Jeff Jarvis had a very interesting announcement on his blog yesterday, he is hoping to start a "Center for Citizens' Media" at a university, possibly NYU (The Center for Citizens' Media). The basic idea is to create an institution where bloggers and traditional journalists can share ideas and educate each other:

Citizen journalists can benefit from education in some of the tricks of the trade (e.g., how to avoid libel, how to file freedom of information requests, how to write a killer lede). I'm not saying that bloggers need to be like big-media journalists but I am saying that media must to embrace this new wave of journalists.

Journalism students can, for the first time in history, think and act like entrepreneurs (see Gawker, Gizmodo, Engadget). They can use weblogs to create a body of work that will get them hired. They must learn how to interact with their publics in new ways.

Big media needs to learn how to interact with and serve and, most importantly, listen to the citizens formerly known as their audience.

News sources -- in politics, government, business -- need to learn how to relate to citizens who can now, finally, speak to them.

This is a great idea ... and I'm not just saying that because I hope the Center keeps me in mind when they start hiring (IP/Free Speech Knight Foundation Blogger-in-Residence, yeah, that's the ticket). Seriously, the four constituencies Jeff identifies are important ones and would certainly benefit from institutional support. For many reasons I think the last two may require more formalized, academic-style support than the first two. All those institutions concerned about the future of US media should seriously consider Jeff's proposal.