This is how strange my life can get: On a Monday night I drive up to Gainseville, Ga. with two geographers to begin exploratory work on a documentary video about environmental justice issues specific to that city; at lunch on Tuesday I’m sitting in a 60-person classroom filled with new media undergraduates, New Media Institute Director Scott Shamp and a development whiz from AT&T discussing mobile phones, sticky applications and ideation.
In Gainseville, I videotaped a community meeting at the Bethel A.M.E. church in Newtown, a neighborhood beset with major health problems and elevated cases of cancer that borderins a scrapyard and a feed plant. During the meeting, led by local activists Faye Bush and Rose Johnson, residents brainstormed as to how they can beautify their neighborhood, organize to combat pollution, deal with drugs and carve out an equal seat in local politics. Mrs. Bush, who has lupus, helped organize the Newtown Florist Club in the 1950s. The group began as a provider of flowers and wreaths to Newtown resident’s funerals, but as they started to connect the rise in cancer cases to contaminated soil and air, the grouped added environmental justice to its neighborhood activist repertoire. Much more on this later.
Back at the New Media Institute, Will Lowry, grand ideator at AT&T (read director of mobility & consumer markets) and former full-time marlin fisherman, led a discussion on cool new hip stuff emerging from his innovation labs. I got to ask him what he thought a mutually beneficial relationship between news organizations and mobile software developers and carriers would look like. His concerns were making instant upload of breaking news as quick and accessible as possible. We also talked about latitude and longitude applications improving the management of freelancers. But we didn’t cover issues such as providing context, one of journalism’s best qualities, to breaking You Tube stories via mobile phones, which is probably a conversation that is too far reaching for a speedy business card/handshake conversation.
Mr. Lowry is a sharp, interesting, fast-talking fellow, the type of guy who can solve a lot of problems with a white board and an erasable marker. I enjoyed the talk, and, supposedly, he liked my business card with the wrench and leaf logo. Super.
The interesting overlap between these two events is when Mrs. Johnson asked me about teaching students to be journalists. She wants the kids in the neighborhood to act as reporters. I told her about my expressed interest in this subject. One of my many brainstorms is about how to bring new media opportunities to elementary and middle school students in order to help document neighborhoods and teach a new generation the value of journalism and how to be journalists in their daily lives. With computers and cell phones becoming ubiquitous in schools, today’s students already have the abilities to tell great stories and uncover important truths. Is there a way to get young people to use their fast texting fingers to report crime, feature and other stories? More on this later.
