Category Archives: Journalism

“News is being deindustrialized. No factory needed.”

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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

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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.

Google CEO would save newspapers if he could

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Google CEO Eric Schmidt on the plight of newspapers:

“They don’t have a problem of demand for their product, the news. People love the news. They love reading, discussing it, adding to it, annotating it. The Internet has made the news more accessible. There’s a problem with advertising, classifieds and the cost itself of a newspaper: physical printing, delivery and so on. And so the business model gets squeezed.”

And what if the newspaper industry does go down?

“To me this presents a real tragedy in the sense that journalism is a central part of democracy. And if it can’t be funded because of these business problems, then that’s a real loss in terms of voices and diversity. And I don’t think bloggers make up the difference. The historic model of investigative journalists in any industry is something that is very fundamental. So the question is, what can you do about this? And a fair statement is, we’re still looking for the right answer.”

We’d be in deep doo doo if we had to rely on bloggers from the news. I wish we could get a tax credit for contributions to news organizations. A much better use of my money than funding campaigns.

It looks like TV to me

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From PoynterOnline’s  Al’s Morning Meeting (Al Tompkins):

“Monday morning, WTSP-TV anchor/reporter Janie Porter was on TV, reporting live from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., on the run-up to this week’s national college football championship game. She didn’t have a big live truck accompanying her, or an engineer tuning in a shot or a photojournalist standing behind the camera and setting up lights.”

“Porter set up her own camera, opened her laptop, connected the camera to her computer, slipped a wireless connection card into her laptop, called up Skype and used her Blackberry to establish IFB (the device TV folks wear in their ears to hear the off-air signal). It all looked just great on air.”

So here’s my question: If a reporter didn’t know how to do what Janie did, why wouldn’t he or she make some effort to learn it? If you answered, “I’m not a TV reporter,” go to the back of the line.

Tweeting the legislature and state government

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There are several reasons why a reporter covering the state legislature wouldn’t use Twitter to complement their MSM work:

  • Don’t have time
  • Don’t have access to net
  • Against the House/Senate rules
  • Don’t see value
  • Don’t have laptop or text-enabled phone

…and I’m sure there are others. But with state legislatures coming back into session, I believe this is the year we’ll see Twitter used to cover floor debate, committee hearings, and general under-the-dome gossip.

And I’d look for a flood of Twitter feeds from special interest groups, putting their own 140 character spin on legislation and state government.

Our company has provided live audio feeds of floor debate from the Missouri House and Senate since 2001 (2000?). What we have NOT been able to provide was audio from the committee hearings which, I’m told, is where all the action takes place.

We’ve made repeated attempts to get a live audio stream out of those committee hearing rooms but could never get past the technical/political obstacles. (Translation: the folks in charge would rather NOT have live coverage of the hearings)

But this year there will be folks sitting in the back with iPhones and Twitter pages, clicking away. Initially, these will be savvy folks on one or both sides of the legislation being discussed. And, yes, they’ll be putting their own spin on what’s being said.

With-it news organizations will be using Twitter to cover state legislatures. I did a real quick search and came up with @matt_stiles, a reporter for the Houston Chronicle bureau in Austin, TX. The political parties are all over Twitter: @colosengop is the Twitter page for the Colorado Republican Caucus and @iahousedemocrat promises “short updates on what’s going on inside the caucus and with action on the floor.” @nebraskagov is the “official Twitter feed” for the state of Nebraska.

If you’re aware of others, hit the comment link because I’d like to see what others are doing with Twitter in this space.

UPDATE: In January and February of 2010 we began experimenting with streaming video from committee hearings.

Internet overtakes newspapers as news source

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From latest Pew Research Center Survey:

“Currently, 40% say they get most of their news about national and international issues from the internet, up from just 24% in September 2007. For the first time in a Pew survey, more people say they rely mostly on the internet for news than cite newspapers (35%).

For young people, however, the internet now rivals television as a main source of national and international news. Nearly six-in-ten Americans younger than 30 (59%) say they get most of their national and international news online; an identical percentage cites television. In September 2007, twice as many young people said they relied mostly on television for news than mentioned the internet (68% vs. 34%).”

Radio gained a little ground (from September 2007 to December 2008) among young people (18-29), up from 13% to 18%.

In this essay, Terry Heaton argues that just surviving is not a strategy:

“This theme of surviving 2009 is everywhere, but I’d like to pose an important question for anybody so hunkered, hanging, waiting or rowing, because waiting it out assumes “it” will end and that there will be a reward for those who are still standing when “it” is over. I’m not so sure, so here’s the question: What if the old model is gone for good and it doesn’t come back?”

UPDATE 12/26/08: A number of folks have accuratelty pointed out that a LOT of the news on the Net comes from newspapers. Worth noting but doesn’t solve any of the problems facing newspapers. If it comes down to getting less news (volume and variety) online or buying a copy of the Daily Bugle, online is gonna win. Business models will evlove that will support quality reporting w/o the overhead of current publishing models.

ABC News iPhone app

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From LifeHacker: “The latest entry into news-based iPhone apps, ABC News offers top stories, location-specific news alerts, and videos from shows like Good Morning America and 20/20.”

What does this mean for local ABC affiliates? Why won’t every news organization offer an app like this? Will I still turn on the ABC World News when I get home in the evening, or will I already have seen the news?

Taking the “paper” out of “newspaper”

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“The American Society of Newspaper Editors is planning to remove “paper” from its name and expand its membership to include editors of online-only news Web sites and journalism educators.” — CyberJournalist.net.

I’ve scratched my head on this one –as it pertains to radio– in numerous posts. What is radio? Gotta have a tower and transmitter? An FCC license? Is an Internet station with 100,000 listeners not “radio,” while a small-town AM station with 10,000 listeners is “radio?”

Please take out your Blue Books and write a 500 page essay on: Defining Radio in the 21st Century. Begin.

“News has cooties”

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Jeff Jarvis recalls "the golden age" of newspapers when "cities had many papers, many voices, many views, and papers still spoke for and with the people." And that's where we're headed again with the internet but "now it's the people talking."

"I have no doubt that there is a sustainable business in local news. The problem is that, at least for the present, the current and former owners of local news ruined it. Thanks to them, news has cooties."

Online advertising

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“The Tribune Company owns businesses (which) make money by placing ads in between (broadcast) or alongside (print) scarce content. That model, I’m afraid, is dying for two reasons. One, content isn’t scarce anymore. Two, advertisers have other, cheaper ways of reaching the people formerly known as the audience. I’m not sure there’s any form of government help that can protect traditional media from that.”

— Terry Heaton on Tribune bankruptcy

“This change has been more like seeing oncoming glaciers ten miles off, and then deciding not to move.”

— Clay Shirky