I’m interested in hearing/learning further about project PM.
I’ve got my own nascent project that I’m working on. I come from a background of production/development/finance in the feature/tv/web world. I’ve produced a TON of stuff in all different media over the years (bona fides in the signature below, check my imdb page). I also come from a background of a dad on the board of The Nation, and your basic view of the world that such will engender.
Between these two worlds I’ve reached the following conclusion:
The time is NOW to create/fund/finance a 21st century news media org that takes what you/me/jay rosen/michael hastings/etc. Etc. etc. know—that information isn’t “he said she said”, that information isn’t better with “access”, that information isn’t better with “one consultant from x, and one consultant from y”, that information IS better when transparent, that news should be measured by one analytic and one only—how informed is your audience after hearing/reading it.
Here’s how to do it:
Grab about 1 billion dollars approx (give or take) and create the new CNN. That’s it. There’s no other way. You can’t hope to have any useful impact around the margins. You can’t hope to do anything important at a Current TV level, or blogging for a magazine as hopelessly addicted to horseshit celebrity as VF, and really change things. You just can’t.
I know some people with some real money. And their hearts are movable to the right place. The thing is to aggregate all the people who are a)smart b) doing it already c) energetic and put together the plan.
Starting point, and yes, this is a tendentious one: just say to jon stewart and colbert “what’s your buyout number”, and pay it. Make them the figureheads. Figure that’s 50 million right there.
I’m sure you have your own plan, and you don’t know me, so take all this with a grain of salt. But if you ever do have time to spend 5 minutes discussing this further, please don’t hesitate.