about GonzoCamp.

It can be watching journalists learn from programmers how to define a problem and find the right approach toward solutions. Or the way students bring fresh perspectives and are enamored with working side-by-side with professionals to build something that’s real. Or the suspense that builds throughout the day as teams take an original idea and craft and mold it and produce something that may be totally different by the end of the day.

But, in the end, it’s the fact that ideas get done that I enjoy the most. And that’s what makes GonzoCamp different than other conferences, workshops and meet-ups.

From the other side of the country, Xarker Dan Conover recognized this and posted to Twitter:

You learn by doing, after all. And racing against a clock, in the same room with other teams in the same race, injects a certain energy into the event that I haven’t seen elsewhere. When our lunch speakers from the Seattle P-I, Pat Balles and Michelle Nicolosi, came to give a quick talk and answer questions, it took several tries to get the teams to take a break. The momentum they had created in just over an hour of forming their ideas and projects was difficult to pause.

The urgency of a one-day event helps frame the projects. A team can’t try to take on too much with such limited time. But this urgency is not contrived. Not if you subscribe to the notion, as I do, that the news industry had better get moving faster with innovation in the digital age.

“The news media business faces a stark reality today: innovate or die,” John Cook wrote on TechFlash to lead off his report GonzoCamp: Five entrepreneurial ideas to help save journalism? “Some organizations will make the transition to the digital world. Others won’t. And while one could argue that it took far too long for newspapers, magazines and TV stations to recognize the transformational power of the Internet, at least some newsrooms throughout the country are awakening to the opportunities. The new entrepreneurial spirit was alive and well Friday in Seattle as journalists, developers, laid off newspaper hacks, students and others gathered at GonzoCamp II.”

(Complete reports from the five teams are being posted on the GonzoCamp site as they become available.)

What’s next? How about a national “tour” of GonzoCamp events? Maybe it will become a competition like the Global Innovation Tournament. While it’s not clear how it will continue, the energy and interest that GonzoCamp has created means it will continue in some form in 2010.

“It was really amazing for me to get to just hang around and soak up all the years of experience in the room, let alone participate with them in creating something so cool,” student Daniel DeMay said in an email. “Some really intelligent people who are very motivated for sure. I look forward to the next event.”

RELATED:

• GonzoCamp: Tomorrow happens here
• Less talk, more action: GonzoCamp is back
• GonzoCamp report: An emerging role for journalism when mixed with technology
• The race is on at GonzoCamp
• GonzoCamp goals: discover, play, learn

The second GonzoCamp is over and produced a bevy of on new and interesting ideas for the future of journalism and news in the digital age. I’ll post a complete report on Monday after I receive group reports on from the 5 teams that participated. The (four-hour!) after-party spurred allowed the innovation/conversation to continue, thanks to MSNBC.

UPDATE: John Cook beat me to the punch with his review and anlysis of the presentaions on TechFlash:

GonzoCamp: Five entrepreneurial ideas to help save journalism?

In the meantime, here are some snapshots from the culminating presentations:

The second GonzoCamp is under way at the Seattle P-I building. There are 5 teams working to develop prototypes or fully baked ideas to present by the end of the day.

Predictably, mobile and paywalls earned some focus, as 2 of the 5 teams are taking specific ideas related to those topics.

But there were many other ideas pitched during the morning session, too. In fact, there were 12 different categories represented in the 20-some ideas pitched.

The three other ideas currently under development are a “Yelp for journalists” (proposed by Monica Guzman) that was combined with 3 other ideas relating to credibility and reputation. Imagine clicking on a byline from a news story or blog and being taken to a Yelp style page with reviews, ratings and comments about that author.

Another team is working on “know your crowd,” (proposed by Robin Barre) which would produce better stats around user experience (where do they get their news?), user needs (what do they need to know?) and user desire (what gets users excited?).

The other non-mobile/paywall idea to make the cut is “pitch map” by Daniel Bachhuber. Imagine a platform where anyone can suggest a story that needs to be covered to a map where any journalist could “take the assignment.”

That’s how the ideas were pitched. We’ll see what they look like at the end of the day during the presentations.

NOTE: Follow the stream by searching Twitter for “gonzocamp.”

Yes, I stole that slogan from SXSW Interactive, but it definitely fits tomorrow’s GonzoCamp event that I’m very much looking forward to. (Speaking of”South-by,” I’m also excited to be presenting at the 2010 SXSW Interctive Conference about my new book. Hope to see you there.)

The official slogan for GonzoCamp is “Programming the Future of News.” And we hope to do some programming tomorrow, as well as brainstorming and executing ideas. It’s innovation on steroids (but legal) and I can’t wait. Joe Boydston suggested we use the event as a way to generate proposals for the Knight News Challenge and even published his ideas in advance. (Thanks, Joe.)

Participants will be gathering tonight at a local watering hole to get introduced to one another and begin the idea exchange. Even if you’re not attending GonzoCamp but are interested in being part of the event, you’re invited to join in tonight and tomorrow at the after-party. (Full details here.) And if you’re nowhere near Seattle, you can follow @gonzocamp on Twitter.

Special thanks to our sponsors and volunteers who have made the event possible: Monica Guzman, Amy Rainey, Brian Chin, Jonathon Fitzpatrick, Rick Sass and Brian Chin. We have special prizes (yes prizes!) thanks to Seth Long at Sound Publishing and Michelle Nicolosi has agreed to join us at lunchtime to give us an update on the online-only Seattle P-I.

Get ready to get your Gonzo on!

RELATED:

• Less talk, more action: GonzoCamp is back
• GonzoCamp report: An emerging role for journalism when mixed with technology
• The race is on at GonzoCamp
• GonzoCamp goals: discover, play, learn

Now that (most) journalists are working in digital – using audio, video, social media, blogs and databases in their reporting – how do we define whether any of it is good or not?

It’s a tough question, and one that I’ve tackled a couple of times recently at workshops and conferences, most recently at the National College Media Conference. To help me find some answers last week in Austin, I enlisted the help of some smart people from differing backgrounds:

Gary Chapman, director of The 21st Century Project at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, the graduate school of public policy at the University of Texas at Austin.

Bryan Murley, director for innovation, Center for Innovation in College Media, and assistant professor, Eastern Illinois University.

James Wickett, general manager, Community Impact Newspapers, a growing hyperlocal publisher based in Austin.

The topic is so thick and we had such limited time that I was only able to ask the panelists and handful of questions:

1. Journalists have been told for years they need to “go digital.” Many have, but in a “ready, fire, aim” manner where getting going with digital was accomplished but quality was never assessed. How does anyone know whether what they’re producing in breaking news alerts, blogs, video and other forms is good journalism?

2. Should news organizations and journalists have a sense of urgency about defining what is good in digital journalism? If so, what advice do you have for establishing this urgency?

3. What is an example of good digital journalism you have seen recently (that you can hopefully talk about with some authority)? We’ll have a projector so we can show best examples if you bring links.

All three agreed that a sense of urgency was needed in defining what’s good in digital journalism, and Chapman said it best:

“Journalists need to discover their sense of mission. Otherwise it’s just going to be a bunch of cats flushing toilets.”

Chapman also said the “continuum of information isn’t going to change” even as the methods for sending and receiving communication change rapidly. He suggested that journalists are still not using analytics as effectively as they should be and recommended more effort be focused on them.

“It’s important to split the media from the medium,” adde Wickett, whose company is print-focused with a growing digital presence. “There’s still a place for print.”

Murley came the closest to attempting a rigid definition for quality, suggesting that technical merits on multimedia and additional components to a package (timelines, maps, etc.) can help steer us toward a standard definition and a goal to shoot for.

I closed with a few minutes on how to take a practical approach back to a newsroom for standards in defining what’s good. Here’s a link to the supporting “slides” for the preso, even though it may be difficult to use by itself.

It’s a conversation every newsroom and classroom ought to be engaged in these days. Getting going with digital was the first step, but maintaining and improving quality is an equally important second step.