Reportr.net

Icon

Making sense of the intersection between media, society and technology

July 31, 2007 • 8:54 am 0

Another broadcaster doesn’t get citizen journalism

ITV graphicThe main commercial news broadcaster in the UK, ITV News, has jumped on the citizen journalism bandwagon.

It has launched a project, dubbed Uploaded, which lets people post photos or video clips ITN’s site responding to a “debate of the day” set by the broadcaster

According to ITV news editor, Deborah Turness:

Other TV services such as reality shows have connected with viewers but news has remained a one-way street in a two-way world

Looking at the detail of the initiative, it is clear that this is a very narrow street. ITV News will decide what the audience should be talking about. And how much air time is it going to give to material from the public? Well, the Uploaded segment within the news bulletins is likely to be about 60 seconds.

As Paul Bradshaw points out, ITV’s approach is “the old ‘charitable gesture’ approach to citizen journalism”. Here’s his suggestion for ITV News:

Stop recycling old formats for new media. Stop treating the audience’s contribution like an ‘And Finally’ section. Start understanding how interactivity works: it’s about giving control to the user. Giving control over subject matter. Giving control over time. Giving control over ranking. I’m not suggesting getting rid of editorial roles entirely, but if you’re going to do something like this, for God’s sake do it properly.

It is frustrating to see how mainstream media is trying to incorporate material from the public, without understanding that this is about sharing control of the news agenda. It is about moving from a “we write, you read” model, to one where news organisations work with audiences to provide a more rounded view of the world.

Filed under: Web 2.0, broadcast, citizen journalism, journalism, user-generated content

July 30, 2007 • 8:23 am 1

$10.6m vote of confidence in crowd powered news

The Vancouver-based “citizen journalism” site, NowPublic, has attracted US$10.6m from a range of venture capital firms. According to co-founder and CEO Leonard Brody, large media companies were interested in buying up NowPublic, but the company decided to stay independent.

NowPublic logoThe influx of cash can be seen as a vote of confidence in the site, coming after the demise of similar sites such as Backfence and Bayosphere. By comparison, NowPublic has 119,000 contributors in 140 countries, funding and a high-profile deal with the Associated Press.

NowPublic sees itself as a “bridge between traditional and new media with its unique methods of crowd-sourcing news events” and is aiming to be “the largest news network in the world with more people on the ground in the right places and at the right times”.

So what is NowPublic doing right? Its success raises doubts over the idea of hyperlocal sites, says Brody:

I’m not a believer in local anymore. I used to think that hyperlocal was what mattered to people, but for 35 and under especially, the concept of local is very different. Like Facebook publishing the news feed… it’s changed from hyperlocal to hyperpersonal.

This is an challenging concept for journalism. After all, newspapers by definition are generic news products, designed to appeal to a wide audience. Or they tend to be local or regional newspapers, with a community defined by geography. By contrast, the trend, both in TV and online, has been towards a fragmentation of the audience into smaller and smaller niches. And the internet undermines the idea of geography.

Is the future of news the hyperpersonal?

Filed under: Vancouver, Web 2.0, citizen journalism, crowdsourcing, journalism, news, personalisation, user-generated content

July 27, 2007 • 9:37 pm 1

The worst celebrity TV interview ever?

ABC’s Merry Miller interviews actress Holly Hunter about an upcoming TV show:

(Via Lost Remote)

Filed under: YouTube, broadcast, television, video

July 26, 2007 • 2:18 pm 0

Are TV studios using BitTorrent to generate hype?

A whole bunch of new television shows have popped up on the file-sharing system BitTorrent ahead of their airing on US networks. The shows include The Sarah Connor Chonicles, Pushing Daisies, Californication, Reaper, and Chuck.

Most are set to debut soon. But the leak of The Sarah Connor Chronicles is the odd one of the bunch. It is a show that is bound to appeal to fans of The Terminator, but it is not scheduled to launch until next year.

So some are speculating this supposedly “massive leak” of preview and review DVDs may not be the work of piracy. Rather, could it be an attempt by TV networks to get the hype going ahead of broadcast?

After all having the remake of Battlestar Galactica appear on the the internet before it aired on the SciFi Channel in the US did it more good than harm.

Filed under: Bittorrent, broadcast, internet

July 24, 2007 • 12:45 pm 2

Free textbook to survive as an online journalist

Students heading into journalism school this autumn should get their hands on a new textbook, offered for free at the Knight Citizen News Network website.

“Journalism 2.0″ by journalist Mark Briggs from the News Tribune in Tacoma, Washington, is available as a PDF download.

It is next on my list to read, covering subjects such as reporting for the web, podcasting, shooting photos and video and an introduction to Web 2.0 technologies.

Given that it is available gratis, there is no excuse for students not to have this on their reading list.

Filed under: Web 2.0, broadcast, citizen journalism, journalism, multimedia, multiplatform journalism, newspapers, podcast

July 23, 2007 • 8:30 am 1

The 45 best free tools for image editing

One of the challenges facing journalism schools and small news organisations is the price of the multimedia software.

Journalists now need a range of software tools to be able to work across text, images, audio and video. The costs can quickly mount up for just a few basic programs such as Photoshop, either CS or the more affordable Elements.

If you are on a tight budget, there are freeware alternatives. For audio, Audacity springs to mind. As for images and design, the Snap2objects blog has put together a handy list of the 45 best freeware design programs on the web.

It is a fairly exhaustive list, covering everything from image editing to illustration and 3d modeling. Chances are that most reporters will not need more than the image editing software. But some may want to branch out and try different approaches to presenting the news using these tools.

(Via Lifehacker)

Filed under: journalism, multimedia, new media , ,

July 20, 2007 • 5:26 pm 1

An insight into how Google could shake-up television

At a time when established TV networks are struggling to work out what their future might look like, Google has a radical idea of where TV is going.

Speaking at at iTV Con, a conference about Internet TV,
Vincent Dureau, Google’s head of TV technology, applied the net giant’s approach to television.

As we all know, television is facing an identity crisis – lots more niche channels, Youtube, DVRs. This means that it is far harder to reach such a fragmented audience. According to Dureau, audience fragmentation is a good thing for advertising, if you apply Google thinking to the problem.

With more specialized channels, you can actually insert more relevant content that’s more likely to reach the intended audience. You can actually make more money, because you can increase the relevancy of your ads. You can cut down on the number of ads – and still reach more people. At the end of the day, you’re changing the attitude of the consumer. They’ve reached a point where they expect the ad to be relevant and they’re more likely to watch it.

Analysing the comments and Google’s recent moves towards video, Last100 suggests that the company is quietly working to put the Google “ecosystem” behind TV, just like it is behind the web.

TV executives should have restless nights. Google has changed the way use the Internet. Imagine what it could do to television.

Filed under: Google, Web 2.0, YouTube, broadcast, innovation, new media, online, television

July 19, 2007 • 12:02 am 7

The similarities between the BBC and the Pope

It has been a bad couple of days for the BBC, with its admission that several phone-in competitions were faked.

The response in the press has been outrage, with headlines such as “They’re bear faced cheats” in The Sun, or The Daily Mail talking about “The shaming of the BBC“.

There is no doubt that this is a serious issue and BBC producers were wrong to have deceived audiences. But looking at the media gives the impression that this is a systemic problem at the corporation.

According to Jeremy Hunt, the Tory culture spokesman:

Mark Thompson has uncovered a hornets’ nest of deception at what was Britain’s most trusted broadcaster.

A hornets’ nest of deception? This makes for a catchy soundbite but how far does it reflect the reality of life at the BBC.

We should step back and take a more considered look at what happened. The BBC identified deceptions at six competitions out of the many thousands across its TV, radio and online output. Perhaps other cases will be discovered in the coming weeks.

But to suggest that the organisation as a whole is rotten is just ridiculous. What is interesting is why there has been such outrage at the fiasco at the BBC.

Simply put, the BBC is considered to be the paragon of everything that is good about Britain. It is assumed to be infallible, much like the Pope. There is no scope for failure, for making mistakes.

The chairman of the BBC Trust, Sir Michael Lyons, summed up this attitude when he said on BBC Radio Four that the corporation was held to higher standards than other media outlets.

I am not arguing that the BBC should relax its standards. It should lead the way in setting the bar for quality and trust.

Instead of bashing the BBC, we should try to find out what happened. The Times TV critic Andrew Billen offered a measured assessment. In his views, the problems:

suggest that a maverick culture, already rampant in the independent sector, has spread to many corners of the BBC. Young people, barely trained and under-supervised, have made a mockery of the standards that are supposed to be uniquely held by the nation’s prime public service broadcaster.

Ironically, the communications watchdog has lambasted broadcasters for “systemic failures” for their management of premium-rate telephone competitions. It is clear that there is a major problem with the way these competitions are handled across the media, not just at the BBC.

Filed under: BBC, broadcast, journalism, news, television, trust

July 18, 2007 • 10:28 am 0

Why newspapers need to take a digital leap of faith

If you are in the news business, be prepared to spend, spend, spend in digital media before making any money.

At least that’s the view of Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger. Appearing before a UK parliamentary committee into media ownership, he gave this assessment of the future:

For at least ten years we are going to have to have an act of faith and pump money into digital markets without significant return

Rusbridger talked about how the two main sources of revenue, circulation and classifieds were disappearing. This led to what he called a “spiral of decline”, as newspaper owners then cut back on editorial so there was less to read.

His newspaper, The Guardian, is aggressively moving into the digital realm. Ultimately, Rusbridger believes, the financial climate for news will change, “because societies need news, web-based models will spring up”.

This assessment is spot on. News organisations should be investing in new ways of reaching the public, exploring new models of journalism. And yes, this requires a leap of faith.

The other option is to slowly die by a thousand cuts.

Filed under: Web 2.0, citizen journalism, innovation, journalism, new media, news, newspapers

July 17, 2007 • 1:30 am 1

Why a failed experiment in crowdsourcing was a success

Wired has given its assessment of its Assignment Zero crowdsourcing project with NewAssignment.net.

The project, which launched in January, has been closely followed by many interested in developing new models of professional-amateur journalism.

The verdict by Wired contributing editor Jeff Howe is that Assignment Zero had proved more valuable as an experiment in discovering the pitfalls of crowdsourcing, rather than as an exercise in journalism.

In the 12 weeks the project was open to the public, it suffered from haphazard planning, technological glitches and a general sense of confusion among participants. Crucial staff members were either forced out or resigned in mid-stream, and its ambitious goal — to produce “the most comprehensive knowledge base to date on the scope, limits and best practices of crowdsourcing” — had to be dramatically curtailed in order to yield some tangible results when Assignment Zero ended on June 5.

So what went wrong? Partly it was due to the choice of topic for Assignment Zero. As Howe admits, “the topic of crowdsourcing was too nebulous”. It would have been better to have chosen a more inclusive topic, such as healthcare or schooling, which might have attracted a wider pool of contributors.

The other key lesson from Assignment Zero is that even a crowd needs some leadership to organise the masses. As Howe says:

Baffled by the overarching concept of crowdsourcing, confused by the design of the website and unable to connect directly to a manager or organizer, most of the initial volunteers simply drifted away.

Journalists may be relieved to here Wired say that as the project reached its conclusion, “Assignment Zero began to resemble a professional journalism outfit”. It seems clear that there is a still a need for news professionals to make sense of the wealth of information from the crowd.

Despite all these limitations, Wired described it as “a highly satisfying failure”. This is perhaps the greatest lesson from the project. Failure does not mean something was not worth doing. Quite the opposite, failure provides a invaluable learning process.

The lesson here for journalism is not so much whether crowdsourcing works, but that failure is not something to be scared of. For journalism to thrive in the future, there is a need for more experimentation, more failure, and ultimately, more successes.

As Howe concludes, “let the experiments continue.

Filed under: NewAssignment.net, Web 2.0, citizen journalism, crowdsourcing, journalism ,

Add to Technorati Favorites
Locations of visitors to this page
Alfred Hermida
About the author
More at: Alfred Hermida's website

Recent tweets