Thursday, September 07, 2006

Andrew Grice and Narcosphere

I was searching for a way to access Andrew Grice's articles without subscribing and found this project he's involved in called The Narcosphere

It's an interesting project. In the about section I read:
Veteran journalist Chris Lydon has a name for it: "the transformation."

A fundamental shift is underway in how politics and fundraising are practiced: from dependence on the financiers at the top levels of the economy to a more authentically democratic model of a wide base of support from below.

But the transformation is, still, too often blocked, or co-opted, by the dominant forces of the Commercial Media and the powerful interests they serve. The Commercial Media remains dependent on a single, top-down, and decaying, model of "advertising dollars" (and the corresponding targeting of upscale consumers), investors, and corporate ownership to survive. The resulting damage to democracy is evident to most people on earth.

... The Narcosphere - it appears online here is a participatory, online, forum, where readers and journalists come together to discuss, correct, add new information and relevant links, and debate the work of the journalists who publish on NarcoNews.com.

The Narcosphere is similar to other forums on the Internet that utilize a software named Scoop (Kuro5hin and The Daily Kos) are two of the more popular examples), but with some new twists.


They promise some interesting changes ... it's worth reading about if you're curious.

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