Skip to main content

Catalyzing worker co-ops & the solidarity economy

The Banyan Project: why not co-operative community newspapers

December 1, 2012
Body paragraph

Here's a fascinating idea that is being tested out: Banyan Project. From its web site:

Mission

The Banyan Project is devoted to strengthening democracy through a sustainable and replicable new business model for Web journalism that serves and activates the civic energy of less-than-affluent Americans, a huge public now profoundly ill-served by mainstream media.


Vision

As Banyan scales community by community, it will seed community-centered co-op news organizations that are owned by their readers and serve them with original news and service journalism they find relentlessly useful. The nonprofit Banyan Publishing Corp. will serve as a federation that licenses turnkey "franchises" that provide sophisticated software and other services to affiliated news co-ops.


Value Proposition

The Banyan public will find its journalism relevant to their lives, respectful of them as people, and worthy of their trust.

Tom Stites, an experienced journalist and entrepreneur, is its founder and president. He seems to have his feet firmly on the earth while thinking large-scale. He discusses the project in a series of three short, very readable essays. You can find the third one here with links to the first two. I suggest that folks in the movement start with the third.

The web site lays out some well-thought out plans, http://banyanproject.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

There is a photo of a great Florida banyan tree here that will give you a feel for his vision.

Add new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
CAPTCHA This question is to verify that you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam.

What does the G in GEO stand for?