Journalism has been evolving away from just a repetition of facts or events and towards context and analysis, research shows — but this evolution has also created tension for media companies because it conflicts with the principle of objectivity.
I have just spent 10 months publishing an ebook. Not ‘writing’, or ‘producing’, but 10 months publishing. Just as the internet helped flatten the news industry – making reporters into publishers and distributors – it has done the same to the book industry. The question I wanted to ask was: how does that change the book? Having written books for traditional publishers before, my plunge into self-publishing was prompted when I decided I wanted to write a book for journalists about scraping: the technique of grabbing and combining information from online documents.
The platform, developed in collaboration with mobile network EE, will “crowdsource content from around the globe by enabling users to share videos, pictures and text directly with the Guardian’s editorial team, as well as to browse the contributions submitted by other GuardianWitness users.” By facilitating reader participation and influence, the Guardian’s new tool reveals their commitment to a model of “open journalism” that has gradually become the core of their identity as a newspaper.
Mobile journalism, better known as “mojo,” no longer means linking your news articles and video onto apps for consumers to read on the go. It now means engaging audience with simplified mobile apps and creating better tools for people to create and share their own stories.
These were some of the themes explored during the second day of the International Symposium on Online Journalism in a panel titled “Going mobile: Challenges and opportunities for journalists and news organizations in the mobile revolution.” Presenters on the panel include journalists, professors, and mobile app designers who detailed the promises and the pitfalls of mobile journalism.
On the night of the Boston bombings, my Twitter timeline was filled with the ambivalent cry of those who saw danger and opportunity around them. In the words of one angst-ridden tweep:
“Today reminds me how Twitter has become one of the greatest tools as well as one of greatest threats to true journalism”.
I share the sentiment. But I also despair at the failure of the guardians of ‘True Journalism’ to develop a coherent response to that contradiction. Perhaps the problem is that too many journalists still believe they are the rightful ‘owners’ of breaking news.
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.
Many news outlets today have editorial team members who have the specific role of engaging with the online community, be it a social media editor or community manager, if not a department focused on this area.
Online community and social media management also falls within the wider toolbox of most digital journalists as well, if only to a certain degree, and is a part of their day-to-day role.
Rob Wijnberg thought his chances were 50/50. Getting 15,000 people to pledge €60 for a one-year susbscription to an news site that didn’t yet exist was never a given. On March 18, Wijnberg, former editor-in-chief of the young-adult-targeted newspaper nrc.next, proposed his idea for a new online journalism platform on Dutch national television. Within 24 hours, his team had raised half its goal, and after eight days, Wijnberg got an earlier than expected go-ahead: 15,000 had subscribed, and many had added donations on top of their subscription fee. In just over a week, in a small country, the Dutch crowdfunding project De Correspondent had raised over €1 million (about $1.3 million).
Journalist Ken Schwencke has occasionally awakened in the morning to find his byline atop a news story he didn’t write.
No, it’s not that his employer, The Los Angeles Times, is accidentally putting his name atop other writers’ articles. Instead, it’s a reflection that Schwencke, digital editor at the respected U.S. newspaper, wrote an algorithm — that then wrote the story for him.
Instead of personally composing the pieces, Schwencke developed a set of step-by-step instructions that can take a stream of data — this particular algorithm works with earthquake statistics, since he lives in California — compile the data into a pre-determined structure, then format it for publication.
Head of the BBC newsroom Mary Hockaday tells the Polis Journalism Conference that trust has been restored in the corporation following the Jimmy Savile affair
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