The journalist within me?

Well this one is a bit of a general musing. On Christmas day I was unfortunate enough to witness a man die. I won't go into details but essentially a drunk man thought it was a good idea to jump off the bridge in Llangollen, and was unable to make it out of the water. Not a nice thing to see, particularly on Christmas day.

I was initially tempted to write something up on the story, but then decided I had absolutely no interest in doing so. Some may consider this to be rather shocking as I claim to be an aspiring journalist. I just found that I had no intention of making my Christmas day worse than it was by finding out details and talking to other witnesses, people that know the man, etc. Essentially I didn't want to bring myself closer to the tragedy than I already was.

I wonder if I would want to had this happened on a day other than christmas, and frankly I suspect not. Direct reporting of death is not really the field I aspire for. That is the newspaper journalist's realm, and I aim to work in the magazine and online world.

Are Reith's values still maintained in the media?

Today's lecture was given by Rory Cellan-Jones, the BBC's Technology Correspondent. Rory (hmmm not comfortable with using Rory, will go with RCJ instead, which is really comfortable) compared elements of the media (mainly broadcasting) industry in the 1980s compared with the industry of today. It goes without saying that there had been great change.

Something that interested me about RCJ's comments was that he suggested that in the 1980s editors tended to think they knew what was important to be in the news. I got the impression that RCJ was mainly referring to television editors. Anyway, his comment made me wonder if much has changed today. The concept of the editors knowing best is a value that dates back to John Reith's time as director General of the BBC. Reith was very much of the view that he knew what was best for the audience and that media should provide education for the audience. A brief summary of his views, but reasonably accurate I feel.

I wondered whether that has really changed a large amount today. For broadcasting public service requirements have dropped recently, especially for ITV. But I don't think general public service requirements are the same as Editors merely following the populous route. 

There is evidence which shows numbers of views/reads a piece of news gets is increasingly important. This can be witnessed in the most viewed/read stories which are normally flagged on websites. It can also be seen in the way The Telegraph's newsroom has this on one of their large projection screens.

However, I don't think this means that Editors are paying too much attention to most viewed statistics. Given the what stories would prove most popular, running orders would certainly be different on news bulletins if this was the case. I do think that it can be argued that Editors are increasingly feeling they do have to explain their choices a little more, as demonstrated on the BBC's Editors blog.  As it stands at the moment I think Editors are still choosing to give what they consider the most important stories, and for this 'elitist' I think that is probably a good thing. If Editors went with the stories that would be most popular there is a risk Paul Dacre would be Editor of all things media, a worrying thought. 

As an extra thought, RCJ did mention that he thought that editors at the BBC were still to a large degree given a remit to provide what the public cannot get elsewhere so in this sense the argument doesn't quite apply to the BBC in the same way.

I want it all, I want it now, I want it free!

I suspect I have heard my title somewhere before, but i can't put my finger on where or when. Essentially my title refers to what the consumer in our current age wants. The questions at this time of recession is as to whether it is really feasible for the consumer to get all their wants fulfilled.

What is happening to the media can be easily compared to what is taking place, or has already taken place in the music industry. The consumer has found through the internet they don't really have to pay for high quality content/music that they are getting, and now don't expect to pay for that content/music and this has left the media/record labels in some what of a bind as this content still costs a great deal to provide.  Our recent lecturer Rick Waghorn, of My Football Writer, paraphrased it that consumers "Want the news in the palm of their hand for free."

So where does this leave the media industry in the current economic climate, with advertising revenue falling massively. Since the consumer doesn't want to pay for their content, media companies must rely on advertising to make a profit, or even break even. As advertising revenue is also falling, this is seeing many media companies folding, and massive job cuts in others. The paying model has not previously worked but increasingly people are arguing this may be the only viable option for the media, or as Jemima Kiss argues the only option an investor may back for media start ups. I would disagree with Jemima and instead am inclined to agree with Shane Richmond who is inclined to think the pay for model is not a viable alternative.

I wonder if the model provided by the spot.us could be a potential solution to many problems. The ways this site works is quite simple in that an article idea is suggested to the community and people volunteer to pledge money for the story to be reported (this is explained slightly better on the about tab).  The community can also 'tip' what they think could be a good story to be reported. Spot.us would also tackle some earlier issues I have brought up for investigative journalism online. It certainly seems that innovative new methods such as this are more likely to succed than attempting to charge for content, as Shane Richmond pointed out this is certainly true in the UK where the BBC is always going to be a free competitor (even if it has a hidden subscription fee of sorts in the license fee).

Building around a community

I have been considering why it is that some blogs successfully build up large viewing figures while others are effectively dead space. Without going into obvious details such as Search Engine Optimization (although those interested in SEO for blogging would do well to read The Bloggers guide to SEO) and using links I think essentially the reason has had a lot to do with community. 

I have witnessed friends and colleagues attempting to attract more readers to their blogs through shameless self-promoting. There is nothing wrong with this, but it was interesting to note that their self-promotion was by advertising themselves where they had already built up a community: sending out tweets (I should admit Twitter is slightly different as you really can build up a much greater community there and, as Mark Drapeau suggests, twinfluence people), notes and status updates on Facebook, updating shared wikis and so on. 

Essentially this is an extension of trying to get friends, family, colleages and peers to look at your blog, which incidentally in my case my own mother still hasn't 'got round' to looking at this blog. It is because the people within these communities should have an interest in what you have written, and may even have some respect for it. My reasoning follows that you are advertising that you have written something because you are looking for some feedback, the simple joy of seeing 0 comments become 1 comment. For myself, I will be joyous about 1 comment for now, I don't wish to get carried away with myself.

Which brings me onto the subject upon which I was lucky enough to receive a lecture recently from Shane Richmond, Communications Editor at Telegraph.co.uk. Shane (I prefer using informal first names, surnames should only be used in blogging when referring to footballers or dictators) talked in some detail about My Telegraph, part of The Telegraph, which is essentially just a blogging platform. What is interesting is that when it was set up in May 2007 and advertised in The Telegraph, many readers did join, and it now has around 30,000 members. 

While that is not a huge number of members (considering Wordpress currently has 5.1 million blogs), it is certainly a very respectable number. Shane identified several reasons for why the membership grew to that number. A large number simply had not come across blogging before, and certainly weren't going to go in search of sites such as Blogger and Wordpress. The more important reason which he identified is that the numbers have been attracted because they enjoy the sense of community they have with the other bloggers on my telegraph, and value having people from that community read and comment on their writing.

Shane said that this sense of community could be particularly picked up on when changes were made to the website. The most comical example was when My Telegraph gave bloggers the power to delete comments which they did not want on their blog, there was somewhat of an outcry by users as they were heavily committed to freedom of speech. Another example was when a rankings table was introduced for the most read blogs, which again users requested to be taken down. 

It is argued that the web provides a space for a 'worldwide community', but I suggest this cannot really be the case if so many feel the need to flock to a banner for a community such as The Telegraph. This makes me wonder if the web will lead to more and more people feeling the need to have pre-defined communities to flock to, with neat little internet fences erected in hope that the undesirables will be kept out.

A discussion about blogging

This is myself (hosting) and a few students on the postgraduate Diploma in Magazine journalism. We are discussing some of the concerns about blogging and what advantages blogging can offer. Apologises for the laughter at the beginning, I couldn't figure out how to edit it out. I think it's interesting to get some other people directly putting their views onto my blog rather than always giving my own. I think that this guest blog by Scott Elliott on Reporter.net confirms many of the points that the group here mentioned.

Comments on Online Media lecture 5

Matthew Yeomans, the founder of Custom Communications, suggested the arrival of blogs 10 years ago was a fundamentally transformative moment. He suggested this on the basis of three key changes that the arrival of the blog brought around.

The first issue that Matthew identified is that it essentially gave everyone (with internet access) the power to publish. He claimed this was a big change as it gave everyone a voice to potentially reach millions of other people around the world. This took the power to publish from the privileged few and put it into the hands of anyone that wanted to publish.

The second change that was identified was that it increased the power to participate. This meant that people worldwide (once again as long as they have internet access) could give their opinion out freely for all to view. This has created a back and forth between those who publish and those who read content. That is very different from the old manner of the media in which journalists could put content out into the public sphere and then generally forget about the content they had published.

The final issue was that the blog gave much greater power to the consumer to choose. It has created much more of a society where we get to choose what we want rather than having the media push itself on his. In some ways, particularly in the Britain, it could be argued that we have long had a wide choice of varied newspapers and magazines so this isn’t really such a great change, but I think that would probably be a slightly limited argument as a wide choice of newspapers doesn’t quite compare to the internet.

The combination of these three factors has certainly had a huge impact, creating a media which is much more conversational, transparent and much faster in providing news. Previous blogs have addressed the issue of whether this massive change has taken place, so this won’t be looked at again in this post.

A more pressing issue is whether the traditional media can really survive unless they attempt to take on some new elements. With dwindling ad revenues and huge job cuts, it would appear that there has to be some change. To quote Matthew Yeomans, “The sky is falling; the question now is how many people will be left to cover it.” It would seem that given the public have grown use to the new online methods that the media must change to the publics new expectations, but it is interesting to consider how this can function as a business model, which is looked at in an interesting manner here.

Comments on Online Media lecture 4

The digital stories lecture gave an interesting perspective on the role of journalists in citizen journalism. Daniel Meadows seemed to suggest that in future the journalist might have a better role as a facilitator to improve the quality of citizen journalism. Some of Daniel’s own digital stories can be viewed on his website. Daniel’s main reference point for this was his role in the production of the BBC’s digital stories. He was of the view that “human beings are naturally creative and have stories in them.” He thinks journalists are probably best suited to almost train the average citizen so that what they produce is of a higher, more professional quality than the stereotypical shaky video image, or ill-considered blog rant. If this takes place then it follows that what the citizen journalist produces will be more fitting to replace traditional journalism. But can this really be the case?

While I feel that some elements of this argument certainly have a great deal of merit to them, I think there are certainly limitations. A simple logistical issue is that it would rely on the provision of equipment to allow the widespread uptake of citizen journalism in the image that Daniel seemed to suggest.

A further issue is that all news would become local news, which would generally be in the rather limited form of human-interest stories. In my view this would see news being flooded with personal vanity projects that are not really of interest to the wider populace. The citizen journalist has already proven that they can splash some important stories, but I wonder if wider uptake would lead to more of these stories, or mean that finding these stories meant sifting through a greater amount of useless stories.

There are certain fields that would certainly suffer if the journalist’s role became the facilitator. High quality investigative journalism, which requires a great deal of skill and a great investment of resources, is certainly not suited to the citizen journalist taking up the role. It could prove incredibly dangerous for the average citizen to try and take up investigative reporting, and arguably it would be completely irresponsible of media companies to encourage them to do so. It is also unlikely that an average person would be interested enough in issues such as fraud to dedicate the time required to such investigations.

I suspect this is not the only field that would suffer if the journalist became the facilitator. Serious news reporting political issues would not be maintained in the same way without professional journalists reporting, as most of those who would care enough about politics to spend their own time on it are likely to have an agenda or a strong bias.

These are definite issues and it seems clear that there is no one model that can easily be subscribed to at this point. But there are definitely elements of traditional journalism that need to be kept in tact, and trying to generalise such issues as saying the journalist of the future should merely be the facilitator is not really adequate.

Comments on Online Media lecture 3

What really interested me with the last online media lecture was the comparisons made between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. (Although increasingly what interests me almost as much is why it’s called 2.0 rather than merely 2, are we really going to have 2.1 and 2.2 and 2.3 updates? Have these stages already come and gone and we are now onto 3.0? Also I couldn’t make my mind up if Web deserved a capital W in the context of Web 2.0? I suspect I have gone off the point somewhat).

So what I was really going to talk about was the differences between Web 1(.0?) and 2.0. There is a general understanding that web 1 was essentially un-responsive, in a similar way to print newspapers. This was because content could be published and read but those that read it couldn’t really respond.

Web 2.0 allows much more exciting prospects for journalism. Although the ‘excitement’ of Web 2.0 could be seen as a scary thing to many journalists, if journalists do embrace this change then it is potentially a very exciting thing. Modern journalists should realise that rather than being fearful of the consumers increased ability to respond them, it can be of great benefit to their stories. The conversation and the creation of the ‘prosumer’ means that journalists have greater access to new sources and potentially more ‘experts’ than ever before. These are available through all manners of different methods, many of which are yet to be explored fully, with some suggesting ideas such as posting draft versions of articles on blogs, allowing readers to have an input on the creative process. Here are some other examples of what the Liverpool Post is experimenting with

Those who have read previous blog entries may be wondering where my critical tone has gone, and fear not it is about to arrive. There are obviously some great limitations to the concept of Web 2.0.

The first point is that perhaps all this talk of what Web 2.0 can bring to modern journalism is just a bit hopeful? Sure journalists could put a draft version up and allow reader input, sure they could respond to online criticism on their articles, they could do many of the things that Web 2.0 offers. Here is the big BUT though, journalists are increasingly seeing resources cut back as advertising revenues drop and a recession hits in resulting in many job cut backs. How are journalists expected to find the time to do all these extra things when they are being increasingly stretched? There isn’t really time for journalists to engage with readers about stories they have already written as they are generally working on the next story.

The sum of what I am trying to suggest is that if journalists were to use all these great perks of Web 2.0 then it would mean that they potentially have to spend an infinite amount of time on just one story. They would have to keep coming back to the story, grinding their current work to a halt. There are surely some great benefits to be found from Web 2.0 but personally I question whether it is possible for all areas of the media to make full use of these benefits, and I certainly question the bleak vision some provide of the newspaper industry.

Comments on Online Media lecture 2

It was an odd feeling to be asked not to publish the results of some recent research at the latest online media lecture as it had not yet been published in the wider world. This feeling was particularly emphasised by the fact that the lecture was on User Generated Content (UGC). This left me with an ironic dilemma given the content of the lecture. It picks up strongly on an issue that I discussed in my last blog entry- what ethics are at work for the citizen journalist?

If a room of 90 bloggers were asked not to disclose information, then there is a good chance that this would be the first thing that many would do on finding a computer. In fact many would be updating Twitter. This is not necessarily a poor reflection of the people that put the information into the public sphere, but rather a reflection that the nature of the beast that is the internet.

There isn’t really any ethical code on the internet, and many argue that the freedom to access and put almost anything on the internet is one of its greatest strengths. On top of this, any time that there is talk of enforcing some kind of ethical code, or code of conduct online, it is pretty much laughed down. It is also interesting that when some sites such as the BBC filter what they allow to be put up on their site they are often attacked for censorship, as evidenced by the recent blog entry on The Editors which received some fairly negative comments from readers.

The Editors blog was also of interest as it did demonstrate the increasing importance that the media is placing on UGC, especially in mentioning the two big scoops their new interactive reporter achieved in two weeks. Both stories were fairly important: the extreme initiation rites that some students had to go through, and the students who are yet to receive their educational maintenance allowances. To get two big stories in two weeks is quite an achievement for a journalist, and shows the real power of UGC when it is given the proper attention.

Despite this it still seems that for UGC to gain the attention then it does need to be filtered by a media institute, as there is a lot of fake or indecent material, and even more that is simply of limited interest for most people. While the UGC element of the BBC can be trusted as it has been verified by a strong team of journalists at the BBC and carries the BBC’s strong brand name, with standard UGC it is more difficult to have full faith in what you’re viewing. This has been demonstrated very well on CNN’s iReport, where un-checked UGC is allowed free rein, and has lead to some issues, particularly the example of the elk in the forest fire. An interesting point with iReport is that its un-moderated nature means that users must rely on each other to flag up a false story. This seems like the most interesting direction that UGC can take upon which a widespread user base moderate each others content through comment, however, given the small percentage of internet users who are regular contributors at present then in many ways this is just as bad as the BBC’s censorship.

Comments on Online Media lecture 1

The Internet is given great praise for allowing ordinary citizen to publish their views online, but there is a worrying lack of regard for the consequences of publishing these views. Putting aside the legal ramifications, which have become a serious matter for many bloggers, there are potentially greater ramifications for the Ethics of Journalism itself.

Journalism is famed for apparently being a ‘dirty’ trade, but it must be taken into account that many journalists have a professional ethical code which they take very seriously. An example of this can be seen in the PCC Code of Conduct. One key area of the document, which Editors themselves drew up, regards journalists deciding what things really are in the public interest and whether this overrides individuals rights to privacy.

This is in stark contrast to bloggers who have no real moral code on the internet. They do not feel, and aren’t really, bound by any concepts of privacy, let alone conversations being 'off the record'. An interesting example of this would be the American blogger Mayhill Fowler, who has dropped a couple of bombshells on her blog on the website of the Huffington Post.

The first was Barack Obama talking of Pennsylvanians who ‘cling to guns or religion’, and the second was the incident that became known as ‘Bittergate’, Bill Clinton's rant about the author of an unflattering article about him. For both of these incidents Obama and Clinton did not think they had any press around them, and almost certainly would have behaved very differently had they realised the publicity that their comments would have revealed.

Many would argue that for public figures such as Obama and Clinton, not realising the attention their comments would get is somewhat of a cop-out, and no public figure can expect anything to remain ‘private’ given the evolution of the internet. It would be interesting to find out what Mayhill Fowler's own views on such concepts of privacy are, given the manner in which she was swamped by the media once her initial story about Obama was reported on the Drudge Report.

Another real concern is that journalists should (in theory) be much more qualified to comment than many members of the publicas journalists have (or should have) researched their stories, uncovered the relevant facts and sought expert advise. The journalists findings should then be presented in the most impartial way possible. Put simply, journalists have researched their pieces and also attempt to keep their news stories separate from their editorial stories so as to keep an impartial stance.
With citizen journalism these boundaries are much more blurred (although arguably not for Mayhill Fowler, given she is a staunch Obama supporter). The internet has certainly made comment a lot easier but it must be noted that facts are still king, to coin a phrase by CP Scott: “Comment if free, but facts are sacred.”

Only those bloggers which are incredibly careful to check their facts or are an expert on the subject they coment on, can really present any kind of valuable opinion to the world. Realistically more often than not the bloggers that present