The remixed Times, thanks to Kristof

Nicholas Kristof makes an amazing offer to his readers: ‘Remix me’:

Stories can be told in countless ways and understood in countless forms. Here’s an invitation to try your hand at a little interactive journalism.

Here’s a link to a collection of columns, videos, and photographs from my recent trip to Chad to covering the spread of the genocide in Darfur. Take a look at the material and, if you’re interested, I’d like to see how you would’ve told the story. Use some of the quotes, the stories, the facts and weave together your own column, essay, article — or some other kind of quilt. I can imagine someone writing a poem, a song, a map, video or audio slide show. Don’t let convention get in the way of your storytelling. And don’t feel as if it needs to be long; hey, a haiku is sometimes more effective than an epic.

I’m eager to see how you’d approach things – what you’d do differently. I hope you do better – these stories are too important to be told only once.

The only drawback is that it’s behind the TimesSelect pay wall. My CUNY colleague Sandeep Junnarkar had the great idea to turn our students onto this but they can’t get behind the wall. For this project and this subject, I suggest taking down the wall. It’s a good cause.

Apart from that, this is an important moment, for here is a journalist recognizing that his reporting will get seen by more people from more perspectives by allowing it to be remixed, by putting itself into the conversation.

7 Responses to “The remixed Times, thanks to Kristof”

  1. [...] Nicholas Kristof is trying an interesting experiment: he’s letting people remix his reporting. [...]

  2. [...] I wrote the following badly written email a few days ago to the Canadian Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs. (email addresses: pm@pm.gc.ca min.dfaitmaeci@international.gc.ca ) And you can write a short email of your own too. As reported by Jeff Jarvis, New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof is asking his readers to “remix” his research materials to bring attention to the spread of the genocide in Darfur. [...]

  3. Grayson says:

    One more drawback… “we” were never anywhere near Darfur. Having spent most of last fall in a station wagon in Atlanta traffic and on a soccer field, I’m not sure what I could possibly bring to this effort, as a journalist. Still, an intriguing enough concept to “borrow” a password to take a look at this bold effort to wiki the world. Sure beats being called a redolent remora fish hell bent on spreading elitism and unfairness.

  4. David says:

    Use http://www.bugmenot.com to get a free “Get Out of Paywall Jail” card….

  5. In Syracuse, a local blogger made a Google map out of the newspaper’s list of best holiday light displays.

    http://www.silent-edge.org/wp/?p=630

  6. [...] Nieuw hoogtepunt in de internetjournalistiek. Nicholas Kristof van de New York Times openbaart zijn bronnen, zijn fotomateriaal en zijn quotes en laat de lezer zijn eigen verhaal maken: nieuws in de remix. “Het nieuws gaat een conversatie aan”. [...]

  7. Cyril says:

    Nicholas Kristof always seems to be on the forefront in terms on journalism and writing. This is a great experiment.

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