Kcb101 productive citizens and journalism

Journalism in the new economy productive citizens and journalism Barry Saunders KCB101 [email_address] http://investigativeblog.net http://qlddecides.com

Me
QUT CI PhD student, ARC Linkage Citizen Journalism project - http://youdecide2007.org
http://qlddecides.com
Founding member Brisbane Indymedia (now defunct)
Project Director Convergent Community Newsroom – http://ccnonline.org.au
Background in activism and media production: http://vibewire.net , http://newstandardnews.net ,

Video links
Please be aware these links will begin playing the video - I advise you watch these at home to avoid wiping out your QUT download limit!

Common narratives about journalism
The kids don’t watch the news
Online classifieds are destroying the newspaper business
Quality journalism no longer exists
Company mergers are putting journalists under pressure
Bloggers are parasites who feed off hard working journalists

The kids don’t watch the news
They may not watch the network news, but consume news via:
Websites / blogs / comedy programs / mobile media / free papers / web portals / podcasts
Ubiquitous media
People who watch Jon Stewart and read news online are more informed than those who watch Fox News and network news
People today are as informed as in the 80s

The Chaser Vs Fox News http://youtube.com/watch?v=NPr5IPRhiZ4

Classifieds
Craigslist has affected newspapers
However newspapers as a business are still strong financially - the concern is that investors can’t see a way forward even though they are still making massive profits
Should newspapers be publicly traded?

Newspaper revenues http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2008/03/of-fly-eyes-and.html

PBS - News War http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/ Worth a watch if you’re interested, part 3 is probably the most relevant for this lecture.

Quality journalism no longer exists
Depends what you mean by quality
This is often an aesthetic complaint made by older journalists who don’t think personal ‘feminized’ journalism is journalism
Even so - in the last few years we have seen journalism that exposed:
GW Bush’s drug history
Rape in the armed services
The illegality of the war in Iraq
The complicity of AT&T in wide ranging spying on American citizens
The use of spurious charges brought against critics of the Bush government
Numerous cases of corruption

The power of the press
The Watergate story, while important, pales in significance against some of these. The difference is governments now understand that public opinion has little to no power except during an election cycle- just look at the response to the massive anti-Iraq war protests. This is a change in how politicians respond to journalism, not journalism itself.
Business journalism, by contrast, remains very powerful.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate

Investigative journalism
Now often undertaken by non-journalists
http://Sourcewatch.org
http://Publicintegrity.org
http://Thememoryhole.org
Note also: 4 Corners, Dateline, Rolling Stone

Company mergers are putting journalists under pressure
This is true, as with any business
Downside of the portfolio career
Newspaper journalists at smaller papers often have to write up to 13 stories a day
Broadcast journalists now have to do video, radio and print in some organisations
New skillsets are important - ABC now employs ‘user-generated content producers’
Journalists may have to follow the example of programmers

Bloggers are parasites who feed off hard working journalists
It’s a two way street
Journalists may use blogs to find sources, leads, story ideas, instead of doing a beat
Fox News has programs based on what the blogs are saying
Often stories are stolen wholesale
Blogs often do the hard work of correcting and contextualising stories for free
Blogs add to the conversation - expand coverage beyond talking heads
Professional jealousy, fear, moral panics, incompetence
Death of the punditocracy
“ We understand Newspoll because we own it”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/09/27/2045115.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/09/2086436.htm

John Stewart vs Crossfire Video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE Transcript: http://mediamatters.org/items/200410160003

Blogs and the news
Blogs played key roles in the U.S. Presidential primaries (even if the world’ s first mainstream blogger-candidate Howard Dean crashed back to earth when the broadcast media joined the party); bloggers were invited to cover the national conventions of both Democrats and Republicans; and blogs also played a significant role in reporting unfolding world events from the London underground to the streets of Iraq, to the shores of Indonesia and Thailand. CNN, BBC, newspapers and other mainstream media now regularly turn to the blogosphere to gauge public opinion on controversial issues, and this coverage of w hat the bloggers are saying has begun to replace the traditional vox-pop interview with the person in the street. (Bruns and Jacobs, 2006)
Blogs provide a way for young people to enter into public debate and the newsmaking process that is no longer offered by mainstream journalism

News blogging
Participatory form of journalism
Expands the coverage of news
Allows non-experts to take depart in discourse
Also allows experts to explain issues in detail - economists, scientists, doctors, etc
a scarcity of quality economic analysis and a conservative political climate in the US has restricted the economic coverage of major media to supply-side ‘voodoo economics’. This has led numerous economists to publish their work online. (Quiggin, 2006)
Mainstream news doesn’t deal with youth issues well either - youth need their own voice

Fox and Friends fight over soundbite culture and fact distortion http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiIK8jh3ZCE

News consumption
Industry recognition of move to online/incidental/ubiquitous consumption
Remember - media companies don’t sell content to readers, they sell readers to advertisers
Murdoch - Myspace purchase, Microsoft - Facebook.com
Brisbanetimes.com.au - first completely online mainstream newspaper in Australia
Fairfax and News Corp putting blogs on their websites
Conflict between newspaper editors and journalists and company owners
Search for business model - high rate of failure in startups. Youtube/Myspace/mobile content - difficulty finding profit
More accurate metrics for online advertising - Tivo effect
Cheap outrage easier to produce than investigative journalism

CNNNN - A Chaser Affair http://youtube.com/watch?v=jHso1e6NY90

Citizen Journalism
Definition - somewhat broad, contested
What is a citizen?
Used to refer to media produced by non-professionals, or in a non-professional capacity
‘ user generated content’ ‘user led production’
Media made by non-journalists
Includes things like: blogs, podcasts, Youtube

Models of citizen journalism
1. Opening articles up to feedback
2. Citizen add-on reporter
3. Open-source or participatory reporting
4. The citizen bloghouse
5. Newsroom citizen 'transparency' blogs
6. The stand-alone citizen-journalism site: Edited version
7. The stand-alone citizen-journalism site: Unedited version
8. Add a print edition
9. pro-am hybrid
10. integrating citizen and professional journalism
11. wiki journalism, or readers as editors
(Outing, 2005)

Criticisms of citizen journalism
Is it journalism? (well, what is journalism?)
Is journalism: about writing? About research? About doing interviews?
Are bloggers journalists?
Possibly a better question: does blogging contribute to the practice of journalism?
Does journalism need help?
Who determines what is news? Journalism?
Does anyone care except journalists?

The computer wore menace shoes - the Simpsons Kent: A new Internet watchdog is creating a stir in Springfield. Mr. "X", if that is real name, has come up with a sensational scoop. Homer: [watching at home] Darn tooting! Kent: But we must never forget that the real news is on local TV, delivered by real officially licensed newsmen, like me, Kent Brockman. Coming up: how do they get those dogs to talk on the beer commercials? [a reporter in a big cowboy hat appears] Cowboy Steve will tell you!

Other terms
Userled production:
Production is driven by users: examples include Youtube, blogs, video game mods
Hyperlocal
read-write web
Internet sites that allow readers to contribute, edit: examples include blogs, wikis
produsers /produsage
Combination of producers and users - used to describe the complex ways people interact with media online
(Bruns, 2005)

Gatewatching
Differs from gatekeeping -
Gatekeepers only publish what they think is relevant/important
Gatewatchers point to all relevant information, with differing levels of emphasis - allows the reader more agency
ABC/News Corp/Netscape now employing people to do this

The Mullet strategy
Combination of user generated content and editor control
E.g.: http: //digg .com http: //myspace .com
“ Business up the front, party out the back”
Pro-am engagement -
http: //OhMyNews .com
http: //Newassignment .net

Redactive journalism, or cut ‘n paste ‘n comment
Redactive journalism - journalism that is made of editing - making sense of information that is publicly available
We now live in a world where we have too much info rather than not enough - simply adding more information to public discourse is no longer the most important function of journalism
Problem with the Narrative of Decline - assumes a perfect form of journalism, without recognizing that journalism changes as society changes
… the continuing trend in journalism away from investigative reporting and toward pundit commentary also makes blog-based commentary on the news highly compatible with mainstream news content.
(Bruns, 2006)

Redactive journalism
PZ Myers blog: http: //scienceblogs . com/pharyngula
Tim Lambert
http: //scienceblogs .com/deltoid/
Do exemplary redactive journalism that exposes scientific fraud simply by examining publicly available documents
IF Stone did the same thing during the Vietnam War

Daily Show - America to the Rescue Video: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/08/23/daily-show-three-generations-of-america-to-the-rescue/

Hyperlocal journalism
Coverage of local issues that are not profitable
Political issues are often rooted in a local context
http://youdecide2007.org
http: //qlddecides .com

New forms of journalism and engagement
All of the information necessary to understand the massive fraud at Enron was publicly available
Changing forms of journalism - Wired magazine database mashup of Myspace and public sex offender registries
Recognition that journalism needs skill sets not ordinarily associated with journalists
E.g.: US scholarships for journalists to learn programming
Bloggers may not do interviews - but an entry about medical quackery may have 200 commenters offering their perspective - many of whom are doctors, biologists, scientists, etc
Coverage of under-served areas

Major source of news and media
Voices not otherwise heard in mainstream media
Pushing the boundaries of debate (both left and right)
Allows misquoted/misrepresented people to have their say
Coverage of important stories outside of media’s coverage
Random acts of journalism:
Little Green Footballs: fake documents, Dan Rather
Left blogs, Trent Lott and Strom Thurmond
Often involves amplification, follow up reporting and analysis.
Dedicated reportage:
Indymedia: police violence, corruption
TPM Muckraker: firing of US attorneys
TheMemoryhole.org: classified documents, photos of returning American coffins

Forms of citizen journalism
Blogs /journals: Boingboing / LP / Troppo
collaborative news sites: Slashdot / digg
Vlogs/citizen video: Youtube /
Podcasts: Rocketboom / NYUB
More traditional portal style: Vibewire
Corporations also using these formats:
SBS / ABC / QUT
Brisbane Times / News Corp

Social media
Includes citizen media, blogs
Also includes social networks
http: //myspace .com / http: //linkedin .com
‘ folksonomies’
Social linking
http://del. icio .us / http: //digg .com

Web 2.0
The read-write web
The next generation of web-based services
Term coined by O’Reilly Media as name for a series of conferences
Somewhat misleading as implies discrete generations of the web
- Web 2.0 video from Youtube

Web 2.0 - technical
A move from web made up of linked pages to a web made up of linked data sources
This means - formatting is not fixed
Also means - data sources are not necessarily text - eg: http: //frappr .com / http://pipes.yahoo.com
Uses AJAX (asynchronous java and xml)
RSS (real simple syndication)
CSS (cascading style sheets)

The Machine is Us/ing Us http://mediatedcultures.net/ksudigg/?p=84 http://youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g

Blogs
Blog - shortened form of web - log
Usage: I have a blog, I blog, I’m a blogger.
Not: I wrote a blog today. (blog entry or blog post)
Often: one author
May be based on a single theme.

blogs
Numerous forms
Personal blogs:
http: //livejournal .com / http: //dooce .com
Political blogs
http: //timblair .net / http: //johnquiggin .com / http: //dneiwert . blogspot .com/
Corporate blogs
http: //scobleizer .com/ / http://www. blogmaverick .com/
Science blogs
http: //scienceblogs . com/pharyngula/ / http: //badscience .net

More blogs
Randomness
http: //boingboing .net / http: //kottke .org
Feminism
http: //feministing .com / http: //pandagon .net
Food
http: //megnut .com / http: //glutenfreegirl . blogspot .com

Even more blogs
Gossip
http: //thesuperficial .com / http: //perezhilton .com
Tech
http: //gizmodo .com / http: //engadget .com
Video games
http: //kotaku .com / http: //joystiq .com
Education
http: //whatswrongwiththejschool . blogspot .com/

Characteristics of blogs
Personal tone
Often short entries (notable exceptions)
Use of quotes and links
RSS
Comments, trackback

Popular blog services
Livejournal
Blogger
Typepad
Wordpress

Issues with blogging
Privacy - youtube, facebook, livejournal
Getting a job afterwards…
Licensing - open source, Creative Commons, copyright
Rampant use of quotes and copying of material
Libel
Storage and archiving

Kcb101 productive citizens and journalism

by Barry Saunders

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