The Liquid Newsroom Project

There currently is a ton and a half of news about almost every thing happening anywhere every day. Newspapers, TV-stations, radio-stations and blogs from all over the world keep an eye on developments with varying degrees of expertise and interest. Mostly the reader is lost in this information overflow and ends up sticking to one source for regular consumption. This isn’t a question of lacking interest. It’s a question of being overburdened. That is where the Liquid Newsroom kicks in.

There’s always more than one take on any given news item but it takes time to collect and read them for a more complete perspective. The Liquid Newsroom aims to create a sort of one-stop-news-shop in order to make this task a lot less cumbersome. A few weeks ago I met Steffen Konrath, the guy behind the project and he told me how this is supposed to work.

The content base is a stream of news from respected sources with topical authority. Journalists pick up individual articles they deem relevant from this stream to summarize and enrich them with further information. Together with a link to the original source this parcel of summary, in-depth information, visuals (images, charts, videos), reading recommendations, comment etc is then delivered to the users’ content stream.

Wait a second! This isn’t new – it’s what media outlets do all the time! Right, but here comes the novelty: the process is transparent and in constant flux. As the original news stream is also delivered users can decide if the journalist really picked the relevant source. Together with the possibility to comment, ask questions and request resources readers spawn the creation of new content. They become part of the editing process. Instead of being moulded in stone the process of content creation rather is an ever-changing torrent of interaction between the journalist and the reader. That’s where the “Liquid” comes from. The image below visualizes quite well what I tried to explain with my own words.

There obviously are lots of open questions to be answered before the project can make the move from concept to reality. Even though Steffen Konrath is the brain behind the idea he sees it as an open innovation project where external input is more than welcome to shape the resulting service. One big and still open question is the monetization, which is required here. Editing journalists won’t work for nothing and a suitable model which manages the balance trick between important page performance metrics and quality-driven journalism has yet to be found. Another question concerns the target audience for this service. Are there enough educated (not necessarily studied) readers who are willing to immerse themselves so deeply? After all, this projects lives from engagement and a critical mass of users needs to be reached to make this project interesting in the first place.

Even with all questions open I think that this project is really interesting and that it has some potential to change the news media landscape, which could use a bit of a shake-down, if only to wake up.

If you too think this is a great concept, feel free to contribute. It’s an open project and I know from the initiator himself that skilled participation is always welcome. If you want to tweet about this use our sleek tweet button and the hashtag #liquidnews.

Stephan de Paly