Community Building

Something I can’t really talk about with any level of expertise (yet), but something I think we need to talk about: Internet communities.

My reason for being a journalist was always community based – in order to succeed as a democratic institution, I believe it is imperative that we understand our community. And that’s where journalism comes in.

Steve Yelvington has a post up about how news organizations need to rethink their approach to the Internet and he goes into the way-back machine to pull thoughts from Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America.

Which now has me thinking I need to read that (maybe again, I don’t remember reading but it seems as if I should have) and that there may be a way of promoting the sense of community better. I’m not sure how (yet), but I’m working on it.