OJR: The Online Journalism Review
January 27, 2012
By Steve Fox
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A couple of weeks ago I was at a hockey game with my son. During the game, as I absentmindedly checked emails on my phone, I saw a Twitter note from an alumni of the UMass program saying "Look at what this person is saying about you!" Without thinking, I clicked on the link....and instantly kicked myself for doing so, as the link spawned a Twitter spam, sending the virus to hundreds of my Twitter followers. It was the first time for me, but definitely reminded me about the power of social media. I heard from friends, colleagues and students about the spam, and ended up apologizing more than once for not following my own advice to students: Think Before You Click!
The social media dustup surrounding the early and inaccurate reports of Joe Paterno's death once again brought to the forefront how the rapid nature of social media can lead to bad journalism. It was deja vu all over again: A year ago NPR mistakenly reported that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords had died after being shot in the head.
Why do journalists keep botching the facts on Twitter?
I posed a question along these lines on the Social Journalism Educators group on Facebook and received some of the requisite "it's not Twitter's fault;" and Twitter is "only" an amplification device. As much as I love most of what Matthew Ingram writes, his post on the Paterno screw-up being another example of "news as a process" worries me. Defenders of the social media realm rarely seem to want to get at why these massive ethical lapses continue to occur on Twitter. And I just won't buy the idea that "this is the way it is" or "letting everyone know you made a mistake is great for transparent journalism."
Don't get me wrong, I love the many benefits of social media and I teach about its journalistic value. But I also feel that we all need to begin practicing "safe social media" practices to protect us all.
After the Giffords debacle, Alicia Shepard, the former ombudsman for NPR, wrote a column about the need for journalists to re-learn the lesson of checking sources. And she counters the shrugs inherent in many comments from social media defenders by reminding us all why it's important to get it right, even if it's not first: "...To report a death, incorrectly, is a serious, serious error and may have caused untold grief and pain for many who know Giffords." Journalism is about process but the process is to get the correct information out, not to throw spaghetti against the wall, see what sticks and sort it all out later.
So, what to do?
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More about: ethics, reporting, social media
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January 25, 2012
By Robert Niles
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So, is Apple's new iBooks Author the solution for journalists looking for a simpler way to get into the eBooks market?Nope, not even close.
Oh…kay, so is Apple's new iBooks Author at least another option for writers looking to pick up some extra money writing eBooks?
Sure.
Apple released its new eBook production tool last week, coupled with an upgrade to its iBooks app. Apple's trying to get into the textbook market, positioning its iPad as an electronic textbook reader. But to do that, Apple needs an ongoing supply of eBook textbooks. The company's signed deals with some textbook publishers, but it's also offering the iBooks Author tool to encourage more people to create texts, as well.
The iBooks Author app's gotten plenty of attention since its release for its user license restriction that any book created with it can only be sold through the iBookstore. No Amazon. No Barnes and Noble. While iBooks Author can export files as a PDF, it won't generate the ePub file needed for best results in publishing eBooks through those and other online vendors.
That alone disqualifies the iBooks Author app as a serious option for any journalist looking for a single eBook creation solution. Better to continue creating an HTML file using your favorite editor, then running that file through Calibre to generate your ePub, which you can submit to Amazon, BN.com... and the iBookstore. The iBooks Author app also requires that you be running Mac OS Lion - it won't download to Macs running Snow Leopard or earlier versions of the Mac OS. And if you're using Windows? Fuggedaboutit.
But if you do have Lion, creating a book through iBooks Author and selling it exclusively through Apple is better than not making or selling eBooks at all.
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More about: ebooks, entrepreneurial journalism
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January 20, 2012
By Ying Zhang
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American journalism today is in crisis because it has not adapted financially to digital media, yet I believe we could turn this crisis into an opportunity to make significant improvements in the industry. Journalists and entrepreneurs are searching for business models that would generate revenue to help support high-quality digital media. No matter what forms they take, the newly emerged media products always should be consumer oriented. That is, the products should either meet new, unsatisfied consumer demands, or help reduce the costs of existing products or services in the market. Specially designed online educational clubs could help provide a new and effective alternative for which many consumers would be willing to pay. There is great social value in these clubs that would help draw support from outside the journalism field as well. The project could be implemented in three steps.
First: Foreign Language Enhancement
Journalists should start by investigating ways to combine traditional studies of foreign language with news delivery to make the learning process more interesting and cost-effective. The project is meant to establish an online portal for interested consumers to learn about different cultures, languages, and international news of current relevance. This site could also be used as a complementary tool for international affairs, world geography, or other international fields of study. An emphasis on music, video, and other modern multi-media technologies would help make the learning process more interesting and diversified.
The goal at this stage is to attract paid institutional group subscriptions. These, in turn, may help attract individual and business subscriptions. Paying small fees for an online collection of existing news stories and documentations would likely help reduce the cost of labor-intensive teaching methods. In addition to accurate, in-depth, and up-to-date foreign news stories, current computer technologies would allow student consumers at different learning levels or with different career focuses to practice particular languages of their choice. The clubs also would focus on learning a language as a way to learn the values and wisdom of different cultures, to learn how other peoples make their decisions and live their lives, and to learn how they solve their problems. Therefore, these bilingual clubs potentially would provide attractive learning tools for many consumers.
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More about: entrepreneurial journalism, journalism education
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January 17, 2012
By Brian McDermott
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At first, Brittany Cantarella had no idea the man she accidentally swiped with her Chevrolet was named Lord Jesus Christ. But within two days, the minor traffic incident
had gone viral. Reporters snatched the then 20-year-old's Facebook profile picture and left messages on her grandmother's answering machine. "It's the girl that hit Jesus!" a man in Stop & Shop yelled.
"I wanted to hide, I wanted to run, I wanted to go far away," Cantarella said.
Two months later, she was willing to talk to me about the accident at a coffee shop in western Massachusetts. She was resolute, though, that I not take her picture or shoot video. That's because Cantarella's experience with viral fame made her wary of having her image wedded to a traffic accident that would never go away online.
This small anecdote is part of a new media conundrum dogging the relationship between visual journalists and their subjects: most people happily publish their own picture online, but a growing number of them are becoming wary of having their image captured by visual journalists.
With facial recognition software becoming commercially available in the past few years, new technologies could further reshuffle the relationship between a subject and a visual journalist.
Ed Kashi is a renowned photojournalist who has spent the past 30 years shooting for National Geographic, the VII Photo Agency and dozens of other outlets. And, he told me in an email interview, he's noticed individuals and organizations becoming more reluctant to allow visual access.
"There is more wariness and a desire to have more control over access and what you are allowed to show," he said. "In some cases and with certain subjects, this new paradigm presents a dilemma and can halt worthy work."
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More about: ethics, photojournalism, reporting
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January 12, 2012
By Robert Niles
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Charles Bronson stars in...
Photo by Fish Cop at en.wikipediaTruth Vigilante
From IMDB*: "A New York Times reporter becomes a one-man vigilante squad after his story is murdered by copy editors, in which he randomly goes out and kills would-be journalists in the mean streets after dark."
(*Not really)
C'mon. If we're going to be truth vigilantes now, let's take a lesson from the star of "Death Wish" and do it right, okay? Maybe more people would buy newspapers if we juiced 'em up with some staff-on-source (or even staff-on-staff!) violence. Why should rap stars get all the good beefs?
Reporter is such a passive term. Weak. Wimpy.
Vigilante? Now, that's a word that'll sell papers!
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More about: ethics, reporting
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