Civil Weekly Newsletter: 12/21 Edition
Civil is launching in February!
We shared a big update this week: Civil is officially launching in February! For more, see this post from Civil CEO Matthew Iles.
Over the past two months, we’ve been working hard behind the scenes to develop a new launch plan for Civil. It was clear that September’s token sale wasn’t the right approach — but it was equally clear that thousands of you were, and are, ready to join Civil’s community.
So, we resolved to take a step back and examine the best way to launch Civil’s community-owned and operated network. And we didn’t want to come back to you until we were fully confident in that plan, from top to bottom.
Here’s what Civil 2.0 will look like (click for a more extensive summary, but here’s the tl;dr):
- A greater focus on recruiting and supporting Newsrooms: while this was always a central goal, we’ve redoubled efforts to recruit and support Newsrooms. This is especially true of smaller and medium-sized, existing Newsrooms who wish to tap into a global community of peers and gain privileged access to goods and services from third-party vendors. In recent months, we’ve spoken with more than 100 such interested newsrooms. We’ll begin announcing them over the coming weeks. See this post from Civil Foundation CEO Vivian Schiller for a more detailed overview on this, and an overview of the revisions we made to the Civil Constitution, based on community input we’ve received over the past six months.
- It’s not all about the tokens: CVL tokens play a vital role in the larger Civil economy — they’re what enables Civil’s decentralized system, where no single party is in control — but they aren’t the be-all, end-all. We won’t hold another “token sale,” in which we must sell a fixed amount within a fixed window. Instead, we’re going to make it a more accessible, ongoing process. When we launch our Registry app in February, we’ll begin selling CVL from our website, civil.co (and eventually, via newsrooms as well). Like before, CVL tokens will drive all major community decisions (sponsoring/launching/challenging a newsroom, voting) and can also be used to directly pay journalists in a peer-to-peer manner, giving them a supplementary revenue stream to cash-based payments.
If you (or somebody you know) have a Newsroom interested in joining the Civil community, visit civil.co for next steps.
Popula, Sludge, HmmDaily and Documented make history.
Not to be lost in the shuffle of this week’s excitement is another major milestone: Popula, Sludge, HmmDaily and Documented became the first four newsrooms to permanently archive the full text of their stories to the blockchain, via the Civil Publisher tool — which we’ll be rolling out to all interested parties when we launch publicly in February.
Permanent archiving is a big deal: it means that no single party can ever remove a journalist’s archives, period. Having one’s work deleted — a not-uncommon occurrence for journalists when a publication is suddenly and unexpectedly shut down by its owner, or due to malicious litigation, is an existential concern for many journalists. They’re forced to sit by, powerlessly, and watch years of work erased in an instant. We want to change that.
Popula’s Maria Bustillos summed up this sentiment better than we ever could in this post. Watching her reaction as she permanently archived a story for the first time was an incredible moment, and powerful reminder of why we’re all here.
Sludge became the second (with HmmDaily and Documented close behind) Civil newsroom to publish to the Ethereum blockchain this week. David Moore published a piece about his experience with the Civil Publisher and the huge significance that permanent archiving has to keeping Sludge’s reporting independent and accountable to its readers.
This week in Civil Newsrooms
Popula became the latest Civil Newsroom to launch a Kickstarter campaign this week — and just days after beginning it, is nearly halfway to their fundraising goal. Support their mission here.
Here are some highlights from around Civil this week:
- All seven candidates running in an aldermanic race on the west side of Chicago may be taken from the ballot, leaving the incumbent to run unopposed. Again. Block Club Chicago explores how 2015 may be repeating itself.
- Is what’s kicked off Twitter still okay for Facebook? Sludge found that Facebook took in over $12,000 from a white nationalist, including his promotion of a neo-Nazi podcast hosted by an individual the platform had previously designated as a “hate figure.”
- After he had a stroke and lost his ability to speak earlier this year, one man’s deportation charges in New York were paused so he could seek medical attention. In September, his case was unexpectedly reopened after a ruling from former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Documented looks what impact this ruling had on this case and the 300,000 other cases that were previously closed or paused.
- ““Selling out,” as a concept, depended on there being some place that was “in.”” So begins Hmm Daily’s piece about some peoples’ strange quest to emulate sponsored content — without actually getting paid — to grow their social media followings.
- Colorado is still riling from the state’s many unexpected election outcomes of 2018, some of which busted political myths and expectations. The Colorado Sun unveils some of these findings.
- Global Ground analyzed over 11,000 videos by the 10 YouTube channels distributing hate speech and fake news in South Korea, and interviewed those being targeted by the videos. What they found may surprise you.
- The Small Bow’s resident advocacy professional (and executive editor) Joe Schrank answers questions about how to separate yourself from a drug/alcohol-addicted family member this holiday season.
- In ZigZag’s Season Two finale, Manoush and Jen talk finances, blockchain and Civi’s plans for 2019.
- The Singapore Press Holdings — a 173-year-old company — has hired its first Chief Product Officer. Read Splice’s feature on the man whose job it is to oversee digital transformation at the country’s largest media conglomerate.
- “Everyone knows that the end of the world began the day Rhonda was cancelled.” So says a 49-year-old Popula author struggling to cope with life without the influence of alcohol.
- Air Bnb bookings for the Hudson Valley are up 100% year-after-year. At the same time, the region’s population is steadily decreasing. Could there be consequences? The River investigates.
- De Blasio. Body cameras. NYCHA. FAQ NYC talks about and recaps the stories that were central to New York City in 2018.
- New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, has promised to pass cannabis legalization for adults in his administration’s first 100 days. This could result in a bigger combined cannabis market than Washington and Colorado combined. Cannabis Wire explores the state’s path to legalization.
Civil en español
- 14ymedio informa que las condiciones de trabajo para los marinos en el Estado cubano están difíciles.
For a daily feed from Civil Newsrooms, follow @CivilStories on Twitter.
The Random Musing Section
It’s been an incredibly fruitful week for Civil and our Newsroom partners. With 2019 looming, it’s a fitting time to officially look forward to next steps for this project. It wouldn’t be possible without your collective support, feedback and tough questions. We’re all in this together, and if you’re reading this, you’re a part of it. Thank you for everything this year, and here’s to the exciting weeks, months and years to come. This is just the beginning.
For now, we’re going to take a few days off to unplug, relax and spend the holidays with friends and family.
If you’re like me, you’re traveling for the holidays. I hope you have a smoother trip than I did: I spent much of yesterday on a flight into severe weather, and ultimately got diverted to another airport. There’s nothing that forces perspective quite like descending into an area where a tornado has just touched down, before the plane suddenly shoots back up and the pilot somberly comes on, minutes later, to tell you that, uhhh, we’re landing in Tampa instead due to, ermm, inhospitable conditions on the ground. It’s all in the past now, though, and I’m set for a happy, relaxing holiday week.
Here’s to a happy, healthy and restful time for you all. And for those last minute shoppers out there seeking gift ideas, how about getting a friend or loved one a subscription to one of these great publications?
Happy holidays!
— Matt Coolidge
