loganbraman.com

“Turn to clear vision.” That simple phrase struck me as I looked out over the water in Saint Petersburg. I was there for a Poynter Institute seminar called “Bottom Line News: Creating Sustainable Journalism Start-ups.” It was an amazing week. I learned more than I thought I would, I met some amazing people and I found even more energy for my plans, hopes and aspirations.

The micro details aren’t important, but I did want to touch on one revelation that came unexpectedly. I’ve tried to be transparent in all things digital. All my social networks are open to the world, and I try to make sure to keep the interaction there rich and real. It came out of a shift in my personal life, one that made me feel I no longer had anything to hide.

In any case, I realized during the week at Poynter that I hadn’t applied my new way of interacting to the world to my plans for the future. I haven’t been able to figure out exactly why that happened, but I think it has something to do with a little nagging voice in the back of my head. It wants me to talk to all my friends and family about this before I put it out there for the whole world to see. I’ve done that, so now the nagging voice I shouldn’t have listened to in the first place is gone.

I, along with my three amazing co-founders, am going to start an online journalism start-up. It’s called Rooted Austin. At this point it’s just a page telling you we’ll be coming soon, but we hope to have a blog up soon so we can start getting feedback on our ideas and plans. We want Rooted to be Austin’s home page, the place you go for the best curated news and immersive storytelling. We’ll do the curation, and when you tell us you like a particular topic that’s when we know it’s time for us to go get the story and apply our particular brand of storytelling to it.

I can’t wait until Cassandra Adamson, Peter Gaunt and Becky Rother get down to Texas so Rooted Austin’s full team is here and ready to grow. In the meantime, keep on the lookout for a blog on the site and feel free to tell me what you think in the comments or send me a message at logan@rootedaustin.com if you’d like.

My vision is getting clearer by the day. I hope you’ll join me to help focus even more.