Mobile News

It seems that with the advances of technology, the ways we send/recieve the news are becoming more advanced as well. I found an article on the Poynter Institute website about iPhone applications that allow you to get the news in a quick and easy way. The article says,

“News is going mobile in the U.S. In fact, the number of people getting news via cellphone doubled from 10.8 million in January, 2008 to 22.4 million in January, 2009, according to comScore. Improvements in the iPhone OS have the potential to make or break news delivery.”

That’s a lot of newsflow from the mobile network.

iPhone applications for the news don’t just bring an ongoing flow to a news organizations website, but it can also maybe even bring in revenue to your organization. The article stresses that news organizations create an application for the iPhone in order to reap the benefits of the ever changing online world.

Converged at the Washington Post

I found this article from Poynter Online called Converging in Cape Canaveral.  It’s an article from a few years back when the Columbia space shuttle disaster happened.  The article describes the process that Mark Stencel went through when he was in Florida for a Poynter seminar. Stencel is the co-managing editor for online news at the Washington Post.

He worked quickly to get the news up as fast as it was happening. Being that he was the only one from the Post in reach of Cape Canaveral, it was up to him to get as much detail as possible to relay to the public.

The article explains how he “was being recorded as he described the news from a press conference at the Kennedy Space Center”. That recording was placed on the web within minutes.

“On Sunday, Stencel tackled the story another way: He was live online from Cape Canaveral, leading a WashingtonPost.com chat even as the press conference was winding down. He had questions from D.C. and questions from Bogota, Colombia. If he wasn’t sure about a user’s question, he’d walk across the room, ask a NASA official, and return with the answer.”

After reading this article, it’s interesting to see how professional journalists are putting the advancement of technology to work. The quickness of the whole thing is something that we all must get used to.  Like Stencel said, “and if you’re not practicing converged journalism, you’re not practicing journalism”.

Twitter Reflection

My experience with trying to report at an event using twitter was interesting. I found it quite difficult to post status updates through my phone and pay attention and take notes of what was going on around me all at the same time. It was a great experience as far as learning how to multitask during an event. I learned how to type faster on my phone in order to get the message out and still be able to maintain concentration on the things going on around me. I would probably get a better phone if I continued to use this technique as a means of reporting.

The advantages of using Twitter to cover events is more so for the audience. It’s a great way to get the news out quick and keep people updated for what’s going on. It’s also a great way to link back to my blog and promote myself as a reporter. The disadvantages of using Twitter is the fact that it makes it a little difficult for a reporter to tweet and take notes and pay attention what’s going on at the event.

Mapping Exercise

Here is a mapping exercise I did during class of Florida’s Most Wanted.

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Social Networking

Facebook and Myspace as news delivery

Megan VanWaus discusses this topic on her blog and says, “professional journalists and major news outlets are not only using these sites to deliver the news but in some cases to gather it”. She found a great article from the Huffington Post. It touches on how journalists are using Facebook as a tool, and how powerful Facebook is becomming in the world of journalism.

Megan also discusses the use of citizen journalism and how Myspace has teamed up with Fox News to create a site, uReport, where readers can upload their own content, similar to that of CNN’s iReport.

I think the use of these types of social networking sites is becomming more popular among journalists because of the fact that our generation is so tech savvy. By using Facebook and Myspace it gives reporters much more access to finding sources and gathering information about a certain topic than trying to search for sources through another resource.

Twitter and texting as delivery

Ryan Bass talks about how important things like Twitter and texting are to news organizations. They both provide a quick and easy way to get out the news without having to wait for a reporter to write a story and post it online. He found a really good article about how journalists use twitter. The article points out how twitter is used to relay breaking news in a very quick manner and how it can also be used to interview sources. Twitter is a great way to bring traffic to a news site by using links to articles in the twitter post.

Texting, in a way, is similar to that of twitter. It can be used to relay news quickly and efficiently. BBC News goes on to discuss how they use text alerts for breaking news and how you can sign up for these alerts.

Both of these are great ways to get the news out fast and I would certainly use each of these to my advantage as a reporter. Not only to promote myself as a journalist, but to also promote the organization I work for and to make it quick and easy for my readers.

Blogging for delivery

Blogging is a very controversial topic when it’s compared to being used as a source of news delivery. Andrew Kennedy discusses the ethics of blogging on his page.

I found an article discussing the increasing use of social media sites by journalists and in it it says

“The study found that blogs are the most popular social media tool for publishing stories, with 64 percent of journalists saying they turn to blogs to distribute articles. Social networking sites and Twitter were not far behind, with 60 percent and 57 percent respectively.”

Andrew found an article from The Online Journalism Review that gives some guidelines for online journalism.

I think as long as we stick with the ethics of being a journalist and don’t break any of the rules, blogging can be a very good supplement for relaying the news in a more casual way than having to write a full online article.

Social networking to gather news

As technology grows, the way news organizations and reporters gather information is growing accordingly. Gathering information by use of social networking is becomming widely accepting, says Renita Frett in her blog. She found an article from Poynter Online which discusses some guidelines that journalists can follow when using social networking sites as a means of information gathering.

Facebook, myspace, and twitter, along with other various social networking sites provide great information, an easy way to find sources, and a credible means of resources for journalists. As technology grows, like stated earlier, news organizations will open their doors up to various ways of including these things as a means of news gathering.

Reader comments and bulletin boards

Feedback is a huge part of being a journalist. You’ll never improve or correct something if you don’t get feedback from an editor, reader, or anyone else for that matter.  Reader comments and the use of bulletin boards and forums are becomming not only more popular but almost essential for every online news site.  However, with allowing readers to openly comment can cause certain legal issues.

Jillian Krotki found an article which discusses the issues of allowing readers to comment on their sites and how libel can come into play in certain cases.

I think it’s important for news sites to moderate comments and maybe even have readers sign up before they are allowed to comment. Possibly ask for a phone number, full name, e-mail address, etc. so that way if a libel case does come into play, the news site will have some personal information for persecution.

Youtube; Friend or Foe?

When thinking about Youtube, I think about the funny “Old Greg” videos and watching people do stupid things to get hurt. The news isn’t exactly the first thing that comes to mind. However, Youtube is definitely becomming a huge player in how news is being delivered.

I found an article which discusses the rise of Youtube as a means of news delivery. Youtube has created a feature called “News Near You” which finds out your location and loads a list of news videos that are relevant to where you are.

“YouTube says it is helping TV stations and its other partners by creating a new — but so far not fiscally significant — source of revenue.”

A lot of the news organizations see this as competition, so the mediums that provide News Near You with content are usually newspapers, radio stations, colleges, “and, in the case of a fledgling San Francisco outfit called VidSF, three friends who despise the local TV diet of fires and homicides.”

“The site is also promoting videos from ABC News, The Associated Press, Reuters and other outlets.”

According to the article, almost 200 news organizations have signed with Youtube to allow them to post news packages and in return they recieve half of the revenue made by advertisements.

The main question everyone is asking is will youtube provide enough profit to keep everything alive. Instead of what Google does by taking the articles right out from under the news organizations feet, Youtube asks outlets to sign up as partners and “promising a wider audience for their material”.
For young people, however, Youtube means the future. We are a generation of technology and anything “internet” catches our eye. I think a lot of the younger generation would much rather see a video or hear some audio as opposed to actually having to read an article, especially when it comes to political issues.

The article in the embedded link above discusses this topic.

“According to interviews and recent surveys, younger voters tend to be not just consumers of news and current events but conduits as well — sending out e-mailed links and videos to friends and their social networks. And in turn, they rely on friends and online connections for news to come to them. In essence, they are replacing the professional filter — reading The Washington Post, clicking on CNN.com — with a social one.”

Young people search for things on the internet, send it to friends, post it on social networking sites, and are more inclined to look at something on the internet then look through a newspaper.

A perfect example of this is the video provided below from the New York Times, found on Youtube.

This is a full “article” portrayed in video form. The usage of multimedia appeals more to me than having to read something like this in print. The visuals, interviews, voice-over, and b-roll has a lot more emotional feel than a regular article.

Aside from the business aspect of Youtube, I think it’s a very impactful way of delivering the news. I think a lot more people are willing to click on a video than they are to click on and read a full article. We just need to figure out a way to allow the news organizations a right to some of the revenue made by the advertisments that go along with these videos.

Multimedia Coverage; Haiti vs. 9/11

Both devastating events, however how do they compare to each other in regards to the way they were/are being reported on. As I searched on the New York Times website, I found an entire interactive page of multimedia displaying everything and anything that is going on in Haiti.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/01/17/world/americas/haiti-earthquake-multimedia.html?ref=multimedia

Now, I understand technology and the idea of convergent journalism has changed since September 11, 2001, however I found it a lot more difficult to find easy, interactive multimedia pieces about what happened on that tragic day. Could it be just because Haiti is more relevant than 9/11 is? Possibly. However, even after finding a page linking everything for the multimedia reporting that was done during the terror attacks, it still seems as though the reporting for Haiti has a lot more substance than the 9/11 reporting.

This goes to show how huge of an impact convergent journalism is becomming in the news world.