This is the fourth part of my inaugural lecture at City University London, ‘Is Ice Cream Strawberry?’. You can find part one here, part two here, and part three here.

Human capital

So here’s person number 4: Gary Becker, a Nobel prize-winning economist.

Fifty years ago he used the phrase ‘human capital’ to refer to the economic value that companies should ascribe to their employees.

These days, of course, it is common sense to invest time in recruiting, training and retaining good employees. But at the time employees were seen as a cost.

We need a similar change in the way we see our readers – not as a cost on our time but as a valuable part of our operations that we should invest in recruiting, developing and retaining.

Any online operation that does not incorporate its users in production is not only democratically deficient, it is commercially inefficient.

Of course some are inclined to see user generated content as a mass of ignorance, abuse and waffle. Those people should ask how much work has been put into attracting good contributors? Into developing a healthy commenting culture? And how much has been invested into giving the good users a reason to keep coming back?

Journalism’s conflicted future

I have spoken about journalism’s ego problem. This is worsened by the fact that journalism is going through an identity crisis, which will become increasingly problematic as it tries to reinvent itself for an uncertain future.

And as always, this is nothing new. In the 1920s journalism faced a similar conflict: between the journalism of information and the journalism of stories. Should we, as journalists, perform a role of providing citizens with the information that they need to make informed decisions? Or are we just in the business of great stories?

The source of that conflict then was the rise of the scientific method, as I explained at the start of this lecture. The source of today’s conflict could be traced to institutional change in news organisations becoming part of larger entertainment empires – and the melting pot of online publication.

Where you stand on the role of journalists will likely depend on whether you think you’re in the business of building cars, constructing roads or organising picnics, and what role you think journalism should perform in a democracy.

Is journalism part of a deliberative democracy, in which the media provides a public forum for debate and consensus?

Is journalism’s role is to provide citizens with information – as part of a liberal democracy?

Or should the media encourage participation and engagement as part of a participatory democracy?

The institutional history of journalism kept those views somewhat separated – as Lokman Tsui explores in his ethnography of Global Voices.

But as these cultures of journalism clash in the online space it is more important than ever that we reflect on our own views of where we stand.

And as educators we should be teaching our students to be aware of their positions and how that affects what they report on, how they report it, and who gets a voice in its coverage.

If objectivity is to remain a journalistic value, then it should be modern objectivity, not this 19th century construct that passes for objectivity in most newswriting: the setting up of an arbitrary fence, and the selection of a source from each side of it as an indication of ‘balance’.

Culture shift

In many ways culture is the way that people and institutions communicate with each other. And just as institutional culture shapes the journalism that we create, for the last couple of decades there has been a growing movement outside of news institutions that sees democracy as both participatory and information driven.

The campaign for Freedom of Information, the work of MySociety in opening up voting records and debate transcripts so the public could see what their representatives were doing and saying in their name. The Free Our Data campaign – which sought to give the public the right to use information that was paid for with public money. And the Linked Data and Open Data movements which have campaigned to make public bodies publish data in a form that makes it easier to interrogate.

What these people – and I want to name some of them here:

• Tom Steinberg and Tom Loosemore
• Heather Brooke
• Charles Arthur
• Tim Berners Lee and
• Chris Taggart

What these people have done – and are still doing – is making power accountable, promoting a cultural expectation that we should have access to information about how our money is spent, and that most publicly funded information should be available to the people who paid for it.

This of course is one of the first steps to ‘holding power to account’, the great argument that publishers make for their existence. That is what the Telegraph did with the MPs’ expenses; what The Guardian have done with Wikileaks data.

But too much of this groundwork is lying ignored and unsupported by the mainstream press.

When Walsall Council released their spending data last year the webpage received more visits than the rest of the council website. They received several enquiries from people like Chris Taggart asking for information about why particular items had been redacted – but they received only one enquiry from the local newspaper.

And that was to ask: ‘Why have you released the data early?’

For comparison I want to show you a video of Ellen Miller of the Sunlight Foundation in the US talking about their government’s transparency initiative.

Where is the news organisation in the UK that is lobbying like this?

A similar cultural shift is happening around public meetings and hearings, with hyperlocal blogs who want to make processes of law and democracy transparent.

Simon Perry of the Ventnor Blog was ejected from a coroner’s court last year on the grounds that he was neither a member of the press nor a member of the public. Richard Taylor was investigated by Cambridge City Council for recording public meetings – he was not told what the grounds of the investigation were. In Brighton a councillor was disciplined for posting clips of council meetings to YouTube. And Heather Brooke was told that she could not make an audio recording of a hearing because the tribunal could not “maintain the necessary degree of control over the transcript.” When Brooke asked for a copy of the ruling she was told that there was to be no written record of it.

This is one area where journalists and news organisations can be investing in their users. It should not just be bloggers pushing for these changes.

Part five can be found here.

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The following is cross-posted from a guest post I wrote for Wannabe Hacks.

Objectivity is one of the key pillars of journalistic identity: it is one of the ways in which we identify ourselves as a profession. But for the past decade it has been subject to increasing criticism from those (and I include myself here) who suggest that sustaining the appearance of objectivity is unfeasible and unsustainable, and that transparency is a much more realistic aim.

Recently I’ve been revisiting some of the research on journalistic objectivity for my inaugural lecture at City University. But as I only mention objectivity once in that lecture, I thought it was worth fleshing out the issue further.

Things change

One of the reasons why I think studying journalism is so important at the moment is that the profession is rooted in a series of practices and beliefs that have specific historical roots – and things change.

David Mindich’s book on the history of objectivity, for example, is essential reading as an exploration of those roots: the rise of the scientific method in universities, and the increasing numbers of journalists to have passed through such education (as well as the rise of journalism schools); the establishment of the Associated Press and newswires in creating a neutral style that could be adapted by regional clients; and of course the increasing role of advertisers in funding publishing.

When broadcast news came along, the principle of objective journalism was so well established that it was enshrined in broadcasting regulations, not least because of the small numbers of channels and the fear that one opinion might be allowed to dominate those.

This doesn’t mean that objectivity is bad, or good – just that there were reasons for journalism’s adoption of objectivity, and we should bear those in mind when it is challenged. Indeed, we should continually challenge it ourselves. Comparing objectivity in the UK versus the US is a good illustration: journalism schools were not established here until half a century after the US; fewer journalists came from higher education; and a smaller country relied less on newswires.

Stil, journalists on both sides of the Atlantic rely on claims of objectivity for their professional status, especially when they feel threatened by those practising journalism outside of institutions.

Revisiting objectivity

However, these claims often rely on a concept of objectivity that is now over a century old.

The scientific method that helped give birth to objective journalism has developed considerably since then. Scientists now recognise that the subject of observations can be altered by the mere presence of the observer; researchers are asked to reflect on their own biases as part of their investigations; and any degree-level piece of work is expected to identify why a particular research method was used, and the weaknesses inherent in it.

As journalists, however, we still argue that we are being objective by merely providing ‘both sides of the story’.

When stories were limited to 300 words or 30 seconds, there was justification for that version of objectivity: we did not have the luxury of thousands of words to expound upon why this source was selected for interview, the limitations of this dataset, or our own conception of the field under investigation.

Now those limits on space and time are removed by the web – but there are still limits on our own time, and the need to engage with our users: we cannot waste their time and ours on explaining methodology.

But I do believe – if we are to cling to the principle of objectivity – that we need to reflect more on why we do what we do – and how that affects the results.

The role of journalism in a democracy

Lokman Tsui, in his ethnography of Global Voices, provides a useful framework to begin with. He makes a distinction between different types of journalism, based on their professional ideology:

‘Professional journalism’ sees its role as providing citizens with information – as part of a liberal democracy.

‘Public journalism’ sees itself as part of a deliberative democracy, in which the media provides a public forum for debate and consensus.

And alernative media aims to encourage participation and engagement as part of a participatory democracy.

In addition he identifies a ‘journalism of hospitality’ – the model represented by Global Voices – which sees itself as part of a communicative democracy, what traditional journalists would describe as “Giving a voice to the voiceless”.

Starting with this framework allows us to ask ourselves what role we see our journalism as playing. That role may be shaped by the institution we work for, or by what makes us passionate about journalism – and most likely it is a negotiation between both.

Culture clash

The point is that we ask the question.

Part of the drive towards transparency in journalism is because users do not believe we are being honest in the way that we go about journalism. The increasing availability of alternative voices and user generated content calls into question our selection of sources – and the over-reliance on information from officials, unnamed sources, and friends.

That is not a criticism of objectivity, but an aspiration towards its modern form rather than its 19th century roots.

Those differing views of journalism – public, professional, alternative, hospitable – have been kept largely separate in institutional silos until now – but the online space has brought them all together – and others besides – creating a culture clash that leaves many people defending their position without really analysing why they hold it in the first place.

As educators we should be teaching our students to be aware of their positions and how that affects what they report on, how they report it, and who gets a voice in its coverage. They may choose different positions depending on the nature of the subject, the medium, and the audience – playing to strengths rather than operating through habit.

But if we see objectivity as just a badge to wear to make us different from our readers then we mistake the ends for the means. Objectivity is not setting down a convenient fence and selecting the people on either side that are easiest to reach – it is aspiring to create something that is representative of reality, while acknowledging and addressing the weaknesses in how we do that. And that includes being transparent.

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I spent today at the hyperlocal C&binet event, organised by Creative Industries MP Sion Simon at the Department for Culture, Media & Sport. I’ve already blogged my thoughts leading up to event but thought I would add some more links and context.

For me, it is significant that this happened at all. Normally these sorts of events are dominated by large publishers with lobbying muscle. Yet here we had a group combining hyperlocal bloggers, successful startups like Facebook, Ground Report, Global Voices and the Huffington Post, social media figures like Nick Booth and Jon Bounds, and traditional organisations like The Guardian, BBC, RSA and Ofcom. Jeff Jarvis pitched into the mix via Skype.

As for the event itself, it began the previous afternoon with a presentation from Enders Analysis, embedded below:

The following morning saw more experiences thrown into the pot – Jeff’s CUNY business models for hyperlocal; Rachel Sterne’s experiences at Ground Report, embedded below:

US Hyperlocal News Market –

Nick Booth’s experience from Podnosh followed, then my own contribution, and The Guardian, Huffington Post, and Northcliffe all took centre stage at various points too.

Following that exchange of perspectives attendees put together 2 lists: what they thought government should or could do, and what they thought government should not do. These are listed on co-chair Will Perrin’s blog and some reproduced in their glorious fluorescence below:

You can read more about the day on that Will Perrin blog post and Hannah Waldram’s post for Podnosh.

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There’s been an earthquake in China, and the Twittersphere is alive with it. I’m going to write a post on this and keep adding to it through the next hour or so. Let me know anything interesting you’ve spotted @paulbradshaw

The first interesting point is Tweetburner: its most-clicked links shared on Twitter are almost entirely about the earthquake, and show some interesting uses:

1. A Google map of the earthquake location
2. A BBC blog post about Twitter coverage of the earthquake
3. A Twitter user’s tweet about experiencing the earthquake (in Shanghai)
4. A Google translation from Chinese to English of tweets from Twitterlocal
5. The Earthquake Center’s page on the earthquake
6. CNN’s report
7. A picture which appears to be capturing the earthquake in an office
8. A Summize search for ‘earthquake’

Here is crowdsourcing without the editorial management. How quickly otherwise would a journalist have thought of using Twitterlocal with a Google translation? And how soon before someone improves it so it only pulls tweets with the word ‘earthquake’, or more specific to the region affected? (It also emphasises the need for newspapers and broadcasters to have programmers on the team who could do this quickly)

How quickly would a journalist have found someone who speaks English and was affected by the quake? Or an image? (Of course, this needs verifying, but sourcing has already begun)

AlphaTwitter shows some of the same results but also included a video of someone experiencing tremors 950 miles away in Beijing, a Chinese language report (including that picture mentioned above) and an English language Chinese media report. Tweetmeme showed the same links as Tweetburner.

Twitt(url)y and Hashtags, meanwhile, both appeared to be down. And Intwition picked the worst possible time to pause their service for changes.

Twitter coverage of the earthquake

Robert Scoble was following proceedings on his much-followed Twitter, and feeding back information from his followers, including, for instance (after he tweeted the fact that Tweetscan was struggling) that people were saying Summize was the best tool to use.

If you followed the conversation through Scoble using Quotably, you could then find Gregg Scott, who in turn was talking to RedChina, Karoli, mmsullivan, and inwalkedbud who was in Chengdu, China (also there was Casperodj and Lyrrael).

If you wanted to check out inwalkedbud you could do so using Tweetstats and find he has been twittering since December. Sadly the Internet Archive doesn’t bring any results, though.

The mainstream media had differing reports: RTE (Ireland) said “No major damage after China earthquake” – but UK’s Sky News reported four children killed and over 100 injured; Chinaview (China) said no buildings had collapsed – but an Australian newspaper said they had.

Interestingly, Chinaview was slow loading, presumably because of excessive demand from users – another reason Twitter, with its 140 character minimalism, should in theory prove more useful during a major news event. I say in theory because Twitter is not as reliable as it should be.

World Wide Help, a blog set up following the Asian tsunami, started liveblogging it.

And perhaps the best coverage came from Shanghaiist, which also liveblogged it, including an image, links to twitter tweets, radio reports, Google Maps and video (many of these the same as listed above – it’s hard to tell whether they got their links from Twitter or vice versa).

Interestingly, their latest update as I type is UPDATE 30, 5:32pm: Not confirmed, but from reliable source: “Propaganda dept has banned news outlets from sending own teams. All stories have to be from Xinhua.” Anyone have more details?

From The Frontline recorded how they had used Twitter to follow events, and concluded the time for debate on the usefulness of Twitter is over. Well, of course.

It also brings up debates about the role of journalists in a networked age – given that I could follow the story (conversation) from an office in Birmingham UK, but mainly because I knew the right tools to do so, how does that affect the journalist’s role? I’d answer that firstly they need to know the tools (including those of verification), and secondly they need to be in the conversations already. What’s your excuse?

UPDATE: In another demonstration of the importance of being in the conversation, this blog post was linked to by Robert Scoble, generating a pingback (notification of a link), which made me read his blog post, which then led me to Global Voices Online’s links to videos and other Twitter and blog reports (this is why journalists should be blogging). They link to a non-English summize search for, presumably, ‘earthquake’. Another key point:

“Many are writing of difficulties connecting to those at the center of the quake zone over telephone, but the internet seems to still be functioning. Beijing-based tech guru Kaiser Kuo writes that the government Earthquake Bureau website is currently inaccessible, presumably from high levels of traffic.”

UPDATE: Mathew Ingram adds:

“People can post messages about whatever they wish, rather than answering only the questions that a producer asks them, and they can add links to blog posts, photos, maps and video. In the study I wrote about recently that looked at Twitter and Facebook and Wikipedia as disaster reporting tools, one of the comments about the California fires was that the media focused on celebrities and how they were affected, but Twitter and other sources gave a more complete version of events and how they were affecting everyone.”

From Better Living Through Software:

“It’s silly in the extreme to act like twitter is somehow breaking news, though. Masses of people within China found out about the earthquake as it was happening via messages from friends on QQ (which is massively more popular than twitter), and CCTV carried the news almost instantly. I suppose it’s cute that some English-speaking expats using echo-chamber technology were able to *also* report the event on twitter, but even the tweetscan example seems a bit lame to me. When I search for tweets with the word “地震”, tweetscan gives me nothing — apparently tweetscan doesn’t care about Chinese. Perhaps this explains why Scoble and BBC are reporting only English tweets from China.”

UPDATE: Two more blog posts worth reading for their balanced effect. Firstly, the Daily Kos has a post that gives an overview of online coverage in both English and Chinese, including a link to the QQ Earthquake video page. Digital Watch talks of the hubris of those hyping the role of Twitter in coverage:

“Twitter’s immediacy was nice, but by no means unique. The whole time I was twittering, my wife was on her instant messengers, with both QQ and MSN Live open. She was also monitoring all the portals’ news flashes on the quake. I didn’t feel like I had any more information than she did

“Twitter’s public nature was of some real value both for ordinary folk and for professional journalists, who were able to quickly identify English-speakers on the scene who could be interviewed. The broadcast nature of Twitter, while it can bore one to tears when used to gratuitously announce one’s pedestrian comings and goings, was in this case something that made it better than simple IM.

“The other dimension to Twitter that proved very useful in this case was its global usership: there were lots of Chinese messages I was following, and I was among many people bilingual individuals translating more useful, insightful, or interesting tweets from Chinese into English. Call it “bridge microblogging.””

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