Newsopticon - Knight News Challenge Proposal

The following is a proposal I wrote for the 2009 Knight News Challenge.

This is the rough draft version I wrote before I had to severely edit it down
to meet the character limits on the Knight News Challenge website.

***

Describe your project:

Newsopticon is a multifaceted project which aims to accomplish numerous goals. It will primarily serve as a think tank and as an educational resource.

In addition to providing premium content for content publishers that can be syndicated for free on any website,
Newsopticon will also provide journalists in particular with free multimedia training as well as essential entrepreneurial business training.

I will assemble a cutting-edge interactive multimedia studio based on my Multimedia Multiversity concept for a newsroom/classroom of the future.

There will be five computer consoles arranged in a circle (turned inward) and room for one moderator as well as four other participants. There will be a 360 degree video camera placed in the center of this studio, which will videotape each participant as they speak.

Each of these five participants will have their own computer in front of them with high-speed internet access.
At each computer console, there will be two computer monitors, one monitor hooked up to the computer that the individual participant controls, and another monitor which broadcasts whatever is on the computer of the participant who has the floor during the discussion.

Thus, during debates, the moderator will use a switch board to direct the non-interactive monitors to broadcast the interactive monitor of whomever has the floor during the debate. As a participant is speaking, they will be able to show the other participants interactive/audiovisual material and resources from the internet that will enrich the discussion.

A socratic seminar of the 21st century.

In addition to filming these discussions, a screencast recording will simultaneously capture whatever is being broadcast on the non-interactive monitors. Once published to the internet, the screencast would be displayed next to the 360 degree video of the participants speaking, resulting in a high-tech form of show-and-tell as you see what the speaker is talking about while they are speaking.

This multimedia studio, consisting of 5 computers, 10 monitors, and 1 camera, will be fully portable and mobile. Though there would be a specific studio location for this multimedia studio, it would be tremendously easy to move this studio around to various other universities, newsrooms, or conference rooms to setup shop in various locations.

Participants who can't make it to the studio in person would also be able to participate remotely via video chat.

I would arrange and schedule interviews, debates, discussions, and seminars with some of the world's leading journalists, entrepreneurs, economists, professors, philosophers, politicians, artists, writers, futurists, et cetera.

Newsopticon would cover many topics. While the focus would certainly be on providing free open-source multimedia and business training for journalists all around the world, Newsopticon would also simultaneously produce free syndicatable content relating to multiple fields of interest.

Content publishers from all around the world would be able to embed Newsopticon videos into their websites for free, allowing them to even generate advertising revenue off of Newsopticon material without having to pay royalties or subscription fees (unlike the AP model, for example). Each video would be fully transcribed for the hearing-impaired, and I would program a translation engine into the Newsopticon website's functionality which would dynamically translate these transcriptions into various languages of the viewer's choice - effectively bridging a great deal of linguistic barriers and making the content more accessible to a global audience.

Moreover, I would program functionality into this content that would also allow people to embed just a small segment of these videos into their websites instead of the entire video. That way, if a publisher just wants to highlight a soundbyte or a couple-minute portion of an hour-long video, they could do so with relative ease (similar to how Google Books allows users to link to specific pages of digitized books), instead of having to embed the entire video.

I would primarily serve as coordinator, producer, and publisher of Newsopticon. While I would plan to moderate certain discussions, I would invite many others to guest moderate these panels. Other people would even have the opportunity to book the studio space and schedule their own panels during times that the studio is not in use.

While I would plan to base the studio out of New York City, I would also plan to setup these discussions at universities and newsrooms all across the world via the "Multimedia Multiversity" mobile unit. New York City seems to make the most sense to base the studio out of since it is a publishing epicenter, with one of the largest pools of potential qualified participants.

***

How will your project improve the way news and information are delivered to geographic communities?

1. It would provide free multimedia literacy training, as well as essential entrepreneurial training to journalists and others all around the world.

2. It would provide free, open-source information to content publishers all around the world, covering a plethora of relevant topics.

3. The dynamically translatable transcriptions will make the content more accessible to people of non-English speaking origin.

4. It will allow people to embed or link to portions of Newsopticon content.

5. Downloadable & embeddable videos will make the content accessible for broadcast, radio, and web outlets who may wish to syndicate the videos.

6. Transcriptions of each video available on the site will make the content accessible for print, web, broadcast, and radio outlets who may wish to syndicate the videos.

***

How is your idea innovative? (new or different from what already exists):

The model for both the production and publishing of Newsopticon is considerably different than any existing talk show format. Geared for the internet, the simultaneous presentation of the speakers presenting (in 360 degree view) on one side of the screen, along with the exposition of any interactive/audiovisual material they may be citing on the other side of the screen, is original and unlike any existing talk show or radio show format. Moreover, Newsopticon will be produced and published in such a way that it's content can be easily syndicated for print, web, television, or radio outlets - making it's delivery multiplatform as well as multimedia.