Last Saturday, I went to the Local Media for Social Change SoCal regional summit at Occidental College — and learned a lot about the cutting edge work being done right now! Some fascinating projects of note:

>> See a local story that needs to be reported? Spot.us allows the community to fund local journalism. Basically, journalists pitch their local story ideas to the public via Spot.us — then the community can choose to make micro donations to fund that story, Kiva style (except you don’t get your money back — you get an important local story instead!). Right now Spot.us is only in the Bay area — but David Cohn, the guy who heads up the site, says he hopes to launch an L.A. network by late April.

>> Nonprofits — Sick of the mainstream media never picking up on your important initiatives? If your desire for press is simply to get the news out to people, why not bypass the media altogether and go directly to the community? USC’s Metamorphosis Project‘s brochure — Storytelling Strategies for Reaching Your Target Community (PDF) — can get you started.

The event was put on by California Common Cause, Center for Media Justice, and Urban and Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College.

Image via metamorph.org

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