Photo by Balazs Gardi

Photo by Balazs Gardi

Basetrack was an experimental media project, conducted in 2010-2011, tracking the 1/8– 1st Battalion, Eighth Marines, during their deployment to southern Afghanistan. A small team of mobile media operators embedded with the battalion, transmitted their reports and reflections from Helmand province as they traveled with the battalion through area of operations.

I functioned as the lead designer and producer for the website and social channels for people to stay connected to the Marines in the 1/8. The project was defined by the amazing photographs the journalism team made with their iphones and the facebook page which was active everyday with families trying to connect with their sons thousands of miles away.

Basetrack was a non-profit initiative, operated by November Eleven, a US-based, 501(c)3 public charity. Basetrack took an open-source approach to journalism, making its original content freely available for non-commercial use under Creative Commons licensing protocols, and employing open, ubiquitous social media platforms to distribute its reporting, and to engage public participation in the reporting process. Basetrack was funded by a 2010 Newschallenge Grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

http://mediashift.org/idealab/2011/05/journalists-marines-find-a-middle-ground-on-censorship-for-basetrack133

http://www.wired.com/2011/03/marines-boot-social-media/

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/21/covering-marines-at-war-through-facebook/?_r=0

http://blog.ted.com/basetrack-revisited/