Much debate about new business models for journalism patronisingly assumes that all the interesting imagining, innovation and invention is going on in north-western Europe, Scandinavia and America. Not so. To see one of the most interesting experiments of all, you only have to swing the searchlight a short distance eastwards towards central Europe to light up what is going on in the Czech Republic.
I described the hyperlocal news publishing experiment known as Nase Adresa in a lecture (p11 or search “Czech” here). I’m delighted to see that its international ambassador Roman Gallo has been getting out and about with his message: here he’s in Canada.
Note a few significant things about this initiative:
1) It’s one of the very few of its kind which is backed by a big (and presumably hard-headed) company – in this case the Amsterdam-based insurance group PPF.
