[caption id="attachment_4913" align="alignright" width="199" caption="Emily enjoys fresh, sun-warmed raspberries. Photo by Collin Oldham."]<img class="size-medium wp-image-4913 " title="Emily Harris JA Editorial Director" src="http://www.journalismaccelerator.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Emily_Raspberries-199x300.jpg" alt="Emily Harris JA Editorial Director" width="199" height="300" />[/caption]

“What would you really love to do right now?” a friend asked me this summer. Beyond the immediately obvious, she meant. Which meant I had to come up with something besides what I was doing at the moment. Which was, I think, stuffing sun-warmed raspberries in my mouth as fast as I could pick them. <strong>I told her I'd love to find a way to get into the middle of dissecting and reporting on the changes happening in journalism right now.</strong> And I'd love to do it writing for a website that was itself trying new things.

Lo and behold. As I wrote to <a href="http://www.journalismaccelerator.com/members/lisa-skube/">Lisa</a>:
<blockquote>You're experimenting, and that is what it's all about right now. I also like that you are experimenting while remaining centered around core journalistic values of free-flowing, transparent, accurate information.</blockquote>
I've reported from places where accurate information could be pretty hard to get, such as Russia soon after the Soviet Union fell apart and Iraq between 2003-2005. Working in a war zone for <a href="http://www.npr.org " target="_blank">NPR</a>, <strong>I learned again how important on-the-ground, eyewitness reporting really is</strong>, and how much better, always, it is to have more than one journalist covering a given story.

When I spent a year at Stanford on a <a href="http://knight.stanford.edu/ " target="_blank">Knight Journalism Fellowship</a>, two of my fellowship colleagues got buyout offers. The changing pace and face of journalism couldn't have become more clear. Hosting a <a href="http://www.opb.org/thinkoutloud" target="_blank">regional talk show</a> on the public broadcasting station in Portland, Oregon, made it obvious people really want to know what's going on – at least with issues that directly affect their lives.<!--more-->

So, what will I learn from the JA? A lot, I trust, about <strong>the value placed on journalism - defined here as accurate, useful information created on the public's behalf that gives people a tool to engage as citizens.</strong> And a lot about how publishers, editors and reporters are experimenting with new business models to stay in the game.

[caption id="attachment_4920" align="aligncenter" width="800" caption="Emily tramps through the rubble of Iraq&#39;s Ministry of Culture in 2004. Photo by NPR Baghdad staff.  "]<img class="size-full wp-image-4920  " title="Emily Harris in Iraq's Ministry of Culture in 2004" src="http://www.journalismaccelerator.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/EmilyHarrisIraq2-e1317848523585.jpg" alt="Emily Harris in Iraq's Ministry of Culture in 2004" width="800" height="534" />[/caption]
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As editorial director, I'll help set the tone, but <strong>the JA remains a forum by and about you – and all of us pushing the unwieldy journalism beast forward.</strong>

Now, just for fun, a short favorites list: Three books that have kept me loving my work.
<ul>
	<li><em>My War Gone By, I Miss It So</em>. Anthony Loyd gets a heroin high off the Bosnian frontlines and captures the shallow attention to war in his own disaffected writing. I like his no-holds-barred descriptions of what it's like there.</li>
	<li><em>The Walk Book</em>. Janet Cardiff – sound, memory, place. It's always a bit over my head but awesome.</li>
	<li><em>How To Write A Lot</em>. Psych prof Paul J. Silvia sweeps away all the excuses. No special nook? He writes in the bathroom. Oh yeah, and turn off the email.</li>
</ul>
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