Category Archives: Journalism
Media Room Etiquette
Fellow-blogger Chuck Zimmerman (the KING of the event bloggers) is covering the Commodity Classic in Grapevine, TX. It’s a big farm show (for lack of a better term). So big, in fact, they had to post some rules for “Media Room Etiquette,” including this definition of working meida: “journalists, broadcasters and camera operators.”
“Media company officers, advertising sales representatives, and support staff DO NOT qualify as working media, UNLESS their PRIMARY purpose for attending Commodity Classic is to specifically engage in gathering and/or reporting news about Commodity Classic events, trade show activities, and/or grower organization meetings.
Commodity Classic staff reserves the right to examine recent samples of news work product to determine a person’s qualifications for complimentary registration and media credentials, and at their sole discretion reserves the right to refuse anyone not meeting the minimum qualifications.”
You think the lines between public relations and news are getting a little fuzzy? Sounds like. Would love to know who did not make the cut.
Full disclosure: Learfield (the company I work for) owns a farm network that has reporters covering Commodity Classic.
Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill on Twitter
Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill has been getting a lot of interest in her use of Twitter (microblog, social networking tool, blah blah blah) to keep her constituents informed about what she’s doing. Politico recently named her to their list of the ten most influential Twitterers in DC (right behind Karl Rove).
Missourinet (network owned by Learfield, the company that pays me) reporter Steve Walsh brought up Twitter in a recent interview and the senator spoke wistfully about a day when she can “speak directly to everyone in Missouri,” describing it as “Nirvana.”
It was telling that my friend (and co-worker) Steve set his question up as “nothing at all to do with anything serious.”
Hmm. Should the day come that every elected official can speak directly to every one of the people they represent, without talking to a reporter, things could get serious (for the news media). Don’t get me wrong, we need good reporters like Steve, who can call bullshit on the politicians when necessary. They will always have a role. But it seems to be changing.
And this just in… anyone with access to the Internet can hear directly from Senator McCaskill.
“Democratization of information”
Last month I –like many others– made note of Janis Krums being among the first to report (on his Twitter feed) that an airliner had crash landed in the Hudson River. Will Leitch was in the SF offices of Twitter, working on an article for New York Magazine, as the story was breaking.
“In the midst of chaos—a plane just crashed right in front of him!—Krums’s first instinct was to take a picture and load it to the web. There was nothing capitalistic or altruistic about it. Something amazing happened, and without thinking, he sent it out to the world. And let’s say he hadn’t. Let’s say he took this incredible photo—a photo any journalist would send to the Pulitzer board—and decided to sell it, said he was hanging onto it for the highest bidder. He would have been vilified by bloggers and Twitterers alike. His is a culture of sharing information. This is the culture Twitter is counting on. Whatever your thoughts on its ability to exist outside the collapsing economy or its inability (so far) to put a price tag on its services, that’s a real thing. That’s the instinct Stone was talking about. If the nation has tens of millions of people like Krums, that’s a phenomenon. That’s what Twitter is waiting for.”
I’ve given up trying to explain the phenomenon that Twitter has become but can’t help take note of the examples that pop up almost every day.
@angelawilson does freelance work for us and works from her home. Today she had The Price is Right on (“just for background”) and one of the ladies picked to be a contestant was part of a group of women wearing shirts with their Twitter names on the front (mine is @smaysdotcom). Host Drew Cary had to explain to the studio and viewing audience what Twitter was. I hope that shows up on YouTube because I’d really like to see it.
And then this afternoon I learned (from the Twitter feed of St. Louis Post-Dispatch Reporter Tony Messenger) that some kind of big “nuke hearing” was getting ready to start in the Senate. And that there was so much interest the hearing room was so packed they had to set up closed circuit TV monitors in a room on the third floor.
I followed Tony’s Twitter feed for a bit, where I learned that one of the senators (Jolie Justus) on the committee holding the hearing, was also using Twitter to let her “followers” know what was going on. You can check out her “tweets” (you should pardon the expression) at http://twitter.com/joliejustus. Where she assured us she’d tell us more about the four hour hearing tomorrow on her blog, Fresh Meat (she’s a freshman senator?).
What does all of this mean? I’m not sure I know. Does it mean something? Yeah, I’m pretty sure it does. As Twitter co-founder Ev Williams says in the NY mag piece:
“It’s another step toward the democratization of information. I’ve come to really believe that if you make it easier for people to share information, more good things happen.”
Me too.
UPDATE: Sen. Justus started her blog as a Freshman Senator two years ago. [Thanks, JW]
Steve Outing: The all-digital newsroom
“What will it take to get one of the remaining jobs in the all-digital newsroom? Certainly an understanding of, and probably enthusiasm for, new forms of media and storytelling. The transformed newsroom will be filled with multi-functional journalists who are comfortable carrying around a digital camera and tiny video camera; who make it part of their routine to record audio for possible use in podcasts or multimedia project sound clips; who are regular users of social networks and understand how to leverage them to communicate with and attract new readers, and share some personal information about themselves as well as promote their work; and who are comfortable and willing to put in the time to engage and communicate with their readers or viewers, including participating in reader comment threads accompanying their stories.”
“With blogs at the center of a reporter’s work universe, there’s still much to do in this new kind of news operation.
Here’s what the reporter/blogger will routinely do:
1. Long-form stories and features. But in this new environment, a reporter may do fewer of these because of other duties. And they may be in a variety of formats, from simple text and video to multimedia presentations, audio or podcasts.
2. Regular blog entries (basically short articles) through the day. The reporter in this organization doesn’t wait till all the facts are in when it’s a big breaking story, but reports what’s known quickly. Additional blog updates can be added as the news event progresses. (Again, don’t take “blog entry” to mean “text.” A reporter might post video or audio to the blog, as well.)
3. Instant updates. When relevant, a reporter will put out short alerts to mobile phone news alert subscribers; to an e-mail list; as a “tweet” on Twitter or brief report on other social networks to update the reporter’s “friends” and “followers,” etc. This can take but a minute (with proper systems in place to streamline the process), and then it’s on to the write-up for the blog.”
— From Steve Outing column at Editor & Publisher
Is Ana Marie Cox wearing pants?
Suppose you had a friend that was really smart and funny, and that friend got to cover and live-blog White House press briefings that you could watch “with” her (on C-SPAN) and chat back and forth. Does that sound like something you might be interested in?
Okay, Ana Marie Cox isn’t a friend of mine but she feels like one. I’m one of her legion of fans that go back to the Wonkette days. She now works for Air America.
I don’t know if this is journalism or not and I don’t care. In the same way I don’t care what you call The Daily Show. I call it fun and interesting.
I think of this as the MST3K effect. Even a boring press conference is fun if you’re watching it “with” fun people.
“A prideful Luddite is the worst kind”
Tony Messenger (@tonymess) tweets us to this lament by St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan who confesses to being “proud of knowing nothing about the Internet.”
“But all around me the Others, with their secret knowledge, are gaining power. I got another e-mail today about optimizing search engines. Also, a note that an editor will be helping us refine our blogging, social networking and sub-channel pages.
Like a student who feels an increasing sense of panic as he hears the teacher talk in gibberish about an upcoming test, I realize that none of the terms mean anything to me.”
I know quite a few people who share Mr. McClellan’s views/pain. Most seem to resent being expected to know how to use the Internet and computers and such. I’m grateful I’m not in a position of “forcing” anyone to learn these skills and happy that I am able to help those who want to.
All right everybody, take off your shoes and place them in the containers
Missouri’s new governor held a press conference today and reporters who showed up were told they had to leave their cell phones at a reception desk. St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Tony Messenger was one of the reporters:
“Members of the Capitol press corps revolted and demanded reasons. “Security reasons” was the response given by Nixon spokesman Scott Holste, who said it was Nixon’s policy and the governor wouldn’t budge.
At that point, reporters started talking about walking out of the news conference before it began (and I took out my cell phone and Twittered the news). Holste went back to the governor’s private offices, and came back with the verdict. Reporters didn’t have to give up their cell phones.
Asked after the news conference about the policy, Nixon communications director Jack Cardetti said he didn’t believe the cell phone policy had anything to do with security.
“The governor believes when meetings are taking place in the oval office .. that everybody should be focused on the task at hand,” Cardetti said, noting that staff and others who are invited to meetings in the governor’s office follow the same policy. But Cardetti said the policy would not apply to the press, many of whom use their cell phones for reporting purposes.
During the news conference, reporters also noticed a new tiny camera above one of the doors. The camera feeds to a screen on a secretary’s desk that allows her to know when meetings have begun or are finished in the office, Cardetti said. He showed curious reporters the screen that captures the feed. The meetings are not recorded, he said.”
As Colonel Klink would say, “Veeeeeery interesting.”
How about, put your cell phones on vibrate or turn them off? And a wee little camera above one of the doors. Curiouser and curiouser.
One of the comments on Messengers’ blog post asks:
“If there is now a camera that is recording or broadcasting all meetings in the Governors office, should not this be covered under the Sunshine Law and allow the feed to be streaming video on the internet so that we, as taxpayers, can see what is happening in the meetings of our governmental officials?”
But back to the cell phones –and I admit to being both slow and naive– why wouldn’t the governor want reporters to have cell phones during press conferences, assuming one doesn’t buy the “let’s stay focused” explanation?
UPDATE: Missourinet reporter Steve Walsh was at the press conference and snapped a photo of the gov’s tiny camera.
“News is being deindustrialized. No factory needed.”
I pulled the following from a recent post on Jeff Jarvis’ Buzz Machine:
“But there is no more one job description – journalist – in one industry – newspapers – with one business model – print advertising – to pay them.
I believe, as I said here, that many slices will make up a new pie: more focused news companies contributing journalism and curation and other value; successful specialist bloggers growing large businesses (Gawker Media, TechCrunch, Silicon Alley Insider); smaller bloggers that are big enough to make them worthwhile to make (BaristaNet); volunteer bloggers and contributors who add to the pie because they care and share; public-supported journalistic activity (Spot.us, ProPublica); crowd-created efforts, and on and on.
Note, though, the verb that started that long sentence: “believe.” I don’t know yet. None of us does until we try and learn and share best practices.
But I am confident that journalism as an activity will not disappear, that there will be a market demand for it, that there are many new ways to fulfill the task (and debate about how it is done). But – bottom line – journalism and journalists will not disappear unless they insist on defining themselves as an industry that operates in just one way . The key to survival is reinventing what we do.”
http://twitter.com/inauguration
A week or so ago I got a ping that @inauguration was following my Twitter feed. I assume they just searched all Twitter feeds for “inauguration” and found me. As I always do, I checked the profile page and found:
“Get tips and helpful scoop as you plan for the Presidential Inauguration on January 20, 2009 when Barack Obama takes the oath of office.”
There was a link to a website but I didn’t click it.
@inauguration has been a great source for news about the upcoming event. With links to lots of news sources.
I finally checked the url on the Twitter page and learned that the feed belongs to WUSA-TV in D.C. Thinking back, a lot of the tweets have taken me to pages on the WSUA website.
We’re they being sneaky by not clearly identifying the TV station? Doesn’t feel that way since I now know they pointed me to a variety of sources for relevant news about the inauguration.
My point here is WSUA didn’t just feed the latest news from the station website. They didn’t just promote their coverage. Someone was smart enough to understand how Twitter really works and use it. Cost: zero.
This will be the norm for any big event. And it won’t always be news organizations doing it. It will often be the event organizers. And should be since they will have the most information and have it first.
Yes, I could have set up a Google Alert for “inauguration” but adding @inauguration to my feed was just one-click.
Seasoned Twitter users will remind me there’s a hash tag (#inauguration) that aggregates tweets from ALL Twitter users, not just one source. True, but there’s a lot of noise in that stream. Takes too long to separate the wheat from the chaff.
And to bring it down to the individual level, I could set up a Twitter page just for my tweets from the event, so that my “followers” aren’t drowned in my tweets from DC. Probably won’t be posting enough for that to be a problem, however.
In conclusion… I quickly determined that the @inauguration Twitter feed had useful and interesting information. I didn’t notice or care who was behind the feed.