JournoDAO Weekly: ONA Behind Us, Blue Skies Ahead

JournoDAO was on the road last week spreading the decentralization goodness to a conference filled with online journalists in LA! Part of our mission was to educate as many journalists as possible about web3 and, in the process, bring as many curious and willing souls into the web3 ecosystem as possible.

Our talk went over well with all but one attendee, who said that we were encouraging journalists to break SEC securities laws by educating them on web3 tools. Most people understood this didn't apply to what we were talking about, which was immutability, disintermediation, transparency, censorship, and journalist-owned content. For a great rundown of the talk, check out EurekaJohn's summary on his podcast.

We realize that our mission here has many paths, one of which is helping journalists understand the value and the nuances of our ecosystem and why it matters to society at large. As we saw recently with both the Ethereum Merge and the White House Report on crypto and digital assets, the current mainstream media is ill-equipped to report on our ecosystem accurately and this reality has real world consequences— like laws that will completely stifle the innovation powering our communities and solving real-world issues. Narrative frames matter when so much is on the line and we’re hoping to be a grounding force in ensuring those narratives are factual and accurate.

The TL;DR

• Last week’s Twitter Spaces
• Last week’s Town Hall
• EurekaJohn recaps our ONA Talk

On the Road … Again

Meeting up in LA was the first time most of our founding team had actually met in person. It was a rare treat in this age of remote work and DAO life. There's really no substituting for the bonds that are formed face-to-face and the founding team all want to make IRL meetups a core part of JournoDAO in whatever way possible.

Eric, John, and Keith all stayed at a swanky downtown apartment with Founder #1, Evan Hansen (and may or may not have made some poor late-night snack choices involving a lobster grilled-cheese).

After the ONA talk, Eric made everyone go to an Irish pub to debrief and unwind. The crew called it an early night in preparation for the JournoDAO happy hour the next evening.

Jennifer and Spencer joined up at the conference on Friday and the entire crew rolled into the happy hour at Library bar, which was a huge success on every metric except, perhaps, attendance ;)

Too many connections were made and conversations had to get into here, but the most imporant and actionable ones will find their way into our town halls, Twitter Spaces, and forum posts over the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

Collabs & Conversations

Last week’s Town Hall included a great discussion of how JournoDAO can be a different type of org than traditional companies, and even other DAOs. How can we avoid the undesirable end states in orgs that we've all experienced? Is it possible? What should be our core values and principles that the community grows around?

The good news is that nothing is decided yet. The more everyone participates in this conversation, the better the end result will be. Please share your thoughts on Discord, Twitter, our forum, or wherever else you can find us.

Our Twitter Spaces was more of an open conversation about web3 and the media and some of our news friends wandered into the Space to dive deeper into the state of media and how decentralization can help solve some fundamental news issues, like trust and fact checking.

We were also guest speakers on a recent Lobby3 Spaces (technical difficulties, so no recording) with a new DAO Coalition with other like-minded DAOs discussing the recent White House report on digital assets and the lobbying and legislation that will be impacting our ecosystems.

Our role in conversations surrounding legislation and major crypto stories in the media seems to be evolving towards helping journalists understand the very thing they are reporting on so that both law makers and the general public are not immediately swayed towards the negative aspects of digital assets. Media Agenda Setting Theory is in full effect here and, whether we like or not, participating in that agenda is a necessary role for any DAOs working with the news industry. (Shout out to my mentor, Donald Shaw who created media agenda setting theory— he passed away last year, but his brilliant research continues to shape the media we all consume today).

And finally, we've joined up with DoinGud as an early member of the community.

DoinGud lets artists and content creators split NFT sales with non-profits of the creator's choosing. They are very much mission-aligned with JournoDAO's commitment to public goods and we're looking forward to collaborations and mutual support in the future.

Onward & Upward!

Thanks so much for supporting our mission and please share this update on the Twitters and in your community! And if you haven’t already, please submit the form below and join our mission!

Please share this update with your community and apply to join our DAO using this link. We’d love to see you in the Discord!

And please don’t forget to gather that ETH and DON’T collect our Founders NFT!