The Need for News

A post on Slashdot entitled, "Does Personalized News Lead To Ignorance?" points to a discussion between James Turner and Chris Lee:

I think the really interesting and kind of scary question is so just how much consumption of what we traditionally call news is still a requirement of citizenship [...], of being a productive member of a community.

There are those huge investigative things, but the truth is, with very few exceptions, nobody's doing that today. There are, maybe, the big national news organizations and some of this foundation-funded stuff that's starting. I think the bigger worry is the nuts and bolts. As you know, the meat and potatoes of daily journalism is that you've got to ask six people the same question; you've got to go to a council meeting. People get paid to do it for a reason.

Why is Journalism a Profession?

In Bernard Lunn's recent article, Journalism 2.0: Don't Throw Out the Baby, he described bloggers as "passionate experts first and journalists second."

Lunn then goes on to list the aspects of journalism that he deems important, including a desire for truth, humility, skepticism and independence from commercial interests. His list echoes concepts expressed in the Pew Research Center's Principles of Journalism.

Why aren't journalism principles, which are essentially synonymous with critical thinking, being imbibed by our culture and education system already?

Lunn describes an expert that thinks critically. This implies that experts are qualified to be journalists, i.e., authoritative bloggers. Of course, these experts may have to adjust their presentation to accommodate differences in audiences. Still, experts must apply the same, if not a greater degree of critical thinking as journalists, otherwise they would not be experts.

Which forces me to ask: why is journalism a profession?

Data Mining Rescues Investigative Journalism

Re-posting slashdot's link to Deep Throat Meets Data Mining:

Now, though, the digital revolution that has been undermining in-depth reportage may be ready to give something back, through a new academic and professional discipline known in some quarters as "computational journalism." James Hamilton is director of the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy at Duke University and one of the leaders in the emergent field; just now, he's in the process of filling an endowed chair with a professor who will develop sophisticated computing tools that enhance the capabilities — and, perhaps more important in this economic climate, the efficiency — of journalists and other citizens who are trying to hold public officials and institutions accountable.

Three ideas about online media and journalism

I just had an excellent discussion with Tyler Dukes about online media and journalism. Here are a few significant points that we discussed:

• The most important value that can be added to online publishing is credibility. This especially applies in social networking. Whether or not people follow your website, blog or tweets depends how much they trust you. If you are publishing junk people will pay not attention. So how do we improve our online credibility? One way is to understand our readers. What is relevant to the students, faculty and staff? The web, more than any other medium, provides a way to interact with our audience so we know what is important to them.


• Journalists need to be as tech-savvy as their audience. You will be a better journalist if you are familiar with web/technology trends (and listen to your IT guy's ramblings :p ). Where is our audience going online? We as journalists can't be expected to create social networking sites or online communities, but we need to be aware of where our users are already going online. They are on Facebook, Twitter, iPhones and who knows what else in the future. Go there to deliver news and solicit their input. This also implies that our systems of delivering news must as technologically open as possible. It must be possible to pull content from our site, blogs, etc. to be re-published elsewhere. The places where people are going online changes constantly, and we can't meet this moving benchmark without keeping our systems open.


• There is still no concrete way to monetize online news. At this point, anyone can create content with practically no cost. The media is competing with it's audience and has no control over the technology used to deliver or receive news. Readers are empowered and can receive information piece-by-piece based on their personal interests and contacts. The definition of "mass media" is evolving. It remains to be seen what business model arises from this evolution, but Tyler and I toyed with the idea that the value of news is in its readers. The profiles and personal habits of your readers provides a way to target ads very specifically. The more information you provide in your personal profiles, the more information collected about your browsing and shopping habits, the more valuable you are, and the more coupons you could receive according to your interests (think MVP card at Food Lion). Sound scary? Yes, but it will be much less scary, perhaps natural, to our children and grandchildren.