We've read hundreds of pages this semester on journalism — its history, its successes, its failures and its future. As communicators and as citizens, it is essential that we understand and appreciate this profession and the rights and responsibilities it carries like no other thanks to the First Amendment.
After all the readings and discussions over the semester, I've found little nuggets here and there that I know I will take from the class well into the future. Perhaps one sentence that I think best describes journalism appears early in The Elements of Journalism by Kovach and Rosenstiel. The purpose of journalism, they wrote, "is defined not by technology, nor by journalists or the techniques they employ, but by something more basic: the function news plays in the lives of people."
As naive as it may sound to some or as pretentious as it may sound to others, I think journalism truly is a unique profession. It is a way to serve our communities and our society as a whole that no other profession, industry, business or whatever term one wants to use can. It helps create an informed citizenry so our democracy can function properly. It shines a light on injustices and wrongdoing as well as on good deeds and generosity. It can investigate and educate. It can be a voice on our behalf when we think no one hears us.
Certainly it is not without its problems. Its highs and lows over the decades are documented. It has been used by some as a tool to further an agenda and by others as a cover to engage in unethical or illegal practices. And now it faces another era of change as it adapts to technologies that are shaping it in ways we may not be able to foresee fully.
If as news organizations transform structurally and philosophically, they keep in mind Kovach and Rosenstiel's words — that journalists' ultimate loyalty is to their readers and viewers, and that the role journalism can play in their lives should be its guiding principle — then the decisions they make will be the right ones, even if it takes a while for them to succeed.
Monday, December 8, 2014
Top 20 network TV stories of 2013: Mea culpa, sort of
I have to admit that I rarely watch television news. For one thing, I just don't take the time to sit in front of the TV for half an hour or longer. I also must say that my impression of TV news is, for the most part, like the old beer commercial: tastes great, less filling. There just seems to be a lot of repetition and vacuous fluff that passes for news.
So I was a little surprised, but willing to admit my bias, when I saw this chart on the Pew Research Center website. It lists the top 20 stories covered by ABC, CBS and NBC, rated by the cumulative number of minutes of coverage, for 2013. With the exception of Prince George's birth, I consider everything on the list to be pretty substantive. So kudos to them.
However, the chart does not (and cannot) describe the type of coverage. I still believe that some network coverage of these stories is sensationalized or dumbed down to the lowest common denominator (do the reporters really have to stand out in the hurricane-force wind?). And when you consider that the three networks' newscasts total a little more than 24,000 minutes in a year, these top 20 stories took up only about 17 percent of those minutes. Bring on the fluff.
So I was a little surprised, but willing to admit my bias, when I saw this chart on the Pew Research Center website. It lists the top 20 stories covered by ABC, CBS and NBC, rated by the cumulative number of minutes of coverage, for 2013. With the exception of Prince George's birth, I consider everything on the list to be pretty substantive. So kudos to them.
However, the chart does not (and cannot) describe the type of coverage. I still believe that some network coverage of these stories is sensationalized or dumbed down to the lowest common denominator (do the reporters really have to stand out in the hurricane-force wind?). And when you consider that the three networks' newscasts total a little more than 24,000 minutes in a year, these top 20 stories took up only about 17 percent of those minutes. Bring on the fluff.
...but what kind of news?
Not all news is created equal. The Pew Research Center also has charts that show what kind of news people get through Facebook and what they do with the news they access on social media. The latter shows how much news really has become a two-way conversation with the advent of the Internet and, more particularly, social media.
What we don't see on the Facebook chart is breaking news. Pew says that while other sites like Twitter are all about sharing news as it's happening, Facebook is less so. Perhaps that's at least partly because of the way people generally use Facebook — for entertainment and connecting with friends.
What we don't see on the Facebook chart is breaking news. Pew says that while other sites like Twitter are all about sharing news as it's happening, Facebook is less so. Perhaps that's at least partly because of the way people generally use Facebook — for entertainment and connecting with friends.
Social media as a pathway to news...
We've talked in class this semester about the impact that social media has on news consumption. We also know the importance of visual elements to a story, so here are a couple of charts from the Pew Research Center that demonstrate how people use social media to access news.
What "unbundling" means for news organizations
The New York Times story about Facebook News Feed that I wrote my previous blog post on also mentions the term "unbundling," which we have talked about in class this semester. It's a term used to describe changes occurring in the way a number of professions and industries serve their clients and customers.
As one non-communications example, some attorneys are — within the parameters of their codes of professional conduct — unbundling services in an effort to save clients money (and keep them from using products like LegalZoom). They may represent clients only through specific steps in a court proceeding, for example, or break up what once had been a package of services into smaller, less expensive alternatives.
The Times article cites the changes in the music industry that have occurred over time as comparable to the journalism profession. No longer do consumers have to buy an album or CD to get the one or two songs they like; now they can purchase individual songs online. Likewise, readers and viewers increasingly have less "brand loyalty," opting to go to single stories of interest that they find through their social media feeds or search engines rather than to a specific news source like the Times or NBC News.
As mentioned in the previous post, this puts pressure on both the editorial and business sides of news organizations to rethink how they present their content. The Times story also mentions a move by The Washington Post to look at ways it can deliver "different versions of [its] journalism to different people, based on information about how they have come to an article, which device they are on and even, if it is a phone, which way they are holding it."
The Post's digital editor says more than half of its mobile readers are millennials who get their news online and primarily through social media sites. “We’re asking if there’s a different kind of storytelling, not just an ideal presentation,” the editor said. People reading the paper on a mobile phone during the day may prefer a different kind of "reading experience" than those who are on a laptop at home in the evening, she said, adding that such a change is “ultimately about sustaining our business or growing our audience.”
As one non-communications example, some attorneys are — within the parameters of their codes of professional conduct — unbundling services in an effort to save clients money (and keep them from using products like LegalZoom). They may represent clients only through specific steps in a court proceeding, for example, or break up what once had been a package of services into smaller, less expensive alternatives.
The Times article cites the changes in the music industry that have occurred over time as comparable to the journalism profession. No longer do consumers have to buy an album or CD to get the one or two songs they like; now they can purchase individual songs online. Likewise, readers and viewers increasingly have less "brand loyalty," opting to go to single stories of interest that they find through their social media feeds or search engines rather than to a specific news source like the Times or NBC News.
As mentioned in the previous post, this puts pressure on both the editorial and business sides of news organizations to rethink how they present their content. The Times story also mentions a move by The Washington Post to look at ways it can deliver "different versions of [its] journalism to different people, based on information about how they have come to an article, which device they are on and even, if it is a phone, which way they are holding it."
The Post's digital editor says more than half of its mobile readers are millennials who get their news online and primarily through social media sites. “We’re asking if there’s a different kind of storytelling, not just an ideal presentation,” the editor said. People reading the paper on a mobile phone during the day may prefer a different kind of "reading experience" than those who are on a laptop at home in the evening, she said, adding that such a change is “ultimately about sustaining our business or growing our audience.”
Kudos to big organizations like The Post for looking for every advantage in today's news market, but most smaller news operations don't have those kinds of resources. They must look for other opportunities to reach readers and viewers, such as by offering content — such as local news specific to their communities — that no one else has. That will be difficult in today's age of reduced newsroom staff and smaller news holes.
Facebook's News Feed: "A personalized newspaper"
A personalized newspaper. That's what Greg Marra, an engineer at Facebook, calls the platform's News Feed function in a recent New York Times article. The Times story calls Marra, whose team writes the News Feed algorithms, "one of the most influential people in the news business." There's something you wouldn't have heard a decade ago. (Hmm, will he be a communications pioneer studied by some future Pro Sem class?)
About 30 percent of U.S. adults now get their news through Facebook. "The fortunes of a news site, in short, can rise or fall depending on how it performs on Facebook's News Feed," the story said, adding:
About 30 percent of U.S. adults now get their news through Facebook. "The fortunes of a news site, in short, can rise or fall depending on how it performs on Facebook's News Feed," the story said, adding:
Though other services, like Twitter and Google News, can also exert a large influence, Facebook is at the forefront of a fundamental change in how people consume journalism. Most readers now come to it not through the print editions of newspapers and magazines or their home pages online, but through social media and search engines driven by an algorithm, a mathematical formula that predicts what users might want to read. It is a world of fragments, filtered by code and delivered on demand.One of our primary discussion points this semester has been the development of a new business model(s) by news organizations. This increasing fragmentation of how people get their information means "norgs" must incorporate both editorial and business strategies for bringing readers/viewers — and advertisers — to their websites. "All the news that's fit to print" will take on a new meaning....
Sunday, December 7, 2014
"Old" v. "New"
We have discussed in class and in our blogs about the need for change within news organizations, and in particular those with print publications as their primary outlet for content, to stem the loss of revenue and personnel and make/keep themselves relevant. The clash of "old" versus "new" media has been playing out for the past several years at small community newspapers and international media conglomerates alike.
Last week, one clash at one organization was made very public. More than two dozen staff members at The New Republic, founded 100 years ago and based in Washington, D.C., quit to protest changes at the magazine by its new owner, Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook. Twenty former editors and writers penned an open letter to Hughes lamenting what they call the "destruction" of the magazine. Hughes' plans reportedly include moving it to New York and "rebranding" it as a "digital media company."
"The New Republic cannot be merely a 'brand.' It has never been and cannot be a 'media company' that markets 'content,'" Politico quotes from the letter. "Its essays, criticism, reportage, and poetry are not 'product.' It is not, or not primarily, a business. It is a voice, even a cause. It has lasted through numerous transformations of the 'media landscape' — transformations that, far from rendering its work obsolete, have made that work ever more valuable.
"The New Republic is a kind of public trust," it continued. "That is something all its previous owners and publishers understood and respected. The legacy has now been trashed, the trust violated. It is a sad irony that at this perilous moment, with a reactionary variant of conservatism in the ascendancy, liberalism’s central journal should be scuttled with flagrant and frivolous abandon. The promise of American life has been dealt a lamentable blow."
Without commenting on the virtues (or lack thereof) of Hughes' plans, this goes beyond just some longtime writers unable or unwilling to adapt to changing technologies. Those who signed the letter include Andrew Sullivan, who founded The Daily Dish (one of the first political blogs) in 2000; Sidney Blumenthal, the former Washington bureau chief for Salon.com; and Evan Smith, editor-in-chief and CEO of The Texas Tribune, one of the most successful and acclaimed digital news organizations.
These are not people who are afraid of technology or of change; they embrace it. This is a deep philosophical divide over the meaning and mission of The New Republic. I think this is something many other news operations will face as they rethink their business and editorial models. Hopefully we as readers and viewers and citizens will not be the losers in the end.
Last week, one clash at one organization was made very public. More than two dozen staff members at The New Republic, founded 100 years ago and based in Washington, D.C., quit to protest changes at the magazine by its new owner, Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook. Twenty former editors and writers penned an open letter to Hughes lamenting what they call the "destruction" of the magazine. Hughes' plans reportedly include moving it to New York and "rebranding" it as a "digital media company."
"The New Republic cannot be merely a 'brand.' It has never been and cannot be a 'media company' that markets 'content,'" Politico quotes from the letter. "Its essays, criticism, reportage, and poetry are not 'product.' It is not, or not primarily, a business. It is a voice, even a cause. It has lasted through numerous transformations of the 'media landscape' — transformations that, far from rendering its work obsolete, have made that work ever more valuable.
"The New Republic is a kind of public trust," it continued. "That is something all its previous owners and publishers understood and respected. The legacy has now been trashed, the trust violated. It is a sad irony that at this perilous moment, with a reactionary variant of conservatism in the ascendancy, liberalism’s central journal should be scuttled with flagrant and frivolous abandon. The promise of American life has been dealt a lamentable blow."
Without commenting on the virtues (or lack thereof) of Hughes' plans, this goes beyond just some longtime writers unable or unwilling to adapt to changing technologies. Those who signed the letter include Andrew Sullivan, who founded The Daily Dish (one of the first political blogs) in 2000; Sidney Blumenthal, the former Washington bureau chief for Salon.com; and Evan Smith, editor-in-chief and CEO of The Texas Tribune, one of the most successful and acclaimed digital news organizations.
These are not people who are afraid of technology or of change; they embrace it. This is a deep philosophical divide over the meaning and mission of The New Republic. I think this is something many other news operations will face as they rethink their business and editorial models. Hopefully we as readers and viewers and citizens will not be the losers in the end.
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