Slashdot Mirror
Is This the Future of News?
WirePosted points us to a story discussing the future of news reporting. For over a year, CNN has been accepting user-generated news stories and posting the best of them for all to see. Earlier this week, CNN handed over the reins of iReport.com, allowing unfiltered and unedited content from anyone who cares to participate, provided it adheres to "established community guidelines". Analysts point to the amateur footage from the Virginia Tech shootings and the Minnesota bridge collapse as an example of the capabilities of distributed reporting. Will this form of user-driven reporting (with which we are well acquainted) come to challenge or supplant traditional new broadcasting?
Dugg this.
... but HELL no.
"Will this form of user-driven reporting (with which we are well acquainted) come to challenge or supplant traditional new broadcasting?"
This can be done for free. That doesn't sell advertising. CNN et al. would never let that happen. Instead they're encapsulating the user generated stuff within their own domain where they can use it to support their ad money generating bread and butter. Not embedding this stuff within their own output would be more of a threat.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
You can put a million monkeys in front of typewriters, but yet AOL is nothing like Shakespeare. Just because Sally Jo Walmart captures something on her cellphone camera, and has the wherewithal to upload it to CNN, doesn't mean that its news, insightful, or "appropriate" to their nebulous guidelines. Nothing shocking or anti-establishment will ever air, nor will anything that scoops CNN itself. Its nice and bloggy and Web-two-oh, but so are Digg and Fark and Slashdot.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
This sounds fairly similar to Newsvine, a site that was launched a few years ago for the purpose of community-driven reporting. Since then, it has been acquired by MSNBC, and several of the more prominent submitters there have either been interviewed or actually done some reporting on MSNBC. Killfile, one of the members there was in or near Blacksburg, VA when the school shootings happened last year. Thanks to his contacts at the school, he was able to post up-to-the-minute reports of exactly what was going on, while the other news outlets were busy trying to get people down there (which takes several hours since it's an out-of-the-way hamlet). His professionalism in that and other instances have made him one of the biggest assets there. Oh yeah, and Newsvine also shares the ad revenue with its submitters, too. It's a great community.
One can only hope that this is the future of news. News nowadays is nothing but pundits and propaganda. Individuals have their opinions too, but they're not professional spin machines. Any bias will probably be much more obvious to people with broken bullshit detectors. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Depending on your political point of view, you might think I'm referring specifically to MSNBC, Fox, or CNN. Fact is, I'm talking about all of them.
Did you read Fark on September 11, 2001?
They were one of few sites with the bandwidth and the eyewitness accounts to accurately describe and present what was going on. I can wait a day or two for analysis -- when something big happens, I'll turn to somewhere like that for immediate presence. It's more annoying to separate the wheat from the chaff, but it's also an experience one doesn't get sitting in front of a TV or reading the sanitized version on the AP.
The pain was excruciating and the scarring is likely permanent, but that just means it's working.
...but with less 'S's.
Well, I suppose that's slightly less lame than having shows where pretty plastic anchorettes read us the blogs.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
When I can a.) call the White House and get a serious answer to a serious question, and b.) when I have a substantial amount of your trust that I'm telling you the truth, then I can do what big media does.
Without those, my story about the alien spacecraft in my backyard is equal to my story about the White House press conference.
The future of news is when we've got clickable video with overlays of commentary from people among our social networks, and from people selected by weightings from our social networks. Centralized TV news "anchors" will be replaced by pros who are the most popular, who we subscribe to.
The "open news content" will come first, but it will suck until our social networks make our filter as easy as flipping to "Cronkite" used to be.
--
make install -not war
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9FaIyc4vpU
>>"unfiltered and unedited content..."
Sounds like Slashdot. Just what I don't want. "Unfiltered and unedited" means writers' mistakes, biases and lies slip through because there's no one in the loop to catch and eliminate them, and the readers won't either. Result: more jabber, less news.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I think it's already happening.
This doesn't mean that news will become inaccurate or drop in quality. People will still want to read edited content produced by intelligent writers and those who provide them will naturally gain prominence and credibility. It's a rather nice change from the past where credibility depends on how much money you have to produce and distribute the content.
Of course, I'm only talking about corporate publications vs. blogs. TV newscast still has requires some infrastructure to support it. That said, I think getting news from linear broadcasting with fixed time slots is silly in the first place, so I don't see why we should create an online replacement for it.
Traditional news media which is based on popularity draw and teh use of reporter dirty tricks to bias and make an ant hill sound like a mountain....
vs.
user reporting that even slashdot has proven to be closer to the truth.
Entertainment value or information value?
The examples of citizen journalism cited (9/11, a bridge collapse) are about eyewitness accounts. Taking a picture of an event you happen to stumble into is hardly journalism.
When it comes to real in-depth news reporting, i-reporting can never, never replace professional news outlets. Solid reporting requires time, know-how, resources and money.
For example, the biggest story of the day is Kosovo declaring independence from Serbia. Tell me how that story can be researched, shot and written and presented by the average person. And for free? Yes, they can get reaction to the story. But putting it in context is entirely different.
There is much bias, sensationalism and broadcast "journalists" who are no more than pretty faces or loudmouth know-it-alls. Still, there are many real reporters out there doing real reporting. We will always need them.
Good or bad? I don't know, but this practice has a name. Use it.
News can do well to be published everyday people like us. We break stories and comment on stuff that's happening out there that ordinary reporters tend to miss. However, many reporters are great writers, that give you the background to the story, as well as what's new happening. And reporters who are also good writers tend to make it easy and a pleasure to read.
Newsfollow.com
The most read news article on that website was "BREAKING NEWS Ketchup... killed by mustard". I this the future of news?
The summary pushes the idea that there is only room for one dominant news system. Why? I think that we could benefit from a healthy mixture of news sources and journalism styles. Both systems have their strengths and weaknesses and when someone takes information from both they get a better rounded idea of what actually happened and how to intrepret it.
http://greenobyl.com/ please.... think of the children!!
I don't know about you, but the thing that bothers me the most is that most news websites allow users to comment and share their opinion with the world. Is reading comments from Roxxorcom23 really news? no, it's annoying and comment sections should be removed from news websites.
I hope this isn't the future of news.
The number of real news reporters keeps dropping. Most stories today, other than those that involve some act of violence or a disaster, originated as a press release or staged media event. Very few reporters are out there digging. Digging takes time and money.
People are getting wise and no longer expect corporate/government news sources to provide them with anything close to the truth. More and more, they are turning to various independent Internet news sources, and make up their own minds about what is credible, and what is not.
News sources such as these: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ http://www.opednews.com/ http://www.electricpolitics.com/ http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
You work, I get paid! Fan-fucking-tastic!
;)
I'd normally add a "zing!" to the end of this post to make it clear it's supposed to be funny, but since this model is actually being exploited... well, it's not funny... just sad.
Fox (save the bashing, it only makes you seem like a brainwashed, meme-spewing twit) is doing the same thing, too. They call it (IIRC) "uReport". So, CNN isn't alone in this.
Here's the deal: if a news outlet wants to profit from your work, demand credit and/or a slice of the pie. Give the bastards nothing for free. Even if Ainsley Earhardt or Molly Henneberg asks real nice, be firm!
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
However some think it is really a memetic engineering project to transform the news industry itself. If you read the content about newswire.pro you would see why, it was desinged to put the ideas in our heads, and guess what what they said is happening.
News Wire.Pro subscriber based transformational news and intelligence streaming for the discerning mind where intelligence gathering professionals and independent citizens interface to infuse the Mind @ Large with News: Event knowledge with complimentary intelligence, insight, commentary, and wisdom.
"an infinite player that has lost his finite mind" ~Infinite Play the Movie (it blends with reality)
Just because a network is willing to review news items from any individual that cares to submit them it doesn't mean that the item is necessarily going to be accepted for broadcast. Networks don't even accept all the pieces from their own journalists, citing time constraints, priority for high-interest items, breaking news, etc. A network will skew their choices of independant submissions as they have always done with journalists - using the same biases and slants they apply now to their professional reporters. What this new approach does is build credibility for the political and social points of view that the network knows are safe and that it wants to promote. The networks' cowardace and self-censorship over broadcasting unpopular information won't be any less with amateur pieces than it is now with professional submissions. The "best of them for all to see" will be the ones that won't cause any backlash to the network from information that their viewers don't want to see. Broadcasting a piece from an amateur creates the impression that "this is what real people know" and reinforces the common knowledge. If you want "unfiltered and unedited content", video has been available on the internet from independant idividuals for some time now, and your as free to watch one clip as you are another without waiting for the cable or satellite sludge pump to send it to you.
"Analysts point to the amateur footage from the Virginia Tech shootings and the Minnesota bridge collapse as an example of the capabilities of distributed reporting"
Yes, but those in possession of that footage sold it for some serious cash. It wasn't posted to a free news site. My point here is that if someone has something valuable to say or show, then its worth payment. If you run a site and expect people to contribute for free, then you are seriously underestimating the competition for news information.
When I first started writing news, for alternative newspapers, I thought it was easy. I knew who the good guys were, and who the bad guys were, and all I had to do was expose them. Just try it. If only it were that easy.
The most important lesson I learned as a real journalist, as distinct from a hippie journalist, is that whenever you attack the bastards, always call them up and give them a chance to respond. Let them defend themselves, and then show how they're lying. Just try it. Every real journalist (Molly Ivins, for one) will tell you all the times they thought they had the guy nailed, but when they called him up, it turned the story completely around.
There was a story on This American Life http://www.thislife.org/ about a kid who was in Europe, and talked his way into a press conference with George H.W. Bush (the father, not the stupid one). Good work so far. Then he got a chance to ask the President of the United States a question on the environment. Bush said that he supported nuclear power because it would do, overall, less harm to the environment. He actually made some good points.
The kid hadn't done his homework. He didn't know how to frame a good question that would pin the bastard down, and he didn't know how to follow it up. He didn't know shit about the environment. Bush had probably answered the same question a dozen times before, knew more about the environment than the kid did, and knew how to give a good answer. TAL played a tape of the press conference, and it was painful for me to listen, because I'd been in that same situation so many times before. (If you want to become a citizen journalist, you can practice getting prepared by looking up that story on the TAL web site. This will give you an idea of how hard it is to do research.)
Look at what I think is one of the best news sources in English: Democracy Now http://www.democracynow.org/ Take a look at this: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/28/the_democrats_suharto_bill_clinton_richard There is no way that any citizen journalist is going to be able to question Richard Holbrooke or Bill Clinton about human rights the way Alan Nairn and Amy Goodman did. Or this http://www.democracynow.org/features They know their facts thorougly.
Who do you want grilling your so-called elected leaders -- Amy Goodman, or some well-intentioned "activist" who doesn't know his facts (like those ringers they have in the audience during the presidential debates)?
I'm not defending the White House press corps either. Sure, the average stoned activist could do a better job than Judy Miller, but that's a pretty low bar.
There is one case where citizen journalists can do a good job, and that's as first-hand eyewitnesses. I remember going to an anti-war demonstration during the '60s, and having the New York City police viciously attack non-violent demonstrators (including me), some of whom had brought their children, and put some of them in the hospital with permanent injuries, for no reason that I could see (or that the City's lawyers could come up with in subsequent lawsuits). Running for safety, I came across a bunch of guys with press badges, huddled safely away from the scene where they couldn't witness the police brutality. On WBAI-FM radio, we heard first-hand accounts of what happened on the scene, which was consistent with what I saw.
Next morning, I picked up the New York Times, and saw a complete propaganda job, quoting only the police and City officials, claiming that the demonstrators had started it, it was the demonstrators' fault, and the cops had behaved with proper restraint. The Times didn'
- I pay attention to article by Rich in the NYT not only because it is
well written and documented, but also because for a long time already, articles
have proven to be accurate and reliable, also after years.
- I don't pay attention to an article of Dvorak on technology mainly
because experience has shown that the predictions were wrong.
Reputation is difficult to gain as "user" or "reader" and therefore, user generated news will always have to be valued less. But it is valuable: for reflecting and discussing news it is good to have access to blogs or discussion forums like slashdot. For finding interesting news, sites like digg are useful. News media already tap the potential today, when readers can contribute video or pictures from cell phones.Still journalism is a serious profession which needs to be learned and earned. It involves researching a subject in depth, looking at it from many angles and comparing many sources. If a subject is more complex, a journalist has to consult with specialists and have contacts with insiders. It needs time to write a good article and it needs time to gain the reputation.
Subscriber based intelligence will be the future not advertiser supported news which is biased and maintains the popular fictions and storyline.
"an infinite player that has lost his finite mind" ~Infinite Play the Movie (it blends with reality)
I rest my case...
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
It's a gargoyle, standing in the dimness next to a shanty. Just in case
he's not already conspicuous enough, he's wearing a suit. Hiro starts
walking toward him.
Gargoyles represent the embarrassing side of the Central Intelligence
Corporation. Instead of using laptops, they wear their computers on their
bodies, broken up into separate modules that hang on the waist, on the back,
on the headset. They serve as human surveillance devices, recording
everything that happens around them. Nothing looks stupider; these getups
are the modern-day equivalent of the slide-rule scabbard or the calculator
pouch on the belt, marking the user as belonging to a class that is at once
above and far below human society. They are a boon to Hiro because they
embody the worst stereotype of the CIC stringer. They draw all of the
attention. The payoff for this self-imposed ostracism is that you can be in
the Metaverse all the time, and gather intelligence all the time.
The CIC brass can't stand these guys because they upload staggering
quantities of useless information to the database, on the off chance that
some of it will eventually be useful. It's like writing down the license
number of every car you see on your way to work each morning, just in case
one of them will be involved in a hit-and-run accident. Even the CIC
database can only hold so much garbage. So, usually, these habitual
gargoyles get kicked out of the CIC before too long.
This guy hasn't been kicked out yet. And to judge from the quality of
his equipment - which is very expensive - he's been at it for a while. So he
must be pretty good.
But that definitely seems to be headed toward zero. Which is kinda the point of this whole thread?
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Hear hear!
What news requires is synthesis, taking information from all around the world, creating context, and informing people of what it all means. User generated news will never be able to compete with someone who is paid to investigate, understand and report professionally.
Unfortunately modern American news (from what I've seen) has completely dropped true synthesis in fear of bias. The false dichotomy of that there are 2 sides to every issue, even factual ones, is what makes news into simple parroting of press releases and dry facts, pushing all synthesis to the realm of punditry, which has no credibility whatsoever.
So while user-generated news is probably rising, and traditional news outlets are probably hurting in a big way lately, I think it's all because the news lost its spine and won't concentrate on what makes news great. A new organization will probably rise over CNN, Fox, MSNBC.....but the AP won't die.
Where's that video clip about Google buying all the news sources, becoming not just the purveyor but the *creator* of all news?
I'm not talking about the "Google Master Plan" video, but another clip that's a few years old by now. Anyone?
"Good news, everyone!"
News competes with reality TV and sitcoms. Thus the dry facts are ditched in favor of "edgy" "newsworthy" stories with more interest value.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Just took a look at iReport.com and saw the following in the "most viewed" category:
BREAKING NEWS: Ketchup
Yuck! The weather here in New York is absolutely *disgusting*
Thursday Lunch Report: Omelete!
Marcus Harun's Situation Room. [Book report done in CNN Situation Room style]
Image. My village pictures
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is sounding more and more like what he said would happen in his book. It's an interesting read.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
I agree, but for some slightly different reasons that I'll get to below.
I agree that the CNN's, MSNBC's, NYT's, et. al are guided in part by the profit motive, but news in and of itself goes far beyond just putting asses in the seats.
The free press, aka the newsmedia, is a *cornerstone* of our country. It is the 4th estate. The newsmedia, at its best, is a check on government power, and the founders of our country understood this, and promoted it.
Now, newsmedia isn't just reporting of facts, it involves editorial decisions. What stories to cover, how to cover them, how long the article should be, who is sent to cover the story, what the headline reads, and where the story is put are all the kind of core decisions that filter the news from a flood of uncategorized facts to a understandable informative piece of journalism. No one has enough time to filter all the day's information for themselves, that's why we have editors.
I am a harsh critic of today's mainstream media, as I imagine you might be. But let's not forget that we need the news done right in order for our country to operate properly. I hate tabloid journalism like Fox News more than most people because I work in the media, and I know how harmful it is for that network to call itself 'news'...it's entertainment, a plastic husk fashioned to resemble true journalism, but inside, instead of facts, there is nothing.
The answer to the question from TFA is definitely 'hell no' partially b/c of the reasons given in your post, but more importantly, because any sort of internet user provided journalism will inevitably need an editorial function for it to be usable.
Thank you Dave Raggett
The Real News might be a glimpse of the future. It carries no advertising and works on a donation basis. Mainstream media outlets really just act as a megaphone for governments and big business. For anyone who is interested in the way news is reported, I would strongly recommend you watch Manufacturing Consent on Youtube (there's a book too).
We live in a time where we have the option to "drink from the firehose", so more attention needs to be paid to these new forms of reporting and perhaps our ability to reason within them outside of the safe arms of reporters.
Crystal Meth: Would you ingest somthing made from a poisonous gas and an explosive metal? You do it every day -- Salt!
This seriously works for commentaries. Al Jazeera International does it since it's start. You can just send your video commentary about any topic to them, and if it's good they will publish it.
And seriously, at the current state of CNNs news coverage, even getting reports about broken pickle jars in supermarkets would be an improvement. I mean they will surely censor out the good stuff anyhow. Stuff that would deserve to be in the media.
lets not forget http://wikinews.org/
MilkMiruku
- alas, anyone can be a journalist today... unlicensed, no ethics, no standards, etc.
- hell, stringers of yesteryear were better than the 'big names' today...
Pattern:
A news item is posted on Slashdot. You read that.
Then you skim the comments, and that's where the real story is revealed. --People chiming in with many different views and arguments, sometimes with a couple of people who are personally connected to some aspect of the information in a way the rest of us are not. The extra links provided by people who are curious or who want to argue the point brings the vast information available on the web into focus.
For instance, when a new computer virus is spotted in the wild, I just skim through the comments here, and within a few minutes, I have a ridiculously solid idea as to what systems are affected, how to protect against it, where it came from, how it will affect the world and generally what is worth paying attention to. People deride Slashdot all the time, but one or two hundred people all networking on an issue is an amazingly powerful force for assimilating and understanding information.
Another example is that undersea cable-cutting story. I know a ton more about what was, and was not going on than I ever would have learned by simply tuning into CNN. The future of journalism isn't about listening to one reporter agency, but rather by participating in a community which collectively draws into itself and cross analyzes all aspects of the available information.
I don't see the big news agencies vanishing any time soon, but the shape of news awareness is seriously changing. --It's happening now, all the time, and anybody who doesn't pay attention is missing out in a big, big way.
-FL
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Is the new motto for cable news. Considering they are being DESTROYED by the faster and more accurate reporting of various blogs no wonder they are trying to get free content from average people.
When I read the question, "is this the future of journalism," I was thinking of something completely different. Most of the discussion here seems to be asking whether citizen journalism is "better" or "worse" than professional journalism. I think anyone would agree that a trained, professional journalist who does his job diligently will be able to do a better job than the average shmoe on the street. I think the real question is, just how many of those professionals are there going to be in the future?
Is this the future of journalism? Sure -- it will be, if the bosses say so (and as other posters have commented, there are only so many bosses these days). If the news media is going to continue the current trends -- where they seem to value sensationalism more than hard news, profitability more than public service, and competition more than competence -- then I see no reason why it shouldn't go this way. Because it's cheaper.
We regularly hear stories about newsrooms laying off reporters. We all assume this is because of the competition with new media, etc. -- newspapers don't make any money anymore. What a lot of people don't realize, however, is that the Los Angeles Times (for example) laid off its news staff despite the fact that it was still turning a profit. News is no longer the standard; the standard is profitability.
So why shouldn't this be the future of news? Get rid of all the reporters. Replace them with "the community." Works for open source, right? If I was the captain of a modern media corporation, free-as-in-beer reporting would sound pretty good to me. Take that, all you nay-sayers! Who needs a newsroom anyway?
Make no mistake, I think citizen journalism is valuable and it has its place, but in its current form it is absolutely no replacement for the "real thing." In other words, I agree wholeheartedly with the parent. I just don't think that's going to stop any of these corporate bean counters from completely dismantling the news business -- illusions of the "Fourth Estate" notwithstanding.
Breakfast served all day!
p> I know that if I were to get video of some incredibly news worth event that there would be no way in h3ll I would be handing it over for free....that's just my cheap-ass though.
The Indymedia network has been around for a good while now (since the WTO protests in seattle) http://www.indymedia.org/ - I'd say if people are going to be doing citizen journalism, they should publish there rather than going and dumping more free content into the hands of the corporate media giants. Some of the regional Indymedia sites have particularly good content, although of course it depends from site to site.
VA Shootings? Governments love dis-armed peasants. It is quite amazing that the drugs that the guy was on was allowed by the FDA.
Yeah, guns aren't allowed, but the drug the guy was on was. Gun Free Victim zones are the easiest target for someone doped up on Prozac.
http://www.infowars.com/?p=288
http://www.infowars.com/?p=293
In 1929 the Soviet Union established gun control. From 1929 to 1953, approximately 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
In 1911, Turkey established gun control. From 1915-1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
Germany established gun control in 1938 and from 1939 to 1945, 13 million Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally ill, and others, who were unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
China established gun control in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
Guatemala established gun control in 1964. From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
Uganda established gun control in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
Cambodia established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, one million "educated" people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
But NOOOO. This is America. It can't happen here. Nothing to see here, move along into your concentration camp.
When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. - Jefferson
Wow, while reading this I just saw an iReport clip on my local ABC affiliate (KABC 7, L.A., 11pm 2/17).
It was footage of some mid-east bombing.
isn't slashdot already like that? anyone can participate sending news/articles. I think, the future trend will be community based news.
qwerty