Pitch Redux: Keeping eggs in many baskets (that ol’ chestnut) makes the best sense in the newzbiz

Okay, I never made it to the Pitch Salon. What can I say, the head cold won this time around. I’m still a-nasal.

However, here’s the Twitter-backtrack and Kathy Gill’s Livescribe notes so you can all see what transpired.

[Speaking of Livescribe, this is definitely the next gizmo I’m Jonesing for around birthday time. Too cool. And I’d like a side of MyScript to go with that, thank you very much!]

Silent mourning: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer

RIP PI

[link]

Seattle publishing through the Web 2.0 lens: Pitch Salon

What is it: The Pitch is a local Eat Sleep Publish event where anyone interested in the future of publishing is welcome to come and share their thoughts.

How does this event work? The Pitch is essentially a round table. Each event has a guiding question (or The Pitch) that the group is trying to dissect, analyze, and understand.

In this special edition of The Pitch, the “speakers” portion of the evening will be a little enhanced and elongated, so that there will be a number of business ideas to discuss.

After the short presentations, the floor is open to everyone (moderated by Jason Preston). There is one microphone that will be passed around the group, and the entire event is made into an audio recording that will be sent to the attendees.

Participants are encouraged to upload photos, tweet, or blog their thoughts during, before, after, inside, on, around, adjacent from, or perpendicular to the event. Hopefully, the group can collectively take some baby steps in understanding what publishing and journalism are becoming.

Interested? Put your name on the list.

When: March 18th, 2009, from 7-9pm.
Where: Lucid in the U-District – Seattle, WA. ( Google Knows )
The Pitch: What is the best business model for news in the next five years?
What else? There’s a $200 bar tab for participants in The Pitch, so get there early and drink often.
RSVP: The venue fills up at 30 people, so be sure to put your name down before the space runs out.
Who’s Speaking?

• Todd Herman is co-founder of SpinSpotter.
• Ben Reed is the senior product marketing manager for Windows Media Center at Microsoft Corp. In this capacity, Reed and his team are charged with developing the marketing fundamentals and insights for Windows Media Center. Windows Media Center turns a PC into a digital video recorder, on which users can enjoy TV shows at their convenience on a PC, on TV and on the go.
• Brian Westbrook: Find out more about him at his tech blog!
• Hanson Hosein is a big thinker on the future of media from the faculty at the University of Washington and formerly of MSNBC.com. Check out his site.

From Jason Preston @ EatSleepPublish: “This special edition of The Pitch will work just a bit differently than previous pitches: there will be more speaking. …the idea is to hear the best business ideas from entrepreneurs and thought leaders in the space. We’ll spend the rest of the time ripping those ideas apart for ethical, practical, and nonsensical reasons. …

Note from Tamara: I’m really going to try to go. Really, I am. I have commitments on Tues/Thurs night and coming from BI means extra cash outlay just to go. And I have a head cold. But I reallyreallyreally want to go for this event and talk about the Kindle…

NetWatch: Werking Werdz

1. Online news gathering in the 21st century
Jason Preston at EatSleepPublish posted a guest blog entry at the Journalism 2.0 blog: “There is no rule book for online news”

2. Stet! Fixing errors after the work is published
Susan Johnston at The Urban Muse writes about a common problem encountered by nonfiction writers: “What To Do When You Screw Up an Article “

3. You go, girls! Web 2.0 writing opportunities for pre-teen girls
New Moon magazine recently launched an ad-free interactive website for girls ages 8-12. Members who subscribe ($29.95 annually) receive 6 issues of New Moon Girls print magazine, have the opportunity to share their media creations (writing, video, audio, graphics), enjoy exclusive member-extras, have access to fully moderated private chats with other members, and a lot more. The website is darling and, for that price, a parent can feel pretty certain that their daughters will become media savvy, connected, and in tune with the issues concerning young people like never before. They get a big thumbs up from me!

4. What we leave behind: one man’s poems extend a legacy
Russell Contreras reports for the Associated Press on the late Cambodian monk and poet Ly Van Aggadipo’s unearthed writings and the movement to see them into publication. “On worn pages were handwritten, carefully crafted poems describing his memories of witnessing infant executions, starvation at labor camps and dreams of escaping to America.”

5. Creative writing grads publish a “look book”
Amanda Seely for the DailyWildcat reports on an innovative way for University of Arizona students to get the attention of literary agents. Maybe other writers in clusters can borrow from this model?

Interesting Times for Writers of the Times [cross-posted from Jane’s Stories]

from JANE’S STORIES

Interesting Times for Writers of the Times
by Tamara Kaye Sellman

Our local-yokel newspaper, the Bainbridge Review, which appears twice a week in our community, has recently adopted a once-weekly production cycle. Meanwhile, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has gone on the block on the other side of the Puget Sound, and if they don’t sell the paper, they’ll stop production and “live” on the web. It is no longer unthinkable to imagine The New York Times going under.

This really isn’t “news,” so to speak. The decline of the newspaper as a media presence has been apparent for a good while now. Who’s to blame? Bloggers? Americans? Reporters? Editors? The economy? The president?…

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