Online Journalism Blog

new journalists for new information

Information is changing. The news industry was born in a time of information scarcity - and any understanding of the laws of supply and demand will tell you that that made information valuable.

But the past 30 years have seen that the erosion of that scarcity. Not only have the barriers to publishing,  broadcast and distribution been lowered by desktop publishing, satellite and digital technologies, and the web - but a booming PR industry has grown up to provide these news organisations with ‘cheap’ news.

Information is changing. Increasingly, we are not seeking information out - instead, it finds us. The scarcity is not in information, but in our time to wade through it, make meaning of it, and act on it.

Information is changing, and so journalists must too. In the previous parts of this series I’ve looked at how the news process could change in a multiplatform environment; how to involve the former audience; what can now happen after a story is published; journalists and readers as distributors; and new media business models. In this part I want to look at personnel - and how we might move from a generic, hierarchy of ‘reporters’, ’subs’ and ‘editors’ to a more horizontal structure of roles based on information types. [Read more]

Written by Wilbert Baan

The last year has seen social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn updating the design of the homepage to turn it more into a notification page: the homepage as a place where you can see what your friends are doing. Your virtual center of the network.

These updates let you know what your friends are up to, but they also let you know what your friends like or share. The social networks often work as recommendation networks as well. [Read more]

Stat of the day comes from Cone (I’m sure there’s a fascinating reason for that name):

Sixty percent of Americans use social media, and of those, 59 percent interact with companies on social media Web sites. One in four interacts more than once per week.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, 93 percent of social media users “believe a company should have a presence in social media”. “56 percent of users feel both a stronger connection with and better served by companies when they can interact with them in a social media environment.”

But it’s MediaPost’s Research Brief that complements this with something more interesting for me:

Data from an August 2008 survey of Web merchants, sponsored by Internet Retailer, found that, of the 39.3% of retail respondents that use social networks, 32% have a page on Facebook, 27% on MySpace and 26% on YouTube.

So a significant proportion of retailers are moving into social media, consumers want more, and the trend continues.

Now, what should news organisations be doing again?

(This entry was originally posted by Dave Lee on jBlog)

A few days ago on this blog, Paul Bradshaw wrote what he called one of the most important posts he’s ever made. Here it is.

In it he describes how the era of the awkward, socially backward geek is nearly behind us. They’re not geeks, he says, they’re early adopters. And you’d better listen to them if you want to stay a step ahead of the game. [Read more]

There’s a great interview with NPR’s Andy Carvin over at Poynter where he talks about their coverage of Hurricane Gustav. It’s a classic example of what I’ve previously called ‘Distributed Journalism’, and a lesson for any news organisation in how news production has changed: [Read more]

Here’s one of those ‘images of our times’. Following Scoble & Barefoot’s Social Media Starfish (I know), Brian Solis has produced this much tidier Conversation Prism, useful for generating ideas, helping conceptualise what you’re doing or identify gaps, or just decorating that plain wall. (via Engagement 101)

If you want to pick my brains on using various online tools to track breaking news and pursue stories, I’m going to be teaching a one day course on the topic next month. You can find more details and booking here.

This may be something I do more of, so if there are any areas you’d like to see me do a training course/open session on, let me know in the comments below.

I’ve decided to respond to student questions now via video. The latest collection are from Jess Barlow, and are copied below. The video responses are split into three videos - and there is a transcription of the responses at the end:

1. Which online tools and resources do you use to keep up to date with breaking news stories, and why do you use these?
2. Do you keep a personal Blog and if so how regularly do you update it, and why?
3. How important is Blogging to you personally, and in your opinion for online news production?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f0xBMd2ogk] [Read more]

See this video and respond on Seesmic

I’ve recently been playing with Seesmic once again, having briefly dabbled with an alpha invite a few months ago and stupidly written it off as a vague video blogging platform.

It isn’t.

It’s social. [Read more]

Recently my attention has been drawn to the Dutch news website www.en.nl. Wilbert Baan, interaction designer for the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant, told me he wants to see “what we can do with news, social networks, wikis and more.

“I think you might like the experiment we are doing,” he wrote.

And bloody hell was he right. [Read more]