Categories
culture technology

My Experience as an Example of Old and New Media

I realized after writing earlier this morning about the way new media is changing the news that my experience was a perfect example of the way that old and new media can interact to augment each other. It also pointed me to one of the key factors that is hurting existing media organizations and thus a possible way to reverse the trend in theory. Unfortunately I am unable to identify a business model that would take advantage of this theoretical key.

Consider the example. A newspaper journalist decides to do a story on the impact of new media on our political system. He interviews someone who has used new media to follow a political campaign in a way that traditional media sources sis not provide. He contacts elected officials and other people connected with government. He contacts a political blogger (me in this case). he takes all the information that he has gathered and using his own experience and his skill in the art of written communication tells a story showing how new media is changing the face of politics and what it means to citizens. He turns the story over to his editors who take that story, assign it a place in the paper, edit it for content and in the interest of meeting size limitations on their physical page trims part of the story – the part that explains what this means to the average reader. It has now become a story without a moral – not because the journalist failed, but because of space limitations.

After that happened I, as a blogger who is not constrained by any physical space limitations in what I write, posted the entire list of questions I was asked as the journalist prepared his story and my full answers. This is the unfiltered data from one source which the journalist used to create his story. One symbiosis between traditional journalism and citizen journalism is that those who are interested in what the journalist wrote could look into the raw questions and answers that produced the story and decide for themselves what more they can learn than the paper was able to publish.

I realized this morning as I reflected upon the process of producing that story from fact gathering to publication that a key factor that is hurting old media organizations is that they are trying so hard to put out the maximum amount of information within their limited physical space that they have sacrificed the moral to virtually every story (that’s easy to do because taking out the moral can also make them feel more objective) and the result is that readership declines (especially paid readership) not because reporters are doing their thinking for them, but because almost all thought is expunged from the final product in the interest of keeping a maximum amount of data.

The theoretical way to reverse that trend would be to use digital media with traditional reporting to again publish the whole story – without space limitations. Those organizations interested in having a physical paper could use the paper as a gateway to the digital content – showing teasers of stories with the full story online and/or only printing the top story or stories in the paper while printing all stories worth printing in the digital version. The digital version could be augmented with complete references and links where possible to the original sources on each article so that readers could dig deeper as they were so inclined. By doing this the organization could even begin to learn in more detail what stories and sources their readers were most interested in and follow up on those with more traditional reporting. This encourages the new media ecosystem which them serves as a valuable tool and resource for the traditional media.

Like I said at the beginning, I don’t have a firm business model for how to support this (how to fund it being a major missing component), but I think I am getting a picture of how these “competing” interests can and should work together.

Categories
culture Local

How New Media is Changing News

Yesterday Holly asked if print media was on its way out. She was quoting from an article by Dave Duffy about the decline of newspapers and the rise of citizen journalism. In it he apparently made this hopeful statement:

I believe that it will lead to the salvation of freedom in America because more people will become better informed about what is really happening in the country.

As a long time blogger that’s a flattering idea, but as someone who has watched many bloggers and much online discussion as a participant and from an academic standpoint I think we need to be careful how much we expect from the impact of citizen journalism. It is an important shift in public discourse, but I think we would be misguided to think that the disappearance of traditional journalism is either necessary or positive. Not long ago I was asked to contribute to an article about the way new media is changing the world of politics. While the reporter did a great job and was kind enough to send me a copy of his story, the paper trimmed the story for publication to meet space requirements and removed all quotes in the article that did not come from elected officials or the person whose experience was meant to illustrate the point. In doing so they removed all reference to what these changes really meant. I’d like to share all the questions I was asked as well as my responses here (which is more than the reporter could have done even if he was so inclined).

What are the benefits of politicians maintaining a blog?

There are many benefits that come from a politician maintaining a blog, both for themselves and for their constituents. The primary benefit is that they can maintain communication with their constituents in a way that they can control (in other words, they are not dependent on space limitations or the biases of an outside news organization). A good blog would enable them to create a firsthand record which they can use to explain or defend themselves from later accusations as opponents may take things out of context and voters often forget the details. (Even the politicians can forget the details without a timely record.)

What are the drawbacks?

The only universal drawback is that it takes time. Also, if the blog allows open responses there is a risk of hecklers and trolls. Not all people are able to deal with those negative elements of such digital communication forums.

How has blogging changed the face of politics for politicians?

I don’t think we really know the full answer to that yet. So far we have been able to see that blogging makes it impossible for anyone (politicians or others) to absolutely control the message that people receive. Blogging makes it so that there are a wider array of information (and misinformation) sources available to everyone so it becomes extremely important to be able to sort through all that information and be able to accurately discard the misinformation. The upside to blogging is that it has very low barriers to entry so politicians can make themselves available as a primary source of information for their constituents more easily than when their only options were media coverage, town hall style meetings, direct mailings, and other less efficient means of communication. Overall I would say that it has had a leveling effect on the political playing field but it also means that it takes even more work to keep on top of the political process.

How has it changed politics for constituents?

See above – there is more information to sort through and constituents must also hone their ability to sort the truth from the garbage, just as their elected officials have the opportunity to become primary sources of information for them they can use blogging to open themselves up as primary sources of information for their elected officials, etc.

I understand you participated in Blogger Press. What do you make of it? What do you see in the future for forums such as this?

I have participated in a couple of blogger press conferences and I think there is great potential there. Bloggers are different from traditional media sources because they do not have the luxury of getting a paycheck for their work. Sometimes this results in better information – often is doesn’t. It virtually always results in a different perspective than is found from professionals in the media industries. I have heard some people argue that bloggers depend on the mainstream media for their information and that they are just acting as a secondary filter. In many cases it’s true, but there are many bloggers who go dig up original information and stories as well. I don’t think that bloggers can or should replace the traditional media, but I do believe that it is very valuable to have the second perspective that bloggers provide alongside the perspectives offered by more traditional news sources. I think there could be a lot of give and take between bloggers and journalists to provide a much richer public discourse than either group could provide alone. I hope to see more blogger press conferences in the future and expect that if that happens we as bloggers, press, politicians, and the public will discover ways that those events can improve our public understanding and dialog around political issues.

My point is that citizen journalism and traditional journalism will best serve society if they complement each other rather than expecting to compete with each other.

Categories
State technology

A Blogger Press Corps – of Sorts

I was just talking to Ric Cantrell about the Bloggerpresser that is taking place this afternoon at 4:00 in the senate building (it’s an open invitation – see his post for details on attending live or virtually). I want to share a couple of interesting thoughts from our conversation.

Ric mentioned as he has tried to organize this event that bloggers are not like the traditional press corps. (Not that he expected they would be.) With a standard press conference he can simply email the reporters who cover politics at the various news organizations and know that the conference will be covered. With bloggers there is no definitive list of who is interested or available. He can send an email to those whose emails addresses he has, but that does not guarantee that everyone who would like to come has been informed. There is no central place where anyone can be assured that all the appropriate bloggers will get the information.

That makes me wonder – what would be the best way to deal with this issue? Is it something where political bloggers who wish to cover state legislative issues should be expected to follow senatesite.com to get announcements when they do blogger oriented events? Would it be better to have a Utah Bloggers Pseudo Press Corps email list that interested bloggers could subscribe to for such announcements? (I made that name up as I typed it, don’t hold me to that name if you favor the email list idea.)

Another question I have is – who is interested in the idea of press credentials for bloggers? Who is interested in a non-credentialed Blogger Press Corps? Please let me know if you have interest in this area so that we can expand the group of people who are discussing the possibilities.

Categories
life State

Meeting the Mayor

I was invited to a blogger breakfast this morning with Mayor Becker. After digesting the surprise and wondering how they decided who to invite (there were only 7 bloggers there) I was excited to see what it would be like. Early on the question was asked if anyone present took a conservative perspective on their blog – I felt a bit lonely but I sure enjoyed meeting some of the bloggers that I have been interacting with for quite a while.

Three things really stuck out to me during the course of the morning. First (and least importantly), it’s nice to have someone else paying for breakfast. Second, I sat next to Glen Warchol and because of my recent interest in journalism and the interaction between reporters and politics, it was fascinating to watch as Glen fired off a number of questions and followups to the mayor to start things off. My respect for the art and skill of the information gathering side of reporting increased noticeably (nothing this morning really touched on the synthesizing and word-crafting side of reporting, but my blogging has already built up my appreciation for that aspect of the process). And the third thing that really stuck out to me? That’s what this is really all about . . .

One of the major topics this morning was the issue of transparency. I really think that this blogger breakfast is a part of the mayor’s transparency initiative – it’s another way for him to try to engage people and get them invoved and connected wtih their city government. Towards the end of the meeting Glen asked all of the bloggers if any of us had sought press credentials at the capital. It occurs to me that part of transparency is making sure that we make use of the options to get information that are already available to us.  None of us had sought press credentials at the capital and Glen said we should give it a try. A few of us decided to look into it.

I called Ric Cantrel this afternoon to inquire and was told that the capital was pretty open to anyone who cared to visit, the meetings were generally open to the public and the elected officials wanted to get information out in any way that they could, and finally that they don’t have a policy one way or another on giving press credentials to bloggers. Ric expressed an interest in figuring out a manageable and reasonable policy on granting credentials to bloggers and suggested that it might be useful to meet with a group of bloggers to start hammering out such a policy. I trust that Ric is genuinely interested because he has been a significant force behind The Senate Site blog which is a good source for information – especially during the legislative session.

If anyone else is interested in taking part in the discussion let me know – I’ll keep you updated as I try to set things up.