“The end of the beat”

Quartz seems to be an interesting and innovative news experiment: Jeff Sonderman at Poynter talks about 5 things journalists should know about it, but then again I’m getting wary about categories such as ‘journalists’ – the five points he mentions are important for bloggers, media entrepreneurs etc.

A point which is vaguely related with my ‘stream’-obsession:

Instead of fixed beats, we structure our newsroom around an ever-evolving collection of phenomena—the patterns, trends and seismic shifts that are shaping the world our readers live in. “Financial markets” is a beat, but “the financial crisis” is a phenomenon.

In this way a media venture with limited staff can focus on what’s relevant for the targeted community (‘global business leaders — digitally savvy, post-national executives’) rather than having people who will focus on one single beat (say, ‘financial markets’) for years to come.

Also interesting: while they are preparing to launch, the Quartz-guys are posting on Tumblr about the project. That’s another stream I’ll monitor closely!

(hat tip to Raf Weverbergh for telling me about the project and who has some projects of his own in Europa, his motto: If it doesn’t talk to each other, it’s not a market!)

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