Democratizing Jewish news gathering

I know it’s kind of lame to relaunch my blog and then never post anything. I’ve been posting far more to Facebook and Twitter seeing how more folks are looking there than they are here these days. Plus I’m just crazy busy with work and not really focused on writing.

Last week we rolled out a bunch of new UGC features on JTA’s website. First there’s Readers Report, which, like CNN’s iReport, allows users to upload original news content. Then there’s JBlogs, your run-of-the-mill Jewish blog aggregator, but one which will expose Jewish bloggers’ content to JTA’s quarter million readers. Finally, and most exciting of all, there’s Kavod, a Pligg-based social news site for Jewish content.

The need for Kavod is obvious. Since Jews only make up less than 1% of the world’s population, they also make up a small percentage of users on popular social media sites like Digg and Reddit. Therefore Jewish content tends to either get buried or lost in the fray. Kavod will bring attention to media that may otherwise go unnoticed, help foster a community-wide dialogue, and identify the content which matters most to Jewish media consumers.

And considering JTA’s significance as, essentially, the official news organ of the North American Jewish community, and thus considering its readership which includes the leadership of America’s preeminent Jewish organizations, Kavod, JBlogs and Readers Report combined move us communally towards the democratization of Jewish news gathering by providing users the ability to share with JTA’s editors and community of readers the Jewish content which matters most.

Remember my shtick from Jewschool about “prying Judaism from the lifeless fingers of the Jewish establishment and serving it up to the public with the insistence, ‘This belongs to you?’” If I’ve truly contributed anything valuable to the Jewish community in my service to JTA thus far — which has been my only aim in serving in a professional capacity at a Jewish institution — I believe this is it.

So with that said, please go fill these suckers with content and show us which Jewish issues matter most to you!