Media
Media
Original News Online
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 01/11/2010 - 12:37Today, the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism issued a new report, How News Happens: A Study of the News Ecosystem of One American City. Here in Connecticut, Rick Green posted about it on his CT Confidential blog at the Hartford Courant, Where does news come from? From the NEWSpaper. He highlighted:
Fully eight out of ten stories studied simply repeated or repackaged previously published information.
To this, I added the following comment:
It is a fascinating report. Good job for repeating or repackaging it! Your decision to repeat it, shows, I believe, that repeating other reports is important.
That said, the report has other very interesting aspects. The LATimes repackaging of the Pew report includes this:
About two-thirds of articles that did break new ground came from newspapers. Television news accounted for about 28% of the stories that offered new information, with radio providing 7%. The study included websites affiliated with these traditional media sources.
Digital-only outlets accounted for just 4% of original pieces of reporting: One report came from a local blog, and the other was breaking news disseminated by a police Twitter feed.
My concern is that with newspapers accounting for the breaking of most stories, what happens as newspapers cut back staff, or spend more time repackaging stories? The public will know less, and that is bad for democracy, unless something else can come and fill in the gap.
Personally, I think volunteer local citizen journalism may be an important part of this. That's why I set up the Woodbridge Citizen this weekend, to get people in my small town to start writing about things that the newspapers are missing.
I also find it interesting that one of the examples of breaking news came from a police department Twitter feed. Today, the Hartford Police added me as a friend on Facebook. It is great to see them making good use of online media to better get their message out.
They have also recently agreed to start sending their press releases to the CT News Wire, a Google Group that I set up where community spokespeople can send press releases and media advisories to bloggers and citizen journalists. Tools like the CTNewsWire can also help with the repeating of important stories.
All of this brings me back to a discussion on the Journalism That Matters mailing list. Recently, Clyde Bentley, an associate professor in Print and Digital Journalism at the Missouri School of Journalism, and fellow at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute wrote a comment on the list which he expanded into the blog post Journalism’s dreamers must keep their eyes on the statistics. He suggested
The issue here is how to tweak a media system — a massive, interconnected system of information providers, marketers, Main Street merchants, and just plain people.
The Pew Report and the various reactions to this help illustrate Clyde’s comments and I encourage you to go out and read his whole blog post. Newspapers, police Facebook pages, mailing lists and citizen journalism sites are all important parts of the massive interconnected media system. It is a vibrant system that is constantly changing, and those that care about media and democracy need to join together in the efforts to keep tweaking the system so that we do not lose access to important breaking information.
Thoughts?
The Birth of the Woodbridge Citizen
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 01/10/2010 - 10:24For over five years, I’ve been gathering my writings online into the blog Orient Lodge. When I moved to Woodbridge, I started writing about what is going on in town and over the past year, the Woodbridge section of my blog has grown considerably. Yet recently, I received a request that planted the seeds for creating the Woodbridge Citizen. A fellow townsperson asked if she could write an article for my blog about Woodbridge. She pointed out that she was an experienced journalist and that she had valuable insights about what was going on in town beyond what I knew of. Orient Lodge has always been specifically for my writing, but I recognized that she had a point, so I have created The Woodbridge Citizen.
In December, I attended one board meeting in town where a board member offered his opinion to me, starting off with “from one citizen to another” and ending “and you can put that in your blog”. It seems like this is a good tag line for the Woodbridge Citizen. It is intended to be from one citizen to another and to be shared online.
Another person has suggested that the focus should be on Woodbridge residents. It is the residents of Woodbridge that get to vote in local elections. One of the most important goals of the Woodbridge Citizen is to help residents become more informed voters. I struggled with whether the site should be called the Woodbridge Resident. However, I think it is important for the people of Woodbridge to hear the voices of people who are not necessarily residents. Employees that work in Woodbridge should be able to have a voice here. People who have moved out of Woodbridge, but still have family here should have a voice. So, the focus is on providing better information to the residents of Woodbridge, but any citizen of our great country that has some sort of stake in Woodbridge should have the opportunity to make their voice heard.
With that, the initial policy of the Woodbridge Citizen is that for people to write on this site, they must fully identify themselves. This matches requirements for speaking at town meetings and is also based on the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics.
Identify sources whenever feasible. The public is entitled to as much information as possible on sources' reliability.
Always question sources’ motives before promising anonymity. Clarify conditions attached to any promise made in exchange for information. Keep promises.
There are cases where anonymity is necessary, especially in a small town. However, the goal is to keep the unsourced information to a minimum. There is a section on the Contact page where anonymous tips can be provided, and tips will be looked into and written about if appropriate. People wishing to publish their articles on the Woodbridge Citizen are encourage to register, providing full information.
I encourage anyone who considers writing for the Woodbridge Citizen to read through the SPJ Code of Ethics. While I hope that there will be a great volunteer citizen journalism effort here, I hope that it will also be as professional and ethical as possible. I also encourage people who are interested in writing for the Woodbridge Citizen to be acquainted with the basics of laws about online media. There is a great online course about online media law provided for free by News University made possible by the Media Bloggers Association, the Citizen Media Law Project, which is jointly affiliated with Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and the Center for Citizen Media, the City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism and Baruch College, and Media/Professional Insurance.
The goal of this is not to try and recreate traditional journalism online. Writers do not have to write in the AP style. In fact, a more breezy and personal approach is encouraged. Likewise, instead of feigning false objectivity, writers are encouraged to make their opinions known. At the same time, this should be done in civilly as possible. Opinions should be backed up with facts supporting the opinions and they should be expressed without unnecessary vulgarity or personal attacks.
The goal of the Woodbridge Citizen is also to promote a diversity of opinion, so it is my hope that those with opinions different from my own will write articles for the Woodbridge Citizen. For more information on how to get involved, please use the Contact form.
I look forward to an exciting future for the Woodbridge Citizen.
(Cross posted at the Woodbridge Citizen.)
Read Woodbridge Police Department Press Releases Online
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 01/06/2010 - 22:45Woodbridge, CT is a small peaceful New England town. There isn’t normally a lot of news coming out of the local Police Department. However, last month, I was forwarded a press release about some local burglaries so I contacted the Police Department to ask to be put on the Press Release email distribution list. Things move slowly in a small New England town, especially in a state known as the land of steady habits, and I eventually received a response denying my request.
Well, another trait of small New England towns is that their residents can be pretty stubborn and I was not going to take no as an answer. I contacted various people in various media advocacy organizations, and everyone was lining up to support me in whatever efforts would be necessary to obtain fair access to the press releases.
The Woodbridge Police Commission meets on the first Monday of every month and I saw that this month’s agenda included a discussion about press releases. So, I attended and presented my case. In response, the chief of police informed me that Woodbridge Police Press Releases would now be available on the Police Department website and that they would stop mailing the press releases to the commissioners. They would call them instead if there was anything they needed to know.
Sure enough, the website now contains links to six recent press releases. This is a step in the right direction. I did note that I saw no reason to discontinue sending the press releases to the commissioners. In addition, I suggested that the police department might consider using the town’s mailing lists to send press releases to commissioners, members of the press, and any residents of the town that are interested in receiving them.
I believe this would create less of a administrative burden and provide better access than the website does. Instead of having to check regularly for press releases that are few and far between, but should be read as soon as they come up, people could receive them immediately. We shall see if this gets addressed in the future.
I also now note that the press release about the burglaries does not show up on the website. I am hoping this is just a small oversight as they get this process in place. This again illustrates why using the town mailing lists might be more effective.
Even in a small peaceful New England town in the State of Steady Habits, the Internet is bringing change. It is bringing about a more open and transparent government, and in this case new ways in which the Police Department can work more closely with the residents of the town to improve the public safety and keep the town peaceful.
Moving Beyond Blogging
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 01/05/2010 - 16:49It was a little over five years ago that I decided it was time to set up my own website where I could gather the various blog posts I was writing for many different sites online. With that, I started Orient Lodge, a blog to gather all my writings, whether they be about technology, politics, or simply personal items. Over the years I continued to write for many different sites, primarily with a proviso that I could cross post whatever I was writing to Orient Lodge. It has served me well, but it may be time for me to move beyond blogging.
Today, I received a request from a friend to post an article that she wanted to write about Woodbridge on Orient Lodge. My initial reaction was fairly negative. This is my place where I post my writing. True, I’ve been writing a lot more about media and about what is happening in Woodbridge, and even been encouraging people interested in only my Woodbridge writings to visit the Woodbridge section of my blog. Yet still, this is my personal space.
As I thought more about it, I think it may be time to move expand my Woodbridge coverage. So, I am thinking of setting up a local online news site for Woodbridge, CT. I will continue to write my stories about Woodbridge here, and would cross post them to the Woodbridge Online News site. With that, others from Woodbridge would also be welcome to post to the Woodbridge Online News site.
I’m still gathering my thoughts about this. Should it be a completely voluntary ad hoc site? Should it incorporate? For profit? Not for profit? If it is for profit, how would proceeds be distributed to various people that contribute to the site? One idea I’ve kicked around is modeling journalism after volunteer fire departments. The Woodbridge Volunteer Media Department? What do you think? Beyond that, what sort of relationship might it have to other online media sites, either for profit or not for profit sites?
What sort of editorial policy should such a site have? To me, I value a diversity of opinions, provided they are expressed civilly. I suspect a good way to do this is to require people to properly identify themselves as they do at public meetings. Likewise, there should be guidelines discouraging the use of profanity, etc. As a private organization, the issues of free speech become whatever the owners of the organization all on their space.
So, what do you think? Would you be interested in participating? What would you think such a site should look like? Contact me either through comments here, or directly and let’s see what we can put together.
The Year of the QR Code?
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 01/02/2010 - 12:54Some people look at what is and ask why? I prefer to dream of what is not and write blog posts about it.
At a New Year’s party, I was asked if 2010 will be the year that someone finally figures out where the online revenues for local newspapers are going to come from. I certainly hope so. Already there are examples springing up here and there of local papers that are doing well with their online revenues. However, we have a long way to go.
I normally talk about the importance of localization, and perhaps throw in a few comments about the importance of convergence when I talk about the possibilities for online revenues for local newspapers, but before I get to that, I want to talk about one other area that I think is important, that too many people are missing.
At conferences on online publishing, someone always mentions large publishers that are making more money from selling their data than they are from the advertisements they run. Unfortunately, most data purchasers are buying from very large sites; sites with over a million visitors a month. This just doesn’t work for small local newspapers. However, there is great value in the data from these small local newspapers, and I hope someone comes along, figures a way to aggregate some of this data and sell it as a profit both to themselves and the local papers they serve.
Yet in most cases, aggregation seems to drive down the value that local online sites provide. If I’m a small business in a small area, I want my ads, including my online ads, to target people in my area that are most likely to respond to my ads. Ideally, I would like my ads in the local paper to fit nicely with the online ads, and any other advertising that I might do.
It is with this in mind, that I would like propose a couple examples where I think a little innovation might be able to dig up some good value. Hopefully, they will illustrate the ideas of localization and convergence.
Many local papers run special advertising sections for real estate. Next to the picture and description of a house for sale, a QR Code could be added. When a person is reading the real estate advertising section, they could simply scan the QR Code with their cellphone, and it would send a message to the realtor that has placed the ad.
(Scan this code if you want to send me a text message about being interested in a house in my neighborhood that is for sale. I’ll put you in touch with a local realtor.)
It is worth noting while we see a little convergence and localization in this example, it could also be done for a print only publication.
The next example brings the print and the web a little bit closer. A store that has the ability to accept orders online might place an advertisement in the online section of a local newspaper, with a link to the online store. Using QR Codes, the same could be done with a print version, and a print and online ad could run concurrently.
Since I don’t have my own online store, I’ve set up a sample using an Amazon advertisement for the Nokia N900, my current cellphone, which supports QR Code scanning.
Now, to the nitty gritty. It doesn’t take a lot of work to make good QR Codes. For this article, I used the Kaywa QR Code Generator. There are several other good free QR code generators. I’ve chosen to go with QR Codes instead of some of the other 2D bar codes because QR codes seem to be easiest to generate and scannable on the widest set of devices.
It is also worth noting that if you have a good design team, you can make QR codes very fancy, as is noted in an Engadget article about Takashi Murakami and Louis Vuitton QR Codes.
A final concern, QR Codes are not popular yet in the United States. It seems as if there is a little bit of a chicken and egg problem. Advertisers don’t use them because a lot of people don’t use QR Code scanners yet, and a lot of people don’t use QR Code scanners yet because there aren’t a lot of codes to scan yet. However, someone will break this cycle and start doing interesting things with QR Codes and hopefully this article will inspire others to think up new ideas.
A little innovation, like using QR Codes to converge local advertising could be just the ticket to help build online revenues for local newspapers. Now, I just need to find more ways of building revenues for certain bloggers.
