Week 8 – Producing News in the Digital Age
Review:
We're moving from a format where we proclaimed the news to the world on
a fixed schedule to one where we converse with the world on a 24/7
basis
Review
We're moving from a format where news was a monologue produced
by mainstream media to one where news is a conversation
among many
Producing news in digital age:
Digital technology has changed every stage of the news production cycle:
1. Gathering 2. Reporting3. Distributing
A new genre
Digital technology has also created a whole new genre
of news :CITIZEN JOURNALISM
1) GATHERING NEWS
• access of journalists to sources• access of the public to
journalists
1) GATHERING NEWS
Crowd-sourcing: informationtopicstrends
1) GATHERING NEWS
• news gathering becoming more “communal”, more conversational• conversations are often public (ex:
politicians and reporters)
More transparency?More accountability?
1) GATHERING NEWS: summary
• access of journalists to sources• access of the public to journalists• Crowd-sourcing: information, topics, trends• news gathering becoming more
“communal”, more conversational• conversations are often public (ex
politicians and reporters)
NEW RISKS
Security risks: • Being able to locate a journalist in a
warzone (geolocation on a smartphone)• Tracking their movements• Consequences of leaked information
NEW RISKS
PROTECTING YOUR SOURCES
NEW RISKS
Accuracy risks: • fact-checking happens when? • Breaking news too quickly
GATHERING NEWS: NEW RISKS
• Security risks: • Being able to locate a journalist in a warzone
(geolocation on a smartphone)• Tracking their movements• Consequences of leaked information
• How to protect new sources• Accuracy risks: • fact-checking happens when? • Breaking news too quickly
2) REPORTING NEWS
MULTI-MEDIA: no longer enough just to write/record/film a story
Ex:– photo slide shows with text/sound– An online chat with a reporter
2) REPORTING NEWS
Expectation of enriched content and background information
Ex:• blogs from the field• Video from the field. Ex: WSJ World Stream• UGC Ex: now acceptable for TV news broadcasts to use
shaky cell phone video footage • twitter feeds integrated into a story
2) REPORTING THE NEWS
HIGHER IMPACT:Much more clear measure of the impact of
a story because of the possibility for people to react (and interact) via
comments, retweets, linking
2) REPORTING THE NEWS
Direct link with consumers of news potentially gives journalists a new
possibility to make change, influence events
ex: Nick Kristof of NYT mentions charity and leads to $700,000 of donations.
But is this the journalist’s role? Should it be?
2) REPORTING NEWS: summary
• multi media• Expectation of enriched content and background
information• more involvement from
readers/viewers/consumers/amateurs and even participants in the news
• higher impact• new responsibility for journalists?
3) DISTRIBUTION
News is no longer distributed at a fixed time in a fixed place
Bye bye to…– Evening broadcast after work– Morning paper at the newsstand– News bulletins at top of the hour
3) DISTRIBUTION
• news alerts (SMS and email)• Multiple platforms (broadcast + mobile
+ internet)• On demand• Accelerated delivery• Broadened distribution
Conclusions:
• Gathering: Being able to use the wisdom of crowds about what is interesting, what to write about, what questions to ask: it explodes the limits of the journalist’s sources, of accessibility, of distance
• Reporting: Like everything else in convergent media universe, it is less of a broadcast/monologue and more of a conversation
• Distribution: Broadened distribution potentially broadens the impact of a story too, suddenly a lot more people are able to tune in, read it, watch it, consume it
A New Genre: CITIZEN JOURNALISM
Citizen journalism
Can anyone with a cellphone and a twitter account become a
journalist ?
Citizen journalism
Is anyone with a blog a journalist?
Is blogging journalism? Or broadcasting?
What is the difference?
Citizen journalism: a definition
Citizen Journalism is when private individuals do essentially what professional reporters do: report information.
It is User Generated Content. It takes one of two forms:
1) original content2) Commentary on stories appearing in
mainstream media elsewhere
Citizen journalism
Citizen journalism is entirely enabled by technology.
Before, interaction with the news was limited to letters to the editor and dialling in tips to local
broadcasters. We’ve come a long way.
Citizen journalism
Like all UGC, it can can be produced in any medium:
• text (comments, blog post, tweet, Facebook update, etc)
• pictures (Instagram, Twitpic, Facebook, Tumblr or blog post, etc)
• audio (podcast)• video (video podcast, blog post, YouTube, etc).
Citizen journalism: iconic examples
2004 tsunami
2005LondonBombing
2007 Virginia Tech shooting
Citizen journalism: the iconic examplesThe « Green Revolution » in Iran
The Syrian uprising today
What did citizen journalists do?
Audiences on the ground took photographs, published text and
voice messages, eye witness accounts, posted videos which told
the story in ways that almost eclipsed the traditional way of
reporting news.
Citizen journalism
Is citizen journalism good or bad for journalism?
Citizen journalism: positives (1)
Better, faster, deeper content: • Provide instant accounts and photographs and
videos of incidents as and when events happen• Multiplies sources of information about any one
event• Citizen reporters tend to be people who really care
about the story because it impacts their lives directly• Generally keeps stories alive much longer than the
original publishers
Citizen journalism: positives (2)
More powerful content: • More accountability: videos/pictures of events that
might not have been filmed otherwise because no journalists would have been present
• Puts constraints on governments and authorities who might be tempted to use violence, if they know they will be filmed/photographed and these images will be distributed
• Change is made possible when transgressions and abuses are made visible
Citizen journalism: negatives (1)
• Information that is false, unverified, biased or manufactured
• Information that doesn’t adhere to the traditional standards or procedures of journalism can’t be reliable
• An agenda or biased point of view can potentially hide behind the anonymity of the internet
Citizen journalism: negatives (2)
• Many traditional journalists see citizen journalism as an untrustworthy source of information that diminishes their role as gatekeepers of the news
• dilutes the standards of quality and reliability inherent to what was traditionally called journalism
• democratization of distribution threatens the information-gatekeeper role that mainstream media has always played
Citizen journalism: conclusions (1)
• Journalism and what we call journalism isn’t changing and shouldn’t be
• What’s changing is who we are calling journalists
• But because that is so difficult to ascertain these days, the focus is less on the source than on the content, and if that content meets standards
Citizen journalism: a better definition
Citizen journalism is better defined as “random acts of journalism” than
journalism: where someone happens to be in a certain place at the right time and
provides on-the-scene reporting
Source: Andy Carvin, NPR
Citizen journalism: conclusions (2)
• Journalism is becoming an ecosystem that anyone can be part of: whether this democratization is good or bad for journalism is a discussion in progress
• It is certain that citizen journalism is not something that we want to ignore by any means
• How best to incorporate this content into traditional journalism is still a work in progress
Procedures of traditional journalism:
The role of the professional gate-keeper within tradition media is to oversee:
• editing, fact-checking, and disclosures of conflicts of interest
• keeping notes of conversations and interviews conducted • mutual understanding or agreement of confidentiality
between the defendant and his/her sources • contacting “the other side” to get both sides of a story• creation of an independent product rather than
assembling writings and postings of others
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