Future of Journalism Notes 1: Journalists' views of news practice and US Newspaper websites

This is the first in a series of catch up posts with my notes from the Future of Journalism Conference in Cardiff. Here's some of Wednesday's papers that I found interesting.

Exploring the political-economic factors of participatory journalism: A first look into self-reports by online journalists and editors in ten countries.
(Vujnovic, Singer, Paulussen, Heinonen, Reich, Quandt, Hermida, Domingo).

What are the motives of journalists and editors for using UGC and citizen journalism?

• Building a community around a newspaper.

• Citizen journalism is a necessary tool for attracting and maintaining an audience.

• 'We exist if we have a lot of hits.' There is a need to encourage users to stay on the site with a variety of features. This is a survival strategy rather than a way to foster debate.
  

• 'Everyone is doing it - we have to do it.' There's been no thought about why journalists are doing some things with the Web. This is just a case of new tools, experimentation and the fear of not being left behind by competitors.
  

The Form of Reports on U.S. Newspaper Internet Sites, An Update.
(Kevin G. Barnhurst)

Taking a long historical view, U.S. journalism has become more interpretative and less denotative. Barnhurst argues that U.S. journalists have increased their influence in the United States by taking greater control of public discussion. Barnhurst looked at the websites of the New York Times (national), Chicago Tribune (regional) and Portland Oregonian (local) comparing the 2005 results with those from 2001.

Length of Stories
Between 2001 and 2005 news has got shorter rather than getting longer for the first time since the 1950s. In 2001 only 1 story out of 8 appeared on the home page. By 2005, almost half the stories appear on the front page.

Links
Links were three quarters of a page closer to the home page in the 2005 compared to 2001. A reader required less mean clicks to reach a story. But once the reader arrives at a news story there is more scrolling and screens to get through to read it, aiding traffic stats and advertising revenue.

More images and links in 2005, but external links remain rare. Barnhurst suggested this might be due to time pressures as well as a desire to keep readers on the site.

Print vs Online content
In 2001, content online was almost identical to what was printed in the paper. In 2005, only two thirds of print and online articles were the same. There was an increase in discussion forums, chat pages, and controlled feedback forms in 2005.

Stories
Barnhurst highlighted a 'sensational drift' whereby accident stories have moved closer to the front page. Stories about politics and jobs required more clicking and scrolling.

Newswork Across Europe: Some preliminary findings
(Henrik Ornebring)

Parameters of the Study

• Feb 2007 - Feb 2010
• Compares journalistic cultures of Europe: UK, Germany, Italy, Poland, Estonia, Sweden.
  
• Investigate the emergence of a 'European' journalism.
• Is there a dominant model of journalism in Europe? What is its effect on different national cultures?
• This presentation was based on 61 semi-structured interviews with journalists (daily news production, career stage, medium type, work situation)
• Culture defined as 'working practice' - values, communication, artifacts. What you do when you work.
• Puts journalism in the changing context of work. General deregulation of labour markets, rise of flexible employment, technologisation of the workplace, changing skill demands.
• After all, journalism is just a job for a lot of people.
  

Technology has made many aspects of journalism easier

• e.g. easier to do research.
• journalists equated easier with faster. For them, it doesn't mean greater depth, or improved quality, it means they can do things quicker. (Ornebring focussed on journalists who undertake daily news production.)
  
• As the potential of instantaneous communication increases, so too does the pressure to produce content.
• Technologisation is coming from above - blogs and other innovations are inspired by editors and employers who want to do new things.
  
• Role of CMS - this is also about streamlining and standardisation. Get in this technology so you can make staff cuts.
• Young journalists expect to work for free and this acts as a sorting mechanism for the industry. Journalism culture emphasises staying at work as the norm - 'if you want to go home you shouldn't be here'.
• Freelancing - tends to be a necessity rather than a choice.
  

Skills

• Journalists say the skills required have not changed that much. First and foremost being a good journalist means being a good storyteller.

Cardiff Future of Journalism Conference 1

I'm here in the sun in Cardiff for the Future of Journalism Conference. Alfred Hermida over at Reportr.net has already done an excellent job of summing up the plenary session.

• James Curran outlined four perspectives on the future of...(you've got it by now right?) and suggested a possible fifth way forward - 'public reformism' whereby public funding would support journalism, such as levying money through a broadband tax.

• Bettina Peters discussed the field of media development.

The hastag is #foj09.

Three links to sign off the week

• New York Post: Thou shalt not credit bloggers for doing reporting. (Instead, reporter is required to leave a nice comment on the blogger's work.)

• "All bloggers are gay" a Westminster journalist tells Paul Waugh. But this is less about the sexuality of bloggers and more about the rise of political blogging in the UK.

• Gatekeeping news. The Google way.
  

(Shock) 'links on blogging and the BBC' post

BBC bits and pieces

• In the first part of this BBC World Service documentary Michael Buerk talks to bloggers and commentators about citizen journalism. Includes sections on Burma, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, and Sri Lanka. I remember somebody phoned me about this several months ago, and I can see now why they weren't particularly interested in my hole-picking of the term 'citizen journalism'. Didn't really a fit a narrative in which 'citizen journalism' was a given.

• Business Editor Robert Peston on the future of the media at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, including a section on his blog:

"For me, the blog is at the core of everything I do, it is the bedrock of my output. The discipline of doing it shapes my thoughts. It disseminates to a wider world the stories and themes that I think matter...It connects me to the audience in a very important way. The comments left by readers contain useful insights - and they help me understand what really matters to people. That is not to say that I give them only what they want. I retain an old-fashioned view that in the end the licence fee pays for my putative skills in making judgements about what matters...the blog allows me and the BBC to own a big story and create a community of interested people around it."

• North Caucasus through the eyes of bloggers.

• I love Rory Cellan-Jones' tweets for little institutional insights. Having a plethora of outlets to prepare material for sometimes leads to this:

"Day in the life of Rory: Madness this afternoon - TV 6, r4 1800, blog - and now tv editor says I'm banned from tweeting in the suite"

• Radio Five Live Drive Assistant Editor Liam Hanley on reporting from Afghanistan:

"Of course, being on a military airbase, on what's called an "embed" - a trip organised by the Ministry of Defence - gave us a particular perspective on the conflict, not the complete picture.

It didn't mean though that our editorial independence was compromised - we spoke freely to soldiers of many different ranks, and apart from things which may have jeopardised security, nothing was off limits.

Clearly, what we weren't able to do from where we were was to give any sense of how this war is affecting Afghans. That wider context was provided by our correspondents across the country."

• Bonus update a little later on in the day - Today presenter John Humphrys on Twitter.

Leftovers

• 'Friends not editors shape Internet habits' - Interesting piece in the FT on how a marketing executive's first port of call is Twitter and Facebook. Though it might be worth pointing out that his friends are probably selecting at least some of their material from material already selected by editors.
  

• Brazilian President starts blog. Aides surprised when they discover people want to read it.

Michael Yon and embedded journalism

I've been looking at the end of Michael Yon's embed with the British Army in Afghanistan including the views of Michael himself and the Ministry of Defence. It's a two-parter over at the Frontline Club - Part One and Part Two.

Sky News journalists debate the value of Twitter

Picked this up off Twitter. A Sky News field producer (@fieldproducer) debates the value of Twitter with political correspondent, Niall Paterson. My thoughts in italics.

• fieldproducer: spoken to a lot of journalists who don't get twitter. They should read this http://tinyurl.com/kvsmr3 (via @journalistFeed)

[I bore myself wondering why people don't understand that Twitter has some value to the working journalist. Not least because journalists use it all the time. I mean either they're crazy pretending it's useful to look cool or something or it is actually useful.]

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer Read the twitter link you posted - what utter truistic strawman drivel! "twitter is what you make it"!!

[This was perhaps the weakest line in the piece although the actual unfriendly 140 char quote is: "it is only as useful as the person who is using it wants it to be."]

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer The article's author is equally guilty of the sneering of which he accuses the MSM! The evangelical zeal with which people

[A hark back to bloggers vs journalists. Of course there's no need to sneer on either side really apart from the fact that both commentators in the media and bloggers know that a good old sneer makes more interesting copy than sober assessments. I'm sure some twitterers link to, read, watch and appreciate Sky News coverage. In a few lines Niall's about to sort of maybe recognise the point that it might possibly be a useful, if limited, tool to do journalism.]

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer greet every latest web 2.0 innovation is nothing new. give it a couple of mins and there'll be another emerging

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer tech/app we'll be asked to integrate into our already busy days. christ, when did you last receive a hand-written letter? how

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer nice did that feel?

[I'm sure there will be another emerging web innovation. Re: letters. Riding a horse is also nice, I've heard, but most people don't use them to get around these days. Receiving a letter is probably more satisfying than it used to be when letter writing was common, precisely because it has become rarer. But it is nice to receive a letter. I don't dispute that.]

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer Plus, has twitter actually made any money yet? best not to slag off the "ailing industry" when this thing isnt profitable.

[As far as we're aware Twitter hasn't made a great deal of money. But Evan Williams, the CEO of Twitter, has form in snatching finance from the jaws of bankruptcy. He co-founded Blogger which almost died in February 2001 because of a lack of funds. Two years later Blogger was bought by Google. We don't know how much money he made from the deal, but I doubt he's poor.]

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer What % twitter accounts are currently active? of those, how many are spamming??

[The short answer is: we don't know. Because Twitter won't tell us. Tech Cruch estimated 1 million users and 200,000 active users in March 2008. But there's been significant growth in 2009. According to the BBC, Comscore guess there are 45 million users worldwide. It's not the be all and end all of social networking sites - "During May 2009 www.twitter.com ranked as the 38th most visited website in the UK and the fifth most visited social network".]

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson ahh, but as journalists we have broken quite a few stories after getting leads from twitter. Profitable or not, bloody useful

[I think this is more like the point. Why is Niall Paterson worried about whether Twitter will make a profit? I think the point about Twitter is not the company but the concept. And as Evan Williams said on Newsnight the other week, if Twitter doesn't make it work, it will be because somebody else will have done it better.]

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer you make my point for me - it's just another tool. might as well evangelise about the telephone. or more approp. the internet

[So it's the hype that's getting to Niall really (but I think he likes an opportunity to have a rant so he can't complain too much). It's the same sort of thinking that happened with blogging when blogging was new and as a journalist told me for one of my interviews, the hype 'puts people's backs up'. And some of the hype is rather mistaken. See my thoughts on Moldova's Twitter Revolution.]

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer arent profits important? they are to our employer and the vast majority of journos. and where in the article were T's faults?

[There were no examples of Twitter's faults in the article. But then the blogger doesn't have any obiligation to be fair and balanced. If you want to ask this question, you might ask yourself where in Jackie Ashley's article was there room for the advantages of social networking?]

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer i'm sick of faceless webgeeks being so condescending to those who fail to share their unfettered adoration of social network

[Nice line.]

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson but it isn't like a telephone is it? It is more like a wire feed. I don't think pofits are important to maj of journos either

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer not talking about you there!!

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson we should spend some of ours on a few drinks and debate this properly rather than in 140 characters!

[Oh so Twitter does not mean the 'end of face to face' communication, then. And people who use social networks do meet in real life.]

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer tell that to those on More4 or the londonpaper, or the 1000s of regional hacks who've lost their jobs

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson or those at Five

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer Great idea! meeting pegler this saturday - fancy it?

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson yeah have DM you

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer Indeed. we're all just a bad day away from the dole.

• RT @johnny_phipps @fieldproducer Forgive me 4 putting my oar in, 2 add weight 2 ur POV, look at coverage of GMP raids by @deankirbyMEN

[Dean Kirbky uses #gmpraids to report for the Manchester Evening News. Click on the link for more.]

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson check RT of @johnny_phipps tweet, bring it on Patterson!

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer Interesting. a rolling tally of arrests? wow. perhaps time would be better spent crafting an easily updateable blog piece

[You can imagine someone a few years ago suggesting a rolling tally of arrests on a blog and someone else saying: 'Wow. Perhaps time would be better spent crafting an easily updateable online piece.]

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer which could actually tell me what's going on... i'm being a tad facetious, but look at how many followers he has...

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer I'm not saying twitter doesn't have its uses - just that as a journalistic tool it has a number of drawbacks

[Ah. Good point. Twitter is not good for a lot of things. For a start, we've already acknowledged that this debate would be better held over a pint. Twitter doesn't do radio or TV so well. Try using Twitter as an audio editing suite. It won't work. You don't get context and background with Twitter. It's too short. I mean I could go on but the disadvantages of Twitter are pretty obvious aren't they. As a journalist, Twitter's a great tool but it's just one tool.]

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson irrespective of the subject matter it is a constant flow of info which you recieve passively in real time.

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer Exactly. unverifiable, unadulturated raw data. where's the context? it's just a data dump

[Some tweets are unverfiable. A lot are verifiable. I've verified who a lot of twitterers are in my time. Indeed, Twitter do some of the hard work for you and verify accounts. If you know who you follow then it's much easier to verify what they say. Raw data is pretty useful I'd have thought.]

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson but you are a journo your job is to take that info stand it up and put it in context.

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson in short a journo using twitter would have the info faster than someone without.

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer eh? HE'S the hack! This is what journalism has come to? trawling twitter feeds for tips?! i've just phoned the GMP phonebank

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer You know, like we used to. and got twenty times as much info. verifiable info.

[These are just two different aspects of the journalist's job. Journalists have always trawled for tips wherever they come from. Why not use Twitter as well? But then journalists can't spend all their time trawling for tips, because they have to work on those tips by getting hold of more information and reporting the story. But it's not: either, or; it's both.

Or, if you work in a media organisation like Sky, you can afford to have people performing different roles. What does Sky's Twitter Correspondent do? Surely part of her role should be feeding tips to journalists from Twitter? Then the journalist can worry about following the tips up, phoning people and doing all that 'old-fashioned' stuff. Though there's nothing old-fashioned about it in my opinion.]

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson we broke the Conrad Murray vid before anybody else, how? I saw it drop on twitter. Wires 20mins & BBC 2hrs after us.
  

[@fieldproducer says he meant to say 'ran' rather than broke.]

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer Your argument would see me spending most of my time standing up twitter tips rather than actually doing my job properly!

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer Yep, as a source of links twitter really is useful. but didnt the person who tweeted in fact "break" the story?

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson yes but i'm talking TV here.

[This does the raise issue of what 'breaking news' is in the 21st Century. (But I'm running out of steam.) It's changed a lot is the point. But then as an organisation Sky News like bigging up that they are 'breaking news' - the institutional culture captured by Jon Grip's capitalised tweets.]

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson what do you mean standing up twitter tips rather than doing your job??Were you on the day of Speakers resignation?

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer Ah. that old chestnut. if i read something in the papers then do a telly turn before the beeb, am i breaking it?!

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson How do you think we got that first? you guessed it Twitter tip.

• niallpaterson @fieldproducer explain the difference between an rss feed and a twitter feed? both require you to "follow"

[Can't really be bothered but there are some significant differences.]

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer and no - we got that story first because our corr read a report of a rumour on twitter...

[Apparently it was a producer not a correspondent]

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer had he been in the HoC rather than in front of his computer, we might have had it sooner. you know, proper legwork!

[Sad fact is that a lot of journalists are stuck behind their desks. Most of them don't want to be.]

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson right let's finish this tomorrow over a pint.

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer good idea. the one disadvantage of debating in twitter is that i can't punch you

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson don't you'll end up like http://tinyurl.com/m795r7

• johnny_phipps: @fieldproducer @niallpaterson Your debate brings into question the value of @RuthBarnett http://bit.ly/4CcAx
  

[An interesting point.]

BBC's Nic Newman: "better links within blogs amongst the most effective"

Last Friday, BBC Online conducted an open meeting about plans for the website over the coming months. The meeting was held in response to criticisms that the BBC's online services were not sufficiently open and transparent. The talks and discussion are available in a series of videos on the BBC Internet Blog.

I haven't watched them all yet, but I thought this section on the BBC's approach to external linking by Nic Newman, Controller, Journalism, FM&T*, was worth pulling out, (especially as it ties so neatly with last week's wee rant):

"Our aim is not to link indiscriminately, but to link in line with our public purposes and editorial guidelines. So we look to add value through our links. We look to take people to content that further enriches or informs.

"We will continue to use a mixture of manual and automated methods to do so. So we've already talked about Search Plus which is part of our automated solutions but a lot of the evidence points to the focus on editorial linking as being a really important part of the mix.

"One of the most trafficked pages on the Sports site is the football transfer page and the deep editorial links that we've added here in the last few months are responsible for delivering a significant amount of that uplift that you see in the previous graph. [Showing a rise in external clickthroughs from around 8 million a month to over 12 million a month for bbc.co.uk].

"In news, the better links within [BBC] blogs, are amongst the most effective because of the editorial relevance that comes from the authorship of that (sic) blogs and the relationship that people have with that content."

These are steps in the right direction and I think editorial linking, rather than automated linking, is vitally important. Regular readers will know that I wrote a post about the value of link journalism a while back and as I did then, I still think more could be done which would involve some significant changes to the working practices of BBC journalists.

That sort of thing doesn't happen overnight. But the BBC has a responsibility to continue to work on the area of external linking - it's absolutely key to the BBC Trust's aim of the Corporation being 'a trusted guide to the Web'.

*That's 'Future, Media and Technology' for those outside the BBC's jargon-laden walls. Although actually I remember talking about "FM&T" to a BBC journalist who looked at me as if I was talking about a souped-up form of shortwave radio so the previous sentence might be of some use to BBC employees as well!