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 ENWS

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 ENWS

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