The Evening Standard's 'Internet threatens justice' headline

I've just been reading the Evening Standard on the tube home. Specifically, the story about Lord Judge sentencing a juror to 8 months in prison for contempt of court after she contacted a defendant via Facebook.

The headline which accompanies the story in the paper edition of The Evening Standard on page 7 reads:

Judge: Internet threatens justice

I was intrigued to read that the very same Lord Judge is later quoted in the article as saying:

"The problem therefore is not the Internet. The potential problems arise from the activities of jurors who disregard the long-established principles which underpin the right of every citizen to a fair trial."

I would suggest that The Evening Standard's headline is somewhat misleading. But such is the nature of headlines, I suppose.

'Convergence' is dead. Long live convergence.

This post is a copy of an answer I gave to a question posted on Quora - the latest social media time sink - by Marie Kinsey, the chair of the Broadcast Journalism Training Council Glyn Mottershead, a tutor in digital journalism at Cardiff University. (I clearly haven't quite got the hang of Quora yet...)

He asked: "Have we gone beyond the shelf life of convergence in journalism?" This is a slightly edited version of my reply...

A few years ago, I seem to remember we spent some time discussing what convergence would mean for journalism in the context of the convergence of print, audio, and video on the Web. I'm not sure we need to do that any more because it has actually happened. 

I think there was also an inevitable (and perhaps unavoidable) weakness in starting from the perspective of: This is a newspaper article: how do we put it on the Web? This is a piece of radio: how do we put in on the Web? This is a piece of TV: how do we put it on the Web?

Four years ago, the tools I was using as a trainee broadcast journalist were all geared around putting traditional radio, TV and newspaper pieces online. But even then (and much more so now), there were tools available that had been designed to take advantage of the Web as a medium - the hyperlink, blogs, Twitter, Dipity, Audioboo, Youtube, audio slideshows etc. (Though you can argue using these tools still draws on traditional skills.) 

Today we can say: This is a story: how do we use the Web to tell that story? If you're into programming why not even design your own tool to present the news in a more interesting and engaging way on the Web?

I think the current interest lies in other 'convergences'. 

First, the convergence of online genres. Blogs and websites have merged. Twitter is fed into blogs and vice versa. Youtube has a forum underneath it. Facebook can be used as a blog or a Twitter feed or a forum and so on. 

Second, there are much larger questions around the convergence of private and public, brand and individual, as well as online and offline.

#Newsrw: Engaging with "Readers+": hard work but valuable for local news websites

Local newspaper websites should be talking to a group of people that Samantha Shepherd defines as "Readers+". Shepherd, the digital projects co-ordinator at the Bournemouth Daily Echo, describes "Readers+" as active website readers who engage, respond, argue, point out mistakes, comment and complain to their local news website.

Shepherd, who was speaking at News Rewired, compared them with "lurkers" - those who read but don't participate any further and "shouters" - those who just complain loudly about anything and everything (but especially the local council.)

The Echo uses a variety of social media tools to talk directly to the "Readers+" group in particular as these people are loyal to the brand, involved and concerned about news content, pedantic, and are often willing to contribute to the news process.

Shepherd described Facebook as a great "untapped resource" of news for local media organisations and noted that 70,000 Facebook profiles are attached to Bournemouth in some way. The paper also features photos taken by people in Bournemouth and posted on Flickr.

For Shepherd, it is important to adapt to online communities and not impose rules upon them from the outside. She said honesty, civility, actively responding to your readers and an ability to deal with criticism in public are the keystones of engagement.

Although social media therefore takes a significant amount of time and the rewards are not always "tangible", Shepherd's bottom line was that there is value in talking to "Readers+" people to improve the Echo's journalism and to foster other business opportunities.

Writings elsewhere on blogging, Facebook, Afghanistan, Twitter, usual subjects etc...

Couple of Frontline Club posts up this week:

1. How Facebook users can report casualties in Afghanistan before the US military
2. The blog as a weapon in an era of information war

Meanwhile, Matthew Eltringham wrote an interesting post on the BBC College of Journalism blog asking whether 'Twitter has grown up'.

I wrote a comment in which I noted that journalists might also have 'grown up' in their use of Twitter.

Matthew's come right back at me and posed some questions on what all this means for a journalist's relationship with his or her audience.

Should I be worried? Facebook, privacy and Foursquare

Paul Bradshaw, on the Online Journalism Blog, looks at journalistic uses for Foursquare, the geolocation tool that helps you "unlock your city".

(Does it not work in the countryside due to inevitable problems with a lack of mobile phone signal? This suggests rather sadly that the countryside would remain permanently "locked down" or perhaps more positively there might be some areas of the country where we actually stop staring at 3 inch screens once in a while and admire the view. Anyway, I digress.)

I should perhaps try Foursquare and other location-based services but I'm rather concerned about revealing my location on a regular basis. I mean I can see the potential power of geolocation for sure...am I just worrying too much?

Maybe I am. Shortly after Facebook introduced their Social Graph concept a few days ago, I promptly pulled all of my 'interests' from my Facebook page. I feel like this was an over-reaction on my part.

But I have always kept Facebook as a way of keeping in touch with personal contacts who I know well. Facebook's desire to put more and more of my personal information 'out there' is beginning to make me wonder whether at some point I will need to start all over again and treat Facebook more like my Twitter feed - open, but altogether less revealing about my personal life.

I note that Ros Atkins at the BBC has already jettisoned his friends on Facebook in order to build relationships with listeners to his radio programme. In his regular email to listeners he wrote recently:

"The trouble was that I had 'friends' who I know from my personal life, and lots more of you who I've come to know through W[orld] H[ave] Y[our] S[ay]. It didn't seem like a great mix. So the mates have gone, and now it's strictly WHYS."

So it looks like my Facebook friends might be sent packing at some point. We'll just have to rely on the knowledge that we are friends in 'real life' to see us through.

What is a blog and blogging and posting and...?

A collection of tweets on a topic started by Paul Bradshaw from the Online Journalism Blog.

It's not exactly a new set of issues but definitely worth revisiting every now and then.

It's all too easy to think you know what something is and then realise that in reality it's far more complicated than that and changing all the time.

(I'm not sure Twitter really works too well for these debates. But anyway. The italics are comments I've added later and really just me throwing some stuff out there.)

Taken from Twitter 30/9/08

paulbradshaw 1000 Things #111: Most 'blogging' is not done on blogs, but on forums, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.

ourman @paulbradshaw - Surely you can only blog on a blog. That's like saying most walking is done on a bicycle.

But then most writing is not done on a 'write'.

Dan_10v11 @paulbradshaw Interesting. I'm not tackling forums as 'blogging' to limit the size of my project. I think there are some key differences.

paulbradshaw @ourman et al well Twitter and Facebook is microblogging; MySpace is just an in-profile blog

paulbradshaw @Dan_10v11 I'm saying that some people - my mother, for instance - use forums as a place to blog.

I'd be interested to hear how she uses it 'as a blog', rather than as a forum.

paulbradshaw The point - isn't there a difference between a 'blog', 'blogging' and 'blogger'?

ourman @paulbradshaw - surely she uses forums as a place to write. You can't blog on a forum any more than you can blog in a text book.

Obviously you can't blog away from the World Wide Web - the interactive nature of blogging doesn't work on paper. I think there is still validity in Paul Bradshaw questioning where else on the World Wide Web you can blog and if this does make sense.

Dan_10v11 @paulbradshaw E.g. A blog is not a forum, you can blog on a forum, a blogger can post on a forum. But r u a blogger if you post on a forum?

'you can blog on a forum' - my instinct actually is that you 'post' on a forum. This comes in later.

paulbradshaw @ourman surely you can blog anywhere that allows people to respond? And is it platform or genre?

I suppose the first part of this represents a more cultural definition of blogging. I think it's a difficult route to go down.

tomVS @paulbradshaw @Dan_10v11 And there are even at least 3 different meanings for "blog" - technology, website, mindset

Mindset?! I wonder if I have a blog mindset...

Dan_10v11 @ourman @paulbradshaw But can you blog on a website? Or do you have to have a 'blog' bit of the website?

ourman @paulbradshaw - surely you can only blog on a blog. You twitter on Twitter. You SMS with SMS. @tomVS web2.0 is the genre

A more functional definition of blogging?

ourman @paulbradshaw - you can't be a blogger unless you have a blog you contribute to. And blogging is the act of contributing (to a blog)

ourman @Dan_10v11 I think what people are doing is "posting". You can "post" to any number of online sites but you can only blog on a blog.

Dan_10v11 @paulbradshaw @ourman I think you can make a case for either of your ways of looking at 'blogging'.

Dan_10v11 @ourman I think @paulbradshaw would argue that by posting on a forum his mum has effectively established a blog. But he can defend himself!

Dan_10v11 @ourman I agree - the addition of 'posting' to the debate helps. At base I think we're trying to work out what a blog is.

adders @ourman Agreed. The confusion between "post/blog" and "posting/blogging" is an endless source of miscommunication here.

ourman @adders blogging is too important to be lumped in with facebook and the like. It devalues it - weakens it.

I can see what ourman is getting at and generally agree. But I import my blog posts into Facebook. Does this mean I blog there too? Or not? Maybe that doesn't count. I just import the posts. But if people read it from there, are they not reading my blog on Facebook.

ourman @adders - I'd argue that just regurgitating links (without comment) isn't blogging either. But I'm guessing that's my own personal bugbear.

adders @ourman That's a tricky one, because that's how weblogging started. But I'd agree that blogging has moved beyond that.

paulbradshaw @ourman agreed you can't be blogger without a blog, but i think the act of blogging is broader

paulbradshaw What is 'blogging'?

adders @paulbradshaw The process of participating in the upkeep of a weblog.

paulbradshaw Or, what are the generic qualities of blogging? Personal? Open? Would love your thoughts

I still think there's value in going with the 'blog as a publishing tool' approach, advocated by Kevin Anderson and Chris Vallance.

Ends. For the moment, at least.

Here are a few blogs that challenge some of the definitional boundaries:

1. The Ministry of Defence call this a blog, but there's no space to respond. Is it still a blog?

2. Rachel North 'blogging' on the BBC after 7/7? She also posted the same content on her own blog.

3. Post Secret is an award winning blog. But feels more like community art to me.

4. World War One blog. Publishing historical documents or blogging? Or both?

BBC Monitoring's Emerging Media 'Team'

Last week, I went to a talk by BBC Monitoring at Bush House on the Strand. The general gist was that blogs and other forms of social media are becoming increasingly important sources of information. No surprise there, then.

But I was rather taken aback by the fact that Vivien Sands from BBC Monitoring was not just representing the 'Emerging* Media Team'. She was and is the 'Emerging Media Team'. Which means she must be exceptionally busy - there's a lot of emerging media to monitor!

Vivien did go onto say that existing Monitors are being trained up in these emerging sources of information and regional specialists are already fully aware of blogs and the like. But I imagine she'll be hoping that her plan to increase the size of the Emerging Media Team will come to fruition.

Of all the emerging media available, Vivien said BBC Monitoring uses blogs the most. Although Monitoring does produce a weekly round up Iranian blogs, most of the time blogs will be scoured in relation to particular news events. Monitors will then put the best of the information together for the BBC and their other clients - such as the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Ministry of Defence.

Recent BBC Monitoring projects include:

• China's '50-cent' bloggers and the media campaign accompanying clashes in Tibet.
  
• Zimbabwe - particularly the 'This is Zimbabwe' blog
• The use of Facebook to defy governments in the Middle East
• An anaylsis of the cyberwar between Russia and Georgia.
  

*I'm guessing the thinking here is that the 'new' media is no longer deemed to be 'new'. But then why replace it with emerging? Hasn't the 'new' media already 'emerged'? I'll carry on using the word 'emerging' in this post for consistency.

Random thought on Facebook

Facebook works because it enables user-generated hyper-'local' news.

(Think of a 'local' not defined by geography but by interests and relationships.)