Collaborative online news production:

Introducing Open Park - an open source collaborative one-stop place for news media professionals, users and watchers.
Learn about, debate and shape the future of news, alone or collaboratively, in OP – a new project from the MIT Center for Future Civic Media.
Read more in About OP



Open Park Summer Internship Apply Here!


Active Collaborative News Projects

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International Project:

Ethnic Communities Reporting

Welcome to our latest addition and most important news beat: reporting on ethnic groups that form the tapestry of today's global, interconnected societies. We live in a world in constant migration. From newly-arrived immigrants to long-settled diasporas, these often under-heard, sometimes even voiceless people yet make the supporting fabric of our societies, economies and cultures, whichever country or continent we are looking at. The mainstream media especially seem all too ready to distort, misrepresent or ignore these populations' needs and realities, cluttering their reports and profiles with biases and stereotypes. This is why Open Park has decided to focus on these communities, and complement its Russian diaspora and Latin American cooks news projects by creating a news beat specifically devoted to them.
Do you have an idea for a story on any aspect of these communities? Tell us in our forums or through our contact page, and help change the way these important people's news and stories are being told.
Eyes on Haiti

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Summer Project – Check it out!

The Russian Diaspora & US-Russian Relations

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev invited US President Barack Obama to a Summit on US-Russian relations in Moscow in July. What are the thoughts of Boston’s many Russian dissidents and intellectuals? What should Obama’s Russia policy be like? What is the future of US-Russia relations? Check our roundtable discussion!

US-Russia Summit Roundtable Webcast

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OP's Main Case Study:

The US Exotic Dance Industry & Media Ethics

Exotic dancers, both male and female, in the US nightclub industry is a group of professionals that offers a perfect media ethics case study to report on a community that is continuously being covered in biased and manipulated ways by the media. By covering it collaboratively, we can do a more balanced, better job.

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"Side Dish" Project:

Latin/Spanish-Speaking Chefs & Cooks in US Upscale Restaurants

The Spanish-speaking and other Latin immigrants who make up a very large percentage of the chefs and cooks in mostly high end restaurants in the US, regardless of cuisine, is a group of professionals who are often underpaid and unrecognized, even though they make up the backbone of the U.S. restaurant industry. How many cases are there of such abuses? Where are these professional cooks? In which cities? In which restaurants? Why don’t they speak up? This is an investigative story par excellence.

Quotable Contributors

"I'm a free speech extremist"
Pr. Henry Jenkins, DeFlorz Professor of Humanities and Founder and Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT

"The Titanic sank because competitors refused to listen to each other."
Adjunct Professor David P. Reed of the Media Lab's Viral Communications program speaking on free speech, activism and shared information systems to the MIT Media Lab's IAP class 'Call for Action" in January 2009.