The recently released test site for News Mixer is a tool for discussing news and posting your own. The focus is on Eastern Iowa - the project is a collaboration between the Medill School for Journalism’s Crunchberry project and Gazette Communications in Cedar Rapids. So it’s not - atleast not yet - a global or even nation-wide service. But it’s attracting interest because it’s quite cleverly set up. It plugs into Facebook though Facebook Connect, so when you’ve connected your account, you can see who of your Facebook contacts are on News Mixer and follow their actions on the site.
The site has received a lot of love in the comments in the sidebar. What I like most about it is the way that any story can be scrutinized paragraph by paragraph by adding questions and answers, thus providing a tool for collaborative fact-checking and discussion about the validity of statements. It is also a social tool, letting me know when my contacts have been active on the site. And it flattens the news hierarchy (though not completely - you cannot add questions or answers to stories posted by users, and those are limited to 250 words). The news can come from traditional news stories or from other members (through letters to the editor), questions can be posed by anyone, replied by anyone (not just the reporter/writer) and anyone can comment.
it harnesses the credibility of an established media company, leverages existing online social networks and gives people a constructive way to interact with each other and the news.
Comments, called quips in News Mixer lingo, are limited to 140 characters, making them similar to microblogging posts.
And, last but not least, it’s open source. So Eastern Iowa will be the first site in what will probably be a long number of local and national efforts. Looking forward to see this evolve. I hope to see a Swedish site not too far off in the future.
This is a conversation with Sandra Jakob about online journalism, transparency, the future way of publishing on the web and the need to inspire colleagues to explore and to use the internet.
Sandra Jakob works as an online journalist at hd.se. Helsingborgs Dagblad is a daily newspaper situated in the south of Sweden, in Helsingborg.
CMW: What are you thoughts about the editorial work at HD in the future. Do you think you will have to change the way you work and think differently about the way you are publishing your content?
Sandra thinks that they have to start to think about how to publish the news, based on the type of content, instead of the editorial staff.
– The process of integrating the different channels into each other will be more important. I think that it will somehow be the ultimate test to see which newspaper that will make it out of this big crisis that we are in, that everybody is so afraid of.
– If we are starting to think about how we are going to, all together, work towards a goal of reaching out with our information and news. Then we are going to be successful, Sandra says.
CMW: Why are journalists avoiding to embrace the internet and use it the way it can be used? Is it about fear, laziness or convenience?
Sandra does not think it is laziness and it is not the lack of journalistic confidence. She thinks it is about fear. Not knowing how to use the technical tools and how to communicate on the web.
– You just have to somehow go over the threshold and try it once for yourself and see that you can’t ruin everything. We have backup systems, she says.
Sandra thinks that the biggest challenge of reaching out to a journalist who is not used to working with the internet, is to show them that it is not dangerous. It is not going to make them look stupid. That it is going to help them and that is going to change the way they will go about their work in the future.
– People that are very humble and say that: ”I don’t know this but I’m willing to learn,” that’s an amazing start. If I just get that, I am very happy, she says.
When Sandra teaches her colleagues at hd.se how to use the blog tool, they sit down and walk it through step by step. After trying it out for themselves for a while, they do think it is so much fun and easy. She believes that you should not be afraid of the blogs just because the word blog is misused by a lot of people, it is an information source like everything else.
Sandra Jakob and Joakim Jardenberg had this conversation (in Swedish) on her first day at work.
[Roughly translated]: The conversation, which contained nine parts of laughter and one part of seriousness (before the editing) was about why journalists should blog, why user generated content is a good thing and a little about where Rubbet is heading. [Published at mindpark.se 2008 03 06]
Joakim asked Sandra if she could come up with a more suitable word for the concept user generated content. She promised to think about it.
CMW repeated that question and asked her if she had managed to find a better word for the interchange of content and information:
Sandra has thought about it but she thinks it is hard to find a new word, because it is user generated content. Even though she does not like the word user.
- They are people that we work with, because they send us their pictures and their movies. They call us and give us information, she says.
Sandra believes that user generated content is the best terminology at the moment.
In the Mindpark sofa, Sandra also talked about the need of linking to the blog, as the original source of the news or the conversation.
CMW asked her if she still thinks it is the way to work. Does hd.se link to bloggers and external sites?
– Yes, I still think it is is the only way to go, Sandra says.
Sandra think it is important to pick up subjects that people are talking about and that it is important to give credit to the person that wrote about it on her/his blog. She thinks that if they start a conversation about the subject, it will only benefit the newspaper in the future. Sandra hopes that people will see that the newspaper do respect their work and what they are doing and that they do want to be in contact with them.
Sandra has not yet any example of a local blogger that has been creating any news for hd.se, but she does hope that it will happen soon. But they have been writing about bloggers and the internet.
– Then we are always make sure that we do link back to the person that we are writing about, she says.
CMW: The web is about conversations and expressing personal thoughts. Do you think that journalists should be more open with their personal opinions?
Sandra has an example from hd.se sports blog Sportbloggen. In the beginning they were only linking to funny YouTube clips.
– It did generate a lot of ha ha-comments, but it is nothing that will draw attention in the end, Sandra says.
She advised them to have a personal opinion. If they can have that in a column in the newspaper they can have that on a blog too.
– But, you have to think about it. What am I comfortable with saying? Can I stand for this?, Sandra says.
Sandra believes that you have to be comfortable with what you are saying on the blog. If your are not, maybe you should not do it. They want their journalists to blog, but everybody might not be comfortable doing it.
- If you are open with where you stand and what you think, the audience is going to respect you more, she says.
CMW: How are journalists going to handle transparency? Is there a good transparency level for a journalist?
– There is a bad transparency level, let’s start with that, it is so much easier, Sandra says.
She thinks that a bad transparency is when you tell everybody who gave you that tip. All of their sources are protected by the Swedish law. But a good level of transparency would be to be more open with the process of working as a journalist. It could be as a blog where you write about what kind of seminars and conferences you go to and tell more about how you find information about the subject you are writing about.
– I would love to see somebody who writes about the process and all the frustration there is to be a journalist. It is not always that fun even though we love it. Because there are people hanging up on you, people not liking you. Maybe you get the answers that you would like but it still doesn’t happened. Or you don’t get the result you would like to have, Sandra says.
She believes that bad transparency is when you tell people exactly who told you what, that is gossip. Good transparency is being open with the process, how you think, how you work, how you relate to your readers – both negatively and positively. And It is important to be honest.
– Because if you’re not honest, in the end it is coming back to bite you, Sandra says.
CMW: Do you still think that the internet is something good and useful for a journalist?
As a curious journalist Sandra does think that internet is an amazing way of possibilities and she loves the conversation that is going on out there, even though you have to be critical as usual against information and disinformation.
Sandra talks about the way the Swedish blogs handled the FRA affair. She thinks that it is a good example of a subject raised by bloggers and that ended up as a discussion in old media.
– I can only see the internet as a very positive thing, she says.
CMW: What do you think the newspaper will look like within five years. Do you think that they are still going to exist in print?
Sandra does still believe in the printed newspaper but not the way it looks like today. But she thinks it should be more of a magazine and not be distributed seven days a week. Maybe three days a week, or just over the weekend. A magazine that is going to be customized. More feature, more background and more thoughts.
– I still believe in print in some other way than we have today. The feeling of using print paper and have it in your hand, is something that we can not replace with a PDA or a mobile phone, she says.
CMW: Where do you see yourself with in five years?
Sandra hopes she will be able to dedicate herself full time working with inspiring colleagues to use the internet in a useful way. Integrating and developing newsrooms for the internet. She hopes to be working, not with in the news rush, but with people that works with news and that are interested in new ways to come out with their information and keep track on what is happening on the internet.
– I love developing stuff for newsrooms and news organizations. I hope I will be able to work with something like that, she says.
Sandra Jakob ends our conversation with a request. Sandra would like to have a conversation about online journalism if you are interested, you are welcome to contact her at sandra.jakob@hd.se.
And of course and as always, you are welcome to post your thoughts about this subject as a comment.
There are good examples of microblogging serving a journalistic purpose, though these initiative do not necessarily come from professional journalists.
The Twitter Vote Report is one, where Americans across the country made short reports on how the voting in the US election was really going, using hashtags to pinpoint where they were and what their report was about, for instance #machine for problems with the voting machines. They also reported on waiting times. It all ended up on a big map where you could follow the progress in real time.
Live reporting from an event. By using an established microblogging site you get comments from site members and you invite them in a natural way.
Live commentary to tv shows. One example is Drive on Fox.
Coming up with questions for interviews. By asking people what they want to know from a person you’re to interview you get more interesting questions, and you know you’re asking stuff your audience want to know.
Cynthia McCune talks about microblogging as a “21st century police scanner”, listing these uses for reporters: keep up with sources, get quick feedback, get referrals, post live updates to sport scores.
Breaking news. Anders Brenna at digi.no writes: “Twitter is both the perfect journalist tool for being first with breaking news, and the best relief from the tyranny of breaking news.” Super-fast publishing of the latest news without risking that the reader won’t come to your site for the full story. You can even send a message and point to it once it’s out.
Paul Bradshaw has some advice for anyone wanting to use microblogging to cover a topic. Check out the comments too for a few ideas on good use.
Another post on how news makers have to change and use micro-blogging tools.
Do you have more good examples? We’ll collect them and update this list (giving you credit, of course).
Speaking about the future of news, don’t miss Jeff Jarvis‘ long post on this topic over at BuzzMachine. Its focus is on local news but there’s general ideas to apply on national/topic news as well. Some great stuff! And I like his focus on community/network driven news.
Jarvis doesn’t believe investigative journalism will suffer. He writes:
The fear I hear constantly is that investigative journalism will be the first form to die. That would be foolish and news organizations will learn that. In a link-and-search economy, you must create unique content with strong value to get attention and audience. Investigations matter more than ever; they will have greater audience and thus business benefit.
12seconds.tv, a lifestreaming/commentary/microblogging service in video format currently in beta, is becoming a popular tool for bringing people’s opinion to established media sites. The site’s built on really short video clips (12 seconds, duh!) recorded by webcams or cellphones. Quick and simple ways to publish oneself, and the time restriction takes away some of the prestige.
Today the BBC is collaborating with the site by sponsoring the feature called “the 12second challenge”, a daily question that users reply to. Users get to reply to the question “Economic downturn - how bad can it get? Give some examples.” The replies may then appear on BBC TV.
Further, 12seconds.tv today announced to its users plans to involve them in extensive coverage of the US election day.
In an email to the service’s users, the 12seconds team writes:
Citizen Journalism is pretty important for the health of a democracy. For this reason, we’re going to put a lot of effort into Election Day. Where appropriate (and legal) we’d like 12ers covering reactions, parties, exit polls and emotions on November 4th all over the world. We’re assembling a team of people and will feature their content on Election Day.
On too many blogs written by Swedish journalists you see people commenting but the journalist never replies. They use a platform built on conversation as yet another megaphone, ignoring their readers. What journalists turned bloggers need to understand is that providing a space for comments is not enough - if you want to be taken seriously as a blogger you need to get involved with your former audience, not just invite them to chat amongst themselves.
Over the past week, Paul Bradshaw over at Online Journalism Blog has been publishing a series of posts based on a survey he’s conducted with 200 blogging journalists from 30 countries, mentioned ealier here at Citizen Media Watch.
The aim of the study was to find out how the journalists perceive that their work has changed after they became bloggers. The areas of interest are idea generation, information gathering and production, with the addition of the relationship with the (former) audience and post-publication.
Today the final post was published along with the conclusions from the survey. I do recommend reading all the posts about it. The results shows variations in responses depending on what field the journalists cover and in what medium.
For a summary, what the journalists perceived had changed were:
- their understanding of their audience’s wants and needs (through feedback and stats) and an improved relationship with the audience
- their work-process, which included the former audience in the research phase before a story was published, as a “two-way, ongoing process”, sometimes crowdsourcing
- they thought more about multimedia and interactivity, and published more multimedia material
- a wider range of news sources, and with that a deeper understanding of how trust is built online
- a greater need for speed, sometimes beneficial, sometimes resulting in publishing rumours
- they said they are digging deeper than before
- writing looser, more personal and less formal
- they broke news on the blog first, then followed up in their traditional medium
- possibilities of exploring “minor” stories that barely made it into their traditional medium
- more linking to external sources/stories
- stories last longer, as the conversation with the former audience lives on and generates new angles/leads
- an increased tendency to use microblogging and social bookmarking to draw attention to a story
- they appreciate other bloggers more than before
The ability to enter into correspondence with users, to fix errors and post updates were frequently identified as changing journalistic work, turning on its head Lowrey’s sugestion that bloggers “often emphasise immediacy and opinion at the expense of accuracy” (2006) and that journalism would protect itself by focusing on editing; responses suggest that, conversely, journalists are relying on commenters to contribute to the editing process.
Without an interest in the audience, blogging is not a conversation. Without conversation, you’re missing some of the great opportunities that blogging brings.
Excellent clip from WAN in Gothenburg, provided by Medievärlden. Pierre Haski of Rue89.com on how to take your readers seriously and get good quality comments and a good debate.
1. From a lecture to a conversation
2. The rise of the amateur
3. Everyone’s a paperboy/girl now
4. Measurability
5. Hyperlocal, international
6. Multimedia
7. Really Simple Syndication
8. Maps
9. Databases
10. Just a click away
I’d like to add an eleventh change/challenge for journalists. One that is closely connected to no. 1, but I think it deserves it’s own mention.
11. Personal transparency
As a consequence of blogs, wikis and citizen media sites becoming more important sources of information for the general public, I think we’ll see a new awareness of the importance of trust, and knowing who your source of information is. Bloggers are often open about what their views are and who they are affiliated with. If they’re not, you bet someone else will find out and make it public.
I am convinced this openness will be demanded of journalists as well. You might not need to reveal details about your private life, but you will need to give your readers/viewers/listeners an idea och what you represent. This is an important distinction, since for instance journalists working with sensitive information, infiltrating or walraffing will need to remain fairly anonymous when it comes to for instance how they look and sometimes even what their names are in order to do their job well. But they can still build up trust. Swedish blogger Beta Alfa is a good example that you do not need to reveal your real name in order to achieve this. Being open about your affiliations, for instance, and anything else that might influence or be suspected to influence your work, is a good start. Also simple things like providing a list of links to what you’ve written before on a subject.
I call this personal transparency.
The results of a recent We Media/Zogby Interactive poll shows that two thirds of the American respondents think that traditional journalism is “out of touch” with its audience and its needs. This despite the fact that almost half of the respondents use the internet as their primary news source.
There are indeed great challenges ahead for media sites, around the world. I think Nachison is right - quality is the key.
“For the second year in a row we have documented a crisis in American journalism that is far more serious than the industry’s business challenges - or maybe a consequence of them,” said Andrew Nachison, co-founder of iFOCOS. “Americans recognize the value of journalism for their communities, and they are unsatisfied with what they see. While the U.S. news industry sheds expenses and frets about its future, Americans are dismayed by its present. Meanwhile, we see clearly the generational shift of digital natives from traditional to online news - so the challenge for traditional news companies is complex. They need to invest in new products and services - and they have. But they’ve also got to invest in quality, influence and impact. They need to invest in journalism that makes a difference in people’s lives. That’s a moral and leadership challenge - and a business opportunity for whoever can meet it.”
A Swedish version of the Norwegian community site Nettby is to be launched shortly. Nettby is a success story with over 500 000 members. Now there’s a call for Swedish name suggestions at the site. Ironically, mostly Norwegians will name the Swedish site.
Here’s what the post on Nettby says (my translation):
If you have a suggestion for a Swedish name on a service like Nettby, send it to us! We will pick the top 10 suggestions and reward them with a 6 month Nettby Max subscription and Nettby t-shirts.
The person making the suggestion we decide to use will receive an Ipod Touch!
Today the BBC is collaborating with the site by sponsoring the feature called “the 12second challenge”, a daily question that users reply to. Users get to reply to the question “Economic downturn - how bad can it get? Give some examples.” 
