Where Community Meets Journalism | Social Media Today -
Last week I went back to my journalism roots, attending the digital journalism conference news:rewired. But this time I could wear two hats: journalist and community manager. In a week when The Guardian launched a Platform for citizen journalists, and social media wrongly identified suspects in the Boston bombings, I was eager to hear how news organisations and journalists are using social media and community to engage with their readers, helping to bring their stories to life, personalising it for their readers and even using readers’ content in their own news output.
How Vine is Changing the Face of Online Journalism | Social Media Today -
If you haven’t heard of Vine, you need to get with the times – the six-second video app, owned by Twitter and dubbed ‘the Instagram of Video’, shot to the top of the free charts in Apple’s app store shortly after release, and it’s set to come to Android soon.
FAQ: Does citizen journalism impact on employability? | Online Journalism Blog -
It’s already had an impact on their awareness of scrutiny: I’ve heard journalists and editors saying they feel they have to produce better quality journalism and get it right, because they know if they get the facts wrong people will point it out.
It’s also already had an effect on how they work: journalism is becoming more collaborative as journalists realise that many ‘citizen journalists’ either have more expertise on a subject, or first hand experience of an event. But also that ‘citizen journalists’ actually have little interest in being journalists – they’re not in competition.
BBC News - What is visual journalism? -
So what is visual journalism? It’s a question I get asked a lot - not just by friends and family but by many colleagues in the more traditional walks of media life.
For many in the newer fields of digital journalism, it’s simply about visualising data, or using graphics such as maps or charts to explain stories - and of course it is about that.
But in the BBC, it’s also about bringing together our TV designers with the teams that create the more high-end multimedia graphics online and harnessing the unprecedented creative opportunities that brings. So we want to use our skill and creativity to engage and inform our audiences on the biggest, most significant stories, providing insightful, personal and shareable visual explanations.
10 Months After Furor, Hyperlocal News Service Journatic Presses On | Street Fight -
In April of 2012, Journatic, the for-hire community news shop, was a hot property in the hyperlocal industry. The company had struck a deal with the Chicago Tribune that put it in charge of producing all editorial content for the paper’s print and digital TribLocal network covering 78 communities in sprawling “Chicagoland.” That wasn’t all. Tribune Co. became a minority investor in privately owned Journatic, and announced that the two companies would have a “significant operating relationship going forward.”
Daily Voice bankruptcy is a setback for 'hyperlocal' news - Fortune Tech -
FORTUNE — Good news! The Daily Voice, a company that produces “hyperlocal” news sites in Connecticut and suburban New York, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
OK, that’s not good news at all, but neither are layoffs. And when the company was preparing to announce mass layoffs to its staff last March, Chairman Carll Tucker sent out a memo on a Friday saying: “Monday morning we will share with you the news about where we’re going and how we’re going to get there. The news is good — but you’ll need to sit tight while we finalize our plans.” His sign-off: “I am pumped about the prospect of working with you to build a great company.”
On the following Monday, the staff learned that the company was shutting down its 11 Massachusetts sites and laying off 45 employees without severance. The company now employs just 44 people to run its 41 remaining sites, and that includes salespeople and administrative staff as well as journalists.
Is it the best of times or the worst of times for journalism? Yes — paidContent -
There are plenty of reasons for pessimism about the state of the media and journalism, including repeated layoffs, bankruptcies and so on. But there are also many reasons to be optimistic about the current environment.
The Problem With Citizen Journalism - 10,000 Words -
Citizen journalism is a lofty little term thrown around by interweb idealists.* This week, Trevor Knoblich wrote a column on PBS’ MediaShift blog asking “Can Citizen Journalism Move Past Crisis Reporting?”
No, no, it can’t.
The first lonely comment under the article was from an editor of CNN’s iReport, championing the organization’s efforts to help citizens gather and report stories that are meaningful to them and their community. The idea is a noble one, and it’s executed pretty well. They give tips on good storytelling and provide free music clips you can use with your video. There’s even an Assignment Desk where editors ask for submissions on a given topic (this weekend it’s ‘Show Off Your Mom Tattoos’).
MediaShift Idea Lab . Can Citizen Journalism Move Beyond Crisis Reporting? | PBS -
The aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings demonstrated yet another significant marker for citizen journalism. Felix Salmon, in an excellent post on the Reuters blog, wrote that the manhunt for a suspect in the bombings “in many ways represented the first fully interactive news story.” The crisis again demonstrated the value — and risks — of citizen reporting via social media.
Citizen reporters broke much of the news, though they still needed broadcast media to help spread it. In some cases, citizens were able to capture iconic photos of events. Others were able to tell compelling stories about how the emergency affected their lives, including obeying the “stay in place” request by government officials during the manhunt. It has been widely reported how quickly social communities also got information wrong, including falsely accusing suspects. But I’ve seen a nearly equal number of reports showing how quickly these communities were able to self-correct their own misinformation.
“Chatter about hyperlocal news in some form or another is a dozen years old or more, but the creation and delivery of block-level news is only growing. That’s both because of the growing demand of technology solutions to deliver and the expansion of web publishing tools to create. Four years after Technically Philly first looked at the state of hyperlocal news in Philadelphia, the efforts have only widened. Everyblock may have closed, but there is a steady stream of new national mobile and web apps and tools trying to distribute news and information — BlockAvenue.com is a new one.” — Neighborhood news makes a difference: state of Philly hyperlocal news » Technical.ly Philly