Recorded at the U.S. State Department, Clay Shirky talks in this TED Talk about how technology becomes phenomenal, or its uses become broader and more important (or more socially interesting), once that particular technology becomes technically boring and “everybody takes them for granted.” He used the example of the monitoring of elections via SMS in Nigeria in 2007, followed by the 2008 U.S. election and how we monitored our votes using cameras and phones. In other words, a first world country followed the example of a third world country not because the technology was new or revolutionary, but because the technology had become so common that it was part of the social landscape and therefore seen purely as a tool for everyday use.
Shirky goes on to explain how the media landscape has changed forever. Some of this is new, most of it isn’t, but Shirky’s analysis and explanation of the current and future state of media is well worth the time to watch. In particular, how we create environments for discussion and shape that conversation, has become the ONLY effective way of delivering a message and defining that message as “news” or anything else is getting harder and harder to do. I think one of the most important changes that has occurred is that today, we learn more from the discussion of the news than we do from the initial delivery of that news. ‘Twitter, Facebook, and cellphones can now make history.’
Just a quick note to point readers to the great work FAIR does every day in its fight for “Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.” I have been a fan of FAIR for quite some time and enjoy its podcasts in particular. I have added, for the time being at least, an RSS feed to the group’s latest reports, podcasts and blog posts which can be found along the right side of this page. Please let me know what you think and thanks for reading.
Who? What? Why? When? Where? These are the five governing principles of any news story and the basic tools of the journalism trade. Anyone who has ever worked in the industry knows this and most readers do to as these facts make up the foundation of any good story. Unfortunately, these days (look at me, sounding all old and shit) not everyone remembers the rules. I’ve just spent more time than I would have liked searching through a clumsy video replay of yet another round-table discussion on the future of news (or in this case, “traditional media”), looking for the names of the participants as well as the date this occurred. I was able to piece together the names, although the date was found only through a trusty “new-media” tool I like to call Google: June 4th, 2008. The original broadcast was on GroundReport.com, but it contained no information next to the video as to who the participants were and when this discussion took place. Both IWantMedia.com and GroundReport.com have included this information elsewhere on their sites (found it too late), but it was easier for me to Google the information, ending up back on the original sites I started from, than to search through the mass of nothingness accompanying the video. Perhaps new-media has something to learn here? I’m not sure if that lesson is to be learned from Google or perhaps a legacy company like the New York Times… More on that later.
Anyway, I’ve included below the discussion that took place at NYU’s J-school about the future of traditional media. The discussion was hosted by I Want Media and Ground Report, one a media industry general information website, the other a citizen journalist/news platform (still in its infancy, as I discussed earlier). Both are worthy ideas and worth a look. The discussion was fairly interesting and featured Michael Wolff (Vanity Fair and Newser.com), Kenneth Li (Reuters), David Carr (New York Times), Erick Schonfeld (TechCrunch.com), Keith J. Kelly (New York Post) and Johnnie L. Roberts (Newsweek).
What did they have in common? They are all men, all happened to be in the same television studio in New York at the same time and for the most part, they all are media commentators and journalists with something at stake (although some of them are obviously less complacent than others about their careers). Other than that, as you’ll see, the line is pretty clear as to who “gets” it and who doesn’t. Schonfeld and Wolff were on their own it seemed simply because of the way they approached the discussion where as the other panelists spent half their time defending old media and the other half of the time blaming new media and news aggregators for “stealing” their content. More on that to come… My favorite part of the discussion was the last question of the night: “What are you all doing to secure your future in this industry?” Not one of them was able to provide a viable response although clearly Scholfeld and Wolff have a head start on the others.
At least I thought Wolff had a head start until I saw this news about the AP looking to shut out news aggregators (like newser.com) from publishing its content (and that of its affiliated newspapers). We’ll see how far that one goes, especially considering the New York Times Company is guilty of doing the same thing (see the lawsuit here brought by Gatehouse Media), although the lawsuit against their Boston.com subsidiary was settled out of court. Seriously, now the AP is resorting to suing instead of embracing to stop this change? For one, it explains why The New York Times Company settled out of court…
But the real kick in the teeth on this one is the following quote from the AP’s William Dean Singleton, “We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off with our work under misguided legal theories.” I know Dean Singelton. I met him during my childhood right before he bought my father’s paper, fired and then re-hired the entire news staff so as to do away with seniority and by doing so drove away the best talent that paper had known. To say the least, I’ve never been a fan of his…
Yesterday I mentioned one of Frontline’s latest endeavors with its Digital_Nation project. Jeff is one of the more active bloggers on the project and has had an ongoing discussion about generational stereotypes as they pertain to the latest buzzwords of Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants. He has posted some interesting reader feedback, including this:
“Here are some more thoughts we’ve received in response to my posts on the haziness surrounding the terms Digital Native and Digital Immigrant. It seems people don’t like to be defined by such simple labels.
A reader writes:
I’ve often found that defining a person as a member of a particular generation is the easy way to describe someone, not the accurate way. Previously we talked about baby boomers and Generations X and Y and now the focus is on Internet Natives and Immigrants. However, like all generalizations, it doesn’t really capture who that person is, what his or her history is or what motivates him or her. Sure there are similarities between people born during a certain time and in a similar place, but often these boxes are created either by marketers or the media without much consideration beyond the superficial. Therefore, how accurate can they really be?
I, like many others I know, am caught yet again between definitions determined by outsiders. In a previous discussion I might have been between Generation X and Generation Y and now I am again between what some might consider the Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants. These definitions can guide a discussion only so far before they become cumbersome and irrelevant.”
I think a career journalist I know said it best when asked about this habit to simplify and condense our differences: The overwhelming urge of the human race to pigeonhole other members of the human race is constant. It does reflect mental laziness and gives us a (false) sense of security (“Oh, I know this type of person.”). It also dehumanizes others.
It’s also a bane of modern journalism. Why do news organizations feel it necessary to label politicians or others as “liberal,” “conservative,” “right-wing” or “left-wing”?
“In what should send a frightening chill down the spine of every blogger, writer, journalist and First Amendment advocate in the United States, Phoenix police raided the home of a blogger who has been highly critical of the department.
Jeff Pataky, who runs Bad Phoenix Cops, said the officers confiscated three computers, routers, modems, hard drives, memory cards and everything necessary to continue blogging.
The 41-year-old software engineer said they also confiscated numerous personal files and documents relating to a pending lawsuit he has against the department alleging harassment – which he says makes it obvious the raid was an act of retaliation.”
You can read more from the local paper here. All I have to say is that at least they don’t kill bloggers here, like they do in Russia.
A person or entity with an obligation to report the news who instead shirks this responsibility and creates false dogmas. Aside from ignorance, reasons include financial gain and self-love.
PBS is reportedly in final talks with Newsweek editor Jon Meacham to be co-host of its forthcoming Need to Know program (New York Times, 3/9/10). Meacham's consideration for a show that would replace hard-hitting independent programs Now and the Bill Moyers Journal sends a clear and troubling message about PBS's priorities (Extra! Update, 6/05). […]
According to a report on the New York Times website (3/9/10), PBS is in talks with Newsweek editor Jon Meacham to be co-host of its forthcoming Need to Know program. If the report proves accurate, it gives viewers little hope for the kind of critical, uncompromising programming that public television was created to foster. Meacham's consideration for a […]
