Patch is the news industry's problem, not its solution

July 1, 2011 By 9 Comments

Jack Shafer’s right: hyperlocal efforts are “a complete waste of time and resources” as he suggested this week in Slate.

Shafer missed one crucial qualifier in his hypothesis, though. Hyperlocal’s a waste of time and money for national corporations. What’s happening in the news industry today is not the Internet destroying the news industry by spreading free content. It’s the Internet destroying the national news chain by eliminating of the traditional economies of scale for the news industry.

Shafer bases his arguments on continued criticisms of AOL’s Patch.com network. Hey, I teed off on Patch nearly a year ago, so I share the skepticism. But Shafer errs in not even mentioning locally-owned and operated hyperlocal news sites, much less contrasting them with the top-down, corporate-driven AOL/Patch model for hyperlocal coverage.

In Shafer’s piece, the alternative to Patch are sites such as Facebook, social networks where residents in a community can get what Shafer calls “social news” about their “interests,” as opposed to “hyperlocal news”: “the starving-artists exhibition at the farmer’s market, increasing parking-meter rates, the city budget, local real estate prices.”

But there’s an alternative to corporate news chains and corporate social networks: homegrown news communities run by local journalists. That’s a model we’re encouraging by training dozens of journalist/entrepreneurs in our annual KDMC News Entrepreneur Boot Camps. Freed from the burden of paying for a national management team and Wall Street expectations, local journalists can make hyperlocal pay in ways that big companies such as AOL simply can’t.

National news chains arose because the barriers of entry to printing, promoting and distributing a newspaper were so high. You needed printing presses, trucks, a telemarketing team, and an advertising and promotions budget. Oh yeah, you needed content, too, which meant hiring reporters and paying syndication fees for state, national and international news and features.

Corporations brought a load of capital to the table, and could leverage economies of scale in the purchase of newsprint, equipment and syndication deals. The could employ national sales staffs to sell ads across communities to regional and national chain retailers. And they could centralize telemarketing, IT support and even newspaper (and later website) design.

Over time, more and more locally owned papers sold out to the chains, as the chains amassed vast fortunes to buy out family-owned papers where the next generation decided to cash in rather than fight on alone in a consolidating industry.

But in the late 1990s, the Internet blew all those advantages away. One journalist could publish to an entire community, or the entire world, without having to pay for presses, trucks or newsprint. One journalist could link to all the state, national and international news and features his or her readers wanted, without having to pay for expensive syndication rights. One journalist could leverage social networks (even before Facebook and Twitter) to publicize his or her work, without having to pay for advertising or a promotion team. Open source and online instant publishing solutions allowed that individual journalist to create and manage interactive news without having to pay for huge IT and design teams. And national ad networks such as Google’s AdSense gave independent publishers who were savvy enough to make that system work access to lucrative national ad buys.

So corporate news chains have lost all the economies of scale that allowed them to pay for ever-more-expensive multiple layers of management, multi-million-dollar executive bonuses and Wall Street dividends and profit growth.

Is it any wonder then, why corporate news is struggling? Patch.com isn’t the solution to the industry’s problems. It’s the manifestation of the industry’s problem – a top-down approach to an industry that now economically favors the bottom-up.

If the FCC wants to save local journalism, it ought to be pushing the Department of Justice and the Commerce Department to encourage news chains to break up and sell their publications to local owners.

And online journalists who want to stay in the business for the long haul ought to say no to Patch’s temporary lifeline of a few months’ paychecks and instead develop the entrepreneurial and publishing skills necessary to launch, grow and sustain an online news community.

We’ll talk more about those skills over the next weeks.

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POLIS LSE Media & Power Conference: Journalists working with audiences

June 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Last Friday, more than 500 academics, journalists, managers and consultants attempted to take another look at the role of media today at the 2nd POLIS Journalism Conference at the London School of Economics (LSE). The panelists and participants aimed to answer the following questions: “who holds the media power,” “who are and where are the new watchdogs,” “what do we need to know about this new information society?” By asking these questions, the panelists and conference organizers cemented the idea that journalism has gone beyond citizen-journalism and that it is now time for a new media configuration to be acknowledged.

#POLIS11
Helen Boaden, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) News Director kicked-off the conference ball with an interpellant speech where she reminded the participants that journalists need to be held accountable. Although she emphasized the role of traditional news values in today’s journalism, such as accountability, impartiality and fairness – values highly associated with the BBC – she ended the speech by calling for the importance of using new technologies for better journalism. Her speech set the tone for the rest of the conference.

Unlike the BBC Social Media Summit (#bbcsms) earlier this month, where participants and speakers were deeply enthusiastic about the use of social media in journalism, POLIS’ speakers took a more guarded approach towards the issues surrounding it. Bill Neely International Editor for ITV News, produced by ITN, said: “I don’t like the expression ‘citizen journalists.’ They give information but they don’t analyze and they don’t balance”. A big trend is that traditional media, who are concentrated on their product, are unaware or in slight denial of the serious transformations that are happening.

NEW ACTORS
During and following the session titled ‘After the WikiLeaks’, panelist Alisson Powell, Fellow at the LSE, blogged: “It is clear that systems of power and influence are changing. It is also clear that states and corporations will continue to have power but will exercise it in different ways in a networked world. Similarly, resistance will operate differently; exploiting the features of the network.”

Wikileaks’ panel participant Angela Philips from Goldsmith University added: “putting stuff online does mean that you find or interpret it (…) journalists have to keep an eye on democracy”. She meant that eyewitness accounts – such as picking up the phone and meeting sources – remained key to the role of journalists to bare democracy.

One of the most interesting and robust panels of the conference tackled ‘Media and Revolutions’ and generated excellent feedback from the audience. The session emphasized the role of citizen and journalist during revolutions. Alan Fisher, correspondent for Al-Jazeera, said that “social media is an echo chamber and not the cause of the Arab Spring”. This argument was backed up by most of the panelists. Bill Neely said “the revolution was driven by the power of the idea not the social media. We have to temper our feelings of a Facebook revolution, though it accelerated it.” Hosam El Sokkari, Head of Audiences for Yahoo! Middle East – and formerly from the BBC, added “social media will prevail, but social media is not the idea.”

The conference continued in the afternoon with an interesting panel entitled “Has The Press Lost Power?” The panel was filled with newspaper gurus. I would agree with Jeff Jarvis from City University of New York, who was critical of one of the Davos summit media panel that has a similar label. The question in today’s journalism is not whether or not we should save the press. The press and the number of newspapers’ sold have been in decline and this will persist; or we have no proof yet that this scenario is untrue. The future of journalism lies more in who will stand out and which successful strategies will prevail.

The conversation during the newspaper panel was colored by a back-and-forward between members of the press and online publishers discussing the power of the press in the United Kingdom. The Huffington Post, it was argued, is not that influential in the United Kingdom because the British press is very competitive. The difference between the United States’ commercial model, where the press used to have local monopolies, and UK public service broadcasting model was emphasized. Meanwhile, in another panel George Brock reminded the audience that each media in each culture has its context. We should not analyze media in a bundle, he cleverly stated.

THE LINE OF VERIFICATION
Verification is at the heart of the conversations on the future of journalism. It is at the heart of what journalists do, said George Brock from City University London’s School of Journalism during the Wikileaks panel. There is a strong wind coming from traditional media organizations who are realizing that their role in the new media ecology is to be the ones who are able verify to make sense of what is often perceived as “the noise” in the World Wide Web.

Approaches to how to tackle this issue are still new. Some like Andy Carvin, who leads NPR’s social media strategy – and not present at the conference – rely heavily on user-generated content to cover breaking news stories while others might suggest to use traditional journalistic methods, like picking up the phone, to verify the content. The BBC, for instance, has a user-generated hub in the middle of their multimedia newsroom who is dedicated to verify, through multiple methods, the content that is generated by the users. Yet, there is not really one method that prevails more than another one.

JOURNALISM, POWER & DEMOCRACY
This conference proved again that traditional media is still hesitant to abandon its conventional practices. However, the level of openness to new media is at the highest that it has ever been and lies in the future of journalism, as Boaden suggested shyly at the end of her opening speech supporting the use of social media in journalism.

This conference has demonstrated a real shift in the debate. We don’t speak anymore about the validity of citizen-driven journalism but we finally accept that new actors are in the pool. The power has now shifted, but it is uncertain as to who holds it. We live in a network society and it is important to understand network power, said Alisson Powell from the LSE. Now, the question is how journalists deal with it: what are the best practices and experiences, and in what contexts? This question was not really answered during the conference. More thinking about journalism models needs to be done in this transitional period. But there is hope.

More information on the panels’ discussions to be found here.

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In 'The Stream' with Al Jazeera English's social media news show

May 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment

For most of us, there is no doubt that social media has lead to significant shifts in our culture, including journalism. For this week’s post, I spoke with Senior Producer Andrew Fitzgerald and Co-Host/Digital Producer Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, two of the journalists behind a new social media-driven show on Al Jazeera English.

NOTE: Based in D.C., they both met me on a collaborative document, each on their own computer. You can playback the unedited conversation here.

Ahmed and Andrew, thank you both for taking the time to chat with me about your newest project. In fact, first let me congratulate you on the launch of The Stream, which officially aired Monday (5/2/11). For folks that have not yet heard of the show, please take a moment to describe the project.

Senior Producer Andrew Fitzgerald, left, Co-Host/Digital Producer Ahmed Shihab-EldinFitzgerald: Thanks so much for inviting us to chat about it! So The Stream is a television show and online community on Al Jazeera English. We’re telling stories from around the world that are driven by and often about social media. The site compiles information from around the globe by working with our audience and then the television show is the place where we talk about those stories, bring in people (via Skype) who are involved in them, and also allow our audience a chance to be part of the discussion.

Shihab-Eldin: Thanks, we are joking here because I always feel a need to add something – and in this case just wanted to emphasize that this was conceptualized well before the Tunisian Uprising and as it has evolved, we have realized we were right to rely to a large extent on our community/audience, both online, and on TV, and across the world to inform our editorial approach.

That was one of my next questions… can you talk about how the show came about? Was this before or after the recent uprisings… obviously before. How did this interesting TV show happen? And how did you get involved?

Shihab-Eldin: The show is a product of the reality the media industry is facing, and governments for that matter, which is that conversations are happening online, across borders, across social classes, and across communities. And as we saw in the Arab world, they are powerful and have the potential to mobilize, unite and challenge – not only governments – but the collective Arab psyche and how they see their identity.

I got involved in the project because I used to work in Doha at Al Jazeera English and have a background in New Media. When I graduated from Columbia University, the mainstream media had yet to witness or recognize the true power of these tools. Since then, I’ve worked in Doha with Al Jazeera as an online journalist, but then also at the Doha Film Institute and helped launch the online and social media efforts of the organization. There I worked with a man named Stephen Phelps who was brought in to essentially take the concept of The Stream and implement it. I’ve always championed the potential power of social networking for media innovation, for the development and progress in the Arab world, and so, perhaps it was a natural fit!

Fitzgerald: My background is in participatory journalism; my last big project was working at Current TV in San Francisco where, among other things, I managed the citizen journalism program. I had my “Al Jazeera” moment like everyone else in the US on January 25, when I tuned into CNN to see what was happening on the streets of Egypt and saw a segment on Charlie Sheen. Twitter set me straight: “Go live stream Al Jazeera!”

I’d heard Al Jazeera was developing a new social media-driven show and, especially after the Egypt coverage, was very eager to see if there might be a way for me to help out. Lucky for me (also in a conversation with Stephen Phelps) it was a good time for me to come in and lend my expertise. My hope, really, is that this show is and continues to be a real leader in how to produce truly interactive television journalism, and I’m trying to bring all the best lessons I’ve learned to bear in that aim.

What is the goal/vision for the show? Both in journalism, in the Arab community and for Al Jazeera network?

Shihab-Eldin: The general idea is to give voice to the voiceless – specifically those who live in countries where civic engagement is not tolerated, but suppressed – and give them a voice. We do not want to reinvent the wheel. While we want to build a community (both online and through TV and eventually merge the two), in order to do that, we must tap into communities that already exist where conversations are already taking place. We also are hoping to pass on the airwaves to a new generation. Fifty percent of the world is under 30. Almost 70 percent of the Arab world is under 30. We deserve our moment – and the converged platform of The Stream is just one part of it.

We do not want to appear to be telling audiences or the community what is worth discussing, we want to invite and engage people who already have a nuanced understanding of their particular corner of the world (or community) and allow them to drive the narrative. Often times they are far more knowledgable on the “real issues” so to speak, than the mainstream media or than they get credit for.

Having this show launching on AJE, rather than CNN, means something, no? How does the network effect the show… or empower it? Or is the network not a factor? Could this show work on another network? What would the differences be?

Fitzgerald: The network is absolutely a factor – in the sense that Ahmed mentioned above: this idea of “the voice of the voiceless.” What makes this a show on Al Jazeera English and not a show on another network is our aim to find the voices that aren’t being heard. It’s a truly global show for a truly global network. We work hard to find stories that really reflect that. Keep in mind – Al Jazeera English has a much, much bigger audience in, say, sub-Saharan Africa than the US. That’s one big difference between this show on this network versus, say, CNN.

Another difference is that the show has the space to be serious. We’re covering important topics and taking the time to air them out. If this was a show (like many similar shows that have attempted in the recent past or will be in the near future) on a US-based network, it would struggle to not treat social media as ‘funny cat videos’.

Shihab-Eldin: Hillary Clinton answered your question when she pointed out that “You might not agree with it, but you feel like you’re getting real news around the clock instead of a million commercials and, you know, arguments between talking heads… which is not particularly informative to us, let alone foreigners.” Al Jazeera gives you global news in real time.

What Al Jazeera also seems to be doing is experimenting and embracing technology, including social media. Why is it that your network “gets it” while other news outlets struggle to genuinely embrace Web and tech culture? What’s the secret?! Or am I, and others, projecting?

Fitzgerald: Haha, no secret I’ve seen since I’ve come on board. I think it might partially be a little projection (which I too am guilty of) because Al Jazeera is doing what feels like serious, high-quality journalism. In terms of techniques, I don’t know that the network has any big secrets that no one else has up their sleeve.

I will say, about The Stream in particular, what makes this show different is that it feels like the experience of being on the Web. There is no giant touch-wall, we don’t have crazy animations. We are individuals who use the Web like anyone else and the show is a reflection of that experience. It’s more true-to-life, I think that’s something that has been lacking in television news treatments of social media.

Shihab-Eldin: I would say it is difficult to “get” something that is constantly evolving, so to even claim that we “get” social media in its entirety may be a stretch. But I think The Stream is simply applying the same editorial judgements that Al Jazeera uses which is not to focus on being “flashy” or “objective” – which I think the US mainstream media is so focused on. I don’t know what “objectivity” is really. It seems contrived to me. We focus on the story and how we understand it given our perspective and facts and the context we can provide. Al Jazeera’s New Media team has always been looking for ways in which to use technology and social media to achieve a function rather than a form. It isn’t about the polish but about the product and why you are using this medium and what the real power of these tools are with regards to producing, sharing, or highlighting important information, quickly.

I’ve crowdsourced a couple questions, which I’ll sprinkle throughout… @NSlayton asks about your editorial selection: What editorial outlook goes into picking stories? It there newsworthiness vs. popularity of a story?

Fitzgerald: Great question. It is, like most editorial decisions, an ever-changing mix of all that and much more. We’re not covering day-of news as much (the network has an excellent News department that covers day-of incredibly well) so newsworthiness is a looser definition as we use it. It’s a mix of if this story resonates (or will resonate) within social media, if it’s a story that hasn’t been particularly well-covered and if it hews to the network’s greater editorial strategy mentioned above.

Shihab-Eldin: Andrew is right. We rely on what people are talking about, but more importantly what they are saying. Popularity, to me, is pretty insignificant, because chances are if something is popular it is popular because it is relevant or “newsworthy” – otherwise we wouldn’t cover it. This fits within Al Jazeera’s aim of offering a different perspective and balancing the news climate with stories from the global south.

Okay, you’re going to have to excuse me… but haters gonna hate… and there are plenty of haters for social media, participatory journalism, citizen journalism. How do you respond to those “traditional” journalists that think this is undermining journalism… or Journalism? Or has the recent uprising changed the conversation, proving the value?

Shihab-Eldin: Yes, there are lots of haters. A black man being elected president is a big change – and a lot of people hated that. But it was natural progress in the context of America’s history and maturity and although it can be uncomfortable, to hate what is organically changing is not particularly constructive.

On the issue of “traditional” journalists thinking this undermine’s journalism, they will come around. I’m 26. I’ve been lucky to grow up using these tools and so inherently understood their power. I graduated from Columbia University in 2007 when the New Media/Digital program was essentially the joke of the school and the smallest program. I then got hired at PBS and The New York Times largely due to my new media savvy, when some colleagues in Print or Broadcast were struggling to find jobs. I met some “haters” there but usually people hate when they don’t understand something. For those who are still not convinced, I would ask them what is journalism? I doubt we have the same definition. Mine tends to be broad and inclusive, if that makes sense.

Fitzgerald: I’ve done a lot of thinking about this over the last few years. I mean I started working on citizen journalism when people (business people, largely) really thought it would be a replacement for traditional journalism. I think the lesson we’ve learned in the last few years, and are continuing to learn as we go, is that citizen journalism/social media/participatory journalism – all of these are tools for journalists to add to their toolkits.

How did you two get into social media… were you early adopters? What was your “ah ha” moment that made you realize this was not a gimmick, but a powerful shift in how we could practice journalism?

Shihab-Eldin: I’ve always been into social media. I was using ICQ before I hit puberty to connect with friends around the world while living in Egypt. There is so much that the social media community can learn from the journalism community and vice versa, although now, thankfully the lines are blurred, and it is all part of one larger community, which in essence is part of what The Stream is trying to accomplish.

Fitzgerald: Haha I have a very simple answer to this question: I live in San Francisco. It’s unavoidable!

Ha! I went to university in The City and know what you mean. But I was, admittedly, also a tech nerd/geek.

Fitzgerald: As to the second part of the question – I had a long series of a ha! moments at Current TV because we did so many experiments in the intersection of social media and journalism. I decided to work in citizen journalism after we pulled in a video from a Louisiana resident who, immediately after Katrina, shot a video of himself going into New Orleans in a flat-bottomed boat. And of course, Current Hacks the Debate – which was (I’m pretty sure) the first-ever live TV Twitter integration (the brainchild of Chloe Sladden (among a few others), who is now at Twitter).

Shihab-Eldin: I was born in Berkeley, so maybe it has always been in my blood ;)

Nice… so here is another crowdsourced question. This one is from @Bradleybowman who asked two questions: Whats the biz model given no commercials? Who embraced or thought up concept?

Fitzgerald: I don’t know that either of us are particularly well-suited to discuss the greater business model question for the network at large – but yes, no commercials and no Web ads.

Shihab-Eldin: Andrew is right, however what I can say is that we are funded by the State of Qatar and the government values what Al Jazeera is accomplishing so much that it is one of the nation’s primary objectives to fund the network as part of a larger mission of developing Qatar and the Arab world. The Emir speaks on this often.

As we talk/type, you have just completed episode 2 — not counting the test shows leading up to Monday’s launch — and, granted, it’s still early… but what has the reaction been so far? Any surprises along the way in launching?

Fitzgerald: We’ve been really pleased with the reaction so far! A couple of great reviews out there in the blogosphere on our pilot weeks. People seem to be responding to the authenticity of the way the show deals with the Web. That’s been nice to see – affirming our suspicions on that front. (We’re trying to think of any funny anecdotes for you).

Shihab-Eldin: I will admit something (fully acknowledging that there are haters out there). What was surprising to me was in fact the general reactions I’ve received so far, not just in the media, but by friends and colleagues who are extremely critical and skeptical of the ability to truly converge the Web and social media with television. There has been a resounding sense that we are on to something truly innovative and I think in a few months, the show will look quite different than it does right now – that is both the most exciting part and the most frightening. Even my mom loves it. That may have been the biggest surprise as she usually dismisses these “technological tools” as “a waste of time”.

Ha! Final question, one that I like to ask journalists I get the privilege to interview… With these “tough” and “challenging” times, what keeps you going? Why are you a journalist?

Fitzgerald: It’s an important time to be telling stories. That’s what I believe. Our world is changing at a pace that’s arguably unprecedented. For me, for us, our field is also changing at an unprecedented pace. The way we tell stories continues to shift and grow. I find that really exciting. What we’re doing today could be entirely different from what we’re doing in five years. In two years, even. (Two months…hah!) As tough and challenging as these times may be, I think it’s a really exciting time to be a journalist.

Shihab-Eldin: I must be a journalist because when my family and I found ourselves in refuge in Berkeley, California during the first gulf war – unable to return to Kuwait – a local TV station came to our house to do a story about us and asked me all about my family back in Kuwait (I was 7 at the time) and asked after my grandmother in particular. I remember being fascinated and intrigued by her interest. Why did she care? Did she care? I think that is what it all comes down to – connecting with either the plight or the accomplishments or the challenges of other humans around the world – that may sound cheesy – but it is what makes me tick.

Well gentlemen, thank you again for taking the time to chat with me… and much success to the new project.

Robert Hernandez is a Web Journalism professor at USC Annenberg and co-creator of #wjchat, a weekly chat for Web Journalists held on Twitter. You can contact him by e-mail (r.hernandez@usc.edu) or through Twitter (@webjournalist). Yes, he’s a tech/journo geek.

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