And while we’re on the innovations tip, Hacks/Hackers is putting together a “storytelling/hacking” event called Hacks/Hackers Unite from May 21-23 at KQED in San Francisco. The idea behind the project is to build the killer storytelling app for the iPad and other tablet devices. The best efforts will be featured on KQED’s web site.

And finally, some recently published stories:

Retail Is Detail Says Noah Alper
Serial entrepreneur and Noah’s Bagels founder believes even the most miniscule things are incredibly important.
East Bay Express | April 28, 2010

Oakland Rezoning Could Make Things Easier for Business
Small groceries won’t be treated like large supermarkets, and yoga studios and stadiums won’t be lumped together.
East Bay Express | April 28, 2010

Some Lawyers Want to Keep Debt Collection Out of the Courts
The New York Times | April 23, 2010

New Conditions of Probation
In Texas, one county’s experiment in evidence-based probation reform has cut recidivism and revocations, saved money and served as a model for other jurisdictions.
Miller-McCune | May/June 2010

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Here are the details:

“Data to Diamonds: How to Mine Data, Build Maps, and Generate Great Story Ideas Along the Way”

Saturday, May 1

3:30-4:40pm

University of San Francisco

Registration at Fromm Hall

As more data, statistics and public records become digitally available, how do we begin to tell stories based on this material in a way that is easily understandable and useful to the public? This is a hands-on, skills-building workshop that will teach reporters how to:

*Locate and access digital data while also gaining a better view of how to gain access to information that still isn’t widely available

*Find narratives among the numbers

*Combine databases with storytelling

*Create visual representations of data using free web tools

Speakers:
Burt Herman, Hacks/Hackers (moderator)
Burt Herman is founder of Hacks/Hackers, a nationwide organization of journalists and technologists, and co-founder of Publitweet, a real-time curation platform. As a bureau chief and correspondent for The Associated Press for a dozen years, he reported from Europe, the former Soviet Union, Asia, the Middle East and the U.S. Burt was a 2008-9 Knight journalism fellow at Stanford University.

Michele Horaney, MAPLight.org
Michele M. Horaney APR is communications director at MAPLight.org. Previously, she was manager of public affairs at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Earlier in her career, she was an editor and reporter at the Marin Independent-Journal in Novato, CA, and at newspapers in Illinois. She is accredited by the Public Relations Society of America.

Jim Morris, Center for Public Integrity’s Data Mine Project
Jim Morris has been a journalist since 1978, focusing on public health, labor and the environment. He has won more than 50 awards for his work. He directs the Center for Public Integrity’s Data Mine project, which highlights federal data sets needlessly being withheld from the public.

Len De Groot, Knight Ditigal Media Center
Len De Groot is a Digital Media Trainer for at the Knight Digital Media Center at the Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Previously, he was the graphics director for WSFL-TV and the Sun-Sentinel newspaper in South Florida, created and directed news graphics for print, interactive graphics for the paper’s Web site and animated news graphics and packages for a morning television news show and television station promotions.

More information about the conference (including a downloadable schedule) is viewable here.

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Now in its third year, Journalism Innovations is the West Coast’s premiere showcase for groundbreaking journalism ideas, media innovation and community networking. Produced by the Society of Professional Journalists-Northern California, Independent Arts and Media, The University of San Francisco, and the G.W. Williams Center for Independent Journalism, Journalism Innovations is playing a vital part in shaping the next phase of the industry.

This event, combined this year with the SPJ Region 11 Spring Conference, will bring in hundreds of working journalists, educators, advocates, citizen media-makers, inventors, recruiters, students and job seekers.  Join the leaders shaping the future of news. Register today, or sponsor to gain high-profile exposure for your organization! Visit the conference website or join our Facebook group for the latest details.

Download a schedule here.

BONUS! All attendees will be registered in a drawing to win free registration for this year’s national SPJ convention in Las Vegas.

DOUBLE BONUS! RemakeCamp unconference on intersection of media & technology follows immediately after JI3 on Sunday, May 2.

When: April 30-May 2

Where: University of San Francisco campus.

How much: Sliding scale. Register online today!

– via Society of Professional Journalists — Northern California.

“Your Views on Local News”

A Town Hall Forum

Community members will have a chance to discuss their views about the local news with a dozen leading figures in journalism, education, business and politics at a town hall meeting produced by the Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California Chapter, on Thursday, March 25.

“Your Views on Local News – A Town Hall Forum” will take place from 5:30-7:30 pm in the Koret Auditorium of the main San Francisco Public Library in Civic Center. Admission is free.

We’ll discuss how the current crisis in the news industry creates opportunities for the public to help shape new kinds of journalism that contribute to a vibrant democracy. The conversation will explore strategies and business models for ensuring robust and reliable news coverage in a changing economic, technological and social environment.

Participants will include:

- Craig Aaron, senior program director, FreePress

- Mark Adkins, president, the San Francisco Chronicle

- David Callaway, editor in chief, MarketWatch.com

- Sandy Close, executive director, New America Media

- Paul Connolly, senior vice president, the TCC Group, manager of the Challenge Fund for Journalism

- Ron Dellums, Oakland mayor and former congressman

- Glenn Frankel, Pulitzer Prize-winning Stanford professor and former Washington Post London Bureau chief

- Lisa Frazier, publisher, Bay Area News Project

- Dr. Dina Ibrahim, assistant professor for Broadcast and Electronic Communications, San Francisco State

- Pat Kenealy, managing director, IDG Ventures SF

- Barry Parr, media analyst and entrepreneurial publisher, Coastsider.com

- Venise Wagner, Journalism Department chair, San Francisco State

Sandip Roy and Hana Baba of public radio station KALW-FM will moderate. The program will be recorded and broadcast by SFGTV, San Francisco’s government channel.

Here’s a bit of background on Oakland Local:

Oakland Local is an independent, non-profit community news and information hub, connecting community and news. Our site combines original investigative and feature reporting with community news and information about Oakland non-profit organizations, community groups and engaged citizens.

– via What is Oakland Local? | Oakland Local.

… tinkering with the tax structure to accommodate nonprofit status for news-gathering organizations, persuading philanthropic foundations to fill the funding gap in more permanent ways, involving universities in news gathering, and opening up databases to make them more useful for both pro and pro-am efforts.

The report, “The Reconstruction of American Journalism,” also proposes that the government should throw down some cash-money to support public interest journalism:

“We are just suggesting that certain kinds of reporting are a public good and should be funded as such,” Mr. Downie said. “There are plenty of precedents and I don’t think that government support necessarily means government control.”

He knows that the very idea of government-financed media will put some people in a tizzy, but said, “We are at something of a pivot point, a very real crisis that is happening right now.”

Well, I, for one, don’t see why there’d be a tizzy over government-funded journalism in the public interest (we already have workable examples from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and National Public Radio). What I’m in a tizzy about is this continued insistence on a purely market-driven model of journalism.

– via The Media Equation – What Would It Take to Support a Newsroom? – NYTimes.com.

Some words from the founders:

Shareable.net tells the unfolding story of sharing. We cover the people, places, and projects that are bringing a shareable world to life. And share tools, tips, and how-to’s to make a shareable world real in your life.
In a shareable world, things like car sharing, tool libraries, and cohousing can bring us together, make life easier, and free us to focus on the important things in life. When we share, not only is a better life possible, but so is a healthier planet and society.

The successes of Freecycle, open source software, Wikipedia, Kiva, Burning Man, and Creative Commons also tell a more positive story about human nature and our future than we might hear elsewhere.

They show what’s possible when given the chance to share our stuff, skills, knowledge, money, and creativity. They show that we do not just act for our own good, but take great pleasure in contributing to the common good. They show powerful ways of organizing ourselves that will help us overcome the social and environmental challenges we face. They show that a new world is emerging, one where everyone has a chance to share, where the more you share the more respect you get, and where life is made easier because we are eager to help each other.

We tell this story because a shareable world might be just what we need to enjoy life to its fullest and save the planet in the process. And it’s already here. Shareable.net is your invitation to live in it.

– via Shareable: Learn About Us.

“Y Combinator, a Mountain View-based technology venture capital firm, is explicitly looking to fund journalism start-ups for their winter 2010 funding cycle. Typical investments are $11,000 + $3,000 times the number of founders.”

Deadline is October 26.

- via Venture Capital Firm Looking for Journalism Start-Ups to Fund – mediabistro.com: BayNewser.

Concerned that journalism’s economic problems are reducing Americans’ understanding of science, medicine and other research, 35 of the nation’s top universities — including Stanford and UC-Berkeley — on Tuesday announced they will feed their own accounts of their discoveries directly to top news sites on the Internet.

- via With science journalism in retreat, universities try new strategy for informing the public – San Jose Mercury News.