We’ve got a pretty massive vision for where this goes, but we’re starting out with changing the way that breaking news is written, distributed and read. This isn’t going to be another social news app, or aggregator. We’ve re-imagined the entire process of news from the ground up to produce the news experience that we would want to be a part of.
—
Matt Galligan, on his new project Circa
So I’m actually pretty ambivalent about this guns-blazing, change-the-world, quintessentially startup-style pitch for a news/journalism project.
Half of me thinks it discounts the innovation and creative thinking that’s already going on within news/journalism (thanks to lots of different efforts from traditional news organizations, journalism schools, blogs, the FON crowd, etc.) and all the good things about “the way that breaking news is written, distributed, and read” as-is.
The other half is thrilled to see technologists as smart as Matt Galligan and Ben Huh giving news/journalism the serious attention and investment it deserves, especially given how quick the tech and startup world usually is to write it off.
Maybe journalism needs a little of tech’s bombastic optimism, though. (I do sometimes wonder why we seem incapable of talking about it as if someone has died…). Either way, more power to Matt and Ben. Here’s to seeing what they come up with.
