NolaVie cited in national report

NolaVie and content partners WWNO, The Lens and The The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center are the focus of a new report by J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism on the changing world of news gathering and digital resources.

In the report, News Chops: Beefing up the Journalism in Local Public Broadcasting, J-Lab examines, through nine case studies, developments, large and small, that have occurred within the last year.

Unfettered by competitive pressures and fortified by their trusted brand, public broadcasters in many states and cities are finding new ways to engage in more local news – especially more investigative and enterprise journalism – than ever before, according to the J-Lab study.

From unprecedented mergers to unique partnerships, from shared workspace to shared reporters, creative approaches are helping public radio and television stations step up to new roles in their local news ecosystems. In the process, some are becoming critical linchpins for state and metro-wide news networks.

In New Orleans, reports J-Lab, this creative approach to news gathering was made possible by a Knight-Foundation grant to WWNO that allowed the local NPR affiliate to team with other non-profit news organizations to maximize content across a broad platform.

“What has come out of this has been a very collaborative-driven approach to news in a city,” WWNO general manager Paul Maassen said in the report. “What’s different here is that we are doing it as the fiber of how we develop this news department, instead of: Here’s a news department, let’s add some partnerships.”

Read the New Orleans chapter of the J-Lab report, “Creating a Newsroom from the Outside In,” at http://www.j-lab.org/news-chops/new-orleans. For the overall report, go to http://www.j-lab.org/news-chops/overview/