Margaret’s 3rd year journalism blog

Yesterday, I read an excellent blog titled It is our fault, posted on 8 October 2008  (http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/10/08/it-is-our-fault/) BuzzMachine author, Jeff Jarvis starts by disputing other media people’s opinions that declining newspaper sales are not the journalism industry’s fault. Jarvis calls “bullshit”, stating that those in the industry should have foreseen the changes that needed to be made for the future and taken advantage of opportunities when they arose. He also disagrees with the comment by the Washington Post’s Paul Fahri, that journalists should not bear the burden of readers losing faith. “He ignores the greater need and opportunity to rethink and reinvent journalism itself.”

He argues, that the online forum does not mean journalism is dead, but simply a changing environment in which we can communicate with an audience, creating networks and utilising links to make the most of the organisation’s content.

I then went to another one of his blogs about business models (http://www.buzzmachine.com/2007/11/12/glam-the-success-of-the-network/), where I found an interesting chart and explanation.

The yellow circle on the left represents a site called iVillage. He explains that the largest circle inside symbolises the ‘junk’ or unsaleable traffic, such as people that came to the site purely for horoscopes.

Glam bought out iVillage and changed its expanded its networking model. The group of smaller circles represent specific information areas such as fashion, teen, beauty, etc. The yellow circles inside each of them represent their own content; however the rest represent independent sites and blogs related to that topic. Jarvis said Glam was successful because it picked quality content from other sites and shared in advertising revenue of their extended network.

Mobile journalism (mojo)
Mobile journalism is on the rise, particularly with the continual evolution of technology. With increasing quality of pictures and videos from mobile phones, even High Definition quality becoming probable over the next few years, it is becoming more practical for news organisations to utilise this newsgathering tool. 

Many organisations around the world have been taking advanctage of mobile journalism. The BBC has been broadcasting mobile stories from around Europe for months and in Norway, people are trained in mojo for the national TV station. According to Stephen Quinn, his contacts with the Daily Telegraph, Reuters and the BBC tell him that they are experimenting with nobile journalism as a newsgathering tool, but it will not replace traditional newsgathering tools.  

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=5WZOW_jHpuU

Mobile Citizen Reporter- Anticipating Orange 2008, mobile solutions companies are releasing and working on more user-generated technologies, further changing the role of mobile phones from simply a phone. Their new technology allows citizens to take good quality photos/videos/stories and send them directly to the content managenent system. They also have developed a copyright clause, which means before the content is sent to the news agency, the citizen agrees to the editor’s terms.  It is likely that as data costs decrease globally, it is likely that this practice will become more common.

Steve Garfield, Mobile video journalist highlights a major benefit of mobile citizen journalism. Video blogger Steve Garfield got a massive scoop with US senator presidential candidate Duncan Hunter announcing that ABC, FOX News and CNN have blanked them out of the last two debates and that he is not going to quit. He beat CNN to the announcement simply because he was there at the right time with his trusty bit of technology.

This week’s reading topic presents both positives and negatives to the new medium at hand. In this case, we’re talking about video blogs. As Jennifer Woodard Maderazo writes, although there are many low quality video blogs that contain unclear and inconsistent content, she found a few blogs that could prove successful in entertaining whilst informing the audience. Video blogging has opened new realms for communicating political, entertainment and lifestyle information.

Her top five include a comedy, technology, and wine video blogs. Rocketboom daily news is also on her list for presenting consistent news content. On this blog site, I watched quite an interesting and animated story about what makes a country a superpower and the United States’ status in the current environment.

Maderazo also uses the example of video blogging providing a great way of getting on-ground information and insights into the lives of the Iraqi people during the war where media coverage is restricted.

It is another mobilised way of broadcasting interviews, reviews and personal experiences- such as a tour of a musician or politician. 

And now that mobile phones with video capability become cheaper, it means the average person can produce their own video blog and chase their own stories.  

I myself have posted my third year journalism video story on Vibewire.net, a site I normally write for.

Stomp Singapore: Citizen journalism on the rise

Citizen journalism is becoming more prominent throughout the globe. Similar to OhMyNews in South Korea, Stomp of Singapore Press Holdings in Singapore has seen a significant take off.

User generated content has become more frequent as the technology in basic commodities such as mobile phones has rapidly improved.

Most images that are sent through to Stomp each day can be found on the site. Some of the more newsworthy images can even be used for one of the SPH newspapers, emphasising that citizen journalism is becoming a part of everyday news. A positive aspect of citizen journalism is that it allows news agencies to gain images and information that would have otherwise been absent.

Similarly this is common for sites like Channel 9 and the BBC where users can contribute photos and which are added to the news ‘In Pictures’ page. An example is these exclusive use generated photos of skaterboarders dangerously riding through Sydney’s Lane Cove tunnel. http://news.ninemsn.com.au/slideshow.aspx?sectionid=6573&subsectionid=146378§ionname=slideshows&subsectionname=skaters

Stomp Deputy Editor, Felix Soh says the site is ‘not serious journalism’. Like many online news websites, it seems to target a younger audience. For example, today the main story on the homepage is about a teenage couple who were kissing for half an hour. It’s accompanied by pictures and a video of the pair frolicking in the park. (http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/singaporeseen/viewContent.jsp?id=35255)

Clearly, although Soh says this allows for journalism that would not normally make it into newspapers, this also highlights the concern that if such sites gain significant ground, the future of quality journalism and hard news is at stake. If such sites targetting young readers with gossip and entertainment type stories prove to be overwhelmingly popular, other news sites will be forced to mimic them and sacrifice real news. This is already a growing issue with entertainment news finding its way more regularly on the home pages of Australian news sites such as The Age.

New Tools: Free Photo Gallery Tools

As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, one of the strengths of the web, is the ability to upload photo galleries. This enables news agencies to depict stories more effectively through a series of frames. Some Flash photo gallery sites have galleries that are appropriate for embedding onto a news website, not simply for networking sites such as MySpace.

Sites such as Slide, Picasa, Picture Trail, BubbleShare and SlideFlickr will do the job. However, as Robert Niles notes in Which is the best free photo gallery editor? Part two, they have varying functions, levels of flexibility and simplicity.

In most cases, you can simply bulk upload your pictures into an album and then the images will run in that order in a slideshow.

He labelled Picasa the number one performer. To upload images, one can choose either a bulk upload interface or five at a time. This site is easy to use and allows you to choose the from five different gallery sizes and add captions.

Slide also allows the user to do all of these things, but he only recommends Slide over Picasa if the gallery sizes available are not suitable.

For Picture Trail he noted that the user has to go through a convoluted process and be bombarded with advertising to register, and for Niles, the process was too tedious to see through to the end.

The highlights for Bubbleshare are its quick image upload function and its more simple registration process. However, Niles wasn’t impressed by the gallery editing which automatically named photos, placed them in the wrong order and offered less gallery size options than Picasa.

New tools for reporting: Storybuilding

The online world makes it easier for journalists to continue storybuilding when news develops throughout the day, week or months following. Essentially the internet enables reporters to add media such as video, audio interviews and even photo galleries of citizen generated images extremely quickly.

For example, the Hurricane Gustav story in today’s news is being regularly updated as such; starting with information on the possibility of interrupting the Republican convention as it approaches, the growing strength of the hurricane, the Governor warning about its consequences and then news of when it hits (along with video and images). There is no doubt this will continue to grow with stories of the aftermath.

One can also use the example of the Melbourne terror trial that went on for around 6 months, where the ABC and most of the commercial networks ‘built’ on previous reportings; i.e. the raids, new evidence, jury deliberations, and then the verdict once it is announced.

Aiming to uphold immediacy, journalists often send photos via their mobile or file their audio stories over the phone. Podcasting and videocasting can also be taken via ipods, mobile phones and small digital cameras and sent quickly to the newsroom.

Now RSS, ‘really simple syndication’ makes its extremely simple for journalists to quickly update their pages and send news out to its readers. Updates are usually brief and new software enables internet users to pull the headlines from favourite online writers and news sources so that they don’t have to filter through the overwhelming abundance of online information.

Gathering information from the online platform raises concerns about quality and credibility of information. Clearly, one has to consider the source of publication, the message being conveyed and the likelihood of the information being accurate. Journalists need to be wary that many pages -some obviously and some not so obviously- are created for marketing purposes. Also, when gathering information from a corporation’s website; for example on profits, we need to read between the lines and ensure information is not being covered up.

The idea of a citizen driven news agency derived from his belief that government information should be readily available to the tax-payers.

The agency gives citizens the ability to set the agenda and have an influential contribution to topics of interest. Extremely successful, the site attracts around 700,000 hits each day. Effectively, the online advertising market is growing, as more and more people get onto the web to read their daily news.

However, critics argue that quality, accuracy, plagiarism and identity issues are risks with this type of journalism. The agency affirms that many stories are cut when quality or value is lacking, identity is checked through a government sponsored program and editors check facts before publication. The agency’s director, Jean Min said the millions of watchful eyes help to keep the integrity of the organisation in check, and therefore eliminate ideas of agenda pushing or avoidance of important issues.

As of mid-2007, the journalist base submitted around 200 stories every day, with the editorial team managing the stories based on quality and newsworthiness. The agency also uploads web video which raises the concern that unskilled citizens are taking on the already multi-skilled role of a video journalist. On the other hand, they may capture hard-hitting news scoops.

The eradication of the journalism profession is another concern; where eventually quality is substituted for quantity. After all, it’s difficult to make a living from, with the news agency paying anywhere from $2 per article to $50 for a top breaking story.

Business models for multimedia journalism

An article in the Herald Sun boasted News Corp’s 57.2% profit lift, with the Wall Street Journal’s pay to view website gaining large amounts of profit with an 80% jump in online subscriptions.

Although, –unlike a newspaper– most people don’t pay to read daily online news, there are many other ways news corporations can reap profits. News organisations are still experimenting with and determining whether it is possible to fund investigtive journalism through an online business model.

Giving something away for free no longer means that money can’t be made. There are many different parties involved in the web of moneymaking, compared to the standard seller and buyer business model.

News sites generally feature a number of banners and listings on every page, whereby the advertising organisation pays the host site, not only for the time featured but per click, per view, per lead or per customer generated. Selling products and services on its website, brand licensing, streaming audio/visual advertising and selling information about consumers are also among the many methods adopted to generate profit.

Therefore, it means the corporations that attract the most traffic to their site, have more chance of making big profits. As mentioned above, news corporations can charge website subscription fees and it’s also common for publications to charge to access archive material.

In today’s market, consumers are a sucker for the word ‘free’ and generally there is a immense difference between ‘free’ and ‘cheap’. For example, it would be likely to see a substantial difference in online news hits if publications started advertising ‘cheap news’.

News corporations have seen the prominence of online news in this era. Therefore, publications will continue to experiment with making profit while evolving this medium.

It is important to establish a way to make a profit, before quality journalism is wiped out. This debate has heightened since Fairfax’s job cuts which are fashioned around the evolving news environment. Brownyn Clune, creator of Australian citizen journalism site PerthNorg argues that those sacked should get over it and join the new world of individualistic journalism. (http://www.bronwenclune.com/2008/09/01/a-letter-to-love-striken-fairfax-journalists/) But critics argue it is Fairfax’s responsibility to adapt to the new environment, while maintaining quality investigative journalism.

Multimedia storytelling

Multimedia stories use a variety of media to portray a message, pushing the boundaries of traditional print, radio and video journalist roles. New age journalists require the ability to write, interview, frame an image, film action shots, edit and put the story together.

Many online news sites take advantage of multimedia stories to provide the consumer with an abundance of information. For example, with stories on www.bbc.co.uk, you’ll often find:

• A written story
• A video of the news story
• A video (or sometimes audio) of an interview with a key player in the story
• A timeline
• The story ‘In Pictures’ (often pictures provided by citizens)
• Links to past/related articles
• Links to profiles of the countries involved
• Links to related websites (could be government or organisation)
• A poll

For example, most of these mediums are used in the London Bombings coverage on the site:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/uk/2005/london_explosions/default.stm

This allows the site visitor to get a much more comprehensive insight into the story than what is available in the newspaper or in a 30 second TV news story.

When a reporter sets out to create a story for the web, they need to utilise their video camera not only to capture interviews, events and surroundings but still images and audio- so their material can be used for all types of stories. Preparing for such a story involves extensive research so that one can have a storyboard prepared and a good idea of how their multimedia story can be constructed before they start shooting.