Tackling the news-technology challenge: GonzoCamp!

Hunter S. Thompson (Wikipedia)

Heads up for a Seattle event May 22. It's called GonzoCamp, and it's a gathering of people interested in what's happening at the intersection of news content and technology:

In the spirit of a startup weekend, journalists, programmers and business development folks will gather in the name of news innovation. Using a barcamp-style unconference, the goal is to pitch ideas and work in teams to build a functioning prototype of a new digital destination or platform in one day. ...

... We're looking for tech-savvy journalists, programmers, designer/developer/UI people, entrepreneurs and some college students. We'll be relying on folks like you to work your networks and help us get the right people there.

The event is co-sponsored by the University of Washington Master of Communication in Digital Media program, the Online News Association, and Serra Media, a Seattle developer of news software applications, including NewsGarden.

The inception of the event was brainstorming by a handful of nerdish people concerned about the future of local news, most notably:

• Greg Dunlap, a journalist by training but most recently a programmer who worked at The Seattle Times. He now is a consultant on deployments of the Drupal open-source content management system.
• Metroblogging Seattle's Dylan Wilbanks, a UW Web developer by day and co-organizer of the No News Is Bad News events that have examined the future of media in Seattle in light of the demise of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer print edition.
• And Mark Briggs, the recent former Web editor of the Tacoma News Tribune who now is CEO of Serra Media. Mark is the author of Journalism 2.0: How to Survive and Thrive.

GonzoCamp will be held Friday, May 22, from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in room 403 of UW's Electrical Engineering Building. There is no cost to participate, but you should register here.

Oh, what's with "gonzo"? It's an allusion to "gonzo journalism," a sub-genre pioneered by Hunter S. Thompson, who once wrote:

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.