Nieman Reports

THE NIEMAN FOUNDATION FOR JOURNALISM AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY VOL. 62 NO. 4 WINTER 2008

4 The Search for True North: New Directions in a New Territory

Spiking the Newspaper to Follow the Digital Road

5 If Murder Is Metaphor | By Steven A. Smith 7 Where the Monitor Is Going, Others Will Follow | By Tom Regan 9 To Prepare for the Future, Skip the Present | By Edward Roussel 11 Journalism as a Conversation | By Katie King 13 Digital Natives: Following Their Lead on a Path to a New Journalism | By Ronald A. Yaros 16 Serendipity, Echo Chambers, and the Front Page | By Ethan Zuckerman

Grabbing Readers’ Attention—Youthful Perspectives

18 Net Geners Relate to News in New Ways | By Don Tapscott 20 Passion Replaces the Dullness of an Overused Journalistic Formula | By Robert Niles 21 Accepting the Challenge: Using the Web to Help Newspapers Survive | By Luke Morris 23 Journalism and Citizenship: Making the Connection | By David T.Z. Mindich 26 Distracted: The New News World and the Fate of Attention | By Maggie Jackson 28 Tracking Behavior Changes on the Web | By David Nicholas 30 What Young People Don’t Like About the Web—And News On It | By Vivian Vahlberg 32 Adding Young Voices to the Mix of Newsroom Advisors | By Steven A. Smith 35 Using E-Readers to Explore Some New Media Myths | By Roger Fidler

Blogs, Wikis, Social Media—And Journalism

37 Mapping the Blogosphere: Offering a Guide to Journalism’s Future | By John Kelly 40 The End of Journalism as Usual | By Mark Briggs 42 The Wikification of Knowledge | By Kenneth S. Kosik 44 Media Re:public: My Year in the Church of the Web | By Persephone Miel

Nieman Reports Online Cover Graphic: Diane Novetsky/Nova Design www.niemanreports.org 47 The Wisdom of the Crowd Resides in How the Crowd Is Used | By Jeff Howe 50 When Journalists Blog: How It Changes What They Do | By Paul Bradshaw 52 Digging Into Social Media to Build a Newspaper Audience | By Bill Adee 54 Web v. Journalism: Court Cases Challenge Long-Held Principles | By Jane Kirtley 57 Ethical Values and Quality Control in the Digital Era | By Bob Steele

Rethinking the What, Why, Where and How of What We Do

59 Engaging the Public in Asking Why We Do What We Do | By Nancy San Martin 62 Suggest a Topic—And Content Flows to It | By John A. Byrne 64 Creating a New Platform to Support Reporting | By David Cohn 66 A 21st Century Newswire—Curating the Web With Links | By Josh Korr 68 No Time Left for Reluctant Transformers | By Jim Kennedy 70 Blogging From Inside a TV Station’s Newsroom | By Katie Allison Granju 72 Live Web Cast—From a Newspaper’s Newsroom | By John Hassell 75 Video News: The Videojournalist Comes of Age | By Michael Rosenblum 77 A Retired Newspaper Journalist Takes What He Knows to the Web | By James P. Gannon

Words & Reflections

79 The Unchanging Essence of War Photography | By Peter Osnos 86 The Ties That Bind: Newspapers and Nonfiction Books | By Melissa Ludtke 89 Using Strength of Evidence to Tell a Powerful Story About Torture | By Tom Ehrenfeld 91 The Middle East Conflict: American Coverage | By Simon Wilson 93 Peering Deep Into the Essence of Small-Town Life | By Madeleine Blais

3 Curator’s Corner: The Road Ahead: Clear Direction in Tough Economic Times | By Bob Giles

98 Nieman Notes | Compiled by Lois Fiore 98 The View From Baku | By James Trengrove 100 Class Notes 108 End Note: Election Night in Chicago—Capturing the Moment | By Eli Reed

2 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 Curator’s Corner

Clear Direction in Tough Economic Times Economic volatility brings ‘new meaning to the program’s transformative nature.’

BY BOB GILES

s the Nieman Foundation’s Advisory Board met its own URL, www.niemanreports.org, offering readers in early November on the eve of the convocation a separate link to each story, its online audience will be celebrating 70 years of Nieman Fellowships, two able to share articles with friends, leave comments, and Aquestions dominated the discussions: publish links to stories related to various topics. • By year’s end, we plan to launch on our Web site, www. • Should the foundation reconsider its mission of midcareer nieman.harvard.edu, an online community for alumni education in response to the dramatic and disruptive tech- that will create a place for fellows to interact and share nological and economic changes affecting journalism? ideas about the program with the foundation staff. • How can the foundation give the fellows a more trans- formational experience to help them think through and The advisory board members reflected on these de- prepare for their roles in the new world of journalism? velopments and talked about other fellowship programs that are introducing significant changes. At the John S. The press is less institutional than it was when the first Knight Fellowships at Stanford, for example, applicants Nieman Fellows came to Harvard in the fall of 1938. While now propose a project—to be worked on during their most fellows still come from mainstream news organizations, fellowship year—that addresses a journalistic challenge especially newspapers, an increasing number of fellows with an emphasis on innovation and entrepreneurship arrive as freelancers, and many of them blog. Even those resulting in a business proposal, a progress report, or a from established newsrooms bring with them a sense that public conference. their careers will head them in new directions. Our discussions about the continuing role of the Nie- The central design of a year of study in Harvard class- man Fellowship program took place under the shadow rooms has remained steady through the years. Each fel- of volatility in the financial markets and uncertainty that low shapes a program designed to serve a specific need: persists as a new economic reality. Some advisory board filling gaps in education, exploring new fields of learning, members wondered whether the changes in journalism preparing for a different assignment at year’s end. Nieman and the downsizing of mainstream news organizations Fellows have always been in transition in thinking deeply would influence the composition of future Nieman classes. about what they want to do as journalists. For years, this Will the number of applicants increase or shrink? Would meant enriching their minds as preparation for their re- journalists be attracted to the program at earlier points turn to their newspaper or broadcast news organization. in their careers as they look to buttress their journalistic Today, Nieman Fellows explore unfamiliar paths and use values and acquire knowledge to influence their work in the knowledge and skills gained along the way as the keys the years ahead? to unlocking fresh opportunity. Board members encouraged the Nieman Foundation to These days fellows face buyout offers or circumstances stay the course and preserve the original purpose of a year that force them to consider taking alternative paths in for fellows to learn and reflect, whether they are in transit journalism. This unsettling reality brings new meaning to or anticipate a return to their newsrooms. the program’s transformative nature, and we are addressing Here at Harvard, President Drew Faust has told the this challenge by supplementing the core program with university community that even though universities have seminars and workshops that acquaint fellows with the for centuries shown remarkable resilience and creative new tools necessary for storytelling in the digital age. power in the face of unpredictability and change, the pres- Fellows also benefit from Nieman initiatives serving ent downturn will have an impact on even well diversified audiences beyond Harvard. portfolios such as Harvard’s. What the impact will be is influenced by the university’s prudent policies over the • The Nieman Journalism Lab is finding a place in ongo- years in distributing endowment payouts. ing discussions about journalism in a digital world and Harvard’s management practices are designed to weather the search for economic models that can sustain quality this kind of downturn and enable endowed units, such as journalism. The lab, through its Web site, www.niemanlab. the Nieman Foundation, to avoid making sharp cuts in org, is providing daily posts about issues of the journalistic its educational programs. In this time of uncertainty, the craft and business models. foundation is weighing options and discussing strategic • Nieman Reports is enlarging its capacity in the digital steps that will enable us to continue a strong fellowship arena, aided by the foundation’s redesigned Web site. With program for the class of 2010 and beyond. 

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 3 The Search for True North

Journalists: Start your engines. The digital road awaits, and it favors those with a sturdy back and daring attitude. Don’t forget to pack the digital recorder, headphones and mic, the BlackBerry, maybe an iPhone, too, the Flip camera, and perhaps a digital camcorder. Toss in a tripod and grab an underwater case for your Flip. Who knows? The news might be a flood or fire. Then, squeeze in the notebook computer, assorted USB cables, batteries, chargers and a few flash drives. Oh yes, be sure you have the digital camera for those slideshows and, for old-times sake, throw in a few pens and a paper notebook. Packed up. Ready to go. Now the tough part begins. Your work—once destined for print or broadcast with advertising paying your way to bring this news to eager subscribers and newsstand customers—will emerge now in search of “eyeballs” and “clicks” and with the hope of topping the “most e-mailed list.” To follow possible routes laid out on one map (below)—the vision of Dietmar Schantin, the director of IFRA’s Newsplex—is to absorb a sense of the ricocheting ride of words and images in the digital media. Consider news as a contagious “germ”—a germ that sets in motion the viral experience of shared knowledge as it travels through the neighborhoods of so- cial media. Links are made, comments, too, and pretty soon, an audience—the in- tended one or not— finds its way to the news report, takes a look, rates it, ships it off to friends, and so the cycle spins. How all of this affects the way journalists do their work or what elements of journalism will survive this digital transformation remains a work in progress—with fewer answers than questions, with less confidence and more concerns. Business-models-in-waiting top the list of worries, even as experimentation is underway to find new ones. We live in a time when President-Elect Barack Obama breaks news on his Web site’s newsroom blog, speaks to the nation through YouTube, and invites everyone to share ideas on change.gov. At the same time, newsrooms confront the reality of a broken business mod- el, and journalists search for direction in this new territory as they seek to reset the bearing of what “true north” means. In this issue, neuroscientists and social media analysts, digital journalism entrepreneurs and newsroom reporters and editors, explore how the best of what journalism can be can find a home in the era of digital media. —Melissa Ludtke

4 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 SEARCH FOR TRUE NORTH | Spiking the Newspaper to Follow the Digital Road

If Murder Is Metaphor Novels, at times, speak to truth in ways we, as journalists, can find hard to do.

BY STEVEN A. SMITH

John Darnton’s novel “Black & White and Dead All Over” may be a roman á clef for those steeped in the world of New York newspapering. I suppose a Big Apple media watcher might recognize Darnton’s twisted characters in the city’s real world newspaper journalists. But to a West Coaster who has never worked in New York, the novel is strictly metaphor. It’s not just an editor who has been killed, but old-time newspapering, maybe even the newspaper. How appropriate the metaphorical weapon is an old lead spike. So the question, “Who killed Ratnoff?,” could as easily be “Who is killing (or has killed) newspapers?” Darnton’s answer to both ques- tions is the same: Malevolent corporate tycoons, greedy and The newsroom of The New York Times. September 1942. Photo by Marjory devious publishers, self-promot- Collins, 1912-1985. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs ing editors, hack reporters, and Division, Washington, D.C. assorted other hangers-on who have forgotten the values of their here has been a murder in kill stories. The metal craft in order to pursue their the newsroom. An office shaft protruding from it own interests. secretary at the fictional was sunk into Ratnoff’s There are heroes in Darnton’s TNew York Globe has discovered blue-and-red-striped shirt, world. The dogged young investi- the body of one Theodore S. hammered in so hard that gative reporter who unravels the Ratnoff. it had created a tiny cavity mystery is a newspaper archetype. filled with bright blood. The So is his buddy, the in-the-cups Ratnoff’s eyes were closed. end of his red tie dipped veteran reporter whose world- His face looked peaceful. into it, like a tongue into a weary cynicism can’t disguise But there, in the center martini glass. Fixed to the both talent and commitment. of his chest, was a four- spike was a note. And the traditionalist managing inch-wide green hunk of She leaned over the editor seems to command some metal. She recognized it body to read it. It was in level of respect from journalists immediately. It was the purple ink. who think he has at least some base of an editor’s spike, It said, simply: “Nice. integrity. used in the old days to Who?” But the real hero, in the end,

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 5 Search for True North

is a young computer whiz who saves the marriage of shoe-leather newspa- the sides defined by generation and the day by taking his newspaper online pering and online publishing saving experience. to break the big story. both the Globe and the day. After all of that, I remain convinced How is that for metaphor? That marriage may yet prove suc- that our profession is losing something, cessful. Newspapers, as with the Globe, something important to our craft and Blogging About the Past will continue, almost certainly, in some the citizens we are called to serve. It form. But in real life it’s an imperfect is not a disservice to our future to For me, Darnton’s newspaper murder ending. As newsroom after newsroom understand that. mystery came along at just the right eviscerates its staff, losing veteran At the end of Darnton’s book, the time. Some months back, foreseeing journalists with their connections to surviving Globe journalists gather in the massive layoffs coming to my an important past, the generations-old a bar (where else?) to talk about the newspaper, The Spokesman-Review in foundation of American newspapering paper’s future. With the veterans is Spokane, Washington, I posted on my erodes further, perhaps beyond the Clive, the Web-savvy whiz kid who now “News is a Conversation” blog an essay point of no return. And it’s not just owns the paper. As Darnton describes titled “Still a Newspaperman.”1 institutional and craft memory that it, the lively gathering degenerates I wrote it late one night after a is being lost. into “a round of inebriated, hopelessly particularly dismal day at the office We’re losing a sense of our purpose, optimistic proposals.” when it appeared as if all of my ef- our mission, our values. Those of us forts to stave off budgetary disaster older than a certain age learned those Let’s get back to our roots, get had come to nothing. It was intended things from our mentors, the great back to the basics. Afflict the as a quiet meditation on the sort of generation of journalists who walked comfortable and comfort the newspapering I knew when I was first up the hill from train stations all over afflicted. That’s the motto. coming into the business in the early the country in 1945 and ’46 to take Let’s be who we are. Let’s stop 1970’s. Of course my reminiscence was jobs at newspapers big and small. But trying to be everything to every- rose-colored. The newspaper world this generation’s mentors are leaving body and just tell it straight. of 1973 had its own problems, from before their job is done, and those Let’s get back to hard news, do a less rigorous ethical framework to who are left, young and old, are so hard-hitting investigations. blatant sexism to dull and lifeless busy fighting for their professional Let’s swagger a little. Let’s be stenographic reporting. lives—while trying to stay ahead of brave again. But it was a good time, too. light-speed technological change—they Let’s dump the ombuds- Newspaper journalism was vital to have little time to think of journalism man! our democratic systems, to our com- beyond today’s deadline. By Christ, print’s not dead munities. Newspaper journalists were I now think that was why there yet! (mostly) credible, even respected. And was a palpable sadness permeating Jude watched Clive’s face. At newsrooms were fun places. Smoke- my elegy to the past. one point, he heard him mutter, filled, loud, profane, busy. Newspaper- Response to my blog posting was almost to himself, “Some of that, ing was fun even when the journalism astonishing. I received hundreds of yes. But not all. We can’t go back. was hard, maybe most fun when it e-mails, letters, phone calls, and blog The Internet is here to stay and was hardest. comments from all over the world. It’s we have to adjust to it.” Darnton remembers those days. His fair to say the majority came from fictional New York Globe is a throwback journalists of my generation who saw We have no choice in the matter. We in almost every way except for the rank something of their own experiences must adjust to young Clive’s world. incompetence that seems to be killing in my writing. But I also heard from But don’t tell me I can’t cry a bit it. The characters are stereotypes, younger journalists who argued it was over the loss of mine.  certainly. But their like, for good or time for the oldsters to move on, to ill, could, in my early years, be found leave the field for those who know more Steven A. Smith was, until October in every American newsroom. about computers, mobile devices, social 1st, 2008, editor of The Spokesman- In Darnton’s book, investigative networking, and other journalistic tools Review in Spokane, Washington. reporter Jude Hurley solves the mur- of the 21st century. Some suggested I His blog is stillanewspaperman.com. der mystery with the help of a young was living in the past and, by staying Another article by Smith—about his computer whiz who may be the Globe’s there, I had become irrelevant to our engagement of younger reporters in new owner. I would guess that Darnton industry’s future. transforming the newsroom— is on saw this as an optimistic conclusion, It was a fascinating debate, with page 32.

1 Smith’s July 31, 2008 blog entry can be read at www.stillanewspaperman. com/2008/08/12/the-original-still-a-newspaperman-thread/.

6 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 Digital Road

Where the Monitor Is Going, Others Will Follow A decade ago, resistance at The Christian Science Monitor to its online site almost killed it. Now, the newspaper is depending on the Web for its survival.

BY TOM REGAN

xcuse me for a moment while Monitor’s original Web site (along with Washington editor.) More than once, I get this off my chest—I told colleagues Ellen Berrigan and Dave he would call me into his office so that you so. Creagh). In those early days, the idea we could discuss ways to make the Web EFor about two years now, I have of a Web site for the Monitor was not site “bullet proof.” He often called the been telling friends and colleagues exactly popular in the newsroom. The Web site the Monitor’s “lifeboat.” that The Christian Science Monitor organization had just gone through a There were people in the newsroom was going to dump its Monday to painful experiment with television that in those days who would have pulled Friday print edition, shift the bulk of almost killed the paper. When I began the plug on us in a heartbeat. Many its daily reporting and analysis onto to design the site, for instance, I was saw the $1.5 million it cost then to its Web site, csmonitor.com, and cre- not given a desk anywhere near where run the site as just another drain on ate a Sunday print edition. And I said actual journalism took place. Instead, resources—funds for another printing it would happen near the plant or several more report- paper’s 100th anniversary in ers. At one point, the board November 2008. of directors was receiving I only wish I was this good information that there were with lottery tickets. too many of us for the task Now that new Monitor at hand, and we needed to be editor John Yemma has cut back. So the board came confirmed this scenario will over one day and watched us become a reality next April, as we did our job. By the time I say bravo! It’s a great idea they left, after seeing how and continues the Monitor’s much work was involved, they pioneering tradition of break- were saying that we needed ing ground for online media. an increase in funding. (The Monitor was the first There were two key mo- news Web site to include ments in the history of the audio, and it was also the Monitor that led to greater first news organization to acceptance of the Web site: send a reporter to cover the the introduction of the Inter- Iraq War specifically for a net into the newsroom and Web site.) the aftermath of 9/11. While many fans of tra- Once reporters and edi- ditional models of publishing have I was placed about as far away from tors had a high-speed connection on bemoaned this decision, it is absolutely the newsroom as possible—in a small their desktops, and they saw what the right direction for the Monitor to office in the circulation department other news organizations like The head in. This decision is one that many on the far side of the old Monitor New York Times and The Washington other news organizations will make, publishing building. I wasn’t really Post were doing, our Web site made a too, in the next few years. Someone discouraged from talking to journalists lot more sense. As for 9/11, you have of the Monitor’s stature just had to about the idea, but I wasn’t exactly to understand that the Monitor is a jump off the cliff first. encouraged, either. newspaper that is delivered by snail In those early days, I often felt our mail. (I can recite from memory even History Is Prologue survival was a week-to-week proposi- now the angry e-mails I would receive tion. It was only the determined sup- from subscribers who would get three Before talking about why this move port of David Cook, then the Monitor’s Monitors all on the same day and each makes so much sense for the Moni- editor and a strong believer in the several days late.) In the week after tor, let me share a bit of history. In future of the Internet, which kept 9/11, when all planes in the United 1995 I designed and helped build the us alive. (Dave is now the Monitor’s States were grounded, the print product

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 7 Search for True North

couldn’t reach subscribers. The Web noted that the Web site now generates his teacher to find stories. Meanwhile, site became the Monitor. I saw a lot more ad revenue than the newspaper. the papers often sit unopened until I of light bulbs go on in the newsroom That’s a pretty important fact of the get a chance to take them out to the after that. After 9/11, there was never Monitor’s life. And while the cost sav- recycling bin each Friday. The one any real talk again of doing away with ings of no more crushed ink on dead day I do read our family’s new paper csmonitor.com. trees, trucks, gas, etc., won’t entirely subscription—Sunday.) This brings us to today and why cover the cost of lost subscription fees, And none of this accounts for an this decision makes so much sense. it will come close. And don’t forget that even more important shift in how news It’s not a new idea. Former csmonitor. Sunday print edition. More than a few is consumed. For that, we need to look com managing editor Karla Vallance surveys have shown that Sunday is the at the lifestyle of young people who and I would often close the door to day when people have the most time increasing rely on mobile devices for her office to talk about the future of to sit down and read a paper—about information and communication. At the Web site. Even 10 years ago, it an hour and a half, if I remember cor- one time I thought that as they grew was obvious that the Monitor’s future rectly. It makes sense for the Monitor up they would move towards print. was online. And I believe that even But that’s not the case. Statistics show a decade ago, the people at the top that each of the past four generations of the Monitor knew the same thing has relied less and less on print. And but, as Dave Cook once said to me, Statistics show that that change was happening even before “No one wants to be the last editor of the Internet accelerated it. the ‘newspaper.’” each of the past four If large news organizations are going But the reality of the Monitor’s to publish a newspaper, I predict they publishing model worked against the generations has relied less will move towards the model developed print product. Every time the Monitor and less on print. And that by many metro newspapers—a smaller got a subscription to the paper, it cost tabloid that is given away for free. them money. The paper, as I noted change was happening It’s the one way that publishers can above, was delivered by mail—not a maintain the high circulation numbers really great distribution method in an even before the Internet that will interest advertisers. age of instant news and faster analysis. accelerated it. What I love most about the Moni- While the Monitor always stayed away tor’s decision is the courage behind from breaking news because of this it. I’m not a Christian Scientist, but situation, those late-arriving newspa- I am a fan of Mary Baker Eddy, the pers only underlined the fact that the founder of the paper. She once said Monitor’s readers weren’t getting the to take its style of thoughtful, analyti- that she always wanted the Monitor news in a timely fashion. But the real cal journalism to a Sunday audience. to “keep abreast of the times.” Those problem was the audience. I remember I very much agree with Yemma that few words have inspired generations we were once given a talk about the advertisers will also find this a more of Monitor editors, reporters—and average age of a Monitor subscriber. attractive advertising model. Web producers—to not take the safe It was over 65. At the same time, they The Monitor’s decision to shift to way. This is not easy when publishers, found that the average age of a visitor a focus on the Web during the week, to invoke Robert Frost for a moment, to the Web site was about 45. with a Sunday print edition, is go- come to two paths that diverge in the ing to make a lot of sense to a lot of woods. But taking the one less traveled Future Is on the Web publishers. Monday to Friday always does make all the difference. And I produces the best numbers for the suspect that the Monitor will not find One method of distribution obviously Web. This makes sense when you itself alone on that less traveled path had more room for growth than the think of people’s lifestyles. The Web for very long.  other. is a much smarter choice during the Now I know that some people week when you have a job and a fam- Tom Regan, a 1992 Nieman Fellow, are saying to themselves, “Well, the ily, and the opportunities to sit and works for the Online News Association, Monitor is a special situation, not read a newspaper are limited. (With where he was its executive director and like other papers.” And this is true to four kids in our house, I haven’t had now assists his successor in a variety a degree. The Monitor receives fund- a newspaper subscription for several of tasks. He has also been the news/ ing from the Christian Science church years. I read all my news online. A politics blogger for NPR and worked that helps make up the difference in couple of months ago, my wife decided in various editorial positions for what the paper lacks in ad revenue to get a subscription to the regional csmonitor.com for 12 years. and circulation. paper for our son, who she thought But I noticed that when Yemma was might need it for his civics class. But talking about the shift last month, he he uses a special Web site created by

8 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 Digital Road

To Prepare for the Future, Skip the Present ‘… today’s obsession with saving newspapers has meant that, for the most part, media companies have failed to plan adequately for tomorrow’s digital future.’

BY EDWARD ROUSSEL

Burn baby, burn.” These are the General Electric because of tough steps still routinely use their own reporters unforgettable words of a top- he took to reshape ossified corpora- to cover a gamut of stories, ranging ranking Yellowstone National tions. “This is not a time to skimp on from politics to sport and business. “Park ecologist as fire ripped through the resources but to focus them on your That’s nonsensical in the Internet era, park’s forests in the summer of 1988. best businesses: stop the weakest, when readers may choose content from Few people cared that Don Despain’s invest in the strongest.” a variety of sources. Instead, media words were taken out of context. The Newspapers still tend to define companies need to invest more money remark was used to pour scorn on the themselves by their paper rather than in their premium content—editorial supposed devil-may-care approach their news. By doing so they make a that is unavailable elsewhere but that of the National Park Service, which critical error at a time when readers is highly valued by readers. Go deep, favored allowing natural fires to burn and advertisers alike are going cold not wide. off accumulations of undergrowth in on paper and turning their attention order to facilitate forest renewal. increasingly to Web media. Newspaper 2. Plug into a network. Media com- A triple whammy of slumping executives have been slow to come panies should finance the additional advertising revenues, soaring news- to terms with the reality that the fat spending on premium content by elimi- print costs, and competition from the profit margins of previous decades are nating editorial costs in areas where Internet has left newspaper execu- gone forever. Audiences, in decline they are unable to compete with the tives struggling to contain their own since the 1960’s, have been on an ac- best on the Web. If you are weak in inferno. Tactics that helped news- celerating downward trajectory—from sports coverage, link to the best Web papers survive for decades—budget a slow glide to a nosedive—since the site for your local sports. Well-curated cuts, promotions, the shuttering of Internet’s invasion. hyperlinks to other Web sites are a peripheral publications—have failed Newspaper executives have often valuable service for readers, and they to restore confidence among investors. justified their lack of attention to cost nothing. Media companies will In the first 10 months of 2008 alone, digital media by pointing to the lower increasingly see themselves as part the shares of The New York Times advertising yields. “When will the of a chain of content, as opposed to Company dropped by more than 40 Web match the revenues generated by a final destination. Journalists will act percent, while Gannett Company, Inc. newspapers?” Maybe never. But it’s the as filters, writing with authority but shed two-thirds of its value. wrong question. The whole point about also guiding readers to sources that The best approach for battle-weary the Web is that it costs a fraction of add depth to coverage. The future of media executives may be to let the fire the amount of a newspaper to reach journalism is selling expertise, not run its course—however counterin- your audience, meaning that the break- content. tuitive that might seem. That’s partly even point for a newsroom stripped because there is little the newspaper of the need to produce a newspaper 3. Rolling news with views. Newspaper industry can do to stop the advancing is some 65 percent lower. deadlines suit publishers, not readers. flames. But it’s also because today’s The probable elimination of a raft News is a continuum. It never starts or obsession with saving newspapers of second-tier newspapers during ends, and coverage should reflect that has meant that, for the most part, this economic downturn will provide reality. That doesn’t mean a newsroom media companies have failed to plan a fertile environment for a new gen- needs to be open for business 24/7. adequately for tomorrow’s digital eration of digital media businesses to If 90 percent of readers don’t log future. The economic downturn has flourish. Here are 10 ways that will on between midnight and five in the added to the urgent need for a change help newspapers make the transition morning, there is little point in being of direction. to digital media companies: staffed overnight. But it is critical to “This is a time for rigor, you need be alert at the time when your traf- to know what you want to come out 1. Narrow the focus. When newspa- fic surges—typically between 8 and with at the other end of the tunnel,” pers operated regional monopolies, 10 in the morning and again around said Jack Welch, who was known as readers depended on them to cover lunchtime. Remember: It’s not simply “Neutron Jack” when he was CEO of a wide range of subjects. Newspapers about serving breaking news—the AP

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 9 Search for True North

and Reuters can handle that. The role costs. Newspaper companies are bad None of this will come easily. It of a newspaper company on the Web at technology, so a digitally minded breaks a newspaper culture forged is to add value: look at a story from a chief technology officer will be able to over a 400-year period. For decades number of angles, engage your audi- get cheaper and more effective services now, newspaper newsrooms have ence, add multimedia. by outsourcing. Newspaper sales teams centered on “going to press,” which don’t do particularly well at selling ads has meant pointing all efforts towards 4. Engage with your readers. The ex- on the Internet; too often they sell a single deadline that culminates in plosion of blogging and social media ads that are irrelevant to a reader’s the publishing of a definitive version Web sites has created a culture in interests in an era when Google has of a story. Journalists who’ve spent a which consumers of news expect to made relevance key. If your sales team lifetime working around this kind of be included in the news publishing can’t beat Google, then outsource to deadline often cannot make the switch process. Closed operations that shun Google. to the continuous reporting demanded reader engagement will increasingly be by Web audiences. seen to offer a second-rate experience. 8. Invest in the Web. Don’t try to suck Nor are reporters and editors par- Create functionality that encourages too much revenue from your fledgling ticularly good at interacting with read- readers to share eyewitness ers. As long as newspapers accounts of breaking news, have existed, editors have rate services such as restau- determined the news agenda rants and hotels, and get into and then rammed it down discussions and debates. readers’ throats. Sure, readers are welcome to send a “letter 5. Bottom up, not top down. to the editor.” It may even get The reporters on the ground published. But typically most are closest to your readers. editors have little interest in They are therefore best placed an ongoing dialogue. Linking to conceive, create and nurture to competitors’ news services community Web sites. Look at certainly doesn’t come natu- which reporters or editors get rally to newspaper editors the largest mailbags and free either, whereas it’s seen as a them up to manage blogs on sign of sophistication on the subjects that your readers are Web. Then there’s the lack of passionate about. That’s likely familiarity with multimedia to be narrow areas such as and the art of stitching to- gardening or a mom’s network, rather network. Your Web site needs invest- gether text, video, photos, maps and than broad subjects, such as politics ment before it can fly. Large networks, graphics. or sports. such as rail, phone and utilities, took Still, the dominant newspapers have decades to yield substantial returns. a huge advantage over start-up news 6. Embrace multimedia. Train editors A Web revenue-growth model can- operations: They are trusted brands at to see video, photo galleries, graphics not simply be a mirror image of the a time when the proliferation of news and maps as equal storytelling forms to decline in your newspaper sales. sources has made trust a premium for text. A story about Tina Fey’s takeoff readers and advertisers alike. That’s of Sarah Palin is incomplete without 9. Shake up leadership. One of the a good springboard for success. But video highlights from “Saturday Night biggest obstacles to planning for a time is running out.  Live.” A story about a soldier’s life on digital future is the senior editor or the frontline in Afghanistan is best manager who is wedded to the ana- Edward Roussel is the digital editor told with video, a map, and pictures logue past. If the people who run your of the Telegraph Media Group (TMG). as well as text. newsroom aren’t passionate about He manages the Telegraph.co.uk Web your digital future, it’s certain not to site and oversees the development of 7. Nimble, low-cost structures. About materialize. TMG’s expansion into other digital 75 percent of newspaper costs have media, including the recent launch nothing to do with the creation of edito- 10. Experiment. We are operating in of Telegraph TV, a news-on-the-Web rial content. In a digital era there may the most creative phase of the me- service in partnership with ITN. He not be any need for printing presses or dia industry’s history. A time when was instrumental in restructuring the vans to transport a physical product. broadcast, text and social media are Telegraph’s newsroom, with a view to But the switch to digital should also colliding. Don’t be afraid of failure. placing digital media at the core of the be an opportunity to challenge the Try new projects, see what works, and 153-year-old newspaper group. need to hold on to other in-house build on success.

10 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 Digital Road

Journalism as a Conversation ‘Today digital publishing is practiced by the masses, and it’s inseparable from the practice of journalism.’

BY KATIE KING

ast night, just before I turned out information as the people I choose new form of communication that he the light to sleep, I grabbed my to follow help me sift and sort the envisaged,” Standage writes. mobile from the night table. With flood of data washing over me every Morse had originally tried to con- La wireless Internet connection, I used day. They do this by finding, com- vince Congress to fund and use the the device to flip easily through head- menting on, and linking to news and telegraph for government communica- lines on the BBC and The New York information. tions, but the invention really took off Times. Nothing new there. I turned when it started to be used for business instead to my Twitter feed. Twitter is New Technology: Figuring and commercial communications. By a microblog, a free Internet service Out What It Does the early 1850’s, sending and receiv- for conversations and short-form ing telegrams had become “part of publishing. Posts are limited to 140 Why is this important? Because it is everyday life for many people around characters. You can post from your an example of how technology allows the world.” mobile device or your desktop/laptop, “the people formerly known as the Now, a century and a half later— updating whoever is reading your post audience,” as New York University and almost 15 years into the digital real-time day and night, wherever you journalism professor Jay Rosen calls media revolution—there seem to be are. Who reads? People who choose them, to interact with and become a few important things to note. to follow you. In turn, you choose to part of the news process.1 And it is a We don’t know what the impact will follow other people’s posts. You can glimpse at how this technology, which be of this flood of free, ubiquitous, easy- reply publicly or privately to posts. It’s we used to just call blogs, is in the to-use new digital communication, a short form, immediate and ongoing process of changing our world, and content creation, and publishing tools digital conversation. journalism, in ways we can’t begin that relate to journalism. “What tools?” About the time I was going to bed to imagine. we might ask. Well, the list changes so in London, Kirk LaPoint, managing It is the nature of disruptive technol- quickly that it will require updating editor of The Vancouver Sun, was ogy that we almost always get it wrong in the time between when I write this attending a luncheon speech by for- when we try to guess the real use and article and when it is published. But mer President Bill Clinton in British impact of a new invention. In his book, here are a few examples: Columbia about the economy and the “The Victorian Internet,” author Tom U.S. election, among other things. Standage describes how, after inventing • Blogging services, such as Google’s LaPoint was twittering (a new verb, the telegraph, its creators struggled Blogger and Window’s Live Spaces like Google and blog have now become for years before the world figured and sharing, linking and tracking verbs) the speech. I’d started following out how it might actually be used. In tools such as Technorati his tweets since I met him briefly at 1844, with a U.S. government-funded • Microblogs, such as Twitter the Online News Association confer- telegraph line functioning between • Video blogs, such as YouTube, Kyte. ence in Washington in September. I Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, its tv and 12seconds.tv, phreadz.com only met him once, but by following inventor, Samuel F.B. Morse, was still • Mobile blogs, such as qik, moblog his posts I learned more about what trying to convince a skeptical world of • Social media sites including Face- Clinton was thinking (or at least say- his invention’s usefulness. “Yet after book, Bebo, MySpace, LinkedIn, ing) from his nine 140-character posts a while [Morse] realized that every- Plaxo, Flickr, Picasa than I have from any traditional news body still thought of the telegraph • Tagging and sharing sites such as stories on the speech. as a novelty, as nothing more than del.icio.us, Digg, last.fm. Twitter is fast becoming my pre- an amusing subject for a newspaper • Blog and Web site ads and promotion ferred filter and guide to news and article, rather than the revolutionary services, such as Google AdSense

1 Jay Rosen’s piece, “The People Formerly Known as the Audience,” appeared on PressThink, his blog, in June 2006. It can be read at: http://journalism.nyu.edu/ pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2006/06/27/ppl_frmr.html.

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 11 Search for True North

he contends. “Do what you do best. ging tools to engage in conversations There are, of course, many more be- Link to the rest.” with their readers, get tips and story ing used by hundreds of millions of The question Jarvis poses is this: ideas, and promote their own work. people around the world. And all of Do we need more information or Many editors, including me, hesitate these tools I’ve mentioned allow anyone do we need, as a society, journalists to consider a young journalist’s resumé who can afford something as simple dedicated to finding the gold nuggets unless they have a blog or some sort as a camera-enabled, Web-connected amidst this raging river of content? of social media site that will demon- mobile device to create text, pictures, The reality is that there are bloggers strate their ability to report, write, video and audio, post this content to a with passion and expertise on topics use multimedia, interact appropriately Web address, promote and potentially that exceeds anything that even the with readers and, most importantly, monetize it. best reporter coming in on assignment think. Except for a few stragglers, could match. most of my friends, colleagues and Journalism: ‘A Process, Not a This is where traditional editors business contacts have some sort of Product’ typically weigh in, saying “Yes, but Web site or blog, are on Facebook, bloggers aren’t trained journalists, Flickr, LinkedIn or Twitter. Which brings me to my second point they aren’t committed to fairness or So—brace for it—what this means about blogging and journalism to- objectivity the way journalists are.” is that we are all bloggers now. We day. In response, bloggers will point out are all participating in the media The debate is over. Hand-inked that many readers don’t believe the revolution. bibles, horse-drawn carriages, pagers: mainstream media today are fair or I was asked recently to participate A few still exist, but they have mostly objective, either. Instead, many lead- on a panel of London editors discussing been overtaken by newer technology. ing bloggers argue that the Web forces the future of news. The question was The same is true for the monopoly of transparency on any digital writer. If posed: Are we living in the Golden the publisher. Journalists no longer you fib, if you fake it, if you get it Age of news or in its Dark Ages? It’s control the message. Today digital wrong, someone will notice and call neither, of course, though all the on- publishing is practiced by the masses, you out. Analysts like Jarvis argue that line editors on the panel said Golden and it’s inseparable from the practice this is peer review on a global scale. Age since it is certainly not the Dark of journalism. Newsgathering and dis- There’s even a name for it: “crowd- Ages. To my mind, this revolution can tribution has changed forever, and the sourcing.” [See Jeff Howe’s article on be seen more as the next phase of the audience is part of the process. page 47.] Enlightenment, which puts publishing Journalists, editors and media ex- Crowdsourcing does not replace and communication in the hands of ecutives everywhere are struggling to what traditional journalists do in the many, instead of the few who have come to terms with this fact and do interviewing, fact checking, verifying traditionally controlled the media. what Gutenberg couldn’t have done and making available important infor- There is a human cost to any revo- with his printing machine—understand mation to the public. But traditional lution. The printing press put out of and predict where this innovation will journalists are no longer the only work a lot of monks skilled in the art of take the economy, media, politics and ones who can do this. Our work must lettering exquisite hand-made bibles. A society. incorporate and connect to the infor- unique skill was lost, or marginalized, Journalists use blogs and journalists mation being produced by specialists but in exchange we gained nothing compete with blogs. all around us. less than the flowering of knowledge Media blogger and journalism An unpleasant and unproductive and education of the masses, creating professor and blogger Jeff Jarvis feature of the early years of mass the fertile ground in which democracy (buzzmachine.com) writes and speaks digital publishing was that journalists has since flourished. frequently about a new role that jour- and early bloggers spent a lot of time In the United States, the newspaper nalists should embrace in a world in debating each other with red faces and industry is being ravaged by cost-cuts which The New York Times competes pointed fingers about which side was and layoffs. A brain trust of experi- less with The Washington Post for more worthy, more reliable, more hon- enced, highly trained reporters and readers’ attention than it does with est, and better served the readership editors are losing their jobs. Pulitzer blogs and social media. Jarvis, who and society. Thankfully, rhetoric has Prizes and reader popularity do not teaches at the City University of New cooled as the digital media industry ma- protect these talented professionals York, argues that journalism today is tures, and most mainstream journalists from pink slips today. But even as a “process not a product.”2 Journalists and editors embrace bloggers as part newspapers are downsizing, dynamic must sift, sort and curate the news, of the news process as well as blog- new online publications arise. One

2 Read Jeff Jarvis’s blog posting on this subject at www.buzzmachine.com/2008/04/14/ the-press-becomes-the-press-sphere/.

12 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 Digital Road of the more intriguing new digital and highlighting good blogs to help predict how that will play out, but I publications is Tina Brown’s The Daily readers make sense of a vast array am enthusiastic and optimistic about Beast. Gloriously named after Evelyn of data. the changes ahead for journalism and Waugh’s fictional British tabloid in Is the U.S. newspaper industry for the ability of citizens to get the “Scoop,” Brown’s “Beast” is an excel- going to die? No, but it clearly is information they need to participate lent example of journalism in the undergoing massive, wrenching in a democracy.  age of Web 2.0. It provides original change. Former Nieman Foundation interviews and reporting, staff blogs Curator Bill Kovach often says that Katie King, a 1994 Nieman Fellow, is for context and analysis, and it focuses each generation creates its own new creative and development editor for a lot of attention on filtering through culture of journalism. We are clearly MSN in the United Kingdom. important voices in the blogosphere in full creation mode right now. I can’t

Digital Natives: Following Their Lead on a Path to a New Journalism By understanding how young people ‘process various types of news and formats’ using new media, journalists enhance their ability to adapt their work to emerging technologies.

BY RONALD A. YAROS

n his book, “Born Digital: Under- crude. But it is reasonable to believe All of these efforts address the standing the First Generation of that the digital natives are leading formidable challenge for journalists Digital Natives,” John Palfrey, who the way—and are way ahead of news to provide future news users with in- Icodirects Harvard’s Berkman Center organizations. This belief is based on formation relevant to them. In short, for Internet & Society, observes how three predictable phases when new an industry in phase two still delivers “grazing digital natives” read a head- technology is adopted: most of its content on pages of text line or at most a paragraph with little with links. Meanwhile, digital natives or no context. Only those who take a 1. Awareness and exploration of the know what they want, how to find it “deep dive” into the content will end new technological tools (or even produce it), and whether it’s up making sense of the news.1 2. Learning how to use the new tools worth their time. Based on the rapidity of digital 3. Applying these new tools to daily Consider a future news model—one change we’ve experienced during life. that integrates research by educators the past decade, the news audience and psychologists with what we know of 2019—and the technology they Digital natives who download iTunes about journalism to propose four use—will be very different. What we on iPhones and blog about YouTube concepts of value to digital natives. can depend on, however, is that those on MySpace are in the third phase. At Online, we can already find plenty of raised with digital technology will rep- the same time, if conferences such as examples of such concepts, but it is resent the majority in that audience. the Online News Association held in from this combination that research So if Palfrey’s observations accurately September are accurate indicators, the suggests the most effective way to describe the audience of the future, industry is perhaps at the threshold attract and retain the news audience this “expedition” that all of us are of phase two. More print reporters of the future. The problem, as con- taking will benefit from understanding are learning video, TV reporters are firmed by a recent study from The how digital natives now use media for starting to blog, and professors are Associated Press, is that readers are entertainment, information, education teaching new skills to communicate “overloaded with facts and updates” and social networking. with an audience that values shorter, and “having trouble moving deeply Admittedly, the map to guide us is fact-driven multimedia. into the background and resolution

1 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/palfrey/?s=Grazing+digital+natives

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 13 Search for True North

of news stories.” novelty of the content. Interest- Since 1998, the Lab for ingly, merely manipulating the Communicating Complexity level of choice, however, does Online has been investigating not generate positive attitudes how younger audiences process if the content is judged to be various types of news and for- only “mediocre.” mats. Measuring the “usability” Today, Google News allows of a Web site or tracking eye users to customize their own movements on a Web page can news page. And DailyMe.com be valuable, but the lab uses a e-mails a summary of news wider lens to focus on broader from preferred categories that media behaviors and audience link to the original stories. On preferences. Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits, Preliminary results tell us Northwestern Professor Rich that it requires more than ef- Gordon recently wrote about ficient aggregation of news to the start-up company e-Me satisfy a savvy audience that Ventures, which is developing interacts with video games and technology to store all of the personalized social networks. content collected by journal- The PICK news model, shown in the multiple elements—hypertext, video, ists or submitted by a community. diagram on page 15 of three overlapping slideshows, blogs, forums, graphics This could help producers of news concepts, synthesizes what we know and animation—are presented with to assemble content most likely to be about personalization, involvement and text and personalized to the user. relevant to individual users. contiguity (or coherence) in news with But how much personalization will minimal distractions, which we refer Personalizing the News future audiences expect? to as cognitive “kick-outs.” PICK’s concept of personalization Here’s some good news: These In general, personalization is about takes us farther through a prototype PICK concepts have nothing to do the extent to which a user can choose called “NewsSEEN.” The prototype not with abandoning core principles of content congruent with his or her only provides news of interest, but it clear, accurate, ethical journalism interests. Researchers at Pennsylvania prioritizes news by level of interest.2 and, in fact, have everything to do State University confirm that per- It also presents news with informative with strengthening them. Like news sonalization generates more positive “explanatory headlines” and marries told in print, multimedia stories also attitudes—especially from more expe- preferred news with online com- must be organized, coherent and easy rienced users—than generic pages of munities that have shared interests. to understand. To make these stories content. And positive attitudes enhance Then members of these communities engaging and informative, however, the audience’s perceived relevance and engage in focused discussions about will require that additional the issues. In this way, News- skills be identified, learned and SEEN tests how professionally consistently practiced by the produced, personalized content journalists of the future. (or PPP) can be combined with, Also, the PICK model does yet differentiated from, citizen- not consider “multimedia” to produced content. be just video or a slideshow NewsSEEN is receiving stel- on a Web page. Neither does lar reviews from our study’s it pertain to long-form jour- students, because the format nalism for which an audience addresses many of their inter- has the motivation and time ests in more personalized and to focus on an issue of inter- interactive ways than anything est. PICK defines multimedia else available. as an environment (i.e. a full There are also opportunities page or entire Web site) where for more personalized graphics.

2 News in categories that the user rates as “secondary” in interest appear lower on the page, with the national and international stories sandwiched in between. Less familiar news and complex topics, such as those about health, science and the economy, are supported by more “explanatory” video, graphics and focused discussion.

14 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 Digital Road

At the International Sympo- ment, contiguity and minimal sium on Online Journalism, ±+)#+ /543² kick-outs with clear, accurate, Professor Alberto Cairo from ethical journalism. Addressing the University of North Caro- 0%23/.!,):!4)/. this complexity when produc- lina at Chapel Hill presented PREFERREDCONTENT ing and delivering news will examples of how databases actually simplify how the audi- linked to interactive Flash ence will then engage with the graphics—ones that users content. But to do this well can manipulate—significantly will require that news report- enhance user involvement and ers, editors and videographers engagement with the story. join with producers, educators #/.4)'5)49 Designing the right interactive ).6/,6%-%.4 and students to more clearly INTERESTAND OFTEXTGRAPHICS graphic, therefore, can be an INTERACTIVITY ANIMATION understand how digital natives art in itself. process information differently than any previous audience Involvement has. Does a slideshow or video need to be that long? What By involvement, we mean the is too long? Is the video or degree to which users input choices nearly 50 percent more creative solu- graphic redundant with information and/or content. Education research tions to problems when different forms already in the accompanying text? tells us that more interactivity breeds of explanations are fully integrated. How does one person’s interest lead more involvement. And more involve- Without coherence in multimedia to engagement with a community that ment means greater attention paid to content, users do what most content shares that interest? content. But the level of involvement producers hope to avoid—they ter- These questions—and so many varies. Clicking a “play” button for a minate their engagement. The PICK more—frame the mission of our ex- one-minute video represents much model calls this terminated engage- ploration. less involvement than reading a few ment a “kick-out.” It might be reasonable to conclude sentences, choosing steps in a related that the PICK model is still too ab- animation, selecting a 10-second video, Kick-Outs stract for immediate application. To and then posting comments about the some extent, the technology needed story. The problem is that too much The goal is nothing new. Grab the to support NewsSEEN has yet to be involvement inhibits comprehension audience with effective headlines, developed. In the interim, indications when interactivity overwhelms a user’s photos, video and formats. The PICK are that those avoiding exploration cognition, a complaint we hear often model argues that the attention-deficit of the new territory risk being aban- from the current online audience. digital world—with its overwhelming doned by a restless audience of digital More research will identify the point at amount of information—requires com- natives—an audience that appears to which too much interactivity becomes municators to now be more aware of already know the territory into which counterproductive. things that frequently terminate audi- all of us are headed.  ence attention. These are controllable Contiguity “kick-outs.” The most obvious kick-out Ronald A. Yaros is an assistant pro- is a broken link, but others include fessor in the Philip Merrill College A Web page might look appealing, but too much text, lengthy video, pop-up of Journalism at the University of research in the United Kingdom tells windows, unfamiliar terms, confusing Maryland and director of the Lab for us that users take approximately 50 graphics, or interactive animation that’s Communicating Complexity With milliseconds to form an opinion about too complex. Of course, it’s impossible Multimedia. A former president of an a page. Contiguity in multimedia is to eliminate every potential kick-out educational software corporation for how the elements of hypertext, photos, but, as the grazing digital audience 10 years, he combines nearly 20 years animation, slides, links, blogs, video continues to grow, so will the need in electronic journalism, a PhD from and audio, all combine to communicate for critical assessment of how news is the University of Wisconsin-Madison, one coherent message. Our published presented online and ways to eliminate and a Master’s in education to re- studies show that even subtle varia- avoidable kick-outs. search news audiences and new media. tions in the structures of news text and Details of this research can be viewed links produce significant differences Where Does This Path Lead? at: www.merrill.umd.edu/ronyaros/. in audience interest ratings and their understanding of stories. Researchers Ultimately, the challenge is how to at the University of California, Santa simultaneously combine effective Barbara found that users generate techniques of personalization, involve-

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 15 Search for True North

Serendipity, Echo Chambers, and the Front Page As readers on the Web, we may filter out ‘perspectives that might challenge our assumptions and preconceptions about what’s important and newsworthy.’

BY ETHAN ZUCKERMAN

n “The Paradox of Choice,” psy- quality journalism at these national Making Choices chologist Barry Schwartz warned and international newspapers. of one of the more counterintuitive Discerning readers can triangulate When newspapers create online edi- Iproblems of modern life: the paralysis between local newspapers—which have tions, they give readers more choices. that can come from too much choice. every incentive to focus coverage on That’s a subtle but important change. While “the stress of choice” might local news (sacrificing local perspec- The front page of The New York Times pale in comparison to other stresses tives on national and international offers “links” to roughly 20 stories. of modern life, it’s a useful concept news)—and world-class newspapers for Most of these links include 200-400 in understanding the stresses that coverage of the broader world. This is words and occasionally a picture or newspapers—and their readers—are a recent, and important, development. graphic. There’s significant informa- facing in a digital age. The number Ten years ago, if you lived in a rural tion to draw a reader’s interest in a of choices an engaged citizen has for town, as I do, The New York Times story. By contrast, the front page of reading or watching news has exploded was available only at the local library, nytimes.com offers more than 300 in recent years, and this increase may, The Guardian not at all. Broadening links, none of which feature more than paradoxically, mean we encounter less your perspective by reading a range 30 words of text. By one measure, the challenging news, and fewer foreign of local, national and international online version offers readers far more viewpoints, than we used to. newspapers required an investment choice, with roughly 12 times as many As exciting and challenging as of time and money that few readers stories to select. blogging has been as an addition to can make. Those investments are now The paper edition is a persuasive the media environment, the millions trivial—at least for readers. technology; it is an embodiment of the of bloggers writing about current Are most readers triangulating in editor’s argument that certain stories events have probably had less effect this way, reading broadly and widely, are worth the reader’s attention. The on mainstream newspapers than the taking advantage of the plethora of online edition trusts the reader to simple fact that nearly every news- choices online? Probably not. Most make up her own mind. paper is now available online. Alexa, major newspapers offer information This may not be a wise decision. which estimates traffic to Web sites, on their Web sites about what stories Homophily—the tendency of “birds of lists superblog The Huffington Post as are most read, most e-mailed, and a feather to flock together”—is a basic the 20th most popular news Web site, most blogged. These lists suggest that human trait and not always a desir- the most popular blog in their news readers of these papers are obsessed able one. Sociologists Paul Lazarsfeld rankings. Significantly more popular with U.S. presidential politics, stories and Robert Merton documented the are the BBC’s site (4th), The New that involve celebrities, and stories tendency of people living in mixed-race York Times (5th), The Washington about terrorism. neighborhoods to have more friend- Post (13th), The Guardian (17th), Los There’s little to indicate that read- ships with people of the same race Angeles Times (18th), The Wall Street ers are reading broadly, taking ad- (and with those who have similar edu- Journal (19th), and The Times of India vantage of the comprehensive—and cational and financial backgrounds). (22nd). The audiences suggested by expensive—international coverage These relationships affect how humans the Alexa rankings vastly outpace the these newspapers offer. There’s also receive and process information; we circulation of these newspapers. The little to indicate that readers are pay- are more likely to be receptive to a move of newspapers online means that ing attention to coverage of national message delivered by someone who engaged readers can subscribe to a lo- stories not already embedded in news shares our demographic makeup. cal newspaper and complement local agendas. Instead, these lists suggest In a world of widespread media coverage with high-quality national and that some readers are highly selective choice, we rely heavily on cues from international news available online. in their consumption, seeking and shar- peers as to what media are worth paying This could be a golden moment for ing stories as a form of ammunition attention to and what we can safely the fans of high-quality journalism— in ongoing political battles, digging ignore. We follow links from friends’ if only someone can figure out how more deeply into issues they already blogs to discover stories, read stories to continue to pay to produce high- believe to be important. e-mailed by friends, or visit sites like

16 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 Digital Road reddit or Digg where “communities” around the world. Intensely focusing on stumble upon a story that appeals to vote on which stories should be most our home country and its perspectives your interest in rugby, model railroads popular. In all these cases, we open the might be at least as dangerous as sur- or rainbows, even if it’s from a part of possibility that our news will be filtered rounding ourselves with comfortable the world you have no explicit interest by people who view the world much as political opinions. in, it may capture your attention and we do, filtering out perspectives that broaden your worldview. might challenge our assumptions and The Allure of Serendipity Serendipity is tricky to engineer. preconceptions about what’s important It’s difficult to provide information and newsworthy. There’s a strong temptation to give that’s both surprising and relates to a Harvard law professor Cass Sun- readers what they want. The Huff- reader’s unstated interests. Librarians stein has studied these issues closely.1 ington Post has increased its traffic engineer serendipity in open stacks He warns of the dangers of isolating nearly five-fold in the past year. Some by organizing books by topic, allow- ourselves in ideological echo chambers. of this traffic growth is surely due to ing eyes to stray from the requested In his research, people who deliber- an endless and contentious election. volume to related ones. Retailers hope ate with like-minded citizens tend to Betsy Morgan, CEO of The Huffington to increase purchasing by making it emerge more partisan than before Post and former head of CBSNews.com, easy to stumble upon items you were their deliberations. Sunstein worries suggests another reason for growth—a surprised to remember you “needed”— that we may polarize ourselves simply the beer display at the end of the by reading media that reinforces our diaper aisle is an attempt to create a existing points of view. serendipity for the father sent to the In reaction to Sunstein, there’s a For years, one of the best store for baby supplies. great deal of academic debate about For years, one of the best sources whether political bloggers are more sources of serendipity has of serendipity has been the front page or less likely to read opponents’ views been the front page of of daily newspapers. Many front page than the average voter. Some studies editors reserve a space, often below see clear evidence that bloggers with daily newspapers. the fold, for a story from deep within a strong ideological stance are far the paper that isn’t directly related more likely to link to bloggers with to the day’s headlines. This may be a similar stances. Others see evidence way of featuring the rich storytelling that readers of political blogs are better relentless focus on metrics. On taking within a newspaper that a reader might informed in general than average vot- the post, she immediately asked staff to otherwise miss, but it frequently leads ers and are informed about arguments provide her with daily traffic statistics, readers to make unexpected connec- across the political spectrum. showing which stories generated the tions between issues and communities. If we see evidence that liberals most interest. Those stories are heavily This ability to guide readers to stories or conservatives choose media that promoted on the site’s heavily trafficked they didn’t know they needed to read reinforce existing preconceptions and front page. It’s a smart business strat- is one of the key functions of printed avoid challenging views, it’s likely that egy, signaling to the site’s employees newspapers and one we shouldn’t we have other biases that govern our and unpaid contributors what stories engineer away as we move to the consumption of media, including too are most likely to be celebrated and Web. Instead, we need to take on the much of a focus on our nation at the amplified by editors and appreciated challenge of creating serendipity in expense of others. If our peers place by the site’s readers. digital media, recognizing the problems too much focus on U.S. politics and This strategy has a downside. Too associated with the paradox of choice terrorism at the expense of other im- much reliance on viewer metrics by and building media that help us find portant stories, do we end up with less newspapers could have an important the information we need, not just the diverse and complex knowledge of the unintended consequence—a decrease information we think we need.  world? Sunstein argues that we tend in a publication’s ability to provide to surround ourselves with media that serendipity. Serendipity is the won- Ethan Zuckerman is cofounder of the reinforce our political prejudices. It derful experience of stumbling upon global citizen media Web site, Global should come as no surprise that we something you didn’t know you wanted Voices (globalvoicesonline.org) and a also seek out media that focus nearly to know. It’s a surprisingly powerful research fellow at the Berkman Center exclusively on our nation, language tool for helping people break out of for Internet & Society at Harvard and culture at the expense of others echo chambers of all sorts. If you University.

1 Sunstein’s article, “Enclave Extremism and Journalism’s Brave New World,” was published in the Summer 2008 issue of Nieman Reports, at www.nieman.harvard.edu/ reportsitem.aspx?id=100021.

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 17 SEARCH FOR TRUE NORTH | Grabbing Readers’ Attention—Youthful Perspectives

Net Geners Relate to News in New Ways ‘Is it any surprise that they remember less from the traditional newscasts—told from beginning to end—than from interactive versions that allow them to click to hear the news or learn more details?’

BY DON TAPSCOTT

hen my son Alex was in his interactive, multitasking digital world senior year, I visited him at is affecting young minds. Playing a lot Amherst College. He was of action video games, for example, Wsitting with four friends, each with can result in them noticing more in a laptop, in the common room. They their field of vision and speeding up were watching three television sets, all their processing of visual informa- closed-captioned—one airing a sports tion, according to a widely quoted show, another the news, and another study reported in Nature.1 This study a sitcom. Needless to say, they weren’t built on other research showing that just watching, but each of them was video-game playing can also improve talking and playing a game together spatial skills, the ability to mentally that they’d just dreamed up. When manipulate a 3-D object (helpful for someone on one of the TV shows architects, sculptors and engineers), said something like, “The Mafia is and might be associated with improved the number one employer in Italy!,” results in some fields of mathematics. the boys would shout “No way” and Other studies suggest that video game check it out online. Or maybe Jerry playing enhances abilities for dividing Seinfeld would offer some obscure one’s attention and encourages players Shakespearean reference. “No way!,” to discover rules through observa- they’d say, and then tap, tap, tap. tion, trial and error, and hypothesis From time to time, they’d call or text testing. a friend via mobile phone. The interactive nature of the digi- I was amazed they could manage (or if we did, no one responded). But tal world influences how Net Geners all these media at once. They weren’t when Net Geners watch TV, they treat absorb information, too. They want a even stressed out by it. It looked like it like background Muzak as they hunt two-way conversation, not a lecture— fun—if you had grown up digital. for information and chat with friends from a teacher, a politician, or a jour- Neither Alex nor his friends are via Facebook, Skype, Google Talk, or nalist. They like to contribute to the unusual within their generation. Young plain old text messaging. Multitasking conversation. Most young people visit Americans under 30 are the first to is what this generation does, in the blogs, and 40 percent of them have their grow up at a time when cell phones, same way talking back—and expecting own; even more contribute some form the Internet, texting and Facebook are an answer—is a natural part of their of content to the Internet. They have as normal as the refrigerator. They’ve interactive experience. a limited tolerance for long lectures grown up digital, and it’s changed the or 700-page tomes (especially when way their minds work. Digital Minds they can find information far more The technology they grew up with is quickly on Wikipedia). The result of this significantly different than what we, as As I describe in my book, “Grown was highlighted in a 2006 study that boomers, knew at their age. When my Up Digital: How the Net Generation compared what Net Geners remember generation watched TV as teenagers, is Changing Your World,” we can al- from radio newscasts vs. interactive we just watched; we didn’t talk back ready see the early signs of how this newscasts. Is it any surprise that they

1 This article, “Action Video Games Modify Visual Selective Attention,” by C. Shawn Green and Daphne Bavelier, appeared in Nature in 2003 (Vol. 423).

18 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 Youthful Perspectives remember less from the traditional see a different story when I observe Though he might not read books newscasts—told from beginning to hundreds of young people in their cover-to-cover, O’Shea finds knowledge end—than from interactive versions natural habitat. Young people are bet- contained in books in various ways. that allow them to click to hear the ter and faster at handling the amazing Using Google Book Search, he can news or learn more details?2 amount of information online than are read a chapter in any one of millions Consider how Alex and his friends older people, who have not grown up of books stored in its online archive. were consuming media in the common digital. It helps to be a good scanner. And he’s gotten proficient at figuring room at college with their own interac- We’ve found that Net Geners often out the right chapter to choose. (In tive multimedia experience rather than won’t read a whole Web page from part, because of his online search- watching TV. Our research shows that left to right and top to bottom, as ing, he’s also an effective browser of the Net Generation likes to customize older people tend to do. Having grown actual books.) But he—and others in everything from their iPods to news up digital, they are more sensitive to his generation—know that much con- feeds. So when I asked Rahaf Harfoush, visual symbols and use those to guide temporary knowledge is not contained a Net Gen collaborator, why she doesn’t their scanning. in documents but exists in people’s read newspapers, she told me: “Why minds, and his digital skills—and would I? They come out once a day, Google Learning collaborative mindset—help him learn they don’t have hot links, and they’re from experts online. not multimedia. Besides, who needs The Internet has shaped Net Geners’ As O’Shea’s example shows, digital that black gunk all over your fingers?” mental habits, but does it make them immersion can be good for the brain. Instead, Rahaf creates her own digital stupid? I don’t think so. Last year I To Google effectively, a person has to newspaper using a sophisticated, per- met Joe O’Shea, then the 22-year-old ask a good question, construct a search, sonalized set of information-gathering student body president of Florida State and weed out stuff that’s irrelevant. tools, which provide her with real- University. He and I were participating The next step is to evaluate what’s time, on-demand access to dozens of in a panel discussion with the deans been found, synthesize it, and form a information sources. about the future of education. When view. All of this entails constructing “The news is no longer a one-stop it was O’Shea’s turn to speak, what he one’s own story rather than following trip,” she told me. “I think the changing said shocked some in his audience: the line of thought drawn by someone nature of the story, and the constant “I don’t read books per se,” he told else. This doesn’t replace conventional updating of the Internet, make it them. “I go to Google, where I can book reading, nor should it. But nei- possible to sample a wide variety of absorb relevant information quickly.” ther should Googling be dismissed opinions and perspectives. I rely on The deans were flabbergasted. “It’s as an intellectual slacker’s answer to all these different pieces to triangulate not a good use of my time, as I can real thinking. Some literacy scholars the issues I care about and kind of get get all the information I need faster believe that finding information in to the heart of things.” through the Web,” he continued. “You this way can be just as intellectually Growing up digital has encour- need to know how to do it—to be a challenging as reading a book. aged this generation to be active and skilled hunter.” Growing up digital might make this demanding inquirers—not passive O’Shea, it turns out, has used his the smartest generation ever. And given consumers of media created for a mass hunting acumen to make a real dif- what we know about the way they think, audience. Rather than waiting for a ference. He founded the Lower 9th they’re not likely to be a new audience trusted anchor to tell them what’s going Ward Health Clinic in post-Katrina for old-style journalism.  on, they find out on their own—often New Orleans, which provides preven- via Google or Wikipedia. Some writers, tive and primary care to about 10,000 Don Tapscott, author of “Grown Up of course, think that Google makes you patients annually, and cofounded the Digital: How the Net Generation is stupid; it’s so hard to concentrate and Global Peace Exchange, an interna- Changing Your World,” is founder think deeply amid the overwhelming tional service-based exchange program and chairman of nGenera Insight. He amounts of bits of information online, for students modeled after the U.S. has authored or coauthored 13 books, they contend. Yet I think that growing Peace Corps. His style of Google learn- including “Wikinomics,” “Paradigm up digital has helped Net Geners to ing might have shocked academics at Shift: The New Promise of Informa- handle this information overload. Florida State, but it hasn’t slowed down tion Technology,” “The Digital Econ- Several research studies suggest his academic career. This year, O’Shea omy,” and “Growing Up Digital: The that young people are no better than is at Oxford, studying philosophy as Rise of the Net Generation.” older people at multitasking, but I a Rhodes scholar.

2 This study, “The Impact of Linear Versus Nonlinear Listening to Radio News on Recall and Comprehension,” by Hesham M. Mesbah, was published in the Journal of Radio & Audio Media in December 2006 (Vol. 13, No. 2).

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 19 Search for True North

Passion Replaces the Dullness of an Overused Journalistic Formula ‘… mainstream journalism that my students abhor has become too formulaic, too cynical, and too concerned with internal standards over external truth.’

BY ROBERT NILES

nyone who has taught a morn- so many TV newscasts. Those who are election. Pollsters and other experts ing class at a university likely is majoring in print journalism also ex- predicted the largest Election Day familiar with the glazed, blasé pressed frustration with third-person, turnout ever. Alook that so many students wear to an institutional writing voices that they As newspapers cut staff and lose early class. But one morning last spring, said suck the life from what could be market share, readers have more news I watched my students’ faces awaken more compelling narratives. sources available to them than ever. and their eyes catch fire. For half an When I asked them what they liked Partisan-driven online publications, hour, they leaned forward in their about “The Daily Show With Jon such as DailyKos and RedState, are chairs, talking over one another, each Stewart,” and others like it, several engaging a new generation of voters, eager to say what they had evidently said its “honesty.” They admired its while professionally staffed Web sites been holding back for so long. fearlessness in calling out newsmak- such as TalkingPointsMemo and Po- What was on their minds? They ers as liars and hypocrites. The heart litico provide solid reporting not only wanted me to know that they really, of a muckraker beats strongly in my about the candidates but the coverage really hated TV news. And what these students and, freed from what one of of them. journalism majors disliked the most them called the “mind-numbing slick- was feeling as though they had to ness” of mainstream news reporting, The Power of Passion follow the formula drafted by local their passion for journalism could and network television news. Give’em again re-emerge. I’ve been working in online publish- The Onion online, or Jon Stewart on After I wrote about my students’ ing for 12 years now. I’ve edited Web cable. When my students were given criticism on ojr.org in June, many sites for major metro dailies and free reign to produce their own video bloggers, readers, reporters and me- launched my own start-ups. I’ve seen news stories, they gleefully churned dia critics commented that they, too, bosses, publications and corporations out YouTube videos filled with sharp, shared these feelings. But this does not fail, while young professionals work- snarky comment. mean that everyone is eager to move ing outside the media mainstream Did such a heartfelt rejection of to a postmainstream media world, became millionaires. The ones who professional news depress me, as their however. What will the alternative succeeded brought passion to their journalism instructor? Heck, no! Their look like? This morning at breakfast, work, the same passion that I saw in eagerness for something fresh gives my wife asked, “What will life be like my students’ faces when they were hope that tomorrow’s citizens might without daily newspapers?” given the green light to speak honestly be better informed about their com- Well, you’ve been seeing the view about their field. Their’s was a pas- munities than are today’s. for the past few years, I told her. With sion that I rarely saw in the faces of our local Los Angeles Times employ- executives dryly mulling spreadsheets Rejecting the Formula ing just half the number of editorial and PowerPoints while planning their staffers it did in 2001 (from more companies’ online efforts. How, some might ask, can I feel so than 1,200 to a little more than 600), Passion makes people work harder. optimistic in the face of my students’ today’s newspaper is very different— It drives bloggers to post 20 times a disdain for their craft? It’s because less complete, thorough and insightful day, seven days a week, answering the mainstream journalism that my on so many beats. The same situation e-mails and IM’ing readers through- students abhor has become too for- exists at many newspapers across the out the day and night. Passion drives mulaic, too cynical, and too concerned country. Yet even as circulation falls online community members to read with internal standards over external and newsrooms lay off staff at many through hundreds of online documents, truth. My students are eager to avoid papers, people remain engaged in to interview sources, and to organize simplistic “he said, she said” stories, their democracy. Look at the record rallies to investigate and report issues hyperventilated telling of crime news, number of people contributing and important to their personal lives and and gimmicky in-studio banter that fills volunteering in this year’s presidential local communities. Passion breeds

20 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 Youthful Perspectives expertise. “The more compelling it is, the more those who join in discussions online This passion and expertise is what drama you provide, the more exciting who are not constrained by “fairness” too many news organizations exorcised the payoff, the more people will ar- from calling a liar just that, especially from their companies as they grew rive and stick around day after day,” when those writers follow their passion fat off local monopolies and their 20- DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas to develop the expertise necessary to and 40-percent profit margins over e-mailed me this week. “You need to make such calls. the last quarter of the 20th century. build it organically over time by crafting We can train a new generation of That left them ill-prepared to compete those villains and heroes and getting journalists who will develop the nec- with the passionate competition that people invested not just in the story essary expertise in their fields to call the Internet introduced in the 1990’s. line but in the outcome.” out frauds and crooks, to tell stories During this same time, the public grew Sure, many TV news reports try faithfully, and to craft narratives in bored, then disgusted with journal- to craft dramatic story lines (with multiple media that connect with ism that gradually slouched toward villains and heroes). But my students readers in an emotionally honest way. “he said, she said, you-figure-it-out” saw these reports as cynical, shallow, But to do this we have to start by stenography. formulaic attempts at storytelling admitting, as I did, that sometimes Passion connects with audiences. crafted to capture an audience rather our students are right. Journalists When people see a writer with personal than to faithfully tell a story. What they have developed some bad habits that knowledge, training and experience embrace is genuine storytelling, even we need to break. Fortunately, we’ve on a beat, who shows their caring when such stories are told with less got a slew of passionate readers and and commitment for it, they read and than perfect production values. Indeed, writers online who are working to do listen. And when that passion is paired slick production has become so closely just that.  with expertise, the audience returns. associated in their minds with cynical The Internet has enabled people to storytelling that they now prefer video Robert Niles is the editor of ThemePar- blog about their professions and their reports with a more amateur feel. And kInsider.com and producer of Violin- passions with an honesty and expertise something similar is happening in print ist.com. He is a former staff writer and missing from too many newspapers media; there, readers fear they aren’t Web editor for the Los Angeles Times and TV newscasts, where increasingly getting the “real” story from profes- and Rocky Mountain News. overworked generalists file superficial sional reporters who aren’t allowed to reports on issues that they know too draw conclusions and “tell them the little about. truth.” Instead, they prefer bloggers and

Accepting the Challenge: Using the Web to Help Newspapers Survive ‘Meeting us where we are—with a great Web site, content that works well in digital media, told in ways we can absorb and share—is a step in the right direction.’

BY LUKE MORRIS

ith newsroom layoffs hap- Many newsrooms continue to ad- I’m not suggesting that the news- pening everywhere, it must just to the Internet and all of its new room should be run with a Spanish really stink to be graduat- newsroom duties. Those doing the Inquisition attitude of “convert or die” Wing and starting a job search in May, adjusting right now might have res- (or to say it a different way, if you can’t right? Wrong. It doesn’t feel too bad ervations about taking on all of these handle the Web, get lost). The veterans for those who, like me, are in this po- added duties, but journalists about to in the newsroom still have important sition. The newspaper optimists know enter the job market don’t know how roles to play in keeping the focus on recent grads are the best equipped to things were before the Web changed what journalists do best—no matter save newspapers, and they’ll be willing everything. To them, working for print what media their work appears on. But to hire those who show the potential and Web is all part of the daily life of there needs to be room for younger to keep newspapers afloat. any journalist. journalists who can help continue the

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 21 Search for True North

newspaper’s evolution—or, community department. some might say, energize its Sure they have readers or revolution—into an online viewers located in their news organization. market area, but that’s not As those of us who’ve how Internet community grown up with the Internet works or is measured. To begin to enter newsrooms, be a successful Web site we bring with us our visceral means having a commu- understanding of how the nity whose members feel a Internet works. We were, strong desire to participate. after all, among the early They’re the people watch- adopters of some of the ing Vaynerchuk on Ustream more popular ways of the and sending messages on Web, like Facebook, which Twitter wishing him a bet- started as a college-only ter day after his beloved networking site. Nor are New York Jets lose. we shy of putting ourselves It’s hard to imagine jour- online, as we demonstrated by signing and look for a job in newspapers, I’m nalists having the time and energy for up quickly for MySpace accounts. Ditto really hoping that newspapers find this very high level of interaction. If for Twitter and lots of other social some way to permeate our culture. they did, then when would they find media sites that people older than Meeting us where we are—with a time and energy to do their reporting? us tend to avoid. And we’ll likely be great Web site, content that works But newspaper reporters and editors the ones to stampede toward the next well in digital media, told in ways we can—and many already do—hop into great online breakthroughs. can absorb and share—is a step in the a chat room hosted by the paper or By being on the Web so much, and right direction. get on Ustream for 20 minutes once observing how others use it, when we a week and keep in touch with read- get into the newsroom we’ll bring with Content and Community ers. And when the newspaper sets us a good sense of possible ways to up its Web site in a welcoming way integrate the newspaper into the vast Host of the video blog Wine Library TV (with good social media tools), then territory of digital media. Perhaps, and business and social media mogul readers will use it to engage with one with this kind of input, newspapers Gary Vaynerchuk often tells people another. will only be a half step behind the that every successful Web site excels Leo Laporte, who is host of TWiT.tv Internet instead of feeling like they in what he calls the two “Cs”—content (www.thisweekintech.com), a Web site are miles behind. and community. For him, content cranking out many podcasts a week, A big challenge newspapers have comes in the form of his video blog set up a microblogging program simi- right now is figuring out how to get about wines. Vaynerchuk capitalizes on lar to Twitter on TWiT’s site through us to even read the paper. In his book, the community side by including his Laconica; it’s called TWiT Army. Join “Is Voting for Young People?,” Martin followers in a lot of his operation; in TWiT Army, and you can post links or Wattenberg writes that we do not fact, he makes his Web site completely reflections on an article in a mini post, connect with the news because we’ve open to his viewers. as you would for Twitter. Wiredjour- grown up in a time when watching Vaynerchuk live streams tapings of nalists.com also does this, but through the evening news isn’t the only option his shows on Ustream.tv. He also puts Ning.com, a Web site that provides on TV, not to mention the Internet. himself on Ustream to talk with his a customizable template for creating Cable gave us the ability to watch fans, pulling as many as a few hundred your own social media program. other programming during the tra- followers each time in sessions that Having content and community ditional time slot when many older happen during the workday. He Tweets isn’t going to solve all the problems Americans watched the news each often and is adroit at using many that newspapers confront today. They night as a family. Nor is dad usually similar social media tools. Added to all must still work very hard to get their found reading the newspaper at the of this, he answers every e-mail sent entire product out to wherever poten- breakfast table anymore. to him, and some days they number tial consumers can be found. Creating Even if we don’t relate to getting in the thousands. Newspapers looking an iPhone application is a great step our news in the way that our parents— for ways to be dominant in the era of to push content to consumers, but the and their parents—did, I don’t think digital media have a lot to learn from next challenge is to move the com- it’s time to abandon the idea of get- Vaynerchuk. munity part of the equation onto the ting newspapers into the hands of News organizations already have mobile devices as well and not only our children. From where I sit as a plenty of good content, even if many the devices with famous names. When journalism student about to graduate of them are lacking in the digital a newspaper decides to get its content

22 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 Youthful Perspectives onto one kind of phone, it should Internet-induced downfall. Instead, When I toss my mortarboard into immediately expand its goal to aim I see it as a challenge. Every time the air on May 17th, consider it my way toward getting the newspaper’s content someone tells me that wanting to get a of saying, “challenge accepted.”  onto every phone made after a certain job in a newspaper is a dumb idea, it year. As new products—hardware motivates me even more to prove them Luke Morris is a senior at the Univer- and online programs—emerge, those wrong. And I believe there are plenty sity of Kansas and copy chief of The in the newsroom who are their early of young people like me who want to University Daily Kansan. He blogs adopters will be the ones well suited be part of the reason that newspapers about his rookie view of the newspaper to lead the brainstorming of how to will survive. We’re ready to take what industry at http://breakingintojour- get the newspaper onto these new we know from our use of the Internet nalism.blogspot.com. technologies. and apply it to whatever we can do I don’t shudder at newspapers’ to keep newspapers afloat.

Journalism and Citizenship: Making the Connection ‘Not only do citizens benefit from good journalism, but also journalism gets a boost from having engaged, news-hungry citizens.’

BY DAVID T.Z. MINDICH

y book, “Tuned Out: Why an early estimate by the Center for Americans Under 40 Don’t Information and Research on Civic Follow the News,” published Learning and Engagement. Min 2004, opened with a depressing fact: But does this modest upsurge in More people watched the 2003 finale voting among young people mean that of “American Idol” (38 million) than the 30-year widening knowledge gap the second Bush vs. Gore presidential between them and their elders is being debate (37.6 million). Among young narrowed? Some long-term trends are viewers, these numbers were even discouraging: more lopsided. In all, 24 million votes were cast, mainly by young people, for • Only around 20 percent of today’s “American Idol” contestants Ruben 20-somethings and 30 percent of Studdard and Clay Aiken. Even though 30-somethings read a newspaper ev- we know that some of these votes were ery day, way down from decades past. by minors (and they were allowed to Why should we care? Because studies vote multiple times), it is sobering to show that the news habit needs to be remember that fewer than six million cultivated early. The 30-something (22 percent) of 18- to 24-year-olds non-news reader is likely to one day voted in the 2006 midterm elections; become a 50-something non-news this means that for every one of these reader. young people who voted, four of their • Television news viewership is no peers stayed home. better: The median viewer age of TV Fast forward to the 2008 elections, news has risen from 50 to around 60 in which 66 million watched the second in the past decade. Although CNN, presidential debate, and even more 29-year-olds increased their share of “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” watched the vice presidential one. the electorate from 17 percent in the and “The Colbert Report” have seen Millions of young people participated past two elections to 18 percent this recent upticks in young viewers, in the primaries and caucuses—in a year. Still, little more than half of all long-term trends for television news greater percentage than seen in de- eligible voters under 30 cast ballots watching are down. cades. In the general election, 18 to in the general election, according to • An August 2008 report1 by the Pew

1 http://people-press.org/report/444/news-media

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 23 Search for True North

Research Center for the People & the year olds seemed to know slightly and intelligent as their parents and Press, found that an engaged minor- more than their elders about the can- grandparents were (and are). And ity of Americans are “integrators,” didates and these issues. But a closer while they’re not dumb, most Ameri- people who use both the Internet examination must give us pause. The cans, particularly those under 40, do and traditional sources to get a lot of poll asked whether the candidates are have what Michael X. Delli Carpini their news. But while more and more “pro-choice” or “pro-life,” a yes or no and Scott Keeter once called a “thin” people are logging onto news Web question. If respondents were totally citizenship; this means they only fol- sites—and sharing what they find devoid of knowledge, we could expect low the outlines of democracy and, in with one another—until very recent- a 50 percent accuracy rate. In the many cases, don’t bother to engage at ly none of this activity had closed the poll, only 52 percent and 45 percent all. Most young people I talked with political knowledge gap. There is, of of Americans of all ages knew that, during my research couldn’t name course, a minority of young people— respectively, Obama is pro-choice even one Supreme Court justice or always was and always will be—who and McCain is pro-life. A flipped coin any of the countries in Bush’s “Axis use whatever the of Evil.” current medium is to gain a deep The News Habit knowledge of news and politics. But There is, of course, a minority of young people— A thin citizenship is for too many, Fa- always was and always will be—who use whatever good for no one. When cebook, MySpace, we don’t pay attention, YouTube, and other the current medium is to gain a deep knowledge we fall for slogans and digital media seem get swayed by lofty to serve as more of of news and politics. But for too many, Facebook, rhetoric with little a distraction from MySpace, YouTube, and other digital media seem to regard for policy dif- civic and political ferences and voting news than as a way serve as more of a distraction from civic and political records. Deep citi- to inform. zenship lets us hold • In “The Age of Indif- news than as a way to inform. leaders accountable by ference,” an impor- engaging in a delibera- tant study from the tive process that goes summer of 1990, it deeper. was revealed that “The role of the young Americans from the 1940’s to would do basically as well as the poll press,” said the late James W. Carey, the 1970’s were nearly as informed respondents. That young people in one a journalism professor, when he ad- as their elders about current events; poll marginally beat a flipped coin, dressed a journalism educators’ con- this knowledge gap began widening and the rest of us didn’t, is no cause ference in 1978, “is simply to make in the 1970’s.2 A decade later, Pew for celebration. sure that in the short run we don’t get asked Americans if they happen to Two recent books, Mark Bauerlein’s screwed, and it does this best not by know the presidential candidate who “The Dumbest Generation” and Rick treating us as consumers of news, but sponsored campaign finance reform. Shenkman’s “Just How Stupid Are by encouraging the conditions of public Only about nine percent of 18-34 year We?,” seek to plumb the depths of our discourse and life.” Carey argued that olds knew it was John McCain, far dumbness. We do, after all, live in a cultivating a deep citizenship is part fewer than their elders. A question nation in which many of us believed of a journalist’s responsibility. If Carey about Wesley Clark in 2004 showed that Saddam Hussein had a role in the was indicating that the business part that young Americans were far less 9/11 attacks years after the Bush ad- of this equation should not be consid- likely than their elders to know that ministration had to pull back from that ered as paramount, it’s important for he was a general. claim. Still, after conducting research us to recognize that muscular citizens during the past five years—studies that are good for business, too. Not only The one exception to these dire involved speaking with hundreds of do citizens benefit from good journal- numbers is a recent Pew poll published young people about their news habits ism, but also journalism gets a boost in July that asked respondents to (and lack thereof)—I don’t find that from having engaged, news-hungry identify McCain and Obama’s stances today’s young people are “stupid” or citizens. on abortion and withdrawal from Iraq. “dumb.” Quite the contrary: I find There are plenty of things that For the first time in years, 18-to-29 them to be just as idealistic, thoughtful we, as a society, can do to reverse

2 http://people-press.org/report/19900628/the-age-of-indifference

24 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 Youthful Perspectives the 30-year trend. I met with poor, of my ability to mix drinks well and, Perhaps it is coverage like that black, middle-school students in New although some would enjoy the party which happened in the aftermath of Orleans in 2001 who were all reading atmosphere, most, I believe, regard my Hurricane Katrina, when journalists The New York Times online. Why? class as a refuge from dorm parties. pushed back against power. Not sur- Because their sixth grade teacher made Similarly, CNN is not a good place prisingly, they also saw their credibility them. As eighth graders, these kids for entertainment; for starters, its (and ratings) shoot up. After Anderson were still getting the e-mail alerts from entertainment isn’t as much fun as Cooper’s role in that coverage, CNN the Times. After speaking with them, “Fear Factor” and “Desperate House- tried to make him more touchy-feely, I concluded that if you assign it, they wives” but, more importantly, CNN but then wisely abandoned that tack will read it. In other words, kids who should be a refuge, a place we turn to to push the idea that Cooper and CNN are asked to follow the news often keep for elevated conversation, to become are “holding them accountable” and up the habit on their own. politically informed, and to engage “keeping them honest.” In my journal- This experience—and others like in a process that holds the powerful ism and mass communication classes, it—have convinced me of the value accountable. I assign hard-hitting journalism— there would be in news organizations Some find The Daily Show to be an Seymour Hersh’s Abu Ghraib story, and media companies connecting example of how entertainment debases Dana Priest and Anne Hull’s Walter more actively with schools and with news. But watch it and immediately Reed investigation, and James Risen students. While many of us worry its flashes of intelligence, its analysis, and Eric Lichtblau’s reporting on do- about journalists who take on such a and its ability and willingness to hold mestic spying—and I find my students public role, there is nothing partisan leaders accountable are apparent. It’s often are shocked by how important or unseemly, and certainly no conflict no coincidence, then, that some of the journalism can be. of interest, when journalists try to get more serious and politically engaged Despite our present economic dif- kids to follow the news. news junkies watch The Daily Show; ficulties, we live in a hopeful time, Colleges can do their part, too. it shares many, though certainly not with the national zeitgeist certainly Imagine what a news and civics por- all, of the best values and practices more political than it has been in tion of the SAT would do to engage of journalism. years. Some of my students tell me college-bound students. Or the effect What I’ve come to understand is that their lunchtime conversations of a single question on the Common that part of why young people don’t are becoming more political, and Application: “What have you done to follow the news is that many of them conversation is certainly part of the effect political change in your com- no longer trust those bringing the solution to lack of civic and political munity?” There is a group—the Stu- news to them, especially commercial engagement. My research and that of dent Voices Project, sponsored by the outlets. My research shows this is due others show that young adults—even University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg to four factors, which conspire to make schoolchildren—seek out political news School—in which educators, politicians many young people deeply suspicious when they know that their elders and and journalists work together to help of corporate media. their peers care about politics. With students change their communities, the blossoming of this youthful inter- and it appears to be effective. 1. Young people are deeply—and est, now is a perfect time for those rightly—suspicious of the rising who see a need to strengthen the Rebuilding Trust sensationalism in the media. connection between journalism and 2. Attacks from the right have labeled, citizenship to act.  News organizations can do a lot to unfairly, I believe, the mainstream improve their product, too, yet most press as being left wing. David T.Z. Mindich, a former assign- are doing nearly everything wrong. 3. Because many on the left criticize ment editor for CNN, is a professor of At my former employer, CNN, “Nancy the press for its failure to ask tough journalism and mass communication Grace” and “Showbiz Tonight” have questions in the months leading up at Saint Michael’s College. Mindich is been added to the Headline News to the Iraq War, a lot of young people the author, most recently, of “Tuned lineup during the past few years—with don’t realize there were a number of Out: Why Americans Under 40 Don’t a concomitant loss of hard news. When hard-hitting reports and editorials. Follow the News,” published by Oxford I met CNN President Jonathan Klein 4. Well meaning “media literacy” edu- University Press in 2004. His articles at a conference a couple of years ago, cators have sought to make young have appeared in a wide range of pub- I shared with him my view that this people aware of the dangers of media, lications, including The Wall Street kind of programming is a mistake. in general, without helping them to Journal, New York magazine, The I used this example: What if I see the benefits of journalism, in Chronicle of Higher Education, and decided to pander to my students particular. the Wilson Quarterly. by bringing mixed drinks to class? Most students would object for two What is the best antidote to their reasons: they’d rightly be suspicious mistrust?

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 25 Search for True North

Distracted: The New News World and the Fate of Attention ‘As a term, “multitasking” doesn’t quite do justice to all the ways in which we fragment our attention.’

BY MAGGIE JACKSON

ast summer, I was a passenger in Fragmented Attention a car barreling down a Detroit highway when I noticed a driver As a term, “multitasking” doesn’t quite Lspeeding past us, a magazine propped do justice to all the ways in which we up beside his steering wheel. Perhaps fragment our attention. Split-focus is most amazingly, I was the only person sometimes simply the result of living in my group who was surprised by this in a highly mediated world. More high-speed feat of multitasking. than half of children ages eight to 18 Today, it’s rare to give anything our live in homes where a television is full attention. Our focus is fragmented on most of the time, an environment and diffused, whether we’re conversing, linked to attention difficulties and eating, working, minding our kids—or lowered parent-child interaction. In imbibing the news. A new hypermobile, public spaces from elevators to taxis, cybercentric and split-focused world screens packed with flickering words has radically changed the context and images are increasingly hard to of news consumption—and shifted avoid. Despite reconnaissance forays the environment for newsgathering up and down airports, I usually have as well. Attention is the bedrock of to succumb to an inescapable TV blare deep learning, critical thinking, and while waiting to fly. Former Microsoft creativity—all skills that we need to executive Linda Stone deems ours a foster, not undercut, more than ever landscape of “continuous partial at- on both sides of the newsmaking tention.” Tuning in and out is a way fence. And as we become more cultur- of life. ally attention-deficient, I worry about But split focus also occurs when we whether we as a nation can nurture approach the 24/7 newsfeed that is hopscotch from one task or person to both an informed citizenry—and an life today. Consider the Detroit driver; another, as most famously exemplified informative press. where was he consuming media, and by the lethal crash of a California com- It’s easy to point first to rising data how much focus was he allotting to muter train, apparently because the floods as a culprit for our distraction. the task? rail engineer at the helm was texting. More than 100 million blogs and Increasingly, Americans are on the Our veneration of multitasking can be a like number of Web sites, not to go, whatever they’re doing. Just 14 traced in part to the influential effi- mention 1.8 million books in print, percent of us move each year, yet the ciency guru Frederick W. Taylor, who spawn so much information that, as average number of miles that we drive counseled that factory work could be Daniel Boorstin observes, data begin annually has risen 80 percent during speeded up if broken down into inter- to outstrip the making of meaning. the past two decades. The car-as- changeable parts. As well, we live in an “We are captives of information,” moving-den, the popularity of power era where we seem to believe that we writes the cultural historian Walter bars and other portable cuisine, the can shape time at will. We ignore age- Ong, “for uninterrupted information rise of injuries related to “textwalking,” old rhythms of sun and season, strain can create an information chaos and, all of these—and more—attest to our to surpass our biological limitations, indeed, has done so, and quite clearly collective hyperactivity. And as we and now seek to break the fetters of will always do so.” relentlessly hurry through our days mechanized time by trying to do two Yet sense-making in today’s infor- toting hand-held foods and portable or more things at once. Multitasking mation-rich world is not just a mat- gadgets, at the same time we keep is born of a post-clock era. ter of how much we have to contend one ear or eye on multiple streams The result on the job is “work with but, more importantly, how we of news-bytes. fragmentation,” according to Gloria

26 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 Youthful Perspectives

Mark, an informatics professor at the Multitasking and the News mented work, and instant answers. University of California, Irvine and Just today, my morning paper carried a leader in the field of “interruption News consumption fares no better, a front-page story about efforts “in a science.” In studies across a range of according to a small but in-depth new age of impatience” to create a industries, she and other researchers recent study of 18- to 34-year-olds quick-boot computer. Explained one have found that office workers change commissioned by The Associated tech executive, “It’s ridiculous to ask tasks on average every three minutes Press. The 18 participants, who were people to wait a couple of minutes” throughout the day. An e-mail, in- tracked by ethnographers for days, to start up their computer. The first stant message, phone call, colleague’s consumed a “steady diet of bite-size hand up in the classroom, the hyper- question, or a new thought prompts pieces of news,” almost always while businessman who can’t sit still, much an interruption. Once interrupted, it multitasking. Their news consump- less listen—these are markers of success takes nearly 25 minutes to return to an tion was often “shallow and erratic,” in American society. original task. Half of the time, people Of course, the news business has are interrupting themselves. always been quick, fast and fueled by The risks are clear. “If you’re con- multitasking. Reporters work in one of tinually interrupted and switching In our rapid-fire, split- the most distracting of milieus—and thoughts, it’s hard to think deeply yet draw on reserves of just-in-time about anything,” Mark once observed focus era, are we able to focus to meet deadlines. Still, perhaps to me. “How can you engage with today we need to consider how much something?” process, filter and reflect we can shrink editorial attention In our rapid-fire, split-focus era, are well on the tsunamis of spans, with our growing emphasis we able to process, filter and reflect on “4D” newsgathering, Twitter-style well on the tsunamis of information information barraging us reporting, and newsfeeds from citizen barraging us daily? Are we hearing, bloggers whose influence far outstrips but not listening? If this continues daily? Are we hearing, but any hard-won knowledge of the dif- to be the way we work, learn and not listening? ficult craft of journalism. It’s not just report, could we be collectively nur- news consumers who are succumbing turing new forms of ignorance, born to a dangerous dependence on what’s not from a dearth of information as first up on Google for making sense in the past, but from an inability or of their world. an unwillingness to do the difficult even as they yearned to go beyond the Ultimately, our new world does work of forging knowledge from the brief and often repetitive headlines more than speed life up and pare data flooding our world? and updates that barraged them daily. the news down. Most importantly, I see worrisome signs that our cli- Participants “appeared debilitated by our current climate undermines the mate of distraction undermines our information overload and unsatisfy- trio of skills—focus, awareness and ability to think deeply. Consider that ing news experiences,” researchers planning/judgment—that make up nearly a third of workers are so busy observed. Moreover, “when the news the crucial human faculty of attention. or interrupted that they often feel wore them down, participants in the When we split our focus, curb our they do not have time to reflect on study showed a tendency to passively awareness, and undercut our ability the work that they do, according to receive versus actively seek news.” to gain perspective, we diminish our the Families and Work Institute. David [See related article by the AP’s Jim ability to think critically, carry out M. Levy, a professor at the University Kennedy on page 68.] deep learning, or be creative. Can we of Washington, has even held a high- This is a disturbing portrait: multi- afford to create an attention-deficient level MacArthur Foundation-funded tasking consumers uneasily “snacking” economy or press, or build a healthy conference tellingly called, “No Time to on headlines, stuck on the surface of democracy from a culture of distrac- Think.” And for all their tech-fluency, the news, unable to turn information tion? Absolutely not.  younger generations often have trouble into knowledge. evaluating and assessing information Are consumers lazy? Are the media Maggie Jackson is the author of “Dis- drawn from the Web, studies show. to blame? Or is Google making us tracted: The Erosion of Attention and For example, a new national exam of stupid, as a recent Atlantic maga- the Coming Dark Age,” published by information literacy, the Educational zine cover story asked? It’s far too Prometheus Books in June 2008. She Testing Service’s “iSkills” assessment simplistic to look for a single culprit, writes the “Balancing Acts” column test, found that just half of college a clear-cut driver of such changes. in The Boston Globe, and her work students could judge the objectivity Rather, helped by influential tools has appeared in The New York Times, of a Web site, and just over a third that are seedbeds of societal change, BusinessWeek and on NPR, among could correctly narrow an overly broad we’ve built a culture over generations other national publications. online search. that prizes frenetic movement, frag-

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 27 Search for True North

Tracking Behavior Changes on the Web Evidence accumulated in a major study reveals significant shifts in how people deal with knowledge and information—shifts that affect young people the most.

BY DAVID NICHOLAS

t is generally acknowledged that consuming this bounty? Have we the digital transition is gathering become too occupied with easy ac- pace as we fast forward to a future cess and failed miserably to address Iin which most of our leisure, cultural, the big question—to what does this economic and educational activities access lead? will be conducted in a virtual environ- It is not just scholarly outcomes we ment. What is not so well understood should be concerned about, because the is that, as a result of this transition, Web is an encyclopedic, multipurpose we seem to have changed centuries- environment where people go to meet old ways of dealing with knowledge all kinds of needs—health, financial, and information, and this is likely to housing, etc. Success in meeting these have a huge impact on every aspect essential needs also rests on exercising of society and our lives. effective information strategies and For some time now those on the methods of seeking. information frontline—academics, For journalists, the big question teachers, journalists and parents— might be posed differently: If in this have suspected that something has time when people use the Web to changed in how people seek and use find sources of news and informa- information on the Web and especially tion—posted by bloggers and news with Google. The suspicion is that organizations, “citizen” journalists and there has been a significant “dumbing governments officials—how will what down” and, as a consequence, a drop is produced through journalistic rigor and charities) have been captured and in performance across a whole range remain visible amid the clamor of so evaluated, creating an evidence base of important knowledge-based activi- many other possibilities? of unparalleled size. It is not only the ties. It is thought that the behavior of study’s size that should make us take young people has dumbed down the Evidence of Change note but also its robustness, since most, and this has given rise to wor- findings are based on how people ries about the future of many of our Lots of suspicion and many anecdotes, actually behaved and not how they treasured institutions, such as libraries but is there any robust evidence of thought they behaved, or might behave and books, and values, such as trust, change? Turns out there is plenty. The in the future. (There are already far authority and peer review. Centre for Information and Behaviour too many of these studies.) If these suspicions prove correct, and Evaluation of Research (CIBER) In broad terms, what CIBER re- then this is truly worrying since it at University College London has search has found is that behavior in the means that many of the benefits that dedicated its efforts to describing, vi- virtual space can be described as being should accrue from being part of a sualizing and evaluating environments active, promiscuous, bouncing, flicking global information society are being in which digital information is sought and viewing. These are not adjectives squandered. Can it really be the case and used. And it has done so in great we’d normally associate with an activity that, having created a world in which detail using a method called deep log that most people would have thought unimaginable information resources analysis.1 As part of our research, the to be staid, academic even. are made accessible 24/7, we have “digital footprints” of millions of people There is massive “activity” associated failed to take full advantage of this by visiting Web sites in a wide range of with most Web sites. Indeed, a typi- exhibiting a lazy, cavalier and crude strategic information environments cal site attracts millions of visits and approach to locating, evaluating and (health, media, publishing, academe views and the numbers are growing

1 The CIBER report, “Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future,” can be found at www.bl.uk/news/pdf/googlegen.pdf.

28 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 Youthful Perspectives astronomically. This is, in part, be- • They bounce because search engines “power browsing.” They race through cause existing users can access services take them to the wrong place, some- titles, contents pages, and abstracts whenever they like and wherever they thing that has led to a widespread at a huge rate of knots. Speed is the are and because the digital environ- and worrying acceptance of failure essence. Abstracts, contents and menu ment draws in lots of new people to in the digital space. pages are made for speed; they are its scholarly net. • They bounce because of the wide the motorways by which users find In essence, we are all scholars now. choice of offerings and a shortage content. This is leading to a new form However, in practice, things are not that of time, which engenders a highly of scholarship, perhaps best described rosy. The tremendous activity actually pragmatic and focused approach to as digital osmosis. As one person masks real problems many people are information acquisition. whom we interviewed explained, “I experiencing in the cavernous, disinter- • They bounce because of the sheer can update my knowledge very quickly. mediated information environment. It pleasure of bouncing. You see the sheer number of books is is a mistake to associate activity with overwhelming. I can look at them very satisfaction or positive outcomes, as we Young people bounce the most. quickly—you know, within 15 minutes, shall learn. Furthermore, as a sign of Some bouncing can be attributed I can look at three or four books—and how much things have changed, much to flicking, a kind of channel hopping get some very superficial knowledge of the activity is, in fact, generated by and crosschecking form of behavior of what is in them. Nevertheless it robots. Half of all visitors to a Web that is essential to surviving in a improves my scholarship, because in site (a far higher proportion in the crowded and anonymous digital in- the back of my mind, these books case of more esoteric sites) are robots, formation environment. I always use already exist.” sent, for instance, by search engines my teenager daughter as an example to index content. to explain flicking. She’s sitting on Connection to Journalism The virtual user is promiscuous. the sofa with a remote in her hand About half of all people visiting a “watching” the TV and flicking from What, then, is the significance of site do not come back. This form of channel to channel and, getting rather this behavior, especially for journal- behavior can be ascribed to the fol- annoyed at this, I ask her, “Victoria, ists? Perhaps best to let a journalist lowing reasons: can’t you make up your mind what explain. John Naughton, writing in you are watching?” She replies, “Dad, The Observer, got it right when he • Massive digital choice, which means I’m watching it all.” wrote in a January 2008 column that people shop around. In a virtual world, all of us end up about the findings of our study. “The • Use of search engines, which are watching it all—hence bouncing and study confirms what many people are constantly refreshing the informa- promiscuity. In information-seeking beginning to suspect: that the Web is tion window. terms, however, this form of behavior having a profound impact on how we • Poor retrieval skills, which means represents the triumph of the hori- conceptualise, seek, evaluate and use people arrive at a site they did not zontal over the vertical and probably information. What Marshall McLuhan want to go to. represents the greatest challenge to called ‘the Gutenberg galaxy’—that • The habit we have of leaving memo- information providers of all kinds. universe of linear exposition, quiet ries behind in cyberspace. It turns Bouncing and flicking means that contemplation, disciplined reading, out that few people remember people spend very little time on a Web and study—is imploding, and we don’t what they did online the hour or page or site. On average most people know if what will replace it will be day before, and they pick up their spend fewer than 15 minutes on a better or worse,” Naughton concluded. memories (ineffectively) from the visit to a Web site, insufficient time “But at least you can find the Wiki- search engine. it would seem to do much reading or pedia entry for ‘Gutenberg galaxy’ in obtain much understanding. People 0.34 seconds.”2 Young people are the most pro- want quick wins. They spend more Of course, to complicate matters, miscuous. time reading short articles online it is possible that the change has The virtual user “bounces.” Half of than long ones; if it is long they will not been as radical as it first seems. all visitors view one to three pages ignore it, read the abstract, or squir- There is always the possibility that it from the thousands available to them rel it away to a day when they will was always so, and it is just that in on a site. They bounce in and then not read it. the virtual environment we are able soon bounce out again, and they do In fact, there is a sense that people to observe things we could never see so because of several things inherent go online to avoid reading. Instead, in the hard copy, bricks and mortar to the Web experience: what they appear to be doing is world. Even so, we cannot escape

2 John Naughton’s column, “Thanks, Gutenberg—but we’re too pressed for time to read,” can be found at www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jan/27/internet.pressandpublishing.

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 29 Search for True North

from the fact that most information information and the patchwork quilt is a real danger that journalists will providers are working with the wrong way in which it is provided and the follow the path of librarians to a place form of behavior—the Gutenberg one, speed at which consumers browse where the knowledge they can offer with which they just feel more com- to find it, there is a gaping need for gets swallowed up in a sea of self- fortable. Too readily they attribute the judgment calls made with the foun- discovery.  contemporary model as being simply dational strength of trust. Right now the way kids do it, or how informa- consumers of information on the Web David Nicholas is director of the tion will be processed in the future, tend to make up their own minds School of Library, Archive and Infor- when in fact nearly all of us behave about the reliability of information, mation Studies, the University College like that now. often through methods of personal London Centre for Publishing and the All of these changes in behavior crosschecking, and they tend to ignore research group CIBER. More informa- pose many challenges for journalists. the established symbols of authority. tion about his work can be found at However, amid the massive choices of If this pattern continues, then there www.ucl.ac.uk/slais/david-nicholas/.

What Young People Don’t Like About the Web—And News On It ‘… news organizations need to pay attention to what young people say about what makes them tune out on news sites.’

BY VIVIAN VAHLBERG

here were many surprises when what’s important and what people my colleagues at Northwestern will want to talk about, displaying University’s Media Management things in attractive ways that indicate TCenter (MMC) and I spent hours ear- their relative importance, providing lier this year observing and listening up-to-date information, and striving to a diverse group of 89 young people for the facts and the truth, not the talk about their experiences getting spin. election news online. We expected • Often avoided news video as being that these 17- to 22-year-olds would too time-consuming. distrust “mainstream media,” be drawn • Often downgraded sites with lively to content produced by other young graphics as not seeming serious people, love opinionated commentary, enough. and tilt toward sites rich with video and flashy graphics. Things they like in other contexts Instead, as we reported in “From on the Internet—from humor to user- ‘Too Much’ to ‘Just Right:’ Engaging generated content to social networking Millennials in Election News on the to participation—they didn’t like in Web,” we found they: the context of news. To them, news is different—and serious. • Trusted news about the election more But the biggest surprise of all was from well-known news organiza- how often these young people used It was just … too much stuff. … tions than from other sources. the same words to describe their re- By the time you get down here … • Valued the expertise and reporting action to a variety of Web sites. Most I don’t even want to finish it. … of journalists more than opinions or frequently heard was the phrase “too It was all thrown at you at once. comments, even from other young much”: It was just kind of overwhelming. people. … There’s so much going on in a • Valued many of the traditional roles I feel like it’s too much sometimes, younger person’s life already. … of journalists, including separating too much unnecessary material. They are stressed at school and the wheat from the chaff, selecting (Justin, 19) with work and those different

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things, and they don’t want to To do our study, we showed them needs would address the components just sit there and have to filter eight Web sites that represent a that follow: through all this extra informa- variety of approaches, features and tion. (Rebecca, 20) attributes. They explored these sites 1. There’s a large unmet need for a and then we listened and watched different kind of news site—one that It looked like too much informa- as they talked about and showed us is designed not for news junkies but tion. [It] just kept going and things on them. The Web sites we for inexperienced news consumers. going and going. (Susie, 20) chose ranged from mainstream media Seen through the eyes of young sites (USAToday.com, CNN.com, and people, most news sites look to be It’s kind of like brain overload. … detroitnews.com) to youth oriented made for news junkies—people who At first I liked it, but … then as sites (Campus Politico and think.mtv. are already familiar with the people I scrolled down, it’s like, “When com) to video-heavy sites (election. and the issues. But young people don’t does it end?” (George, 21) tv) to nonprofit sites (novotenovoice. have a lifetime of information about com and votegopher.com). We were candidates and issues that they can When I opened CNN, a lot of the looking for patterns, not seeking to use to make sense of the news; most stuff on it kind of seemed a little “grade” the Web sites. everything is new to them. Often, bit overwhelming. … You had to Interestingly, it didn’t matter wheth- looking at news sites feels like coming really get into it and really focus er we showed them a well-designed into a calculus class midterm; it feels on it. (Amanda, 17) mainstream news site like USAToday. impossible to keep up because they com or an innovative, youth-oriented don’t yet know the basics. So they Importantly, it wasn’t just the site like think.mtv.com. The reaction tune out. Interestingly, young people younger or less educated who had was often the same: “too much,” at are not the only ones who would be this response; even the older college times expressed as “too many.” Different interested in a different kind of site; students did. It wasn’t just jam- things triggered this feeling: in separate MMC research with adults, packed all-news sites that triggered we heard the same “too much” refrain the response, either; it happened on • Too many things competing for from adults who are light or inexpe- youth-oriented sites too. attention, without signals about rienced news consumers. which was most important. They Reacting to Web Sites wanted someone (or something) to 2. Such a Web site would provide fast, make choices. They wanted design brief and prioritized news updates. We heard these similar sentiments to clearly signal priority. Most news sites give them far more expressed so often about so many • Too many details and words. They updates on far too many stories than different sites that we became con- wanted things distilled so they could they want. They don’t want to keep up vinced that remedying this feeling understand them better without with daily developments with a long list is essential if news organizations are spending lots of time, but they also of ongoing stories; they just want to going to attract and engage young wanted additional resources avail- be aware of what’s most important or people in serious news. Fortunately, able if they’re interested. what people will talk about. To under- our interviews shed considerable light • Too much text or too high a percent- stand or care about all those updates on why these young people feel this age of text to graphics. They valued requires more knowledge and interest way and what news organizations can information shortcuts. than they have. To please them, a new do about it. • A site feature that’s not immediately kind of site would make it quicker We conducted these interviews understood. If a feature has to be and easier to frequently check what’s because we felt the 2008 presidential explained, they don’t look at it. new. It would prominently display a election provided an entrée for news • Pages or stories going on and on. quick-to-scan, constantly updated, very organizations to cultivate the inter- Interest waned with scrolling. prioritized and selective news digest. est of young people in serious news For this audience, it’s far better to be online. We sought to identify and test Notably, it wasn’t usually the subject selective than comprehensive. News techniques and strategies that might of the news that triggered the “too organizations shouldn’t try to get them first catch the eye of young people much” reflex, unless they thought the to spend more time following daily and then deepen their engagement. media had flogged the subject to death. developments; they should make it (A previous MMC study last year had It was more a question of presentation, attractive to come back frequently. shown that while young people aren’t quantity and level of information. particularly interested in news, they 3. It would help young people enjoy get- will read it “if it catches my eye.”) We Finding Remedies ting and feeling informed. They want reasoned that lessons learned from to become informed—to understand, election coverage might well apply to So what do we make of what we heard? for example, the issues, the candidates, other types of serious news. A Web site compatible with their and who stands where. But they find

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 31 Search for True North

this hard to do on news sites. Most They frequently said, “I don’t know young people say about wanting more stories assume they know more than where to look.” They want headlines information that explains things and they do. For example, they don’t neces- that quickly and concisely telegraph fewer (or less prominently featured) sarily know what a red state is or how what a story is about. They want in- incremental updates. Then news or- conventions work or what supply-side formation to unfold in manageable, ganizations should design something economics and trickle-down politics bite-sized chunks and layers—so they’re specifically for Millennials and other are. Most stories are too detailed; few not overwhelmed with too much at “light” news consumers that will make distill things down, like Wikipedia once but so they can go as deep as the job of getting informed manageable does, so they can clearly understand they choose. and perhaps even enjoyable.  the basics. They loved it when shown Web sites with issues and candidate They haven’t yet seen a Web site Vivian Vahlberg is managing director comparisons, definitions of key terms, design that measures up. of the Media Management Center at and explanations of the electoral pro- In short, news organizations need Northwestern University, where she cess. But such resources are hard to to pay attention to what young people directs the center’s digital media pro- find amidst the clutter; these young say about what makes them tune out grams and many of the center’s educa- people would have long clicked away on news sites: too much information, tional and research projects. She is the before finding them. too many details, too many choices lead author on two studies on young coming at them all at once without people and the Internet: “From ‘Too 4. It would have significantly better, enough guidance as to which are more Much’ to ‘Just Right:’ Engaging Mil- clearer and more immediately under- important; too much unrelieved text; lennials in Election News on the Web,” standable organization and site design. stories that go on and on; endless and “If It Catches My Eye: An Explo- Young people want the site design to coverage of trivial stories, and features ration of Online News Experiences of signal what’s important and to guide that aren’t immediately and intuitively Teenagers.” They can be read at www. their eyes. They don’t want to choose understandable. mediamanagementcenter.org. among a bewildering array of choices. Journalists need to listen to what

Adding Young Voices to the Mix of Newsroom Advisors ‘Start with a blank sheet of paper, I instructed them. On it, put down ways we can reinvent our newsroom.’

BY STEVEN A. SMITH

Here we go again.” That was the print-centric culture to one support- room,” she once told me. first thought that came to my ing a strong multiplatform strategy. The third reorganization, coming mind when Managing Editor Gary With fewer people to support more after the publisher ordered layoffs at the “Graham and I decided last summer platforms—each with new challenges end of 2007, was top-down. Certainly, that it was again time to reorganize and opportunities in distributing our this wasn’t the best way to manage a The Spokesman-Review newsroom. reporters’ work—it was clear to all of depressed and angry newsroom, but In the six years plus that I had been us that substantive reorganizations it was deemed necessary given the Spokesman editor, I had already led were necessary. time constraints Graham and I were three reorganizations, each following For two of our earlier efforts, facing. At the time, we decided we’d a forced staff reduction. This was to we’d created newsroom task forces take another run at it—using a differ- be the fourth. designed as working groups to make ent approach—in mid-2008. As the staff had shrunk from about recommendations to the managing But no zero basing, this time around. 140 full-time journalists when I ar- editor and me. Carla Savalli, first as Old-think was not helping us to staff rived in mid-2002 to 104 by the end city editor and later as senior editor our various platforms. Bold new ideas of 2007, so, too, had the nature of for local news, led those two groups. were required, and to get them we’d the newsroom’s work changed. During “If I hear the term ‘zero basing’ one need to tap the energy and smarts those five years, we’d moved from a more time I’ll run screaming from the of staffers traditionally left on the

32 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 Youthful Perspectives

Engaging Young Staffers in Newsroom Activities and Change

A newsroom’s younger staffers can line. See The Spokesman-Review’s committees, and task forces. Make play a significant role in charting the “Daily Briefing” blog for an example, sure they hold leadership positions organization’s future. What follows are at www.spokesmanreview.com/ in such groups. some ideas about how to engage them blogs/briefing/. • When developing a new product or in this process: • Schedule meetings among all news- new platform, put one of the best, room staff under 30 on a regular brightest and youngest in charge. • By opening news meetings, editors basis. The meetings should be off the Give them the support necessary to can bring a newsroom’s younger staff record and no-fault. Ask participants develop a plan and implement it. members to the table where they can what is working in the room and participate as fully as the most senior what problems need to be addressed. It’s important to remember that editor. If older staffers complain they are the future of our industry, absolutely • If responsibility for daily critiques being left out, meet with them, too. unseeable for most of us, will one day rotates, make sure the younger staff But expect the bolder, most honest be the present for our young employees. members have their chance. interaction to occur with the young They need to be involved in developing • Assign a younger reporter to write staff members. plans for the next 40 years—their next summaries of daily meetings to be • Make sure young staff members are 40 years, not ours. —SAS distributed to staff and posted on- involved in all study groups, staff

sidelines. What little hiring we’d been newsroom department. newsroom and others in the company. able to do in the past few years had Start with a blank sheet of paper, I They’d studied newsroom structures brought into the newsroom some of instructed them. On it, put down ways other newspapers use, examined the brightest young staff members with we can reinvent our newsroom. They deadline schedules and production whom I’d ever worked. Although our had 10 days to produce a report for limitations. The report’s first sentence open news meetings and open-door the managing editor and me, later to set the tone. office policies had given these staff be shared with the staff and public. members some sense of having a voice To do this, we took them off their To efficiently run a newsroom that within the newsroom, we wanted now regular assignments, provided them is dedicated to publishing content to involve them even more. with a meeting room, and promised online, the deadline model for They have a familiarity with new overtime (and food) if their work ex- a traditional morning newspa- media that we, as older news people, tended beyond business hours. They per must be abandoned … the don’t. They are more accustomed had “subpoena” power to call anyone newsroom should operate as an than most of us newsroom veterans in the newsroom to the table to answer afternoon paper would, though to seeking out digital news, using questions about how things work or, The Spokesman-Review will re- mobile devices to read their news more importantly, how they should main a morning newspaper. and search the Internet, participat- work. Lack of imagination led me to ing in social networks, and producing call this group “the reorganization task We had talked about a new dead- and using multimedia. Print is just a force.” In the newsroom, they quickly line structure before, of course. But piece of their media experience and, became the “Gang of Eight.” veteran newsroom editors, many with for many of them, it is a diminishing And all of them knew that the experience at P.M. newspapers, hadn’t one. Certainly, our medium’s future gang would not be making any final considered such a radical shift. will be left to them to shape as my decisions. Those were to be left to In their 12-page report, the Gang generation of editors and reporters the managing editor and me. Further, of Eight presented a new content moves to the sidelines. I let them know that I’d be asking strategy, deadline structure, organiza- This awareness pointed us toward other groups to participate before the tional charts, shifts in editing and beat a recognition that this reorganization process ended. assignments, and new departments needed to be as much about their fu- responsible for supervising not just ture as our present. With this in mind, Ideas Emerge what goes on our Web site but also in early July, I appointed a task force on our new AM radio operation as of eight young journalists—nearly all After working around the clock for well. Of course, some of their ideas under the age of 30 who’d been hired those 10 days, the Gang of Eight were tried and true, if not in Spokane within the past two years. They of- finished its report on July 10, 2008. then elsewhere. Others were unsophis- fered representation from nearly every They’d talked with dozens in the ticated and unfinished.

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 33 Search for True North

The Gang of Eight’s Recommendations: An Excerpt

The Gang of Eight didn’t hesitate to ness, Features, 7 (the entertainment communication, these editors will recommend significant changes in section) and Voices (zoned sections) sit in a central editors’ pod in the structure and cuts in the editing staff. desks. The head of this desk will be newsroom, with the exception of Here is an excerpt from their report. a “strong” city editor—addressing one editor in Idaho; the pod also will —SAS another staff concern that the city include representatives of all other editor has less power than in past departments. To address concerns that report- years—who will oversee selection ers are not getting enough time with and assignment of stories for all of This structure noticeably removes editors, that copy gets jammed dur- the sections, read as many stories as assistant managing editors across the ing the editing process, that there are possible, and report to the managing board, placing greater authority in the not enough reporters available and editor. hands of the local editor. The editor that writers are duplicating work on • Line editing and supervision of re- in chief and managing editor will stories, editors will work together on porters will lie with seven non-SES continue their present duties. a universal assignments desk. (nonunion) assistant local editors: Flexibility is key to this organiza- breaking, life, culture, watchdog, tion.  • The new Local Department will money and Washington hyperlocal encompass the former City, Busi- and Idaho hyperlocal. To increase

They offered some surprises. In one-on-one with as many newsroom October 1st, protesting the scope of reorganizing local news reporting, our staffers as I could, about 50 meetings the layoffs. Among those let go, all on young staffers did not stray from the of 30 to 60 minutes each. the basis of union-mandated seniority, content that traditionalists typically With all of this information, Graham were six members of the Gang of Eight value—watchdog and investigative and I developed the reorganization and three of the nine members of the reporting. And they recommended plan, announced shortly after Labor content study group. As many as three strengthening the copyediting sys- Day and scheduled to go into effect managers in addition to Savalli, who tem, particularly for online content. at the end of September. By adjusting also resigned, and me, were set to We’d been moving in the opposite staff, downsizing the editorial page leave. The online staff was eviscerated. direction. staff, and cutting a bit into features, The radio operation gutted. At a general newsroom meeting, I we were able to add five reporters to It’s impossible to say if the youth- presented the report to staffers. I also the local news team, which was one conceived reorganization would have posted it on my blog. At the same of the leading goals of this effort. A worked. My view is that it would have time, I announced the formation of breaking news desk was established to held us in a good place until the time a second study group—consisting of a work early morning hours and produce came when the newsroom could grow mix of staff, mostly veterans—to focus content for online, mobile and radio. again. Instead, Graham, who is now on content. By the end of July, this The editing structure was to be flat- editor, was faced with starting over. group issued its report. As might have tened and rearranged. His will be the fifth reorganization been expected, they argued vigorously effort in six years. He has a newsroom in favor of traditional news coverage, Ready for Change staff of about 80 serving four or more suggesting a reduction in the number of platforms. editors and an increase in the number This plan looked like it would work. Making this work—retaining quality of reporters on the ground. Most sig- For one reason, there appeared to be and range of coverage that our readers nificant was a recommendation to cut more buy-in from the staff. Reaction expect from our news organization— the editorial page staff to two people, to it on my blog was mostly positive, will require not a task force, but a moving two into reporting slots and and I was enthusiastic about giving miracle.  a third to the copy desk. it a try. In August, we handed over both But we never had a chance to do Steven A. Smith was until October reports to five groups of six people. so. In late September, the publisher 1st editor of The Spokesman-Review We gave each group a four-hour mandated additional layoffs—as many in Spokane, Washington. His blog is block of time to synthesize all of these as 25 to 30 positions. The reorganiza- www.stillanewspaperman.com. An- ideas into a list of five or six basic tion plan blew up as if the newsroom other article by Smith is on page 5. recommendations. Meanwhile, I met had hit a land mine. I resigned on

34 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 Youthful Perspectives

Using E-Readers to Explore Some New Media Myths An experiment with digital media sets out to see what similarities might be found in how young and old adapt to new technologies.

BY ROGER FIDLER

irst I must confess that I am a dia technologies and are inept using 65-year-old, gray-haired Ameri- them. As with all myths, there is some can white guy who worked in the truth in this one. But in my career Fnewspaper business for 34 years before I’ve usually found wide variances and joining the academic community as a no absolute delineators within and journalism professor and researcher. between age groups. If you believe that identifies me as This was demonstrated when, at a technophobic curmudgeon who is Missouri, we began conducting focus stuck in the past and incapable of groups last spring to assess receptive- comprehending the minds of young ness to reading newspapers and books people today, well—let’s just say for on e-readers—the recently introduced the sake of argument that you might mobile devices that employ a new be partially correct. media technology called electronic It’s true there are times when new paper displays (EPDs). E-readers are technologies do frustrate and anger envisioned as “green” alternatives to me, especially when they make me paper and function more like iPods feel stupid. And I am occasionally than PCs or intelligent phones. perplexed by the mindsets of some A digital newsbook page displayed on an Our first sessions, held during our journalism students, often in regard iLiad e-reader. Photo courtesy of Donald spring semester, involved a total of 43 to newspapers and online news. But W. Reynolds Journalism Institute. students from the Missouri School of pigeonholing me, along with everyone Journalism. None of them had used else, based on age, gender, skin color, or even seen e-readers prior to the nationality and career, doesn’t define York Times and Columbia Missourian sessions. All were asked to read a me. Generalities about groups of every morning with breakfast and few pages of a digital newsbook—a people may simplify marketing strat- prefer interacting with friends and special report from a newspaper that egies and help some politicians get colleagues face-to-face or by phone has been repackaged in an e-book-like elected, but they don’t tell you much rather than through Facebook or other format—on a notebook computer, a about individuals—or our behavior— online social networks. small pen-based tablet PC, and an e- especially in the expansive realm of reader. (We used iLiad readers, which new media. Exploring New Media Habits have eight-inch high-resolution EPDs To make my point, I’ve been actively and more advanced features than the involved in the digitization of news- Enough about me. Better to share smaller Amazon Kindles.) After reading papers and the development of online with you a few personal observations on each device, they were instructed media and digital editions since the about how people deal with new media to complete a brief questionnaire. At 1970’s. In my present role as program technologies. Some of those come from the conclusion of their sessions, they director for digital publishing at the usability research and focus groups, completed final questionnaires and Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Insti- but most come from my experiences participated in open discussions about tute, I work with students, journalists working on digital publishing projects their reading experiences. and media practitioners to exploit the with people who have ranged in age Data compiled from the ques- potential of e-readers and other emerg- from 18 to 80. tionnaires seemed to suggest that a ing digital publishing technologies. I Perhaps the most frequently re- majority of students would embrace make extensive use of computers, know peated myth is that all young people e-readers. Here’s how they ranked the my way around the Internet and Web, (teens and 20-somethings) eagerly and three devices as a display medium for own an Apple iPhone, read books on quickly embrace new media technolo- reading: an Amazon Kindle, and occasionally gies and are adept using them, while participate in blogs. I also enjoy read- all old people (age 40 and older) • Nearly two out of three ranked the ing the newsprint editions of The New reluctantly and slowly adopt new me- e-reader as their first choice.

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 35 Search for True North

• One out of four ranked their notebook a significant number said they were We plan to do several dozen fo- computer as their first choice. not ready to give up paper. Their com- cus group sessions in Missouri this • Only one out of eight selected the ments ranged from “I’d still prefer to year and early next that will include tablet PC first. use paper textbooks” to “I don’t like students and faculty from schools reading on computers” and “I’ll never other than journalism as well as local When asked about their comfort not read a paper-based product for residents who are not affiliated with with these devices for reading, 60 newspapers, magazines or books.” the university. It’s possible that we percent indicated they were very com- Another interesting finding was will repeat this study in subsequent fortable or somewhat comfortable with the relative importance students at- years to see how attitudes about read- the e-reader compared with 63 per- ing digital publications on e-readers cent saying this about their notebook change over time. computer. The students’ relatively high Our findings should be of more than level of comfort with the e-reader was Though quite a few academic interest to publishers and more striking in contrast to the tablet journalists. In the past 40 years digital PC. Only 33 percent indicated they described the e-reader as technologies have been the salvation were very comfortable or somewhat ‘awesome,’ ‘pretty cool,’ of newspapers and magazines. They comfortable with this device. have transformed publishing from a These same students routinely use and ‘sweet,’ a significant labor-intensive manufacturing and Macintosh computers, so the tablet distribution industry into an efficient PC (built upon Microsoft Windows number said they were information processing and dissemina- technology) was almost as new and not ready to give up tion business. Today, the last vestiges unfamiliar to them as the e-reader. of industrial age technologies are the Both devices were about the same size paper. printing presses and delivery trucks. and used a stylus for input instead of a In theory, the development and keyboard and mouse. So we wondered widespread adoption of e-readers— why the students rated these two new with a capacity to wirelessly access media technologies so differently. tached to eight attributes that could and display digital editions of news- From their comments on the ques- influence their reading experience on papers and magazines—would allow tionnaire and in the open discussions, mobile electronic displays unrelated to publishers to eliminate the production the difference that clearly gave the any specific device.1 We had assumed and distribution costs associated with e-reader its greatest advantage was its that students would rank full-color their printed editions, which now simplicity and ease of use. This is not and video-capable displays at the top account for more than half of most a particularly surprising revelation. In of their lists. They didn’t. Only one publishers’ operating expenses. All of all of the usability studies I conducted student ranked color second; three this depends, however, on the capac- in the 1990’s at the Knight Ridder students ranked it third. None ranked ity of e-readers to provide a reading Information Design Laboratory and it first. Of the eight choices, 16 students experience comparable to ink printed Kent State University, simplicity and (37 percent) ranked color seventh or on paper at a competitive price and ease of use were always identified as eighth. Video was ranked last or next on the willingness of readers and the most important qualities of any to last by 88 percent of the students. advertisers to adopt this new media new electronic device or digital pub- Only one student ranked it third; none technology for reading.  lication by a majority of participants ranked it first or second. in all age groups. For companies now manufacturing Roger Fidler is program director for With this experiment, however, and selling e-readers this could be digital publishing at the Donald W. what I found more interesting—and encouraging because all EPDs today Reynolds Journalism Institute at the a bit surprising, in light of the typical are black-and-white and not capable Missouri School of Journalism. By description of how this age group is of displaying videos. Full color EPDs March, a complete report about this reacting to new media technologies— with a capacity to display videos are study is expected to be available on the were the comments students made expected in three to five years. The Reynolds Journalism Institute Web about switching from reading on pa- attributes students ranked highest site, www.rjionline.org. per to reading on e-readers. Though were portability, ease of use, and quite a few described the e-reader as readability, which is what e-readers “awesome,” “pretty cool,” and “sweet,” are all about.

1 The eight attributes include ease of use (simplicity, short learning curve), full color, portability (thin and lightweight), paper-like readability (readable anywhere), video capability, markup (ability to take notes and highlight text), content presentation (layout, design and typography), and long battery duty cycle.

36 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 SEARCH FOR TRUE NORTH | Blogs, Wikis, Social Media—And Journalism Mapping the Blogosphere: Offering a Guide to Journalism’s Future ‘… what we find is that legacy media holds the center, while online-only media are frayed at the edges.’

BY JOHN KELLY

apping the patterns of how with which we are quite familiar. As Peering Within the Patterns people share information in the number of blogs increases exponen- the blogosphere makes visible tially, this “citizen generated” network What we find is not “media,” in the Mand understandable what otherwise is quickly becoming the Internet’s most familiar sense of packets of “content” can seem unruly and complex. Using important connective tissue. In fact, consumed by “audiences,” but a new social network analysis and advanced the combination of text and hyperlinks form of communication. We write. We statistical techniques, we can analyze (and, increasingly, hypermedia) makes link. We know. In this networked public the exchanges in cyberspace to create sphere, online clusters form around maps of community and attention issues of shared concern, information among many thousands of bloggers. is collected and collated, dots are con- Mapping these online networks tells us nected, attitudes are discussed and a lot about how community is formed revised, local expertise is recognized, around kinds of information that blog- and in general a network of “social gers seek and share with one another. knowing” is knit together, comprised And these findings provide clues that of both people and the hyperlinked can give journalists a clearer sense of texts they co-create. how what they do will be utilized in As David Weinberger observed in the age of digital media. his 2007 book, “Everything is Miscel- What our mapping analyses have laneous: The Power of the New Digital shown us is how the emergent clusters Disorder,” “as people communicate of similarly interested bloggers shape online, that conversation becomes part the flow of information by focusing of a lively, significant, public digital the attention of thematically related This social network diagram of the Eng- knowledge—rather than chatting for authors, and their readers, on par- lish language blogosphere shows major one moment with a small group of ticular sources of information. These clusters around politics and technology. friends or colleagues, every person social networks include new actors potentially has access to a global audi- alongside old ones, knit together by ence. Taken together, that conversation hyperlinked multimedia into a com- the blogosphere arguably as much like also creates a mode of knowing we’ve mon fabric of public discourse. Of a single extended text as it acts like never had before …. Now we can see great interest—and perhaps surprising an online newsstand. for ourselves that knowledge isn’t in news—to journalists is our finding that To the extent that readers’ patterns our heads: It is between us.” legacy media, journalistic institutions of browsing tend to follow the direc- The links represent the conscious in particular, are star players in this tion of links available in this hypertext choices of bloggers and fall into two environment. network, the structure of the blogo- main categories: static and dynamic. While blogs are promiscuously avail- sphere suggests a kind of “flow map” Static links are those that do not able representations of what a person of how the Internet channels attention change very often and are typically or organization would like the world to online resources. And this is what found in the “blogroll,” a set of links a to know, in practice the world at large we are able to map—the extraordinary blogger chooses to place in a sidebar. is not likely to care about the content number of blogs authored by emergent Blogroll links are created for different of any given blog. However, a com- collectives: public, persistent, univer- reasons, but the network formed by munity of specifically interested others sally interlinked, yet locally clustered them is relatively stable and represents will often arise around a blog in ways and representative of myriad social a collective picture of every blogger’s similar to real-life social configurations actors at all levels of scale. perceptions of the blogosphere and

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 37 Search for True North

his or her own position within it. obsolete? Of course, this question or professional media advocate in the Dynamic links change frequently and has several dimensions. At the com- employ of one or another interested typically represent links embedded in mercial level, institutional journalism organization. In Benkler’s view, a new, blog posts, a hard measure of a blog- is threatened by the Internet, both in vastly distributed network of public dis- ger’s attention. the form of “citizen media” taking its course will supplement or supplant this When the interests of many bloggers advertising-earning eyeballs and online elite-driven process. The networked intersect, something we call “atten- classifieds taking its rent on informal public sphere will allow any point of tive clusters” typically form: groups markets. At the tonal level, the integrity view to be expressed (universal intake), of densely connected bloggers who and validity of “objective” journalism and to the extent it is interesting to share common interests and preferred and responsible expert opinion is others, it will be carried upward (or sources of information. We analyze the contrasted to the more slippery and engaged more widely) via a process of behavior of these clusters to discover uncertified forms of online content collective filtration. The extended net- how the community drives traffic to found in blogs, YouTube, and other work will contain its specialty subnets particular online resources. By doing user-generated content. (analogous to interest publics) and its so, we can provide an important key In discussions about their varying general-interest brokers (analogous to understanding the online informa- practices, journalists and bloggers to the attentive public) among oth- tion ecosystem. And here is some of argue over values of professionalism, ers. This neural network-like system what we’ve learned: independence, legal protection, and might potentially provide a much legitimacy as vessels of the public more stable and effective foundation • The blogosphere channels the most trust. But the picture is more com- for democratic social action than the attention to things besides blogs. Of plicated. Most links from blogs are established commercial media system the top 10,000 outlinks, only 40.5 not to other blogs but to a range of it challenges. percent are blogs, and these account online sites among which mainstream What we already can observe is how for only 28.5 percent of dynamic media (MSM) outlets are the most the blogosphere acts as a multifocal links. prominent. And journalists are keenly lens of collective attention. Interest • The Web sites of legacy media firms attentive to blogs, often mining them among bloggers creates network neigh- are the strongest performers. The for story leads and background re- borhoods that channel attention to top 10 mainstream media sites, led search. Furthermore, the blogosphere relevant online content. Discovery and by nytimes.com, washingtonpost. is becoming as important as the front analysis of these provides the promise com, and BBC.com, account for 10.9 page of the paper for landing eyeballs of empirical exploration of new and percent of all dynamic links. on a journalist’s story. There is a cycle critical ideas about the dynamics of • By contrast, the top 10 blogs account of attention between blogs and the the networked public sphere. for only 3.2 percent of dynamic out- MSM, in which the MSM uses the But what should not be overlooked links. blogosphere as a type of grist for the is the central role that legacy news • Though the top 10 Web-native sites mill, and the blogosphere channels media entities still play throughout (blogs, Web 2.0, and online-only attention back to the MSM. the blogosphere. And if journalists news and information sites com- What is becoming clear is how the want to continue to fulfill the role bined) account for 10.8 percent of blogosphere and MSM are complemen- they have aspired to in the past—to dynamic links, two-thirds of these tary players in an emerging system of be general interest intermediaries at (7.2 percent of total) are due to public communications. the crossroads of public discourse— Wikipedia and YouTube alone. Yochai Benkler, the author of “The nothing in the actual behavior of Wealth of Networks: How Social bloggers suggests their role would Legacy media institutions are clearly Production Transforms Markets and diminish on account of lack of demand champion players in the blogosphere. Freedom,” proposes a model in which for this social function. Given that online-only sites are the the “networked public sphere,” supple- The news media’s business model most skewed—in terms of political menting the older “hub and spoke” problems are, of course, another mat- leanings, advocacy positions, and tone industrial model represented by the ter entirely, but at this stage it looks of information—of all forms of news mass media, will alter the dynamics of safe to say that blogs do not make and information Web sites, what we key social communications processes. commercial journalism obsolete, least find is that legacy media holds the The mass media model, in which the of all in the eyes of bloggers (regard- center, while online-only media are ability to communicate publicly re- less of what some of them say about frayed at the edges. quires access to vast capital or state this). If anything, the central role of authority, has resulted in elite control professional journalism in the ex- Future Direction over the power to frame issues and set panded economy of political discourse the public agenda. makes it valuable in new ways. To the Are blogs and Web-native media mak- What ends up in the newspaper extent its near-monopoly on agenda ing old-style institutional journalism often starts with a government source setting and public representation is

38 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 New Venues broken, its role as Political Video Barometer an honest broker of verified information As a visual demonstration of becomes even more how ideas move through social important. networks, Morningside Analytics created a user-friendly online tool Change Is called the “Political Video Barom- Everywhere eter.” The barometer features an interactive graph showing recent The growing net- YouTube videos popular with worked public sphere liberal and conservative blog- is not just chang- gers. The horizontal axis shows ing the relationship the proportion of liberal vs. con- among actors in the servative bloggers linking to a political landscape, video, and the vertical axis shows but it is changing the how many bloggers overall have kinds of actors found linked to it. Click on a dot and there and chang- the video plays—instantaneously. ing what “media” This map is available at www. are actually doing. shiftingthedebate.com/shifting/ Some of this is easy videobarometer.html. —J.K. to see. Ten years ago there were almost no bloggers; now, they are considered a formidable force in marketplace of ideas fade away. There ability to provide a platform for pub- public affairs. And the legacy media is some evidence to support this fear. lic agenda-setting and exposure to are changing as well. Newspapers and In our mapping, we clearly see the crosscutting political views. The full other online publishers have added strong tendency of bloggers to link story is deeper and more nuanced. blogs to their offerings and transformed to other bloggers with similar inter- While the Internet, vivified by blogs, the way general articles are published ests and beliefs, particularly around fractures the landscape of public dis- to seem more and more bloglike (e.g. politics. And other research buttresses course across a great many new actors, hyperlinks, reader comments, embed- what we can now see on our social a core activity of bloggers is to focus ded video). Bloggers on legacy media networking maps: attention back to the MSM, particu- Web sites have quickly gained promi- larly to institutional journalism. The nence, and some media companies have • Most people’s offline social networks structured tissue of bloggers—each not found great success via blogging. For are relatively homogenous with a voice in the woods but a member example, most people outside think respect to political beliefs and at- of crosscutting communities—creates of The Politico as a Web site, not a titudes. a new medium of social knowing, one Capitol Hill newspaper. • To the extent that people are exposed that so far appears favorable to the As blogging and online media genres to opposing viewpoints, it is primar- presence of the kinds of high visibility, evolve, blog vs. MSM becomes purely ily through MSM. central platforms represented by legacy a cultural, or perhaps commercial, media institutions.  distinction and not one of format. If in It is, therefore, not unreasonable to blogs we find more information about fear that the centrifugal force exerted John Kelly is founder and chief sci- more issues and with more diversity by hundreds of thousands of bloggers entist at Morningside Analytics, a of voices than ever heard in the MSM, will sunder a public sphere long held company focused on social network why should we mourn the closing together by journalistic institutions. analysis of online media, and a re- of newspapers and the dwindling of But let us also bear in mind that the search affiliate of the Berkman Center broadcast news audiences? way we envision this problem reveals for Internet & Society at Harvard One argument is that the MSM just how thoroughly the mass media University. This article is adapted form a locus of collective attention, model of society—featuring atom- from a paper he wrote entitled “Pride where citizens are exposed to differing ized consumers feeding at common of Place: Mainstream Media and the views on a common index of issues, troughs—grounds our imagination. Networked Public Sphere,” forthcom- and that the danger of losing this I’d argue that the question of how ing from the Berkman Center’s Media mainstream arena is that individuals blogs are impacting the public sphere Re:public project (http://blogs.law. will retract into irreconcilable redoubts is not a straightforward matter of harvard.edu/mediarepublic/). of the like-minded, and the central whether they undermine the MSM’s

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 39 Search for True North

The End of Journalism as Usual ‘To maximize a news organization’s social capital and marketability, its journalism today must be transparent, authentic and collaborative.’

BY MARK BRIGGS

here’s the philosophical riddle Corporations do not speak in ing? Because journalism’s brand is about the tree falling in a forest the same voice as these new broken. when no one is around. Does it networked conversations. To News organizations struggle not Tmake a sound? Now try this twist: If their intended online audiences, only with public perception of jour- a journalist has a story, but there is companies sound hollow, flat, nalism but also with brand value in no market for the news, is it worth literally unhuman. their local community. As I travel and doing? talk with news professionals looking The business model for journalism Match that assessment with the for ways to add Web 2.0 elements— is crumbling. So an informed discus- most recent Pew research on the comments, forums and user-generated sion of journalism today must include public’s perception of journalism, in content—to their online operations, an awareness of new business models which credibility has hit an all-time I’m no longer surprised to hear an and marketability. low. See how journalism’s disconnect editor or reporter say, “Readers won’t Can marketing save journalism? with its community is helping play out do that on a news site.” It’s a heretical question for some the dire predictions from Cluetrain, But this type of response is an ad- to consider, I’m sure, since journal- including: mission of failure, especially when we ists have long valued their practice find start-up companies like Flickr and as more “pure” than marketing and The community of discourse is Craigslist gaining more brand cache public relations. But these seemingly the market. Companies that do in a local community than a business disparate forms of communication are not belong to a community of that has been serving a community for melding together, and journalism can discourse will die. decades. Even worse is when a local, benefit from integrating new market- independent blog generates relevant ing strategies and tactics. Think Social Capital and constructive discussion based to This type of marketing is not ad- a large extent on the news reported vertising, or slogans, or logos. As it Ironically, this situation cannot be by the local news organization and the has evolved in the digital age, it has addressed by the marketing depart- original news Web site’s conversation become more transparent, authentic ment at a news organization. Instead, is either dormant or misguided and and collaborative, which I will ar- it’s about creating “social capital” by destructive. gue are all traits that describe good becoming the “trusted center” within Building targeted communities of journalism today, too. “The Cluetrain a structure of relationships through discourse with a layer of journalism Manifesto” outlined this shift nearly 10 digital communication. French sociolo- on top can help. The Bakersfield years ago with 95 theses on “the end gist Pierre Bourdieu suggested social Californian, for example, has been of business as usual.” The first line on capital can be developed through pur- a leader in creating and cultivating its original cover read, “Markets are poseful actions and then transformed such communities with projects like conversations.” into conventional economic gains. Bakotopia. And the beat blogging A few years later, the concept that This concept very closely aligns to the movement started by Jay Rosen’s “news is a conversation” invaded traditional business model for news of NewAssignment.net is about doing mainstream journalism and is now generating revenue based largely on a this kind of journalism by convening universally embraced, at least in public service. a community of discourse in the form concept. So it stands to reason that if For several years now, journalists of an online social network. both markets and news are conversa- have taken positive steps into the digital To maximize a news organization’s tions, the practice of journalism today age by adding blogs and multimedia social capital and marketability, its requires an awareness and capacity for to their craft while increasing interac- journalism today must be transpar- the marketability of that journalism. tivity and immediacy. Simultaneously, ent, authentic and collaborative. This What follows is one thesis from news organizations have shed jobs, and is why blogs and Twitter work for Cluetrain. In reading it, see if you their stocks have taken a pounding on news organizations. Neither will re- can identify the mainstream news Wall Street. place traditional journalism, and that industry in it: So why isn’t this strategy work- shouldn’t be the objective. These new

40 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 New Venues digital tools bring journalists closer to section. California last fall and spoke frankly readers and readers closer to journal- What about the news organization’s to journalism students about this new ism by removing barriers to a more cornerstones of reporting responsibil- environment, according to a summary networked conversation. ities—breaking news and watchdog posted by Online Journalism Review.1 They help journalists avoid sound- journalism? These are a news opera- She presented the following recipe for ing “hollow, flat, literally unhuman” as tion’s loss leaders, and they don’t form entrepreneurial journalism: Cluetrain warned against. And they a specific market. But they can draw build influence for the journalists, a transient audience because of their Start with the impact you want which Philip Meyer argued in “The popularity online. Once visitors arrive, to have. Figure out what audience Vanishing Newspaper” leads to eco- they are introduced to the rest of the you need to assemble to have that nomic success. site’s content, which then might attract impact and what kind of content a more loyal following. This reporting is needed to do that. Then price Judgment and Strategy also improves social capital by keeping it out: How much money do you a reader informed and protecting his need to do it? Recently I was part of a strategic or her interests. content planning session for a tra- News operations need markets, and After one student complained that ditional newsroom. I suggested that markets are conversations. Shoveling this felt too much like business school, one priority should be content that is content into separate categories isn’t Osder defended the new approach as “marketable.” Some translated this to enough. It’s time to end business—and bringing to them a necessary disci- mean running celebrity gossip on Page journalism—as usual. pline. “It forces you to be relevant and One. Not so, I tried to explain. Mar- useful versus arrogant and entitled,” ketable content means that the target A Holistic Approach Osder replied. audience is desirable to advertisers, For me, this isn’t just a concept; either because of its size or quality. Can journalism be pursued with a blind it’s my new reality. I resigned my TechCrunch, for example, succeeded eye toward the market realties of the position at The News Tribune in in doing this, and in fewer than two business models that have supported Tacoma, Washington in October to years has become the leading source journalism? Not if journalism is to pursue entrepreneurial journalism for technology business news, eclips- have a future. with a start-up company founded to ing such coverage by The Wall Street This is why college journalism pro- serve local news publishers with tech- Journal, The New York Times, and grams should be teaching the basics nology and strategy. We will succeed local Bay Area newspapers. of business and marketing as part of if we can help publishers connect to News operations are struggling to journalism training, as Jeff Jarvis is the networked conversation in their find the right balance between qual- doing at the City University of New York markets. The technology is irrelevant, ity and quantity. Local news sites and Dan Gillmor at Arizona State. The but critical to sustaining journalism are are organized based on the print reality is this: With fewer traditional these new traits: an entrepreneurial sectioning—local, sports, business, jobs in journalism available today— mindset, measureable success tied to lifestyle—that was invented because and probably fewer tomorrow—there establishing social capital, and a recog- of press configurations. Advertisers is a greater need for the study and nition that authentic, transparent and can’t put their finger on the demo- practice of entrepreneurial journal- collaborative work is the foundation graphic they might reach with this ism for students and for out-of-work for viability and sustainability in the kind of mass-appeal formatting. It’s journalists who still want to serve a marketplace.  not nearly targeted enough for today’s community. digital world. So smart news operations This holistic approach—blending Mark Briggs is CEO of Serra Media, a launch niche sites, targeting moms, business strategy with journalism—is Seattle-based digital innovation com- dads, pets, shopping, home and garden, already guiding independent, hyperlo- pany, and principal of Journalism and more traditional categories such as cal start-up news efforts around the 2.0, a strategic consultancy formed arts and entertainment. If not topical United States. Self-sustaining opera- as a spinoff from his book of the same sites, then they go hyperlocal. tions will proliferate as traditional news name. He served as assistant manag- These are definable markets, ones organizations continue to shrink and ing editor for interactive news at The that a sales representative can use digital tools evolve and lower the bar- News Tribune in Tacoma from 2004– to easily explain to a prospective ad- rier to entry even further. 2008 and new media director at The vertiser exactly who will be reached Digital entrepreneur Elizabeth Os- Daily Herald in Everett, Washington, by positioning an ad in a particular der visited the University of Southern from 2000–2004.

1 To read about Osder’s presentation, go to www.ojr.org/ojr/people/ Geneva/200810/1542/.

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 41 Search for True North

The Wikification of Knowledge A neuroscientist explores the shared challenges of medicine and journalism when it comes to gathering information and reaching conclusions in the era of social media.

BY KENNETH S. KOSIK

ow do we know what we think the pharmaceutical company had to small circle of happenstance encoun- we know? To narrow this long- prove safety and efficacy. But how ters within the limits of our physical standing epistemological ques- frequently does the drug fail to work, geography. With the disappearance of Htion, let me ask this about the world I and do other health-related factors these boundaries, our links to medi- generally inhabit—medicine, where I such as lifestyle or coexisting disease cal conditions like our own can reach work as a neuroscientist. For questions or genetic risk affect the likelihood across the globe. Large numbers of about medical conditions, two sources the drug will work? These are difficult people—well beyond the numbers of knowledge exist. There is found in most medical expert knowledge—the kind studies—can build disease- acquired by those who read oriented social networks with the primary scientific papers, layers of added information examine findings from con- Within the potential of social networks and with an ease of follow-up trolled studies, and who, by lies untapped wiki knowledge poised to to create a living, dynamic virtue of their training and wiki. From the network one their advanced degrees, carry challenge the experts by opening wide the can cluster individuals in any the weight of authority. The way desired—by geographic second is what today would collective knowledge gate. location, by occupation, by be called “wiki” knowledge, response to a medication— the kind that arises from and begin to extract patterns collective experience. Today, and correlations. We can or- the knowledge of the designated expert questions for the expert. In the case ganize and reorganize data and perform is increasingly challenged by the col- of the most commonly used drug in statistics based on any parameter we lective experience of ever-expanding Alzheimer’s disease—donepezil—the chose and create hypotheses that can cybercommunities. In the battle of the physician has no idea about enhanced then be verified prospectively. blogosphere vs. the expert, the expert or diminished benefit in association Within the potential of social net- seems to be losing ground. This con- with other health factors and usually works lies untapped wiki knowledge temporary dialectic represents a chal- does not mention to the family that poised to challenge the experts by lenge for many disciplines, including many users show no benefit at all. opening wide the collective knowl- the journalist, who must decide how Perhaps the power of the wiki edge gate. In November, Google an- to balance expert views with those of could provide more depth when one nounced its new Web tool—Google Flu the cybercommunity. is making a decision about a drug Trends—which uses people’s search treatment. Certainly, the choice of a clues (entering phrases such as “flu Knowledge: Expert Vs. Wiki medication becomes even more acute symptoms”) to create graphs and for some of the stratospherically priced maps to predict and show regional When medical findings are announced, drugs used in cancer treatment today. outbreaks of the flu. whether a new therapy, a new pre- So how can we create a wiki-based Can social networks rival what is ventive measure, or a new research knowledge environment for medical learned from expert approaches such finding, neither the journalist nor information? In times past, collective as controlled studies and disease the physician should assume that an knowledge derived from folk medicine, registries? Sound conclusions in the expert opinion is definitive. The expert old wives tales, and anecdotal reports. medical field are based upon statistical may be “as good as it gets,” but the The number of contributors to collec- significance. The statistical power of a limitations of the expert approach tive knowledge in any one community population, i.e. the ability to distinguish need to be clear. For example, let’s was small and, therefore, the conclu- between an experimental and control take treatment decisions with a newly sions clinically suspect. group, when posed a research question approved medication for Alzheimer’s The modern-day version of folk often depends on having a sufficiently disease. To get approved by the FDA, medicine is no longer confined to a large study group. The best way to

42 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 New Venues increase the number of participating measures or fitness programs that resolve this issue as has happened individuals is tapping into the Internet. will increase or decrease our risk for telephones and TV. However, saddled with a freewheeling for cancer, heart attacks, Alzheimer’s • The privacy question. No network Wild West style, the Internet cannot disease, and more, and some of it is is totally secure—and medical easily provide pure well-controlled potentially contaminated by the bias information is not immune to the study populations. But the vast poten- of financial involvement. problem. This summer, staff at a tial for touching enormous numbers of How can one possibly capture all hospital near Los Angeles was dis- people could negate the noise of the these simultaneous variables when covered snooping through records of Web. Experts use “meta-analysis” to computing risk? Did a study that found Hollywood celebrities. And this case increase the size of their experimental something new about coffee drinkers is not unique. Beyond the security sample. Wiki knowledge derived from control for the number of hours those of servers, networks allow levels of a social network offers a fluid, open people spent in the gym? When a new access; therefore, on a site where source, ongoing meta-analysis—a vir- drug is tested, the control group may people share medical information, tual collection of experiences that can not be identical to the experimental they can limit the information that be constantly updated as users enter group in caloric intake, number of others can see. Some individuals more individual data. portions of vegetables eaten, or their may want to remain completely amount of daily exercise. At best, anonymous. Others may be willing Benefits and Challenges of the study is controlled for age and to share all their information within Collective Information gender. But if those taking the drug a small subnetwork of people they are eating poorly and under stress know well and keep anonymous their Social networks empower the “expert,” and those on placebo are dining on data to the larger network. be it a doctor or a journalist, because salads and jogging on the beach, the • Entry of false data is a potentially access to this community-generated wrong conclusion could be reached. serious issue—for doctors and knowledge is shared by all. For example, And if one adds in genetic variation journalists alike. For example, take illness and a significant story inter- found in human populations—certain reporting on the performance of sected at Love Canal, where 21,000 types of genes can increase or dimin- surgeons, an area in which data are tons of chemical waste lay buried ish the risk for disease—the variables sorely needed. Suppose a disgruntled beneath the community unbeknownst mount further. Controlled studies are patient wants to smear a surgeon to the residents. Back in 1978, a time just not powered to capture multiple and fabricates multiple entries with long before social media existed, Lois variables, and medical conditions are bad outcomes. Tools are needed for Gibbs, a local mother and president brimming with variables. The only way verification. Suppose a person is part of the Love Canal Homeowners’ As- to increase the statistical power of a of social network related to weight sociation, first associated exposure to conclusion is to increase the sample control or hypertension and enters the leaking chemical waste with the size, exactly what social networks are false data. If just a few people are epilepsy, asthma and urinary tract designed to do. guilty of false entries the overall infections that were recurring in her Because wiki knowledge in the so- conclusions will not vary much. But children. Although flagrant and clear cial network arena is obtained in an large numbers of people may have cut, Love Canal is not unique. Now, the unconventional manner, it might not a tendency to lie or distort their ability of Web-based medical networks provide conclusive evidence. Therefore, personnel information even if their to cluster data geographically has the a preferable way of thinking about identity is concealed. potential to reveal other dangerous liv- wiki knowledge is as a guidepost for ing conditions. Similarly, occupational the design of hypotheses (for scientists Neither doctors nor journalists will risks for disease are well recognized, to test) or generating story ideas (for have been the first to venture into the and organizing medical data in this way journalists to report). For each of us, realm of figuring out how to utilize will likely serve as an early warning the pitfalls are evident, and a few of wiki knowledge. In “Wikinomics,” by system for on-the-job risks—and for them are highlighted below: Don Tapscott [see his article on page investigative stories that can be done 18] and Anthony Williams, many posi- about them. • Selection bias is a problem. Those on tive examples are presented that bring Figuring out what constitutes a a social network tend to be younger collective Web-based knowledge to the healthy lifestyle is something that and not economically disadvantaged. business model. Yet there are critics consumes the time of both doctors When groups of people are excluded of this approach, too. Andrew Keen, and journalists, whose job it is to due to entry barriers, the informa- author of “The Cult of the Amateur,” report reliably on the barrage of evi- tion generated from the community argues that Web-based knowledge is dence emerging from many different will be biased, and other knowledge superficial and lacks deep and consid- studies—much of it contradictory or, will be lost or skewed. In time, the ered judgment. Indeed, Web content at least, confusing. New information increasing penetration of the Inter- can be boisterous, unfiltered and surfaces almost daily about dietary net to all segments of the society will amateur. Yet if conventional knowl-

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 43 Search for True North

edge is only what experts know, then Stores of information downloaded outside the expertise of physicians— should everything else be considered from hand-held devices will help even specialists. While flickers of “amateur” knowledge? While Web us- close the gap between successful and hope appear on the Web through ers may be a raucous bunch, they can unsuccessful outcomes when making encounters with others and a shared be as easily airbrushed into a statistic decisions because we can draw upon a experience, judging the reliability of through a social network as they can deep base of information and experi- this experience—and its fit with our be in an expert study. ence. We can instantly tap into a living own—can be difficult. But to have the source of collective experience about opportunity to find information and An External Hard Drive for our condition while sitting with the test its reliability means that no longer the Brain physician. As pointed out by Daniel is one person—an expert—expected to L. Schacter and Donna Rose Addis know everything and render infallible As a neuroscientist who spends time in a recent essay in Nature (2007), judgment. That view is the no-longer thinking about how people’s brains “information about the past is useful tenable burden of the expert physician; process information, this technolo- only to the extent that it allows us to nor can it any longer be the guiding gy—and the information overflow it anticipate what may happen in the belief of the trained journalist.  brings—are without a doubt changing future.” Our ability to anticipate the the way human beings make decisions. future may be enhanced by a richer Kenneth S. Kosik is the Harriman Neuroscientists have increasingly come store of information that includes a Professor of Neuroscience Research to understand memory as a function Web-based compilation of data. and codirects the Neuroscience Re- not intended to recreate the past, but It is perhaps an irony of our time search Institute at the University of to guide us into the future. Viewed in that with all of these avenues to discover California, Santa Barbara. Kosik is a this way, memory does not have to knowledge at our command, we can founder of the Learning & the Brain be perfectly accurate; instead it has find ourselves starved for information conference based in Boston and the to serve us for outcome simulation in a sea churning with nothing but founder of the center for Cognitive and correct decision-making based on information. The particular knowledge Fitness and Innovative Therapies in the memory of an experience that re- craved, for example, by those given a Santa Barbara. sembled our current circumstances. life-threatening diagnosis, often lies

Media Re:public: My Year in the Church of the Web In studying new and old media, the author feels ‘as though I’ve undergone two religious crises; one feels like a loss of faith, the other like a conversion.’

BY PERSEPHONE MIEL

n November 2007, I was invited to media were still mostly considered ir- Preaching a False Message spend a year at Harvard’s Berkman relevant, who’d never written a blog Center for Internet & Society, lead- nor regularly read them. Before moving to Boston and taking Iing a research project in partnership Our project was named “Media on this project, I’d spent a dozen years with the MacArthur Foundation. Its Re:public.” This turned out to be an with the international media develop- aim, according to Colin Maclay, the cen- apt name given our key finding that ment nonprofit Internews Network ter’s acting executive director, would more journalism in the public interest (internews.org) working in the former be to take a “skeptical but constructive is essential, whether created by profes- Soviet Union and other countries to look at the state of the blogosphere.” sionals or amateurs, commercial enti- promote independent media. The idea Many well-known folks in the world of ties or nonprofits, online, on the air or that commercial media with advertis- blogs had applied for this job, but the on paper. But in the yearlong process ing coming from many sources equals Berkman Center decided they needed of reaching this conclusion—looking at financial independence, which is the someone who had not “drunk the “new” and “old” media and how they’re best foundation for robust indepen- blogging Kool-Aid.” This is why they blending (and not blending)—I feel as dent journalism, was central to much took a chance on me—someone who’d though I’ve undergone two religious of our work. This message seemed worked with traditional news media in crises; one feels like a loss of faith, especially appropriate in places like less developed countries, where online the other like a conversion. Russia, where I lived for many years,

44 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 New Venues when everyone seemed to agree that converting state-run media to true Media Re:public: Conclusions After a Year of public media was an impossible task, and commercial news media would be Exploration the country’s savior. Media Re:public’s final report went to news consumers risk relying on news As I look at what is happening press in November. It is available on sources that are neither credible nor now to this news model in the United the Berkman Center’s Web site at www. comprehensive. States, I believe I was a missionary of cyber.law.harvard.edu. Its conclusions • Despite impressive successes, a false gospel. Relying on advertis- include the following: participation in the online media ing to support independent editorial space is not universal; there are structures that serve the public interest • The disruption of the scarcity-based populations and ideas that remain has always been a remarkably fragile business model for traditional media underrepresented. construct resulting from a combina- outlets is leading them to reduce • There are specific kinds of critically tion of history, regulation, professional and shift the scope of their original important journalism that have not aspirations, and family businesses. It’s reporting. found reliable sustainability models been eroding for a long time due to • Web-native media entities are not in the online media environment. deregulation and the shift of many addressing all of the reporting gaps • Efforts to understand and address media businesses from privately held left by legacy media, and current the issues above are limited by a companies to shareholder corporations. structures and mechanisms do not lack of rigorous empirical evidence, Couple this with the shift of media provide sufficient incentives for them instead relying largely on incomplete consumption to the Internet, where to do so. information, anecdotes and intu- advertising aimed at people looking • In the changing media environment, ition. —P.M. for the score from last night’s game no longer necessarily supports the same enterprise doing reporting on city hall, many smart and motivated people who acknowledging that the Internet was and it delivers the fatal blow. work within these news organizations. important but believing this whole In interview after interview I did There are wonderful initiatives, both “citizen journalism” thing was wildly with those working at newspapers and nationally and at local stations, but exaggerated. Citizen media guru Dan in TV and radio news, people described I worry these efforts will not get the Gillmor, now one of my favorite Berk- a continuing shift in priorities towards financial and political support they man colleagues, had come to speak at anything that helps their bottom line. need to develop and prove themselves. Internews, and his message was very Usually, this means cheap or free con- Some terrific efforts by local stations— convincing. But we took away ideas tent that brings in large audiences or part of a steady stream of small-scale about how to enhance professional is advertiser-friendly, including a huge innovations—include New Hampshire journalism, not replace it. When Berk- increase in various kinds of sponsored Public Radio (nhpr.org), the Public man explained that my research was content. The church-state newsroom Insight Network1 and :Vocalo (vocalo. meant to answer the question of why wall is looking more and more like a org), a bold and beautiful experiment online citizen media had not yet cre- low hurdle, crossed without breaking by Chicago Public Radio, which I ated a revolution—in shifting power stride. regularly listen to at my desk. from the center, where mainstream Even publicly funded broadcasters media resides, to the edges—I laughed offered little comfort. When I started Converting to Participatory out loud. I still have a hard time this project, I imagined that public Media believing that anyone really thought radio and TV stations would be the unpaid, untrained people would take natural homes for the kind of mix- It was not my misgivings about the on significant portions of the work of ing of amateur-professional online future of newspapers and serious professional news media. media that I’d hoped might address journalism generally but my conver- Though my belief in the need for the impending failures of traditional sion to a participatory media evan- professional journalism remains intact, commercial media, especially locally. gelist that shocked my friends. From I have come to believe that “participa- Though I haven’t given up hope, the their point of view, I am now drunk tory media,” the name we gave online more I looked inside the system, the on the Kool-Aid. When I began this citizen media, can, and indeed must, less likely this seemed, despite the project, we were all curmudgeons,2 create a more democratic sphere for

1 http://minnesota.publicradio.org/publicinsightjournalism 2 This is the technical term for traditional media people who maintain that bloggers are irrelevant and/or dangerous. If you are one, as I suspect many Nieman folks are, I urge you to escape. We need you.

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 45 Search for True North

information and a more engaged pub- ing and approach. I learned to give conversion will be complete. lic. By naming it “participatory media” up a skill I’d developed during years As I write this, sitting in my hotel we moved past defining it as only, or spent with specialized professionals in Tbilisi, Georgia, my Berkman col- even mostly, being about blogs and in the U.S. media of pretending to leagues and I are finalizing our main acknowledged that not everyone in- know what they were talking about report and several other documents volved is a citizen or a journalist, never long enough to guess. With my new we’re publishing under the aegis of mind a citizen journalist. Participatory colleagues, I could say, “Excuse me, but this project. The one-year MacArthur media is whenever the people formerly what exactly is Twitter?” or substitute grant has ended, and I’m looking at known as the audience help shape ways to act on the conclusions I the media environment, whether reached. by commenting or recommending, Here’s my sense of where we sorting or reporting. are now in this discussion—and One observation to emerge where we need to head: from our research is the increas- ing amount of participatory media • More media projects should happening within traditional news focus on the needs of specific organizations. The disturbing publics, especially underserved thing, however, about what is tak- populations. ing place there is that the content • They should build on what’s is often just as susceptible to the available and bring organizations problems of credibility and low- together rather than trying to cre- est common denominator quality ate something entirely new. that professional journalists once • Technology is only one tiny part condemned as inherent to amateur of the picture; the hard work will online media. involve people. As part of my research, I at- tended many conferences, almost I will continue to think and blog all a mix of old and new media, with Flickr, RSS, geo-tagging, SEO, or any sporadically about these important some tilting towards journalism and of dozens of other terms that entered media issues at www.mediarepublic. others in the direction of technology my vocabulary during this past year. org. Between consulting jobs, which and participatory media. The contrast Never did I feel that anyone had any will likely focus on bringing my new between the two tribes—and they are less respect for me for not knowing. media perspective to the international distinct despite increasing trends to- This refreshing attitude was one of media development world, I will vol- wards intermarriage—remains stark. many things I wish traditional media unteer my time to develop a local At NewsTools2008, folks from tradi- folks would pick up. media project with teenagers in my tional and online media, technology neighborhood, Boston’s South End. companies, startups and universities The Work Ahead This project is tentatively called Neigh- spent three extraordinary days in borChord. Because many people in the the self-organized sessions of what is Despite being a convert to participa- neighborhood are not online, it will known as an “un-conference”: ideas tory media, I do not believe it will combine digital and traditional media, bubbled as we learned about each produce quality journalism by some and these youngsters will be trained other’s projects. On the third day, kind of volunteer crowd-powered in traditional reporting as well as the most of that group went home, but magic. “Build it and they will use it multimedia and technology necessary some of us stayed to take part in a to make the media we need” has not to produce it. Like many experiments, daylong event with a group of local proven to be true in the areas that it may fail. But a year of looking at the traditional journalists who, I have matter. What I see being done online state of the news media has led me to to admit, depressed me utterly. As a by both Web-native media and tra- believe it is critical to try.  group, they seemed to have only one ditional media is the easy stuff—the question to ask: What’s going to hap- low-hanging fruit, including coverage Persephone Miel directed the Media pen to my job? of politics, consumer news, gossip and Re:public project at the Berkman Cen- Meanwhile, despite the image of technology. Much hard work remains ter for Internet & Society at Harvard bloggers and other new media folk to do to realize its potential; pretend- University. Prior to joining Berkman, as a sort of closed society, I experi- ing that we’ve figured out everything she spent more than 12 years with enced just the opposite. Just about about how participatory media works Internews Network, an international all those I talked with in the new is very dangerous. We need a far NGO supporting independent media media world were excited to share more sophisticated interpretation of around the world. information and explain their think- the citizen media scripture before my

46 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 New Venues

The Wisdom of the Crowd Resides in How the Crowd Is Used ‘… the animating idea—our readers know more than we do—is evolving into something that, if used wisely, will be far more efficient and useful than our first, early attempts at this new form of journalism.’

BY JEFF HOWE

ur presidential election was ployees and outsourcing it to a large, content. Around this time, some of the indeed historic, but not just undefined group of people via an open more memorable moments in journal- for the reasons emblazoned call, generally over the Internet. Back ism had been brought to us not by a Oin headlines throughout the world. It handful of intrepid reporters, but by was also the most closely monitored a legion of amateur photographers, election in U.S. history, as everyone bloggers and videographers. When a from CNN to The Huffington Post to massive tsunami swept across the resort Harvard University asked people to beaches of Thailand and Indonesia, document their voting experience and those “amateurs” who were witness provide instant reports on problems to it sent words and images by any at the polls. Thousands responded, means they could. When homegrown sending in text messages, photographs, terrorists set off a series of bombs on videos and even voice mails. The buses and subways in London, those resulting data were aggregated and at the scene used their cell phone displayed—in real time—on maps, in cameras to transmit horrifying im- charts, and over RSS feeds. ages. Hurricane Katrina reinforced All of this activity signaled a small this trend: As water rose and then but significant advance in the use of receded, journalists—to say nothing crowdsourcing as a new tool in digital of the victims’ families—relied on journalism. While crowdsourcing, or information and images supplied by citizen journalism, has been widely those whose journalistic accreditation embraced by all manner of news op- started and ended with the accident erations over the past several years, its of their geographical location. track record has been decidedly spotty. With these events, the news me- In theory, crowdsourcing offers outlets dia’s primary contribution was to like newspapers and newscasts and provide the dependable Web forum Web sites an opportunity to improve on which people gathered to distribute their reporting, bind their audiences information. By late 2006, the stage closer to their brands, and reduce then I explored the ways TV networks, seemed set for the entrance of “citizen newsroom overhead. In reality, relying photo agencies, and corporate R&D journalism,” in which inspired and on readers to produce news content departments were harnessing the ef- thoughtful amateurs would provide has proved to be a nettlesome—and forts of amateurs. I had wanted to a palliative for the perceived abuses costly—practice. include journalism in the piece, but of the so-called mainstream media. I coined the word “crowdsourcing” there was a dearth of examples. These were heady times, and a spirit in a Wired magazine article published That quickly changed. Not long after of optimism—what can’t the crowd in June 2006,1 though at that time I Wired published this article the term do?—seemed to pervade newsrooms didn’t focus on its use in journalism. began to seep into the pop cultural as well as the culture at large. It was—and is—defined as the act of lexicon, and news organizations started At Wired, we were no less susceptible taking a job once performed by em- to experiment with reader-generated to the zeitgeist. In January 2007, we

1 Howe’s article, “The Rise of Crowdsourcing,” can be read at www.wired.com/wired/ archive/14.06/crowds.html.

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 47 Search for True North

teamed up with Jay Rosen’s NewAs- Assignment Zero’s Formula 3. We expected the crowd would fall signment.Net to launch Assignment all over themselves for the oppor- Zero. We anticipated gathering hun- Assignment Zero was intended to tunity to produce all the artifacts of dreds of Web-connected volunteers to demonstrate, as I wrote in a Wired. the journalistic practice—reporter’s discuss, report and eventually write 80 com piece on the occasion of the notes, inverted pyramid articles, and feature articles about a specified topic. project’s launch in March 2007, that long-form features. It turned out At about the same time, Gannett was “… a team of professionals, working that asking people to write a feature re-engineering its newsrooms with with scores of citizen journalists, is proved about as appealing as asking the ambition of putting readers at the capable of completing an investiga- them to rewrite their college thesis. center of its new business strategy. I tive project of far greater scope than And so our contributors spoke with had a close-up view of both efforts. At a team of two or three professionals their feet. Assignment Zero, I was trying to help ever could.” In this case, the first topic apply the crowdsourcing principles, of investigation by the crowd would Six weeks in, we turned things while in 2006 I broke the news of be “… the crowd itself—its wisdom, around. We scrapped most of the Gannett’s retooling—the most sig- creativity, power and potential.” Dozens feature stories; instead people were nificant change since it launched USA of “subject pages” were constructed, asked to conduct Q&As. Critically, we Today in 1982—after spending several ranging from open source car design shifted our tone. Instead of dictating months reporting on the sea change to architecture. Included was even a assignments to people, we let the crowd at the company for Wired Magazine2 subject file called “the crowdsourced select whom they wanted to interview and for my book, “Crowdsourcing: Why novel.” Within each topic, there were or suggest new subjects entirely. In the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the up to 10 assignments, in which con- the end, about 80 interviews made it Future of Business.” tributors could report, brainstorm or to the Web site as published pieces, It would be easy to say that the “write the feature.” It was an ideal and the majority were insightful and original optimism was simply naiveté, format for a newsroom. But then, we provocative. What their interviews but that wouldn’t be exactly correct. As weren’t soliciting journalists. made clear is these volunteer contribu- it turns out, there’s a lot that the crowd We came out of the gate strong. The tors tackled topics about which they can’t do or, at least, isn’t interested in New York Times published a column were passionate and knowledgeable, doing. Recently I spent time talking to devoted to Assignment Zero, and the giving their content a considerable sources at Gannett as well as some of effort received lots of positive atten- advantage over that of professional my Assignment Zero alumni3 to revisit tion from the blogosphere. Within the journalists, who often must conduct what went right, what didn’t, and to first week, hundreds of volunteers had interviews on short notice, without pull from them valuable lessons for signed up. But just as quickly, these time for preparation or passion for others to put to good use. What I’ve enthusiastic volunteers drifted away. the subject. learned has reinforced my belief that Six weeks later, most of our topic pages crowdsourcing has limited applicability were ghost towns. Gannett’s Newsroom to journalism—it’s a spice, not a main What had we done wrong? Here’s Reinvention ingredient in our fourth estate. I’ve also a few lessons learned: come to fear that news organizations Gannett, too, found itself experiment- will rely more and more on reader- 1. Using the crowd to study crowd- ing with crowdsourcing in some of its generated content at the expense of sourcing proved far too wonky and newsrooms but did so for different traditional journalism. But what’s also bewildering for most of our would-be reasons and in different ways than clear is that the animating idea—our citizen journalists. Assignment Zero. Conceived as a readers know more than we do—is 2. We failed to anticipate that while wholesale reinvention of the news- evolving into something that, if used building a community can be diffi- room—rechristened the “information wisely, will be far more efficient and cult, maintaining it is much harder. center”—Gannett’s readers were now to useful than our first, early attempts at We didn’t have a tier of organizers reside at the heart of the two planks this new form of journalism. At any ready to answer questions and guide in its strategy. rate, crowdsourcing isn’t going away, people in the right direction. With After a successful initial foray into so it behooves all of us to make sure their earnest e-mails unanswered, crowdsourced reporting—at The (Fort it improves journalism but does not quite naturally most volunteers Myers) News-Press, in which a citizen- replace it. drifted away. engaged investigation unearthed cor-

2 Howe’s July 2007 story in Wired, entitled “To Save Themselves, US Newspapers Put Readers to Work,” can be read at www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/15-08/ ff_gannett?currentPage=all. 3 David Cohn, an Assignment Zero alumnus, has an article about Spot.Us on page 64.

48 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 New Venues ruption in a sewage utility in a town fifth-grader’s bone mar- in Florida—Gannett decided to export row transplant. Parker this model to its other newspapers.4 almost never rejects Readers (a.k.a. community members) anything she receives, would also play a significant news- though she scans each room role in the renamed “community one for “the F-word,” desk,” which would oversee everything and then posts it to the from blogs to news articles written site. “A few years ago by readers. these would have come In reporting on Gannett’s strategy, I across the transom as chose to focus on how the changes were press releases and been being implemented at one paper, The ignored,” she says. Cincinnati Enquirer. One indication This observation of how the newsroom was changing points to a central was the shift in job responsibilities. problem with Gannett’s A longtime metro reporter, Linda strategy—indeed, with Parker, had recently been reassigned both the hyperlocal and as “online communities editor.” Every crowdsourcing movements in general. about a stabbing at a local strip club Enquirer Web page prominently fea- Readers are content to leave the gritty and a photograph of a theater fire. tured the words “Get Published” as a aspects of reporting to journalists; “We were able to confirm the stab- way of eliciting stories, comments and they prefer to focus on content and bing,” he said. “We would have never anything else Cincinnatians might feel storytelling that Nicholas Lemann, known about it without the tip.” It compelled to submit. It all landed in dean of the Graduate School of Jour- might not be grist for a Pulitzer, but Parker’s queue; perhaps not surpris- nalism at Columbia University, once it fills the copy hole. ingly, these words and videos never characterized in The New Yorker as Nor were these key lessons lost on have resembled anything commonly being the equivalent of the contents those of us involved in Assignment considered journalism. of a church newsletter. Zero. In fact, Assignment Zero’s com- Even figuring out how best to prompt As it turns out, Tom Callinan, the munity manager, Amanda Michel, contributors has revealed valuable les- Enquirer’s editor, observed a while into employed the lessons of what didn’t sons to those at the Enquirer—ones the project “even ‘Get Published’ was work adeptly at her next venture, di- that other news organizations can learn too newspaperlike in its sound. People recting The Huffington Post’s effort, from. “It used to read, ‘Be a Citizen don’t want to get published. They want Off the Bus, with its citizen-generated Journalist,’” Parker told me. “And no to ‘share.’” And so this is what the coverage of the presidential campaign. one ever clicked on it. Then we said, Web site’s button now encourages its Rather than duplicate what journalists ‘Tell Us Your Story,’ and still nothing. readers to do. The results continue, as were doing, Off the Bus leveraged its For some reason, ‘Get Published’ were Callinan says, to tend toward “pretty strength—namely, the size of its net- the magic words.” fluffy stuff.” work of 12,000 “reporters.” With citizen Now, nearly two years into the correspondents spread across the na- experiment, the Enquirer considers Lessons Learned tion and ready to attend smaller ral- this feature to be an unequivocal lies, fundraisers and get-out-the-vote success. I sat with Parker, a cheerful So what are we to take away from events that the national press ignored, woman in her mid-50’s, in April of these experiments? Readers are very Off the Bus found its niche. last year as she pored over several interested in playing a role in the Off the Bus became arguably the dozen submissions she had received creation of their local media. They first truly successful example of crowd- that day. There was one written by a don’t necessarily want to write the sourced journalism with some of its local custom car builder trumpeting news; what they want is to engage citizen reporters breaking national his upcoming appearance on a BET in a conversation. This doesn’t mean, stories. Perhaps its most significant show, and another, expressing with the however, that they don’t have valu- story was about the moment when intensity of emotional passion befit- able contributions to make. This fall, Barack Obama, at a nonpress event ting the circumstance, is a notice for Callinan told me, readers shared with fundraiser in San Francisco, made a play being held to raise funds for a others on the Enquirer Web site news his famous comment about how rural

4 Betty Wells, special projects editor at The News-Press, wrote about the newspaper’s use of crowdsourcing for the Spring 2008 issue of Nieman Reports in an article entitled, “Using Expertise From Outside the Newsroom,” which can be read at www. nieman.harvard.edu/reportsitem.aspx?id=100085.

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 49 Search for True North

Americans “cling to guns or religion” one that explored an increase in the Off the Bus method would work with as an expression of their frustration. prescribing of hypertension medicine all stories. It’s easy to build such a However, this reporting by Mayhill to African-American women during massive network of volunteer reporters Fowler, the citizen journalist who broke the campaign. They also contributed when the story is so compelling. But this story, actually drew attention away “distributed reporting,” in which the what happens when the topic gener- from Off the Bus’s broader achieve- network of contributors performed ates far less passion, even if it is no ment. Toward the end less important—say, of the campaign, Off for example, the nutri- the Bus was publish- tional content in pub- ing some 50 stories Readers are very interested in playing a role in the lic school lunches? a day, and Michel— The take-away mes- with the help of her creation of their local media. They don’t necessarily sage for journalists crowd—was able to want to write the news; what they want is to engage should be this: Adapt write profiles of every to these changes and superdelegate, per- in a conversation. This doesn’t mean, however, that do so quickly. “The form investigations future of content is into dubious finan- they don’t have valuable contributions to make. conversation,” says cial contributions to Michael Maness, the the campaigns, and Gannett executive who publish compelling helped craft the com- firsthand reports from the frontlines tasks such as analyzing how local pany’s recent newsroom overhaul. in the battleground states. The na- affiliates summed up the vice presi- Worth noting is that one of Gannett’s tional press took note—and sent its dential debate. “We received reports unqualified successes are the so-called kudos—but more importantly, readers from more than 100 media markets,” “mom sites,” launched in some 80 noticed. Off the Bus drew 3.5 million Michel said. “We really got to see how markets. Each is overseen and operated unique visitors to its site in the month the debate was perceived in different online by a single journalist with the of September. regions.” assignment of facilitating conversa- Michel achieved this because she Is Off the Bus the future of jour- tion while also providing information. took away valuable information from nalism? Hardly, Michel contends, and “We’re moving away from mass media the failures of the experimentation at I agree wholeheartedly. She regards and moving to mass experience,” says Assignment Zero. Rather than dictate Off the Bus as complimentary, not Maness. “How we do that? We don’t to her contributors, she forged a new competitive, with the work done by know.”  kind of journalism based on playing traditional news organizations. “We to their strengths. The result: Some didn’t want to be the AP. We think the Jeff Howe writes for Wired magazine contributors wrote op-eds, while others AP does a good job. The question was and is the author of “Crowdsourcing: provided reporting that journalists at what information and perspective can Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driv- the Web site then used in weaving to- citizens, not reporters on the trail, offer ing the Future of Business,” published gether investigative features, including to the public?” Nor does she claim the by Crown Business in 2008.

When Journalists Blog: How It Changes What They Do ‘I was surprised at just how much these journalists felt their work had been changed by the simple act of blogging.’

BY PAUL BRADSHAW

rom journalistic pariah to sav- affecting journalism. Was the hype online survey to blogging journalists to ior of the news industry, blogs surrounding the potential of blogs to get a feel for the lie of the land. The have undergone an enormous transform our craft being realized—or response was incredible—coming from Ftransformation in recent years. As a were journalists simply treating their 200 journalists from 30 countries, rep- journalist and a blogger, I was curi- blogs as another “channel” into which resenting newspapers and magazines, ous to see how this transformation to plough content? television and radio, online-only and from blogophobia to blogophilia was Earlier this year I distributed an freelancers. United States and United

50 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 New Venues

Kingdom respondents dominated, but on the transparency of their report- and called us. We swapped info. every continent (except Antarctica) ing process to push official sources to Our readers also post links to was represented.1 reply. One respondent wrote: other stories on the topic from As I pored over the results, I was other news orgs. surprised at just how much these On hot-button stories where journalists felt their work had been our readers are asking a lot In some examples, this collabora- changed by the simple act of blog- of questions, we post updates tion becomes a form of crowdsourcing. ging. I had expected some effect on every time we make a phone But for others the pressure to publish their relationship with the “former call. For example, [a company] meant more reliance on rumors and audience,” but what surprised me declared bankruptcy, and the less rigorous research, with the onus most was when more than half of new owner wouldn’t take the placed on blog readers to clarify and the blogging journalists said this re- previous owner’s gift cards. fact check. lationship had been “enormously” or Our readers were peeved and “completely” transformed. At the same hounding us to do something. Swifter, Deeper, Stronger time, when I might have anticipated The corporate folks weren’t say- that some aspects of the journalistic ing anything, so we didn’t have In production, blogging journalists felt process to be affected, I found, instead, any new information to report. they worked more quickly, breaking consistency in responses I received. Because we didn’t have any new stories on their blogs before following This included in areas ranging from info, we didn’t write anything up online and in print or broadcast. how journalists generated story ideas in the paper. But on our blog, They also write shorter, more tightly and leads to newsgathering and news we would post updates at least edited pieces, not just for blogs but production and even what happens daily to tell people when we left also for print and broadcast. Reporters after publication or broadcast. In each a message and if we had heard said they write more informally than instance, the majority of journalists back yet. We eventually scored before, while using the blog as a space told stories of change. an interview with the new CEO to publish material that didn’t “fit” the So the headline is: Blogging is and posted it in its entirety on formats of print and broadcast. And changing journalism—at least for those our site. Another reporter saw it journalists link to other stories when journalists who blog. But alongside this conclusion resides a collection of more interesting findings.

Cutting Out the Middlemen

In generating story ideas, blogging journalists don’t need someone to tell them who the readers are and what they want: They already know, because the readers are on their blogs, telling them who they are and what they’re curious about. In this new blogging relationship, editors are the middle- men being cut out. The role of official sources—such as public relations spokespeople and firms—were also being diminished, as sources for stories broadened. Story leads now come through the comments or through private communication initiated via the blog. And once they are pursuing a story, some journalists use the blog to “put the call out” for information and sources—and rely

1 More information about the findings of this online survey is available on the author’s blog at http://onlinejournalismblog.com/2008/10/14/blogging-journalists-survey- results-pt1-context-and-methodology/.

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 51 Search for True North

time or space constraints mean they months later. radio industries felt that blogging are unable to report in full—what Jeff had “completely” changed any aspect Jarvis called on his blog, BuzzMachine, This importance of distribution of their work. “Covering what you do best and link- emerged as a significant change, as Similarly, sport journalists reported ing to the rest.” journalists spoke of forwarding links, less change in their work than any other After publication or broadcast, posting updates on Twitter, and us- journalists. Media, technology, finance blogging journalists are less inclined ing RSS. and arts and culture journalists were to discard a story completely; stories Interactivity and “conversation” more likely than others to say that had “more legs.” Errors and updates were frequently mentioned. As one blogging had changed their processes get highlighted by readers and fixed. journalist blogger let me know: “enormously” or “completely.” The permanence of the Web means A third of the respondents only stories are always “live.” In the words I cover more than 30 countries. started to blog in the past year, so my of two journalist bloggers: The reaction of people who live suspicion is that there remains room in a place tells me a lot about for more change. Clearly, we are only The audience remains able to the issues I am writing about. at the beginning, as the news indus- comment on the content and My blog seems to generate argu- try faces one of the most significant regularly provides information ments, which at least help me transformations in its history.  which updates it. The reporter understand a story more. then has the opportunity to revisit Paul Bradshaw is a senior lecturer in the subject, creating a great “off An Uneven Picture online journalism and magazines at diary” print story (loved by news Birmingham City University’s School editors everywhere). Despite these similar trends, the pic- of Media in the United Kingdom. He is ture was not the same everywhere. also the publisher of Online Journal- Well, you never finish, do you? Freelance or online-only journalists ism Blog and a contributor to Poyn- You write something that may or were more likely to say that their work ter’s E-Media Tidbits (http://online- may not spark a conversation, and had been transformed “enormously” journalismblog.com). you’ve got to be ready for that or “completely.” In contrast, no jour- conversation even if it happens nalist employed by the television or

Digging Into Social Media to Build a Newspaper Audience ‘We weren’t even sure whether a mainstream news site could become part of the cybercommunities that evolve from social media sites.’

BY BILL ADEE

eet “The Colonel.” He’s a pretty to try all sorts of different foods. He news tastes are reflected in what he dapper guy. In his early 50’s, loves eating steak at Gibson’s outdoor shares with his friends. He makes a he has worked for the Chicago cafe and is not above heading over to point to interact with Tribune read- MTribune and lived in the city his whole Jim’s Original for a Polish. ers individually, but he’ll do this, too, life—well, except for that stint in the While he’s a Web guy, the Colonel on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and other Army Reserves. That’s how he earned starts his day off with a cup of Stewart’s social media sites and blogs. his nickname. He started out as a copy coffee and the papers. He’ll check out “I’m here to make the most of your boy in the newsroom, worked his way chicagotribune.com and suntimes.com time,” he says. “My goal is never to up, and now he’s Web ambassador for for local news, then he’ll scan nytimes. send out a link that’s lame.” chicagotribune.com. com and latimes.com. After his daily The Colonel doesn’t exist. Or does Because he spends so much time at news fix, he watches the latest viral he? the Tribune, he lives in the South Loop, videos on YouTube. Roughly 40 percent of the traffic close to Soldier Field and his beloved The Colonel is very interested in arrives at chicagotribune.com when Bears. The Colonel is adventurous, local politics, and he’s a take-things- a user types our URL into a browser and he makes his way around the city one-issue-at-a-time moderate. His or goes to a bookmarked page.

52 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 New Venues

The other 60 percent? That traffic page based on the rankings of users. in taking a look. To do this, our job comes via search engines, Web sites, Roughly 35,000 page views of the total would be to construct cyberconnections and blogs. On a typical day in early came from people who went directly that, when acted on, would mirror 2008, Google was our No. 1 source from Digg to our Web site to take a the serendipitous reading experience of outside traffic, followed by Yahoo! look at this story. familiar to so many as they thumb (#2), CareerBuilder (#3), Fark (#10), That was my first experience with through pages of a newspaper. What The New York Times (#20), and Fa- Digg and the viral power of social made this a bit different, however, is cebook (#47). In all, more than 4,000 media. And it made a lasting impres- that we needed to figure out how to do sites sent users our way—with 350,000 sion. It forced me to think about how this systematically, rather than relying different clicks. the Tribune and other newspapers on luck and happenstance. At chicagotribune.com, a lot of our produce so many great stories—a lot time is spent focused on our content, as of them with remarkable images—and Colonel Tribune Goes Social it should be. But given those percent- yet, in the typhoon of information, I ages, we needed to be asking whether wondered how people can find ones It was Saint Patrick’s Day, 2008, and another very important job we have they might not know exist but will Daniel Honigman and I were sitting is to make sure our content finds an be drawn to read once they do. And in my office. Honigman was the first audience and connects with people in of the four 20-somethings I hired for other areas of the Web. Project O. He quit a full-time job and That question led to our “Project signed on to this project for $500 a O.” The “O” was for search-engine week, no benefits, and no guarantees and social media optimization and beyond the 12 weeks that the Tribune for Owen—as in Owen Youngman, the had approved to fund this project. Chicago Tribune vice president who We had no handbook to follow, nor championed and funded the group anyone inside the company to whom tasked with spreading our content to we could turn for advice. We weren’t the rest of the Web. even sure whether a mainstream news site could become part of the cybercom- Social Media’s Viral Power munities that evolve from social media sites. But Honigman had impressed For me, Project O’s genesis occurred me several months earlier with a story in March 2007. Back then, I was the he’d written about the importance of former sports editor at the Tribune influencers to corporations and his who’d been working as associate editor abiding interest in social media and for innovation for just a few months. search-engine optimization. Tribune national correspondent How- In addition to using Google Trends, ard Witt wrote a piece about Paris, which tracks and reflects what key- Texas, a small town with a troubled words people are searching for on history.1 Published on March 12th—and how might we be able to help make a daily basis, we decided to start by available online that same day—Witt’s this happen. Clearly this question focusing on a few social media sites— story attracted 16,000 page views. The went beyond searching online, since I Facebook, Twitter, Fark, Reddit and next day, the count dropped to 1,300. doubt many people set out in March Digg. I was concerned about having But on March 21st, nine days after to pop the words “Paris, Texas” into Daniel and the three others I hired— it appeared on the newspaper’s front their search engine. Amanda Maurer, Erin Osmon, and page, this story about a tiny place far I knew then that there was an Christina Antonopoulos—use their from Chicago generated 43,300 page active role for us to play in doing a own Facebook profiles to represent views. By the end of March, this story better job of bringing what Tribune the Tribune. Daniel suggested we was our site’s most popular story, with reporters work hard to produce to create an online avatar, and that’s more than 126,000 people coming to the attention of new and appreciative how “Colonel Tribune,” a nod to the chicagotribune.com to read it. audiences. And we had to take the newspaper’s legendary figure, Col. What happened? Turns out that material to these audiences, wherever Robert McCormick, was born. more than 300 blogs had linked to they are finding and learning from each I know what you are thinking. How the story, and it became popular on other on the Internet. Then we had to could you pick an old white guy with Digg, where stories are submitted by somehow connect the material we had a military title to be the Tribune’s am- users and then promoted to the home with people who might be interested bassador in the world of new media?

1 www.chicagotribune.com/paris

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 53 Search for True North

Believe it. The part of the social me- Colonel has taken dia scene? Absolutely, on a life of his own yes. But be warned. though Twitter To do this requires and other social having the same kind media sites where of great team I had: he can be found. Facebook-savvy youth, He routinely gets an innovative Web news tips from staff, and an extremely some readers, supportive newsroom. hears from oth- Even then, it will be ers about correc- essential to become tions and typos in immersed in the vari- stories, and he is ous communities and offered story ideas. One example: The bers that surprised us—and even paid to reach out in ways that create inter- Colonel was notified via Twitter about homage to the Colonel by wearing his active relationships. Like friendships, a bomb threat and building evacua- trademark hat. these are ones that come only with tion downtown. The tip was checked The goal for Project O was one mil- time, trust and hard work. out by a reporter, and the story was lion page views a month. By June, at For us, we had a Colonel to help. posted on chicagotribune.com. its peak, it was doing more than six  Through Twitter and Facebook, times that number. And so our project we’ve invited people to meet-ups at continues with permanent funding. Bill Adee is editor of digital media for a local bar. They showed up in num- Can a mainstream news site become the Chicago Tribune.

Web v. Journalism: Court Cases Challenge Long-Held Principles ‘… courts and legislatures, reluctant to apply different rules to the “old” and “new” media, are rethinking the basic constitutional principles that have protected a free press for generations.’

BY JANE KIRTLEY

n late September 2008, a California way back to 1931’s Near v. Minnesota the contrary. state appeals court struck down a and 1971’s Pentagon Papers case, New Unfortunately, that trial judge gag order that forbade The Orange York Times v. United States. As the is not alone in seeming to be First ICounty Register to report by “all appellate panel ruled, there was no Amendment-challenged. It’s not that means and manner of communica- way that the risk that witnesses in they hate the press, exactly. But they tion, whether in person, electronic, this civil case might be influenced by don’t really understand the unique through audio or video recording, news reports was sufficient to justify role the news media play in a demo- or print medium” testimony by any this kind of censorship. Other, less cratic society. They reject the idea that witness appearing in a class action restrictive alternatives—such as sim- “the press” should enjoy any special wage-and-hour suit brought by its ply admonishing the witnesses not to privileges. Nor do they seem to know newspaper carriers. read the paper—would accomplish the what to do about those legions of un- The trial judge—whose ruling was same goal. identified and ungovernable bloggers overturned—had concluded that the Was this appeals court’s ruling a and other online journalists out there injunction was necessary to prevent great victory for freedom of the press? who, in their eyes, do little except future witnesses from being influenced Well, yes and no. Yes, because the ap- spread false rumors, violate copyright by others’ testimony. But this gag order peals court got it right. But no, because laws, and identify rape victims with violated just about every precedent the trial judge thought his order was impunity, all the time hiding behind establishing the strong presumption the right thing to do, despite nearly the anonymity that the Web permits. against prior restraints going all the 70 years of unbroken precedent to As a consequence, courts and legis-

54 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 New Venues latures, reluctant to apply different rules to the “old” and “new” media, are rethinking the basic constitutional principles that have protected a free press for generations.

Web Restrictions

The Orange County Register case is similar to recent examples of judges is- suing gag or “take down” orders against Web site operators who have had the temerity to report details about Paris Hilton’s personal life or the names and statistics of Major League Baseball players without authorization from the league. The difference is that some of these orders have actually been upheld. Although in the past it was accepted Police use pepper spray to break up a group of protesters during a rally at the Republican law in the United States that the rem- National Convention in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Kentucky Kernel photographer Ed Mat- edy for invasion of privacy was to sue thews, left with camera, documented the rally and was later arrested on charges of felony for damages, not enjoin the speech, riot according to the Ramsey County Adult Detention Center. Matt Rourke, who took this for many judges the immediacy and photograph, was also arrested. Photo by Matt Rourke/The Associated Press. ubiquity of publishing on the Internet changes the balance, justifying more draconian measures. Copyright law presents a slightly subpoenas are supposed to be strictly confidential sources is being affected different challenge. The owners of limited to curtailing infringing activity, by the Internet, too. The existence and intellectual property have always had they can also be used to circumvent extent of any reporter’s privilege has the legal right to demand that viola- well-established First Amendment been an unsettled and volatile issue tors “cease and desist” publishing and principles protecting the right to en- in the courts ever since the Supreme distributing infringing works. But the gage in anonymous speech. Court’s narrow decision in Branzburg advent of the Internet means that copy- A similar threat arises in the con- v. Hayes in 1972 determined that the ing others’ work without permission text of defamatory publications. Many First Amendment did not create one. is easier than ever before. Congress bloggers and other posters engage Despite that opinion, however, most enacted the Digital Millennium Copy- in vituperative commentary online states and federal circuits recognized right Act (DMCA) in 1998 to address without identifying themselves. In a some kind of protection, at least in this situation without also stifling provision similar to the DMCA safe certain circumstances. But after a series protected speech. As an incentive to harbor, section 230 of the Commu- of rulings to the contrary in several encourage Internet Service Providers nications Decency Act grants ISPs influential federal appeals courts, most (ISPs) to continue to offer untram- immunity from liability for libelous notably in the recent Judith Miller meled access to the Web, the DMCA’s speech posted by their subscribers. case, media groups lobbied Congress “safe harbor” provision protects them But again, the ISP can be compelled to pass a federal shield law. Although from liability when their subscribers to reveal the individual’s identity if a attracting bipartisan support, the bill upload infringing material, as long judge concludes that a plaintiff has remains stalled in the Senate. as they “act expeditiously” to remove a valid claim. Those who might be A major point of contention with the material once notified that it has affected by this ruling include news- this legislation is the question of how been posted. papers and other media, which could to determine who would be covered The problem is that a prudent ISP be forced to unmask readers who by the law. Attempts to adopt a broad will be inclined to take down the post anonymous comments on their functional definition to include anyone content and leave the subscriber and Web sites, leaving them vulnerable to who is “doing journalism,” regardless the copyright owner to sort out their retaliation or retribution. of medium or platform, was rejected respective rights later. To facilitate that by those who feared the law would process, the DMCA permits copyright Confidential Sources be used to protect individuals “linked holders to use “administrative subpoe- to terrorists or other criminals,” or nas” to compel the ISP to disclose the The question of whether journalists who are merely “casual bloggers,” identity of the subscriber. Although the should have the right to protect their presumably unbound by traditional

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 55 Search for True North

ethical standards and accountable to its impact has no one. not been entirely Whether existing shield laws in the positive. For ex- states will cover bloggers and other ample, in theory, nonmainstream journalists remains an the digitization open question and very much depends of government on the particular statutory language records, coupled and the courts’ interpretation of it. with the ability Although a California court ruled of anyone with that the state shield law protected the a computer and identities of operators of a blog that re- a modem to gain vealed Apple Computer’s trade secrets easy access to on the ground that their publications them, should constituted “news,” the Ninth Circuit have been cel- U.S. Court of Appeals refused to rec- ebrated as a wel- ognize that blogger and self-described come opportuni- AP photojournalist Matt Rourke was covering police arresting anarchist Josh Wolf was a journalist ty for meaningful protesters at the Republican National Convention when he was ar- under the same law, because he was citizen oversight. rested. One of the last images on his camera’s memory card before not “connected with or employed by” But judges and he was arrested shows a police officer pressing down with his knee a news organization. legislators, driven on the neck of a protester whom he is handcuffing. Photo by Matt Law enforcement officials at the by fear that such Rourke/The Associated Press. Republican National Convention in access would fa- September 2008 collectively threw up cilitate illegal their hands and declined to make a dis- conduct ranging from identity theft ations should drive legal policy. Rights tinction, detaining or arresting dozens to employment discrimination, have of access, or freedom of expression, are of journalists, both “mainstream” and used the threat of it to justify curtailing not, and should not be, conditioned “citizen,” swept up while attempting to access to these electronic files. on some government official’s idea of cover and report on the demonstrations It doesn’t stop there. Judges also what constitutes “responsible” journal- and protests in Saint Paul. Of course, cite their discomfort at the idea that ism. Judges and legislators should the Internet made possible “real-time” someone logging on from a distant continue to follow the principles that and worldwide distribution of reports location, having no “legitimate interest” have protected the press, and the of the protests.1 in the local community, will amuse public’s right to know, for more than Digital technology has facilitated himself by trawling through court 200 years. But at the same time, those newsgathering in many ways. But or real estate records and publishing who publish in the new media and them online. They worry are always quick to invoke the First that citizen journalists Amendment are challenging so many with cell phone cameras things held sacred. will invade courtrooms and The question confronting all of post trial footage online, a us—given the tenor of our times and practice they consider both the judicial decision-making we are disruptive and undignified. seeing—is whether the First Amend- Although they might sup- ment will survive this challenge.  port the concept of access to government records and Jane Kirtley has been the Silha Pro- proceedings in the abstract, fessor of Media Ethics and Law at once it becomes cheap and the School of Journalism and Mass easy the gatekeepers began Communication at the University of to question its wisdom. Minnesota since August 1999. Prior to Information, it seems, is that, she was executive director of The just too valuable—or too Reporters Committee for Freedom of A screen shot from a YouTube video of the arrest of dangerous—to entrust to the Press in Arlington, Virginia, for 14 “Democracy Now!” radio host Amy Goodman at the a blogger. years. protest during the Republican National Convention. None of these consider-

1 YouTube video about Amy Goodman’s arrest is at www.youtube.com/ watch?v=sBjcqwQgF7Q&NR=1.

56 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 New Venues

Ethical Values and Quality Control in the Digital Era ‘Situations that editors confront in this digital-era maelstrom reflect the vexing ethical challenges and the diminished quality control standards at a time when they are most needed.’

BY BOB STEELE

Some of us feel like page-view morphs into new forms of reporting, Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel empha- whores, and it’s got to stop.” storytelling and delivery. size in “The Elements of Journalism: With those words, a newspaper The editor who penned the “whores” What Newspeople Should Know and “editor who e-mailed me in the sum- self-description had asked me for input the Public Should Expect,” when they mer of 2007 said what many of his on what he termed “a not-very-good contrast assertion with verification. colleagues have come to believe. It was story this morning re: hate crimes.” The latter is a purposeful process an expression—an admission, really— That news story included information that seeks and reports the truth as of what many editors acknowledge has from a community blog, information best as possible. The former merely happened in the full-throttle race on that ostensibly described what the declares something based on little or the digital speedway fueled by a fever- alleged victim of the hate crime had no reliable fact-finding and thin, if ish fight for financial survival. done to prompt an attack. The editor any, confirmation. In my nearly two decades on the wanted to know my view about whether I also told the editor it’s bad when faculty of The Poynter Institute, I have putting the news story on the site of time-honored journalistic values of fielded thousands of ethical queries a traditional newspaper—with this accuracy and fairness are eroded in from editors, reporters, producers, additional information in it—gives the the quest to draw eyeballs to the photojournalists and a good handful blog content false credibility. Web-generated stories. And it’s a bad of news corporation executives. I’m I read the story and absorbed many thing when there are serious negative generally heartened by the sincerity of the reader comments attached to consequences to those who are caught of the journalists in wanting to do the Web site’s version of that story. up in news stories, whether it’s a dead the right thing ethically, and I cheer My response to the editor addressed man who can’t defend himself to the the remarkable reporting that is still both the blogs-as-news-content issue blogger’s pejorative descriptions of him produced in the face of considerable ob- and the vile tone and tenor of certain or a victim’s family members who are stacles. Nevertheless, I’m very worried reader posts to the story. Here’s what re-victimized by the hate, scorn, mock- about the significant erosion of ethical I wrote in an e-mail to the editor: ing and ridicule that are part of the standards across our profession and comments posted to a news story. the resulting corrosion of the quality I fear that many papers/report- Some readers’ comments posted of the journalism. The blogs, Tweets, ers/editors are so caught up in to the hate crime story—presumably social networking, citizen-submitted the “search for eyeballs and page ones that violated the paper’s posting content, and multimedia storytelling views” that the default position is standards—had been excised. But other that are the tools and techniques of often “let’s put that blog stuff” in posts remaining I believed clearly the digital era offer great promise. our story because “it’s out there pushed beyond the paper’s standards They also, when misused, present and folks are talking about it.” against offensive name-calling and considerable peril. We’ll then “balance” the piece racist and bigoted commentary. with concerns expressed by oth- The editor, who I believe cares deeply Ethical Dilemmas on the Web ers connected to the story who about both the quality of the journal- have a different view than the ism and the ethics of the profession, Situations that editors confront in this bloggers. responded with the mea culpa I cited digital-era maelstrom reflect the vexing above. While I know this editor does ethical challenges and the diminished Too often we give unjustified cred- not want to be a “page-view whore,” quality control standards at a time ibility to bloggers who are, at best, I also recognize that he and his peers when they are most needed. Several practicing amateur journalism or are under immense pressure to save examples I’ve been involved with ex- simplistic punditry. And news organi- the franchise. That means big-time emplify the importance of renewing zations provide that false credibility by risk taking and, in this era of staff a commitment to time-honored ethi- equating the bloggers’ observations and cutbacks, it also means decreased cal values that will build and protect views with the rigor of news report- editorial oversight and diminished the integrity of the journalism as it ing. My point is similar to what Bill checks and balances. Quality control

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 57 Search for True North

suffers and quality deteriorates. Tools and Tribulations Strong Standards This ethical pressure cooker is reflected, too, in the thoughts of a Some of the ethics crashes on the Which takes us full circle back to the managing editor at a metro paper who digital media highway have generated importance of quality control as edi- called me in October 2008. This editor national attention. The accuracy and tors and other journalists search for wanted input on how to handle the fairness concerns can be multiplied that “true north” point on the moral increasing use of social networking by by the increasing use of so-called compass. In recent years, many edi- the paper’s news staffers. Indeed, that citizen journalists to provide reports tors across the land learned hard les- paper’s editors had advocated more that are then disseminated—often sons about the necessity of vigorous blogging and Twittering, including on without verification—by traditional oversight on staff work. High-profile the personal sites of the newspaper’s news organizations. Take the example plagiarism and fabrication cases at pa- journalists. The goal: to spur reader of an October 2008 story that speaks pers the likes of The New York Times, interest and potentially more online loudly to the dangers of fast and furious USA Today, The Boston Globe, The user connection. The alarm bells reporting complicated by the minimal Seattle Times, and The Sacramento started ringing when the managing sourcing of the information. Bee set off alarms. And in many of editor noticed that one staffer’s Tweets For a period of time, CNN had those cases the sinners were not the included what the editor termed a report on its iReport site (a user- wet-behind-the-ears, youthful journal- “snarky” comments about a political submitted site where the content comes ists but long-in-the-tooth veterans who candidate, comments laced with both from the community) that claimed succumbed to sin. opinion and obscenities. Apple CEO Steve Jobs had suffered Editors recognized they needed bet- Just as that editor recognized that a major heart attack. The story was ter systems of quality control to deter loose oversight had created an ethics not true, but Apple’s stock took a liars and sinners. They needed clear, problem that necessitated reaffirming quick dive with company shares off by strong standards for attribution and some core values, the editor of The more than 10 percent before the CNN a checks and balances process that (Cleveland) Plain Dealer knew there iReport story on Jobs was debunked prosecuted the work of all reporters was a serious problem when her pa- and removed from the site. and columnists, even those who had per’s Web site prematurely reported While many editors tout their ability earned trust over the years. Those the death of an Ohio congresswoman. to quickly take down factually wrong oversight lessons can and should be “The speed of information is causing information or other egregious content, applied in the digital arena where us to make mistakes,” Susan Goldberg the damage done can be significant. writers can be tempted to cut corners told a Kent State University forum on Sometimes it’s the tools journalists on attribution as they rapidly source online ethics in September 2008. are using or just poor techniques with stories across the Internet. Goldberg said that error would the tools that are ethically problematic. Journalists—from reporters to never have been made in the print The Rocky Mountain News in Denver multimedia producers to editors—are version of the story because the facts was roundly criticized for insensitivity under great pressure to do more with would have been confirmed. “I don’t in the funeral coverage of a three- less. The intense financial forces, the want us to be wrong. I don’t want year-old boy. A Rocky reporter used thinner staffs, and the risk-taking our newspaper to be wrong,” she said. Twitter, a microblogging tool, to live- culture create a mixture where height- “Mistakes can be damaging to our cred- blog details from the graveside to the ened quality control measures are all ibility. We’re on a big stage, and we paper’s Web site. the more essential. Now is the time have a loud voice.” She also declared In the wake of significant backlash, to reaffirm essential core values that that an “experiment is not working” Rocky Mountain News Editor John underpin journalism ethics and jour- when their political blogger became Temple wrote to readers that he ac- nalistic excellence. Accuracy, fairness actively involved in the campaign of cepted responsibility for any failing and honesty are as important now as a local congressman. in the Twitter technique used in that they have ever been. Other editors have called me to seek situation, though he felt there was We must not let journalism turn guidance when they discovered that justifiable news value in the event horrific. Nor can we allow ourselves staff journalists were touting politicians that warranted this kind of unique to become page-view whores.  or political causes on their personal coverage. “We must learn to use the Facebook pages. In most cases, the new tools at our disposal,” Temple Bob Steele is the Eugene S. Pulliam editors had not proactively addressed wrote in his newspaper and on its Distinguished Visiting Professor of these conflict of interest issues until Web site. “Yes, there are going to be Journalism at DePauw University after a problem surfaced. Then it was times we make mistakes, just as we and the Nelson Poynter Scholar for more challenging to respond and in do in our newspaper. But that doesn’t Journalism Values at The Poynter some cases to negotiate new ethics mean we shouldn’t try something. It Institute. policy language with the guild repre- means we need to learn to do it well. senting the paper’s journalists. That is our mission.”

58 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 SEARCH FOR TRUE NORTH | Rethinking the What, Why, Where and How of What We Do Engaging the Public in Asking Why We Do What We Do ‘No longer do I enter the newsroom believing that readers have tuned us out. Perhaps it is we who have tuned them out by creating too great a distance between them and us.’

BY NANCY SAN MARTIN

he mood in the newsroom was attention. And their response provided to the public as a way of drawing at- dire. It was our second round of an answer to an even bigger question: tention to the journalism we do. By layoffs in less than a year and the Why do we do what we do? giving readers an opportunity to speak Tannouncement came with even more Recognizing this intersection of directly with the correspondents who bitter news: A third round of layoffs reader response and the reinvigora- gather information and those who will be coming in the first quarter of tion of meaning for what we do, The bring us remarkable images—by mak- 2009. Everyone was asking themselves Miami Herald decided to launch a ing them part of a conversation—we the same question: Why bother? Why new public outreach campaign: “Why hope to explore deeply this question bother working 10, 12 and sometimes— We Do What We Do.” The idea is to of why we do what we do and perhaps many times—14-hour days for a job bring our “behind the scenes” work emerge with renewed understanding that seems to be fading of and appreciation for the in an industry that is said value of what journalism to be dying? Why bother provides. trying to hold together a newsroom that is already Conversations thin and getting thinner? Commence Why bother to continue to do more with less? Why Our first session took place bother? After all, haven’t on October 13th and fea- readers tuned us out? tured our coverage of the As we contemplated devastation in Haiti. We our futures, a disaster met at Books & Books, a loomed for a neighbor- popular gathering spot in ing nation. Haiti would nearby Coral Gables, after fall prey to four consecu- our community events staff tive storms that claimed whipped up a promotional hundreds of lives, left ad. E-mail blasts went out thousands homeless, and to book club members. Word turned a desperate nation spread. Our invitation was into what some described simple and direct: as a virtual hell on earth. Many of the dead were “Why We Do What We children. Do: Haiti After the Our reports from that Storms.” Join us as Miami country—thanks to the Herald editors, reporters incredible work from re- and photographers share porter Jacqueline Charles their experiences in the and photographer Patrick hurricane-ravaged areas Farrell—resulted in an of Haiti and exhibit a outpouring of donations. series of gripping pho- Our readers were paying tography.

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 59 Search for True North

We met on a Monday night, and Stunned silence laced with sighs you on a personal level?” “How do you participants were tightly packed into of dismay greeted the film’s end as cope with your feelings?” “Why risk folded chairs squished between book- the audience waited to hear from your own lives to tell someone else’s shelves. The two speakers from the those who’d conveyed this tragic tale. tale?” “When are you going back?” Herald were the reporter and photog- After introducing the panelists, I What I came to realize is how much rapher who’d been in Haiti. I was the briefly explained why we were here. of what we do remains mysterious to moderator. Our time together began I shared with them how throughout those who read and view our work each with a three-minute presentation of our careers—as we’ve reported stories day. At the same time, some of what photographs, video and voices. The about corrupt politicians or infighting we consider routine about what we do audio conveyed the words of the storms’ at the school board or a neighborhood now could be seen by us in different victims and our correspondents, who hero—people have asked us why we do and more meaningful ways. documented the deaths of dozens of what we do. Now that the industry is On November 1st, we held our children. Their words and images hurting, I told them, many of us who second public forum. This time our described a scene so grim that even do this work find ourselves asking this focus was Cuba, soon to mark the what we showed the audience could same question. 50th anniversary of a revolution that not fully capture the devastation. And We were only together for an hour, we are still trying to decipher. Held we included photographs not published but in that time plenty of good ques- on a Saturday night in the same space, in our newspaper because they were tions got asked. “How do you find out this one proved just as popular, with deemed too disturbing—of babies torn where to go to cover the story?” “How readers eager to hear about “Why from their parents’ arms, and stripped do you decide what photos to put on the We Do What We Do: Cuba Beneath of their clothes by raging floodwaters, front page?” “Why didn’t you include a 50-Year-Old Cloak.” who were lying dead on a sidewalk the photos you showed us tonight?” Our visual opening illuminated “looking like porcelain dolls,” as the “What goes through your mind when The Miami Herald’s reporting about reporter described them.1 you see such tragedy?” “Does it affect Cuba for five decades. This time, we

Audience members raise their hands to ask questions at a Miami Herald “Why We Do What We Do” forum, featuring a reporter and pho- tographer who documented devastation in Haiti caused by four consecutive storms. Photo by Chuck Fadely/The Miami Herald.

1 A video of the first forum can be seen at www.miamiherald.com/video/index. html?media_id=2339079.

60 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 Rethinking could not provide as much of an on- While it is perhaps true the-ground connection to reporters that newspapers will give and photographers who document way, in time, to a new me- this coverage. The reason: The Cuban dium that will rely on fewer government rarely grants Miami Her- professionals to carry out ald correspondents visas required for the work, as this transition journalists to gather news there. But we happens it is critical that go anyway—getting our people there in journalists find ways to share various ways—because, in journalistic with the public more about terms, this is our story. What happens what they do as a way of there affects us in Miami, and so, as explaining its value to them. we explained that evening, we continue Though I know there will be to cover this story as aggressively and many more very long days for thoroughly as any other one that is those of us fortunate enough important to our community. to still have newsroom jobs, At this event, our panelists in- these forums have given me cluded the Herald’s World Editor John renewed energy. No longer Yearwood, Director of Photography do I enter the newsroom Luis Rios, and Cuba correspondent believing that readers have Frances Robles, who has perhaps the tuned us out. Perhaps it is most difficult job in the newsroom: we who have tuned them covering a foreign country from Miami out by creating too great a and for an audience of readers who distance between them and have a strong personal connection to us. Whether we use words, the story. I moderated, as questions pictures, new technology or flew our way. “How hard is it to talk public forums, what is clear to people there?” “What happens if is that connecting to readers the government catches your cor- is now a matter of survival. respondent?” “How do they get the Now I feel more confident information out once your reporter that we can regain what we’ve gets in?” “What changes have you seen lost, one story at a time. since the Miami Herald’s last visit?” At The Miami Herald “When will you go back?” building these days, it is uncomfortably cold in a city What We Are Learning known for its warmth. Our old thermostat in our even The idea for the public campaign “Why older building can’t seem to be set children have died as a result of a We Do What We Do” was born out of high enough these days to replace the school collapse from apparent shoddy turmoil, as a way to try to help boost heat that came from all the bodies that construction, and more Cubans in morale in the newsroom and engage used to sit at now empty desks. With central Cuba are now homeless due the public. Many people at the Herald another blast of internal cold air due to a late-season category-3 hurricane were involved in bringing it to life— to sweep through the newsroom at with a peaceful name—Paloma (Dove). including top editors and community some point in January, just how many Our correspondents are there. event organizers and, of course, the more will be forced to leave is not yet I’m hoping I make it through the reporters and photographers who known. Maybe a handful. Maybe more. next round of layoffs. And if I do, I reluctantly agreed to put themselves Even one seems too many. want to remember the answer we’ve in the spotlight. Among those who do stay will be asked the public to help us arrive at These two public forums have been those who contend with what I have to the question many of us seem to be successful, attracting together more come to call the “why bother factor.” asking: “Why do we do what we do?” than 300 people. Perhaps the most Why bother working sometimes—many We do it because it matters.  telling measure of success has come times—14-hour days for a job that from a question raised by audience seems to be increasingly maligned and Nancy San Martin, a 2006 Nieman members at both gatherings: “When fading away? Why bother trying to hold Fellow, is assistant world editor/Amer- is the next one?” We plan on having together a newsroom that appears to icas at The Miami Herald. more of these community gatherings. be dying a slow and painful death? They’ve served not only to enlighten Why pursue that next story? the public but us, too. As I write this piece, more Haitian

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 61 Search for True North

Suggest a Topic—And Content Flows to It ‘… content becomes a roaring campfire that gathers around it a thoughtful and engaged group of people.’

BY JOHN A. BYRNE

learned about the death of the study by Bivings, a consulting firm As BusinessWeek has morphed American newspaper early in my based in Washington, D.C.. “In general, from a brand that produces a weekly life. I was all of 16, a gawky office we have found that magazines are magazine to one that is pretty much a Iboy at The Morning Call in Paterson, slower at adopting Web 2.0 trends 24/7 multiplatform organization, the New Jersey, when I was caught inside than newspapers.” truths of our business have changed the obituary of an institution: The As the editor in chief of Business- as well. Here’s what they are: daily that I had carried on my back Week’s online operations and the now as a newspaper boy, the paper where much older kid who walked through a • Context is as important today as my ambition to be a journalist was newspaper closing, I’m both perplexed content. It may, in fact, be the new born, was being closed. I remember and shocked by the magazine indus- king on the throne. That’s because that day in December 1969 as if it try’s laggard status. We have every the world is evolving into niche were yesterday. Teary-eyed, I walked advantage in largely serving existing communities, organized around through the sea of wooden desks and communities of readers in specific individual interests and passions. metal filing cabinets and into the chilly niches, from cooking and wine to sports Keeping your audience deeply en- night. It was an awakening to see the and entertainment. Of course, I’m gaged in the journalism you do is reporters openly crying and consoling fortunate to work at a place that gets necessary to induce loyalty to your each other. it—with 28 staff-written blogs, nearly brand. Newspapers die hard—and the 5,000 videos, plenty of RSS feeds, and • We live in a world in which there obituaries over the next few years are a lively comment section where tens are far too many stories chasing far likely to make us think of massive ca- of thousands of readers weigh in with too few eyeballs. What readers need sualties in a war. Strip out the classified their views every month. It’s why our in this environment is often help business, and you’ll find that magazines site now boasts double the readership in organizing, sorting and sifting face many of the same problems as of our weekly magazine: more than 10 through all the articles. newspapers: ever rising paper (and million unique visitors monthly vs. a • Consumers prefer multiple sources for us even worse postage) costs, the 4.7 million audience in print. of news and consult 16 to 18 media swift migration of advertising from When we talk about other new ways brands a week. That’s according to print to Web, the inability of online to compete, most magazines don’t seem a McKinsey & Company study. revenues to offset the decline of print to know where to start. Aggregation? • Creating more journalism isn’t ads, and often declining readership. Forget it. Few editors want to link to necessarily the way you win online. Yet as bad as the newspaper business other stories that send people away It’s costly, and the gains in audience has fared to date, some observers say from their own sites. Curation? Writers from putting up more stories are by magazines are even further behind don’t “curate” journalism or discus- and large incremental. the transition. sions. They report and file stories and • The smart and elegant organization A recent study by the Bivings Group move on. Verticals? Editors want con- of content through links and edito- shockingly discovered that a survey tent that appeals to the broadest swath rial curation has as much, if not more, of 50 top magazines were behind of people and gets massive traffic. User value than simply publishing more newspapers in deploying Web 2.0 generated content? Most editors still of your own articles on the Web. technology.1 Whether it’s blogs, video, turn up their collective noses at stuff RSS feeds, or reader comments on created by their audience. Computer Responding to What We stories, magazines trail newspapers algorithms that replace news judg- Know in their adoption. “Newspapers fared ment for the prominence you give a better than magazines in nearly every story? You’ve got to be kidding. And How to best take advantage of category in 2007,” according to the Twitter? What’s that? these trends? In early September,

1 The September 2007 study, “Analyzing the Websites of American Magazines,” can be read at www.bivingsreport.com/2007/analyzing-the-websites-of-american-magazines/.

62 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 Rethinking we launched one of the most ambi- pose a question or make tious efforts ever to both stretch the a comment to help fuel a BusinessWeek brand and to reinvent conversation on the latest ourselves. We call it the Business news and analysis rather Exchange. It allows our readers to than pick up the phone create and organize around their and start calling his or her own topics of interest, from active sources. investors to youth advertising. The Of course, this is no moment a topic is created by any replacement for original user at bx.businessweek.com, a Web explanatory journalism that page pops up with links to stories and remains at the core of what blog posts on that subject from all we do at BusinessWeek. It over the Web. No preference is given follows the dictum by Jeff to BusinessWeek editorials. A story Jarvis, the CUNY journal- by one of our journalists is treated ism professor and blogger, no differently than one from Forbes, who advises media to “Do Fortune, or The Economist or, for that what you do best. Link to the rest.” gagement with your readers who also matter, The New York Times, The Wall In a world where time-constrained become sources who can enrich and Street Journal, or The Washington professionals are trying to keep up improve journalism. This engagement, Post. A blog post by a BusinessWeek with an overabundance of information in turn, leads to new ideas, such as blogger, moreover, gets the same treat- in their specific fields, the Exchange the Business Exchange, where a news ment as one from Henry Blodget at serves a highly valuable purpose. No organization lets the community tell Silicon Alley Insider or John Battelle less important, it connects like-minded us what topics it wants us to gather at Federated Media. people from every corner of the world content and expertise around. The “front page” or “cover” of each in an online community that enriches Little more than six weeks after our of these topic sites is not determined the journalism at the center. pubic launch, the Exchange already by an editor but by the community of In this way, content becomes a had a broad and fascinating array of readers. Whenever a user adds, reads, roaring campfire that gathers around more than 600 topics and thousands saves, shares or comments on a story it a thoughtful and engaged group of of registered users. The imagination or blog post, that activity is noted by people. It’s still at the center of the party, shown by our users in creating unusual a software algorithm that then places sparking compelling insights, opinions topics exceeds our wildest expecta- the content on what is essentially the and storytelling that make journalism tions. There’s “Conscious Capitalism,” front page. That way, only stories and more memorable and meaningful than “Bailout,” “Recession Job Search,” blogs deemed the most active or useful ever. But the conversation has become “Genetic Testing,” and “Sarbanes-Oxley are shown to the reader, who benefits as important as the journalism. In Compliance.” from the wisdom of the crowd. other words, the context of journal- In the 18 months during which we All the members of each topic ism has become as important as the were developing and building the Ex- community are recognized—by photo, content. That’s because the Web is not change, we called it “the microvertical.” profile and their contributions to the merely a new distribution platform for And that’s exactly what it has turned out network. Indeed, if you admire a information. It entirely changed the to be—a series of microcommunities member of your community, you can game. In this new game, journalism around very vertical topics. Consider peer over his shoulder to see what ceases to be a product, like a table the number and variety of “green” stories he is reading, saving, adding that is handed down to an audience. topics: “Green Building,” “Green Cars,” or commenting on—if he chooses to Instead, journalism becomes a process “Green Computing,” “Green Investing,” keep that activity public. that fully engages its readers—in the “Green Technology,” and “Green Travel.” Our reporters and editors do not beginning, by asking them for story And then there’s “Renewable Energy,” report, write and edit for the Exchange. ideas; in the middle, by asking for the “Solar Energy,” “Wind Energy,” “Hybrid But they do help to curate the content, community’s help in reporting a story Cars,” and “Biofuels.” adding relevant stories, blog posts, and, in the end, when the published white papers, academic reports, and story sparks the larger conversation Running Into the Future other reference materials to each topic. among readers and journalists who If you cover the stock market and an greatly expand on the story. Recently I experienced a flashback important story breaks on the New It’s ceding a level of control and to that day when I walked out of the York Stock Exchange, you’re expected much more influence to your audi- Morning Call newsroom nearly 40 to immediately search the Web for the ence and benefiting from giving up years ago. I was in a classroom with best coverage and add it to our topic total control. The outcome, I believe, some of the smartest people in digital on Wall Street. A journalist might is deeper and more meaningful en- media at the New Business Models

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 63 Search for True North

for News Summit at CUNY’s Gradu- average salary of just $60,000 a year innovation in our profession. We need ate School of Journalism. It was yet for a “content creator,” and at least to recognize that this is one of the most another conference dealing with the one person in the room argued that creative of times in journalism and, analog-to-digital transition of journal- salary was too much. along with that wave of change, one ism, and our group was devoted to the This new Enquirer replacement, of the most terrifying transitions for scary subject of “newsroom efficien- incidentally, would heavily rely on many media brands. This period has cies.” Our case study? The Philadelphia citizen journalism and pay-per-click the opportunity to be our Renaissance. Enquirer (a make-believe newspaper) freelancers. There would be no global We need to reinvent and transform had just folded, and we were charged or national news, sports or entertain- journalism—and the business model with coming up with a replacement ment, but rather a linking strategy that supports it—to secure a success- product. The group solution: Do away to third-party content to cover those ful future. with print altogether and create an important subjects. The “content For a traditional media company, online site with 35 editorial employees creators” would focus largely on local the Exchange is a revolutionary de- to replace a daily newspaper with an politics, education, sports and human- parture, one of many we and other edit staff of 200. All of the 20 “con- interest stories. magazines need to make to succeed tent creators” on our staff would have The Philadelphia solution is an in a new and different world. I know to take photographs, shoot, edit and outcome I never want to see—not one thing: I never again want to be a produce video, do audio overdubs and anywhere. A strong and vibrant fourth part of another media obituary.  on-camera video stand-ups, as well as estate is not only essential to a fully report and write. Based on traffic and functioning democracy but to the John A. Byrne is the executive editor revenue projections, the group figured efficiency of a society. But the only of BusinessWeek and editor in chief of it could afford an editorial budget of way we can change that outcome is BusinessWeek.com. $2.1 million. That translated into an to embrace and champion change and

Creating a New Platform to Support Reporting ‘My sole and motivating mission is to figure out how reporting can thrive as we witness the death of the institutional model that traditionally supported it.’

BY DAVID COHN

n the midst of my work building of filling tomorrow’s news hole. performed. While YouTube and Word- Spot.Us, a nonprofit project to As luck (yes, luck) would have it, Press have blazed large trails creating pioneer a platform for community- my career is blossoming in a time of such platforms, there are plenty of Ifunded reporting, I often imagine what uncertainty. I never had the stability unexplored side trails that could lead my career would have been like had of that office job, but I have had the to much larger areas where journalists I been born a few decades and years opportunity to define my own career could make their mark. earlier. path. The opportunities that abound Right now, journalists are fleeing At this point 40 years ago, I would in the wild west of the Web, still an newsrooms—either being pushed out be a 26-year-old midlevel reporter, open space to be tamed, have allowed through buyouts or choosing to strike finally graduated from my cub police me to be my own boss. And I believe out in new directions—and by doing beat. I’d still be an eager overachiever, journalists 40 years from now—yes, so creating a diaspora, of sorts, as they probably trying to get that next scoop there will be journalism then—will search for a new home. The question in the hope that it would earn me rec- experience to an even greater degree is whether a viable platform can be ognition from my editor and perhaps circumstances similar to mine. I’m found to offer at least a modicum of someday the prestige of an award. If lucky to be part of this first pioneering job security so journalists can get back clichés held true, I’d wear a fedora hat batch of independent reporters as we on track doing what they believe in— and call my friends “buddy” or “mack.” figure out the tools and platforms that keeping the public well informed. At night I’d probably drink too much, we need to develop to ensure journal- For me, trying to meet this goal but every morning I’d walk into an ism thrives in the future. means working on Spot.Us (www. office with dozens of other reporters Striking gold in our digital age will spot.us). In the late spring of 2008, running around, shuffling papers, happen for those who create platforms I received a $340,000 grant from the making phone calls, all in the service upon which acts of journalism can be Knight News Challenge to test the

64 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 Rethinking

How Spot.Us Works Spot.Us accepts microdonations that project. The finished content are put toward a journalist’s proposal is licensed under a Creative for an investigation. Progress toward Commons license, and Spot. reaching the goal is charted on the Web Us will try to get it published site. This means that an individual’s do- in as many places as possible. nation goes only to the targeted project If any news organization wants that spurred the donation. Rules exist exclusive rights to the story, it to govern the percentage of funding will need to refund a percent- that can be donated by individuals age of the original donations, as a way of protecting against advo- so the original supporters will cates becoming the primary funders get their money back to invest of any specific enterprise reporting in a new story. —D.C.

idea of what I call “community-funded the sense of myself as a journalist. design. Our 1.0 version, for example, reporting.” To do this, I am working The reason: My sole and motivating was informed by the wiki, which dem- on building a platform that allows mission is to figure out how reporting onstrated moderate success. At first, freelance journalists to pitch their can thrive as we witness the death of the 1.0 site, while stable, will be bare, reporting ideas directly to the public, the institutional model that tradition- but in time new features will be added and in doing so create tools that an ally supported it. to suit the marketplace. This approach individual journalist can use to shape Essential to understand, however, is relies on constant growth that exists his or her own career in reporting. that Spot.Us is not a news organiza- as a response to user feedback. And The idea for Spot.Us stems from tion. Nor am I an editor. Spot.Us is a it is this feedback that informs and my work in citizen journalism but can platform and, along with others who fuels our iterative process, constantly also be attributed to an “aha” moment have worked with me on this project, seeking the path of least resistance and I had while being a research assistant I am its creator. What it will be is a stabilizing new elements. Rinse and on the book, “Crowdsourcing: Why collaborative marketplace that favors repeat, as long as we can. If Spot.Us the Power of the Crowd Is Driving public participation in the process of is never “finished,” then I’ll know it’s the Future of Business,” written by producing journalism. a complete success. Jeff Howe. [See Howe’s article on Until its October launch, by us- There are many obstacles in our page 47.] When I was working on ing just a wiki and a blog, Spot.Us way, and I don’t ever try to sell Spot. background research for his chapter on managed to fund three journalists’ Us as being a silver bullet. There is no crowdfunding, I learned about Web- investigative reporting projects in such thing. But Spot.Us should give us based microphilanthropy sites, such the San Francisco Bay Area, the city a way to find out whether people are as Kiva, DonorsChoose, and others, where our initial effort is taking willing to put a direct monetary value which have been incredibly successful place. The most successful of these on what journalism provides. In some in targeting contributions to specific projects was a series of articles that respect, our pitch to potential donors projects in their respective fields. fact-checked political advertising for is as simple as this: “Upset that your In October, the 1.0 version of Spot. the November San Francisco election. local news organization isn’t covering Us went live. In reaching that point, I To support this reporting, 74 people an issue you’re passionate about? Do- spent many hours working with lawyers contributed an average of $33, and the nate $25 to a reporter who will!” on the terms of service agreements; I total came to $2,500—which was the By tracking what happens on Spot. also acted as a project manager between target amount this reporter needed to Us, we might find apathy among the those involved in design and those in do this work. public in their willingness to shrug off development. The payment gateway I To build Spot.Us, we’ve used an any contribution, choosing to wait for constructed had to meet my hosting iterative approach, taking what has “free” reporting, the kind supported requirements and build an audience worked well in each step along the by advertisements, donated by citi- around the concept of community- way and adapting it to the next level zen journalists, or perhaps paid for funded reporting. Even though these based on feedback we receive and by a nonprofit organization. If Spot. tasks—along with the vast majority the exchanges we observe. In doing Us reveals this, I will feel that we, at of the myriad of my other start-up this, we look for the path of least least, will have learned what the mar- duties—don’t come close to resembling resistance, test our ideas, then make ketplace will—and will not—support. shoe-leather reporting, I never lose the solution a stable element of our If this enterprise fails, then it might

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 65 Search for True North

be possible to conclude that direct strategy of relying on advertising and network, and has written for Wired, microphilanthropy is not among the classifieds vanishing, I am relieved Seed, Columbia Journalism Review, feasible options for enabling journalists that most news organizations are and The New York Times. He served as to keep doing their work. But it would exploring this new territory. As one editor of NewAssignment.Net, focused be a great disservice to journalism to avenue of exploration, I invite them to on citizen journalism and news or- at least not try to find out whether join with Spot.Us as we try to expand ganizations’ exploration of the social the public is willing to support this community-funded reporting beyond Web, and worked on organizing the approach. the San Francisco Bay Area into other first Networked Journalism Summit While Spot.Us might not hold these regions of the country.  to bring together the best practices of answers, I am confident it will assist collaborative journalism. in our search for new ways to enable David Cohn is editor in chief at journalism to thrive. With the old BrooWaha, a citizen journalism

A 21st Century Newswire—Curating the Web With Links News organizations can remain vital daily destinations by supplementing original reporting with links to the best nonlocal content.

BY JOSH KORR

ournalists may feel unmoored other sites, and a smaller number first to report on major stories, par- these days, but it’s not because are experimenting with dedicated ticularly in out-of-the-way places. But they’ve lost their compass. True pages of curated links to interesting it has also contributed to the spread Jnorth will always be an independent and important content elsewhere on of what, in my work as a wire editor, press exercising its First Amendment the Web. But there hasn’t been an I came to think of as the AP’s house right to inform and entertain fellow easy way for news organizations to style: voiceless, incrementally updated, citizens, to investigate the powerful, find and publish links even if they process-oriented, one sentence of and to provide a forum and voice wanted to. What’s needed is a way for “news” stretched to 12 paragraphs. for the community. The problem is journalists to easily discover links to Such stories aren’t always engaging that many newsrooms are using an relevant content and for newsrooms or interesting, nor are they effective outdated map, one that doesn’t show to integrate links into their editorial in providing understanding. Without the modern news ecosystem’s infra- workflow. context, they can induce news overload. structure: the link. I’ve been working on a way of [See story by Jim Kennedy, director The news media’s future is online, incorporating links into the everyday of strategic planning at AP, about the and the Web’s foundation is the link. practice of journalism: It’s a wire AP’s new approach to news reporting The Web is literally a collection of service based on links rather than on page 68.] linked pages—and, by extension, of licensed content, which would enable Meanwhile, for any given news story, linked people and knowledge. But newsrooms to develop a new practice the more interesting and informative news organizations have traditionally of “link journalism.” takes often come from sources other treated their Web sites as just another The Web provides instant access to than the traditional newswires. On any place to republish print stories, rather nearly every credible print publication given day, these days, the stuff that than as nodes in the larger Web media in the world, not to mention thou- actually makes people smile is found network. They didn’t see the value they sands of blogs and Web sites written not in newspapers or wire stories, but could create for readers by connecting by experts, academics and journalists. in viral videos and pop culture blogs. them to other sources and curating the Yet most news organizations’ nonlocal The longer newsrooms ignore the Web’s flood of information. coverage draws heavily from a small Web’s amazing universe of content, the This mindset is changing as the number of wire services, chiefly The less relevant they become for readers. digital transition accelerates. Most Associated Press. The longer wire services fail to help news organizations have staff blogs Basic wire coverage still plays an newsrooms find this content, the less that link to news and sources on essential role—the AP is usually the useful they will be.

66 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 Rethinking

But no one entity—be it a wire service or a news organization—can possibly track what’s appearing in all papers, large and small, blogs, magazines and Web sites. Nor could any one news organization acquire the rights to all of this material. The great thing about the Web is that you don’t have to pay anyone to help you bring great stories to readers—just link to ones already there. Finding all of the good stuff is the challenge, so that’s the real mission of a Web-era wire service. It’s not to provide full-text versions of a handful of sources’ news, but to offer links to the best stuff culled from all sources.

Curating the Web

My online link-based newswire—called The Wire1—is created by using a free Web application called Publish2. Ev- ery day I go through a packed RSS reader and save links on all manner of topics from all kinds of sources. stories in the course of everyday journalists and readers. Just as newspaper wire editors apply reading and publish those links on editorial judgment when they select their news organization’s site or on a Next, this collection of links begins stories off the wires, I apply judgment personal blog—effectively acting as to act as a recommendation service when selecting links for The Wire. My link bloggers recommending good for other journalists. Editors could goal is to provide a thorough, engaging stuff to read. then start their searches by viewing wire for news organizations that want 2. Journalists save links—to related sto- the most-linked stories for that day to start moving beyond the AP or are ries, documents, interviews—in the and seeing the wisdom of newsrooms forced to do so for budgetary reasons. course of their reporting, privately that has bubbled to the top. Because Any news organization can publish a first, and then publish the links along the link effort is distributed—whether feed of links from The Wire on its site with their articles. across or within newsrooms—and or set up a Publish2 account to curate 3. Journalists link stories specifically saving links is a simple and quick its own links, drawing from The Wire for a newswire—either the aggregate process, linking can fit smoothly into as a starting point. newswire or a smaller one based on journalists’ daily routines. My experiment is fine for a start, but a Publish2 newsgroup. (Newsgroups This kind of link wire service is use- it’s nothing compared to the potential are a way for newsrooms to collabo- ful mostly for nonlocal coverage, but of a wire service seeded by links from rate on creating news aggregation it also offers lessons for newsrooms’ thousands of journalists using their features based on links.) local reporting.2 For example, just as editorial judgment to collaboratively 4. News organizations and freelanc- newsrooms should link to the best filter and curate the Web. ers add their own work to the link explainers of complex stories, such as How would such a collaboration newswire—not for the sake of flood- the financial crisis, routine city council work? It starts in four ways. ing the network with self-promoted stories should link to explanations of material, but because they believe terms like “zoning” that readers might 1. Journalists save links to interesting their work might interest other not understand. Linking to source

1 www.publish2.com/newsgroups/the-wire 2 In our Summer 2008 issue, two articles were about link journalism at the Knoxville News Sentinel on Super Tuesday. Scott Karp, CEO of Publish2, wrote “Linking Newspaper Readers to the Best Political Coverage,” and Jack Lail, managing editor/ multimedia at the News Sentinel, wrote “Election Coverage Becomes a Time for ‘Instant Innovation.’” They are at www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports.aspx?id=100006.

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 67 Search for True North

material strengthens local stories by and noticed on the Web. And by trust in journalism. And a new busi- making them more transparent. And combining this reporting with links ness model emerges, in which a link newsrooms that link to local bloggers to interesting nonlocal stories, news newswire creates a new marketplace can help their communities find the organizations can remain vital daily for news that advertisers could tap best of the local blogosphere and get news destinations. into—transforming the newswire from some links sent back in return. Just imagine this scenario: Re- a cost center into a profit center. Linking should not be seen as a engaged readers flock to news sites. That’s a future worth linking for. replacement for original reporting. A bigger audience develops for news  Indeed, without original reporting organizations’ original reporting as there would be nothing to link to. thousands of networked newsrooms Josh Korr is editor of The Wire, an on- At the same time, links are the way link to one another. Greater trans- line link journalism project that has that great reporting gets distributed parency fosters a renewed sense of been developed through Publish2.

No Time Left for Reluctant Transformers ‘Digitally based consumption by a fragmented audience requires new and sophisticated distribution mechanics … smartly connect[ing] consumers to available, relevant content in virtually unlimited ways.’

BY JIM KENNEDY

ust a couple of years ago, despite through the 20th century. The dollars the clear digital direction of news for subscription and advertising rev- consumption, it was still pretty hard enue are different in the new digital Jto engage in a serious discussion of world of the 21st century—and lower business model change in most news by an order of magnitude. media companies. Sure, the world was The critical question facing the in transition, but there was still time business is whether we can innovate to adapt, or so it seemed. our way through this rough transition That time is now officially, and in the business model. Can we carry undeniably, up. innovation beyond content and tech- All of the trends that news providers nology to the less familiar territory of have been analyzing since the dawn reimagining the business itself? of the decade are now in full swing. Every news company is grappling Consumption of news is generally with a version of the same problem. occurring first on digital platforms, For newspapers, it’s a question of and most of the audience is connect- rightsizing to something smaller, or ing intermittently through multiple committing to a digital shift that points of entry rather than making portends big changes in news cover- regular appointments with traditional age, packaging and distribution across news packages such as newspapers, other choice. Even as revenues de- print and digital channels. For broad- broadcasts or bookmarked news Web cline, the packages still manage to casters, it’s all about expanding into sites. deliver more revenue, if not audience, new channels without expanding the But many media companies remain than unproven alternatives that allow heavy costs of video newsgathering in a state of reluctant transformation, content components—stories, photos, and production. Even native digital stuck between the demands of the old video clips—to float freely through companies face the challenge of fig- and new worlds, mainly because the the channels of search, widgets and uring out how to distribute content business model for news distribution mobile applications. profitably beyond the boundaries of has not evolved as fast as consump- The fledgling revenue models their destination Web sites. tion has shifted. supporting the new distribution of For a news agency like the AP, Companies are still relying on digitized content are not yet strong which serves other media companies, their edited packages to drive their enough to fund the newsgathering the the challenge is to imagine a new businesses, and they really have no old models nurtured and expanded model that enables its clients to suc-

68 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 Rethinking ceed across platforms without creat- market is actually shorting breadth study. That shift has now accelerated ing new conflicts among competing and depth in favor of breaking news is with key new initiatives to enhance publishers, broadcasters and digital a question that could spark a spirited the differentiation of services to match distributors. And it must be done at debate in any newsroom around the platform and market needs. a lower cost to those clients because world, but the essential point should Chief among those initiatives is a overall revenue for the news business not be missed. That is, whether or not fundamental new process for news- is compressing. we’re producing it, people aren’t readily gathering in the field called “1-2-3 finding it in the opportunistic patterns filing.” The name describes a new edi- Consuming the News of consumption they’ve adopted. torial workflow that requires the first In today’s news environment, tech- words of a text story to be delivered in There are no easy answers to any of nology unwraps the tidy packages that a structured alert (headline format) to these questions, and a weak economy news providers produce. News gets be followed by a short, present-tense compounds the difficulty. But at AP split apart into atomic pieces for to- story delivering the vital details in we continue to focus on the funda- day’s digital consumption—headlines, step two. Then, in a final step, a story mental change in news consumption 25-word summaries, stand-alone takes whatever form is appropriate for patterns and what that means for both photos, podcasts and video clips— different platforms and audiences—a content creation and distribution. In all of which can be easily e-mailed, longer form story or analysis for print, the past year, with the help of a team searched and shared outside of their for example. Other media types are of professional anthropologists, we original packaging. coordinated along the way in similar studied the behavior of young-adult fashion. news consumers in six cities around Refitting the News Another major initiative at AP re- the world and drew important conclu- sponds to the need for more variety in sions about how to reconstruct our The model that emerged from our the news. Major new content develop- news model to fit the new cultural anthropology study helped to frame ment projects have been launched in reality of cross-platform, opportunistic the task ahead by splitting the news entertainment, sports and financial consumption of news. into its fundamental “atomic” pieces of news to create more entry points for Strip away the research jargon, and Facts, Updates, Back Story, and Future consumers with appetites for broader, what that means is that young people Story. That sets up a mission to create deeper content in those categories. around the world today are more likely and connect the essential parts of a Across the gamut of AP’s reporting, to connect to the latest news through next-generation news report, much as we are pursuing stories with impact e-mail, search or text messaging than the old “inverted pyramid” established and writing in a lively and authori- through old media channels. a framework for newspaper writing. tative style that has both raised our Of course, that was something we The inverted pyramid conditioned profile and caused some traditionalists very much expected to see. But through writers to organize the information in to wonder where the old wire service the intense interview process that dis- their stories from most important to went. Despite the stir in some jour- tinguishes anthropology from simple least important. It drove the journal- nalism circles, there’s no reason to surveying, we also heard something ism and the business of the AP news mourn the loss of stodginess, real or from the subjects we didn’t expect to cooperative for more than a century perceived. AP’s origins may trace back learn: They were mostly unsatisfied and a half, as the news was packaged to transcribing the shipping news, but with their news experiences. day in and day out for space-efficient its future lies in engaging the audience Despite the convenience of always- display in newspapers. with more than just the facts, as our on access, the subjects said they were The model even worked for new new model suggests. overdosing on short snippets of facts media as they came along through the Content initiatives alone, however, and updates and longed to explore the decades. AP created services based on can’t get the job done. Digitally based news in more breadth and depth. They newspaper stories to supply news for consumption by a fragmented audi- wanted more of the back and future radio, television and eventually the ence requires new and sophisticated stories associated with the daily stream Internet and mobile platforms. But distribution mechanics, meaning an of headline-driven news. And that was newspaper stories, packaged as a snap- infrastructure that can smartly con- the case across geography—cities in shot in time, struggle to connect with nect consumers to available, relevant the United States, Britain and India— an audience that is being conditioned content in virtually unlimited ways. The and across news category. No matter to aggregate and manipulate unpack- key to making that happen is to make if the topic was war, natural disaster aged information on their own. content more linkable and discover- or entertainment, the consumers in For AP, these trends delivered a able. For that, you need a system for our study wanted to know more, and clear directive to adjust the newspaper- tagging news content with codes for they seemed willing to go get it, if only story-first mentality. A shift to fastest- categories and names (famous people, they knew where to find it. formats-first had already been made at places and things) that computers Whether or not the journalism the agency well before our consumer can easily read to deliver content at

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 69 Search for True North

a user’s command. local advertising is being pursued to When information is available The AP has created such a system support display of headlines, stories, any time, any place, as it will be for and is using it to power a comprehen- images and video clips on the phones. generations of news consumers to sive news service, called the Mobile Constituent newspaper members of the come, models must be constructed News Network, for the Apple iPhone AP are joining the network to build to connect huge numbers of people and other smartphones. In the fu- the scope and scale that new digital with personalized bits of information. ture, we hope the AP “metadata” tags businesses will require to succeed. Those models will be driven by the will help surface more relevant and As Google’s advertising model has aggregation of content, advertising and timely news content through search proven so definitively, a business built audience on a very large scale—perhaps engines. on clicks requires a network of massive not all in one place, but virtually all Still to come, to complete the numbers, not just a single Web site. connected.  business model shift, are the revenue While the old packaged media models streams that will drive the new dis- may have enjoyed bigger returns on Jim Kennedy is the vice president and tribution of smart content. For the smaller bases, they dealt in scarcity, director of strategic planning for The Mobile News Network, national and not ubiquity. Associated Press.

Blogging From Inside a TV Station’s Newsroom ‘Comments on the blog began generating tips that turned into leads for on-air reporting, and the blog became a tool for promoting and teasing stories we planned to air or publish later that day.’

BY KATIE ALLISON GRANJU

n 2006, as a producer with the top- would simply con- rated TV news affiliate in Knoxville, fuse viewers/readers Tennessee, I frequently found my- and water-down our Iself holding onto bits of information, brand. Discouraged, I news tips, commentary from the local dropped the idea. blogosphere, and peculiarly fascinat- Then, however, ing local stories and photos—items in early 2007, I that didn’t fit neatly into our on-air ran across a blog- or online news coverage. To many in ger working from the newsroom, this was the throwaway within a television chaff of the newsgathering process. newsroom in another But I’d been keeping a personal blog area of the state, do- for several years and was active in ing exactly what I East Tennessee’s surprisingly rich and had envisioned, and diverse blogging community, so I knew drawing a large and without a doubt where this kind of highly participatory material would fit best: in a blog. readership. Her name However, at that time, the idea of was Brittney Gilbert, and she was the of human aggregator, she injected her a blog coming directly from someone brain, as well as the face, behind the singular voice and sensibilities into working in the newsroom was an un- cutting-edge blog “Nashville Is Talking,” multiple posts throughout each day, popular one around our office water (NIT) hosted by WKRN-TV.1 most of which pointed her readers to cooler. Blogs, I was advised, were Gilbert was the first blogger ever the smartest content from the many flighty, rabble-rousing fluff, not to be hired by a local news station specifically dozens of Tennessee-based blogs from mixed up in any way with the serious for the purpose of blogging, and she which she drew her material. Gilbert journalism we were practicing within plied her trade right out in the middle acted as sort of a salon hostess, guiding the inner sanctum. A newsroom blog of the newsroom. Working as a sort and shaping but never overwhelming

1 http://nashvilleistalking.com/

70 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 Rethinking the conversation that evolved on her my news director became supportive, the type of very active, personality- blog through links, comments and, encouraging me to use some of my driven, truly local newsroom blogging eventually, face-to-face local blogger work-time to blog. Our managing that characterized Nashville is Talking meet-ups. editor started suggesting and pointing and Knoxville Talks. WKRN also had Gilbert appear out blog-worthy items as they came While virtually all local news sites on-air on a regular basis to discuss into the newsroom. Comments on the now offer some sort of blog or blogs, what Nashvillians were talking about blog began generating tips that turned few are reaching their full potential online that day. Just as the station’s into leads for on-air reporting, and in terms of audience or influence. evening news anchors and morning the blog became a tool for promoting There are several reasons for this. show hosts became the faces for their and teasing stories we planned to air First, successful blogging requires a on-air content, Gilbert became the face or publish later that day. very specific skill set. Just because for the station’s online content. It was Six months after launching Knox- anyone in a news organization can blog a forward-thinking and savvy strategy ville Talks, I left the job I loved with the doesn’t mean that just anyone can do that paid off with growing blog traffic, TV station for a wonderful opportunity it in a way that builds and supports as well as national recognition from with E.W. Scripps. By that time, my an audience. Clearly, different types journalism pundits. Today Gilbert has little side project had generated nearly of journalists have their own spheres taken her newsroom blogging expertise 350,000 page views for the newsroom, of excellence. For example, the top to a much larger market, KPIX in San and traffic was building every week, investigative reporter for the local Francisco. But many credit Gilbert with still without any significant promo- newspaper likely wouldn’t fare very bringing to life the strongly connected tion beyond a link from the station’s well anchoring the local TV newscast. network of local bloggers that grew up homepage. And, most interesting to Top-notch newsroom blogging is no around NiT and that still exists in the me, after years of having my writing different; it requires specific training, Nashville market today. published everywhere from the local talent and effort. A successful blogger After I became a daily reader of NiT, alternative newsweekly to Parenting has to really know what she’s doing Gilbert graciously allowed me to pick magazine to The New York Times, for and, just as with on-air talent and her brain, and she encouraged me to the first time I had the experience of the most popular of op-ed columnists, start my own similar enterprise within being recognized in public. she has to offer a distinct voice and my station’s online brand. Although personality. That’s what keeps readers I still didn’t have strong buy-in from Offering a Distinct Voice coming back. newsroom management, they never This leads to the second reason why actually told me I couldn’t start a Daily visitors to Knoxville Talks grew so many local news organizations con- newsroom blog. So I did. to know my online “voice,” which they tinue to drag their feet when it comes Over one weekend away from the associated with the photo of me on to effectively leveraging the power of station, I bought the domain Knoxvil- the blog. People began approaching blogging. Far too many publishers, leTalks.com, set up a free WordPress me to introduce themselves when reporters, editors, anchors and pro- template, and started blogging. On they encountered me out and about. ducers still see blogging as some sort Monday, I showed our Web master Or when I would tell someone new of second-class, redheaded stepchild. my handiwork, and he quickly figured my name, he or she would respond Bloggers aren’t real journalists, so the out how to link the new domain to with, “Oh, you’re that Knoxville Talks argument goes, and they certainly don’t the station’s, so that any traffic to the blogger!” Readers would then often belong in the newsroom. But as real blog would be credited to our news want to discuss what I was cover- journalists and journalism professors department. ing on the blog, or suggest topics or continue to grapple with what exactly For the first month or so, I didn’t other blogs I should check out. For it is they do these days, bloggers are have so much as a link from our station’s a journalist used to working behind out there just doing it—without the Web site directing people to Knoxville the relative anonymity of a byline, it angsty navel-gazing or handwringing. Talks, but I doggedly began taking was a revelation. Bloggers certainly can be real journal- moments here and there throughout After leaving the station in August ists, albeit ones who fall into their my workday in the newsroom to guide 2008, I started a political blog for a own category within the profession. blog visitors to the most interesting Scripps-owned newspaper, and in its The sooner the powers that be accept activity taking place at that hour within first eight weeks, the blog has already this new reality, the sooner they can our local blogosphere. I developed a generated close to 200,000 page views begin reaping the benefits.  comprehensive blogroll, linking out for that newsroom. My experience, and to dozens of area bloggers. And I also the success of a small but growing Katie Allison Granju is a project linked back to and commented on the number of other newsroom bloggers manager with the E.W. Scripps entre- most interesting news content on our across the country, demonstrates that preneurial fund. Links to her blogging station’s site. even as the audience for “old journal- projects can be found at www.katieal- As traffic to Knoxville Talks grew, ism” is shrinking, there is a hunger for lisongranju.com.

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 71 Search for True North

Live Web Cast—From a Newspaper’s Newsroom ‘We did not want to produce an imitation of local TV news. We wanted to create something far less polished—more like a video blog, short and raw and conversational.’

BY JOHN HASSELL

t was 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, July doing it with an existential question one station stop in each 24-hour news 31st, when the bombshell dropped. pointed like a gun at their heads: Will journey, and increasingly our Web site, At a standing-room only gathering it all be enough to halt the slide and nj.com, is a platform not just for the Iof The Star-Ledger’s staff, publisher save the business? delivery of content but for meaningful George Arwady stepped onto a riser In some cases, the answer will engagement with users. and said the newspaper, after years probably be no. Mark Potts, a con- Like many of our peers, we have of losses, was in deep distress. The sultant and entrepreneur who helped made these radical changes in practice largest paper in New Jersey, he said, overhaul philly.com earlier this year, and culture in a hurry, creating new needed to obtain 200 voluntary buyouts and to renegotiate contracts with two unions. If these conditions were not met by October 1st, the newspaper would be either sold or shut. As employees headed solemnly back to their desks, one small crew from the newsroom was already wrestling with the implications of the announcement. Just three days earlier, the newspaper had launched a noontime Web cast called “Ledger Live.” Like many of our other digital efforts, it was designed to reach new audiences and—it was fervently hoped—to help the company’s bottom line. But now? “Breaking news this morning from The Star-Ledger, about The Star-Led- ger,” host Brian Donohue told viewers Star-Ledger reporter Brian Donohue hosts the newspaper’s Webcast “Ledger Live.” Photo when the cameras went live an hour by John Munson. later. “The state’s largest newspaper is, and I quote, ‘losing a battle to survive.’” wrote recently of daily newspapers products and new business models on Without embellishment, he laid out the that “sometime in the next few months the run. This revolution has touched conditions described by the publisher we’re going to lose one—or it is going every aspect of what we do, but maybe and noted that the news had left “a to be changed so radically as to be nothing illustrates the pace and ex- lot of people walking around here … barely recognizable under the current tent of change as well as our video pretty stunned.” definition of daily newspaper. And efforts—and, specifically, the creation given the lemming-like tendencies of “Ledger Live” in the days before Radical Change of the newspaper industry, once one the reality of the newspaper’s plight newspaper goes, others will quickly became so painfully clear. Welcome to newspaper innovation, follow.” 2008-style. Faced with steady circula- The truth, of course, is that the Learning Video Journalism tion losses and rapidly deteriorating definition of daily newspaper is already ad revenue, newsrooms across the barely recognizable, at least in terms of “The business of newspapers is to go country are moving swiftly, if belat- newsroom workflows and relationships into the community, find stories, and edly, to retool and refocus on digital with local communities. At The Star- publish them. As newspapers move to content and delivery. But they are Ledger, nightly print deadlines are just the Internet and the Internet concur-

72 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 Rethinking rently moves into video, it is incumbent did. As Rosenblum noted on more daily show. Now we just had to figure upon newspapers to begin to embrace than one occasion, we were aiming out how to do live TV. video as a means of newsgathering to “change the vocabulary of the and storytelling.” reporting” to embrace a multimedia, Going Live Those two sentences were the multiplatform approach to local news opening lines of a proposal made to and information. Why live? Why not just record the seg- The Star-Ledger in January 2008 by Over the course of five long days, ments and slap everything together in Michael Rosenblum, the firebrand con- fueled by coffee and doughnuts and a postproduction? Certainly that would sultant who over the years has helped lot of enthusiasm, the group learned have been the safer route, allowing to create New York Times Television how to shoot and edit complex video greater quality control and ensuring and the NY1 cable news station, among stories. Looking back now, it’s clear more consistent production values— other notable projects. [See story by we were only just beginning, but which is really just a nice way of say- Rosenblum on page 75.] At The Star- it’s still pretty remarkable how good ing we’d be less likely to make fools Ledger, Rosenblum hoped to engineer some of those first stories were—and of ourselves. Why not learn to walk a seismic event, changing the way most were shot, narrated and edited before leaping onto a high wire? newspapers think about video—and by people who had never picked up a For us, the reasons were pretty about news coverage in general. video camera before their tryouts. basic: We did not want to produce As it happened, Rosenblum’s ideas A big reason for the immediate an imitation of local TV news. We meshed perfectly with the goals of results, I think, was that the room wanted to create something far less editor Jim Willse, who for years had was filled with journalists who knew polished—more like a video blog, seen opportunities for video in a state already how to tell stories; they merely short and raw and conversational. If without its own network TV news needed the tools and training to trans- we could edit things after the fact, we outlet. Bracketed by the New York and late those stories to video. But it had figured, we’d probably squeeze the life Philadelphia markets, New Jerseyans a lot to do with Rosenblum’s method, out of it. There was also the matter of have grown accustomed to seeing local too, and especially his insistence on efficiency: A five-minute live show takes news on television in only the rarest simple techniques: think before you five minutes to produce, every time. of cases and usually when calamity shoot, decide what you need, shoot No postproduction, no do-overs. struck. The idea of filling this void only what you need, and for cry- The technology was the easy part. held enormous appeal. ing out loud don’t move the camera Two cameras, three overhead lights, So it was that Rosenblum, dressed while you’re shooting. Oh yeah, and four monitors, a switcher, a graph- as usual in head-to-toe black, arrived no stand-ups with blow-dried “talent.” ics deck, a recording deck, a digital with his team in The Star-Ledger Just good visual stories, shot up close encoder, and—voila!—we had a set in newsroom on a pleasant Monday in and tightly edited. the middle of the newsroom equipped late May to train 20 people how to Everyone who went through the to produce a multicamera live show tell video stories and, in the process, training left with a responsibility to for the Web. It took practice and lay the groundwork for launching a produce one video story each week. dexterity to run it all, of course, but five-minute noon Webcast in a mat- And everyone was given one day each that was nothing compared with the ter of weeks. week to do it. To manage all this, we job of figuring out what exactly we The group of trainees included created a couple of important new wanted the show to be. reporters, photographers, editors positions: an assistant managing editor Was it a straight news show? That and a graphic artist. Everyone had for video and a video enterprise editor, didn’t work, because text headlines volunteered, along with more than who together coordinated the activities are a far more efficient way to catch 80 other staffers from a newsroom of our 20 new video journalists and up with news in a hurry. Was it a va- of about 330, and had been selected edited the work they produced. riety show? That didn’t seem to play after shooting a three-minute tryout Suddenly, our Web site came alive to our strength as the state’s largest video. Each arrived equipped with a with videos about urban drug addic- newsgathering operation. We settled high-definition Sony video camera and tion, suburban wildlife management, finally on a hybrid, with a twist: Quick a MacBook Pro laptop loaded with cancer survivors, glass-blowing artists, headlines at the top when there was Apple’s Final Cut Pro editing software taxi drivers, and taxidermists. On big fresh news, a couple of Jersey-centric (at a cost of about $7,000 per kit, news stories, we produced deeper and videos, and a constant effort to involve including all accessories). more timely video coverage than the bloggers, vloggers and podcasters from We spread the training across dif- New York and Philadelphia TV sta- across the state. The show would be ferent departments partly to share tions. And day after day, right from short, original and as interactive as the workload, but mainly because we the start, we offered a steady diet of possible. wanted video to become part of who enterprise stories and news clips that We played around with a Tele- we were as a news organization and you couldn’t find anywhere else. PrompTer, then realized it was killing how we thought about everything we We had the goods for a pretty decent the sense of spontaneity. We noodled

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 73 Search for True North

with slick intro they sought and packages, then received more decided we were than the required getting too fancy. number of buyout We looked across applications— the room for a cen- including, after tral-casting brand weeks of pain- of anchor, then ful deliberation, picked a veteran mine. The result beat reporter who was a reduction of wouldn’t be caught newsroom staff in dead in make-up the neighborhood but had a knack of 40 percent. for talking about T h e n e w s - the day’s news in paper lived to a way that made fight another day, you feel as if you providing a little were sitting on the “Ledger Live” broadcasts from inside The Star-Ledger newsroom. Photo by John Munson. breathing room edge of his desk, to find the in- chatting. novations that So with Brian Donohue in the host’s now-standard greeting: “How ya doin’, might secure its future. The existential chair and two technical wizards, Seth Jersey. Welcome to the Star-Ledger question had been answered, at least for Siditsky and Bumper DeJesus, running newsroom.” the moment, allowing the “Ledger Live” the switcher and producing in-show This was a newsroom that, just team—still intact, somehow—to focus graphics, we started making two pilots three days later, would be wondering on finding its place in the world. each day, one at noon and another if it had a future at all. Can a newspaper turn video into a at 5 p.m. We did this for the better The show received some nice early profitable business model? Can a daily part of a month, blowing our original reviews from a wide range of places. news show made for the Web build deadline of a July 1 launch because we Frank Barth-Nilsen of the Norwegian audience and compete for advertising were determined the whole process Broadcasting Corporation called it dollars with established network and should feel like second nature before “perfect for mobile journalism, bring- cable TV? How can a show such as we started for real. ing news back fast from the streets of “Ledger Live” help change the rela- We made a lot of mistakes and New Jersey.” Ryan Sholin of GateHouse tionship between the newsroom and learned from them. We repeatedly Media said it was “the best newspaper the community it serves? switched to the wrong camera between webcast I’ve seen yet.” Others were The jury is still out on all of this, segments and worked on set direction less kind. Don Day of Lost Remote but a few things are clear. Newspapers until we got it right. We realized we described our effort this way: “Another have the talent to do new and innova- couldn’t expect Brian to remember newspaper launches another boring tive things in the digital sphere, and every detail of a complicated story webcast.” they still have the reporting resources without a TelePrompTer, so we taped The reaction to “Ledger Live,” to deliver a depth of coverage that is notes with key names and numbers though, held far less interest for those unmatched in most markets. The future beneath the camera lens. And we of us working on the show than did belongs to those who are willing to learned the hard way that we needed the life of the Ledger. In the worst- experiment, to evolve, to fail quickly to unplug Brian’s desktop phone before case scenario, the newspaper would when they do fail and to move on, even going live. be closed, and all of our work would as disaster waits at the door.  On Monday, July 28th, just nine have been for nothing. Even in the weeks after the first day of the Rosen- best of outcomes, there was a chance John Hassell is the former deputy blum boot camp, we officially launched we’d lose some or all of the talented managing editor/digital for The Star- “Ledger Live,”1 believing we were help- people who made the show possible. Ledger of Newark, New Jersey. ing to shape, in our own small way, In the meantime, we had a show to the future of New Jersey’s largest news make five days a week. organization. As the cameras started When the dust settled, The Star-Led- rolling, Brian smiled and delivered his ger’s owners got the union concessions

1 Information about and a connection to “Ledger Live” can be found at www.nj.com/ ledgerlive/.

74 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 Rethinking

Video News: The Videojournalist Comes of Age ‘It is now possible for a person working on his or her own to make high-quality, intelligent and, most importantly, very inexpensive television.’

BY MICHAEL ROSENBLUM

n 1988, I was a producer for “Sun- it was not possible to make televi- Technology Accelerates day Morning,” the CBS News show sion journalism the way I had made Change with Charles Kuralt. At the age of photojournalism—alone, living the I30, it was a pretty good job. I made story, just me with my camera in my So the question to ask now is, what a good salary, and I got to travel the hand—spending real time with the can we do with the technological world. It was a prestigious job and a subjects. revolution at our fingertips? good start to my career in network So in 1988, I quit my very nice job The first thing is to decouple televi- television. at CBS News and headed back to the sion news from the TV news people. So I quit. Gaza Strip with a small, inexpensive The idea that we would take the most I quit because I had grown increas- camcorder. I moved in with a Palestin- powerful means of communicating ingly frustrated with the way that televi- ian family in the Jabalya Camp and news and ideas ever invented and sion journalism was made. Everything spent a month shooting and talking consciously turn it over to a tiny hand- was incredibly complicated: camera- to them. When I left, I took my tapes ful of self-appointed “professionals” men, soundmen, vans, equipment, to “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” is an act of cultural and intellectual talent, lighting, audio. The simplest and sold them two pieces for $25,000 suicide. Who are Brian Williams and bit of video seemed to take forever to each. Katie Couric, after all? Each is just shoot. It was like a Hollywood movie I had discovered a new way of one more (highly paid) journalist with doing a scene: endless preparation and working in television journalism. something to say and a platform given an army of workers to manufacture a Twenty years later, my views have not to them to say it. Fine. But there are few seconds on the screen. changed. But the technology has. Today millions (quite literally) of others who I had first been attracted to visual a small, hand-held, high-definition also have stories to tell or opinions of journalism by photography. I had been video camera, one that is unques- equal value to voice. mesmerized by the images in Life and tionably broadcast quality, costs less Never, in the world of print, would in books by Magnum photographers. than $1,000. Audio equipment, radio we say that all books sold would be When I graduated from Williams Col- microphones, and the like have gotten written by Katie Couric and Brian Wil- lege in 1976, I received a grant from better and smaller. Editing systems, liams. That would be seen as insane. The Thomas J. Watson Foundation to which used to take up an entire room Yet we gladly embrace this ridiculous spend three years traveling around the and cost more than a half million approach in television news every day. world photographing. On my own. dollars, have been reduced to a piece Why does this happen? Up until now I spent the first year traveling from of software that more often than not alternative voices have been silenced London to Kathmandu, Nepal, over- comes free with your computer. because producing television news land, camera in hand. I was able to What does this mean? It means was expensive and getting video im- spend months in Afghan villages or in that we have a unique opportunity ages into people’s homes was vastly Isfahan in Iran, really getting to know to reinvent television journalism. No complicated. No more. a place. The photographs reflected a longer does it have to be complex, So what we are doing now is em- certain sense of intimacy. The second expensive, difficult, require an army powering millions of journalists (and year I moved in with a family in a of technicians, or rest in the hands others) to be a part of this great global Palestinian refugee camp, and the third of the very few. It is now possible for dialogue we call television and video year I crossed Africa overland, taking a person working on his or her own news. I call it a dialogue, but that is pictures all along the way. to make high-quality, intelligent and, really the wrong term. Monologue When I went to work in the TV most importantly, very inexpensive might have been more appropriate for business, it was incredibly different. television. No cameramen. No one the past, so perhaps “multilogue” is a We might spend a few hours, at the carrying the audio equipment. No better term to describe its future. most, shooting a story. When the crew producers. And no “on-air talent.” During the past few years, I’ve was working, the clock was running. This means the barriers to entry have been working with journalists at news And it was annoying not to have the not been lowered—they have been organizations—not only broadcast camera myself. I began to wonder if completely blown away. outlets—to pass along my enthusiasm

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 75 Search for True North

for and the techniques that enable this ap- proach to video news to work. Recently, at The Star-Ledger in Newark, New Jersey, 20 print and photo- journalists were em- powered to create television journalism. [See article by John Hassell on page 72.] Whether their video news stories appear on their Web site, as they do, rather than being broadcast, is immate- rial; the reporters use video they shoot and edit themselves to tell news stories. As it turns out, mak- ing TV news isn’t any more complicated than picking up a camera and starting to shoot. Nor is video editing more complex than Michael Rosenblum conducts a VJ training session at KRON4 in San Francisco. Photo by Lisa Lambden. word processing—and the equipment to do it is no more expensive to purchase. So this puts us at the to newspaper reporters and photog- coffee for Brian Williams. She has no precipice of a revolution. It’s a revolu- raphers and more. We teach them “experience.” But she produces Harry tion in how television news gets made how to use the digital tools, assure Potter and is dogged in pursuing a way and, as such, a revolution in who gets them that they can, and then say the for Harry’s story to be told. to make it. words: “Here’s the camera. There is What Rowling did with a pencil and The first recruits to this video- the door. See you at 6:00.” This is paper (or cocktail napkins at the start) journalist revolution were, of course, how we make television journalism anyone can now do with a camcorder those already in the business—the in the digital age. and a laptop; they can make their vi- huge armies of journalistic “support sion. Fulfill their dream. Create. Maybe staff” who populated TV stations and Empowering Voices Long it stinks. Maybe it’s Harry Potter. Only networks. They were in the office, Silenced one way to find out: make it. working for NBC or CBS, because This incredible revolution in who they wanted to report stories or felt This is, however, only the tip of the gets to make it is percolating into they had something they wanted to iceberg, because there are millions of journalism as well. say. Yet 99.99 percent of those who others who also have something to The United States military has work in TV newsrooms never get to say and want a place for their voice been in Iraq for five years. And U.S. create their vision—at least until now. to be heard. news organizations have covered Iraq They get to make phone calls or coffee J.K. Rowling, a 38-year old single during those five years by sending or do research or produce (whatever mother on welfare, has an idea for a in American TV reporters who, for that means). This approach not only book. Harry … Something. But she the most part, don’t speak a word of wastes talent, but it’s nonsensical as is not a published writer. She is an Arabic, don’t know the country’s (or a business practice. unemployed mom on welfare. But she the region’s) history, don’t know the So the first step was—and still is—to also has an idea. The barrier to writing country, but their reports dominate the empower those in the business, from is a pencil and a piece of paper. So she nightly news. At the same time, there local TV news producers to writers to sets to work. She has never interned are probably a million Iraqis who have former cameramen and technicians for Diane Sawyer. She has never made home video cameras and who nightly

76 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 Rethinking can and do record the destruction that is guaranteed only to those who own national and global public discourse has been wrought on their nation. In one.” Today, pretty much anyone can is about to be split wide open. And, five years, how much of that video own the means to report and produce I say, high time.  have Americans ever seen? video news. To which I say, “Good.” Exactly my point. It’s going to get very competitive out Michael Rosenblum has run Rosen- Now, this is going to be upsetting there, and it’s about time it did. blum Associates for 20 years, training to many of my colleagues in the busi- As we begin by empowering journal- news organizations throughout the ness. When anyone can pick up a video ists of all stripes, the democratization world in how to equip and prepare camera, shoot a story and post it on the of video will not be contained within their staff to work as videojournal- Web, then the “TV professionals”—an newspaper or TV newsrooms—nor ists. Among his clients have been the oxymoron, to be sure—are no longer should it. Everything about our time BBC, the Voice of America, NY1, The so special. tells me that we are about to embark McGraw-Hill Companies, Verizon, No, they aren’t. If we profess to on a great global awakening. Voices TV4 Sweden, and WKRN-TV in Nash- believe in a free press, then it doesn’t that have never been heard are about ville, Tennessee. He also was a founder make sense to get freaked out when a to make themselves known, and the of New York Times Television and free press actually starts to emerge. A.J. rather tiny spectrum of information Current TV. Liebling wrote, “Freedom of the press and opinion that has dominated our

A Retired Newspaper Journalist Takes What He Knows to the Web ‘What “sold” RappVoice to the local audience was solid and timely reporting, analysis, and in-depth explanation of complex subjects ….’

BY JAMES P. GANNON

am an old newspaper guy—a report- Ridge Mountains in Virginia, about nock News, whose local coverage at er, columnist, Washington bureau 75 miles west of Washington, D.C.. that time tended toward light fluff and chief, and finally editor of The Des “RappVoice,” as the locals call it, cov- little enterprise or hard news. IMoines Register. I love ink on paper, ers only local news—Rappahannock Seeing major local stories going the feel of newsprint in my hands, County government, school news, local unreported, I decided—almost on and the old standards of newspaper politics, business journalism as I came to understand and people. them in the 1960’s, when reporters R a p p V o i c e simply reported, editors edited, and was started out of opinions went on the editorial and frustration with op-ed pages, where they belonged. the inadequacy of In other words, I am as outdated local news cover- as a polyester pantsuit. So what am age in Rappah- I—a retired journalist nearing the annock County, age of 70—doing operating an online where I’ve lived news service? since I left daily First, some history. I got into this journalism in the unruly world of Web-based journalism mid-1990’s. Our about two years ago, in October 2006, county has no when I created and launched The daily papers, no Rappahannock Voice (www.rappvoice. radio or TV sta- com), an online community “news- tions, and only paper” for my home community—a one local weekly, scenic, rural retreat along the Blue The Rappahan-

Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 77 SearchL^Zk\a_hk for TrueMkn^ GNorthhkma

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78 NiemanGb^fZgK^ih Reportskml |uPbgm^k+))1 Winter 2008