Innovative journalism in a digital world

One of the wonders of digital media is its potential to change the way we share information.  For journalists and educators, it's opening up a whole range of interesting possibilities.

A good example is The Guardian newspaper's interactive timeline of the Arab Spring uprisings. The Guardian's detailed graphic tracks events in seventeen North African and Middle Eastern countries, from Algeria to Yemen, along a timeline that began on January 9, 2011, with the first protests in Tunisia. Each country is listed on the bottom of the graph, with a a path moving forward toward the horizon. The "map" has roll-over icons of different colours representing different types of events: protests,  political moves, regime change, and international or external responses.  A  slider device allows you to move forward and backward in time by clicking on it and moving your mouse up or down. Links are supplied to newspaper articles. It's an ingenious, comprehensive tool that has attracted the attention of web surfers.  You can see it here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2011/mar/22/middle-east-protest-interactive-timeline


Another innovative site is the online home of the Sunlight Foundation, a non-profit, non-partisan group that uses the internet to push for government transparency. It does so by bringing together some impressive data-management tools.  One example is "Poligraft," which scours an article or a web site for information related to points of influence connecting key people featured in a story.  The article is presented on the left side of the page, while the data filter presents a report in a companion column to the right. It shows, for example, aggregated financial contributions by associations to a particular cause or their support for particular politicians.  I tested it by pasting the web address of a Globe and Mail newspaper article about two Toyota plants in Canada. In seconds the right hand column produced a report that highlighted references to General Motors and Chrysler and outlined their relative contributions to the American Democratic and Republican parties in pie chart form.

The Sunlight Foundation shows you how the tool works here:

http://poligraft.com/vyJf

Another innovator is Common Craft, a company founded by a Seattle-area couple.  Common Craft presents complex ideas in easy-to-understand cartoon videos.  Here's an example that explains how the U.S. presidential elections work:

http://www.commoncraft.com/election

Designer Jonathan Jarvis shows another fine use of internet video in explaining the U.S. credit crisis. It was part of his thesis for the Media Design Program at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

http://vimeo.com/3261363

These innovators show us the great possibilities for digital media and global networks to provide a better understanding of complex issues and the easy dissemination of public information. What a wonderful time it is to be journalist or an educator...

"The best obtainable version of the truth"

For those embarking on a journalism career, certain iconic figures stand out as role models.

Probably the most famous are Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the Washington Post reporters who won the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for their investigative work on the break-in at the Watergate hotel and office building, a story that followed a money trail and unveiled a cover-up that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

Since then, both Woodward and Bernstein have gone on to write numerous best sellers. Bernstein is also a contributing editor to Vanity Fair magazine. Recently, Bernstein was invited to speak at a public forum on journalism in Rome, a city he knows well from his days researching a book on Pope John Paul II.

During the forum, Bernstein said some things about journalism which provide a unique insight into the passion with which he has embraced his profession. His remarks offer useful lessons for those who are considering a career in the media, and also for consumers.

Talking about the shift of journalism from older models of media to the newer forms of communication, Bernstein reflected on the need to bring over the best of the old traditions. He defined good reporting as the process of communicating "the best obtainable version of the truth." A simple phrase, he said, yet "something very difficult to accomplish."

Bernstein went on to explain that in North America we seem to have created a "mythology" about media objectivity. According to Bernstein, reporting is not objective, but instead is "the most subjective of activities." This is because journalists and editors themselves decide what is news and what is not. Reporters collect facts and string them together to provide context. He stressed the need to do thorough research and present the facts in a responsible manner.

Bernstein has been at it a long time. He started working as a journalist in 1960 at the age of 16. Asked to share his thoughts about the profession, he offered this summary, on looking back:

What is we do? We're not here to be prosecutors. That's for prosecutors. We're not here to change the results of an election. We're here to present information about how we live and how our fellows live. We're here to describe our community, our government, our sports, our entertainment -- always with the idea of this best obtainable version of the truth, so that those who read us, see us on television, on the web, put their trust in what we do and learn which of us is worthy of that trust, which institution is worthy of that trust, which individual reporters are worthy of that trust, so that we can help people know things.

That's really all our job is: to help people know things, so they can make up their minds about what's around them. It's very simple. [But] it's probably the hardest thing you can do because there are so many ways to get it wrong, to take shortcuts. The bad part of the web is the pressure on us time-wise, to get it out there right away, right away, right away... without checking it out, without trying to see how one fact weighs against another and putting it into context."

I would say, particularly in the informational cacophony that we have today, that if I were a young person and I could do anything, this is what I would do.

Bernstein may inspire a new generation of journalists to rise above all the noise and make difference.


Photo credit:
Image by Larry D. Moore, used under a Creative Commons ShareAlike License. More info here.

Oops! Headlines that aren't quite right

A friend of mine passed along these headlines and the attached comments. They make one wonder whether the newspaper writers and proofreaders who put these together were a little hung-over. Strange and delightfully off-balance:

Man Kills Self Before Shooting Wife and Daughter

It took two or three readings before the editor realized that what he was reading was impossible!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says

No, really? Ya think?
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers

Now that's taking things a bit far!

-----------------------------------------------------------
Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over

What a guy!
---------------------------------------------------------------

Miners Refuse to Work after Death

No-good-for-nothing' lazy so-and-so's!
------------------------------------------------------

Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant

See if that works any better than a fair trial!
----------------------------------------------------------

War Dims Hope for Peace

I can see where it might have that effect!
----------------------------------------------------------------

If Strike Isn't Settled Quickly, It May Last Awhile

Ya think?!
------------------------------------------------------------------

Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures

Who would have thought!
---------------------------------------------------------------

Enfield ( London ) Couple Slain; Police Suspect Homicide

They may be on to something!
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Red Tape Holds Up New Bridges

You mean there's something stronger than duct tape?
----------------------------------------------------------

Man Struck By Lightning: Faces Battery Charge

He probably IS the battery charge!
----------------------------------------------

New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group

Weren't they fat enough?!
-----------------------------------------------

Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft

That's what he gets for eating those beans!
---------------- ---------------------------------

Kids Make Nutritious Snacks

Do they taste like chicken?

---------------------------------------------------

Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half

Chainsaw Massacre all over again!

-------------------------------------------------------

Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors

Boy, are they tall!

-----------------------------------------------------

And the winner is....

Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead

Did I read that right?

When free content impoverishes us

Further to the previous post, we can examine why the spread of free information and free creative material on the Internet and elsewhere has created a big paradox: art and data is so plentiful and so easy to access now that more people than ever before can find it. However, at the same time, the prevalence of free material has made it seem less valuable than it ever was before.

For example, a committed artist who has worked on a creative project for years, let's say, striving to bring it to the highest quality he or she can muster, becomes harder to discover in the world of "cheap" works and amateurs. The level playing field of free content mixes the great with the commonplace, the original with the fake, and everything is flattened in an ever-expanding universe of creative material.

So, for a work of artistic quality to be valued, it either needs to be drawn out from the field or it needs to be scarce. The scarcer, the better. If demand can be created for its uniqueness, then its value rises.

This may be one way that even journalism could find a way out of its present crisis.

Andrew Potter, a columnist at Maclean's magazine, recently wrote an interesting piece that explores this paradox. It's called "When 'free' becomes really expensive," and you can read it here.

Journalism at the crossroads

Much has been written and said lately about the financial difficulty of news organizations and the role of journalism.

The digital era has brought two things which are great for the consumer and terrible for the news field as a business: first, the Internet has reduced printing and distribution costs down to almost zero. This means that newspapers, individuals, companies, non-profit organizations, government and anyone, really, can easily distribute their content to anyone who's interested in finding it. This is great for consumers because they can access whatever they want, whenever they want, almost always for free. As part of this process, consumers have also become creators of information, collectors of information and sharers of information through blogs, forums and through popular applications like Facebook and Twitter. Access to experts, opinion and basic facts is not exclusive anymore. Who needs to buy a newspaper to read classified advertising when one can find products and services anytime on the world wide web?

Second, this ubiquity of on-line information and the proliferation of hundreds of specialty television channels through cable and satellite distribution, has diminished the importance of news organizations. People today have thousands of choices for content and thousands of choices for how they spend their "media time." For the news business this has become a problem. In the early 1980s, when channels were few, many news programs on television, especially local news, could capture as much as a twenty percent (20%) share of the available audience. This meant something to advertisers, who knew they could reach a significant portion of the population by advertising on these programs. Now, with hundreds of channels and the Internet, local news shows do well when they reach a two percent (2%) share of the viewing audience. This means less revenue from advertising and big financial challenges for news organizations.

Experts in the business of media, like Robert G. Picard, point the way forward. The challenge for news organizations is to find new economic value. They must discover ways to offer unique and different information such that people will see this service as valuable in a media universe of sameness and plenty. In a recent presentation by Picard to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, he pointed this out:

" Journalism must innovate and create new means of gathering, processing and distributing information so it provides content and services that readers, listeners, and viewers cannot receive elsewhere. And these must provide sufficient value so audiences and users are willing to pay a reasonable price.

"If value is to be created, journalists cannot continue to report merely in the traditional ways or merely re-report news that has appeared elsewhere. They must add something novel that creates value."

This presents a real challenge.

Diversity: a toolkit for journalists

For some time, the association that brings together Canada's broadcast news directors, has been working on a number of initiatives to improve the reflection of Canada's diversity in news operations, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes.

One of these was the creation of a "Diversity Toolkit."

Presented by top Canadian journalists, it consists of a video guide for news managers, with features that review such things as the history of diversity in Canada, why diversity is good for business and how to make news content more reflective of Canada's communities.

An accompanying booklet adds material on the country's Aboriginal people, guidelines for better hiring practices and recommendations related to people with disabilities.

The Diversity Toolkit offers an interesting insight into Canada's rich demographic reality.

You can view the videos or read the booklet at this web site:

http://www.rtndacanada.com/Content.asp?PageID=2.10