Journalism in the Digital Age

“In a little more than a decade, information technology has changed the way we see the world.” Those are the words of the respected broadcaster Michael Beurk.

The digital revolution has had a profound effect on journalism – both the making and consumption of. In ‘SuperMedia: Saving Journalism So It Can Save The World,’ the author Charlie Beckett states that “news information has never been more plentiful and journalism has never been more abundant.” He goes on to say that “journalists have never had more resources to reach people, anytime, anyplace, anywhere – and the audience has unprecedented access to the news media.”

Before we attempt to answer the question posed, it is prudent to first try to understand what we mean by ‘good journalism.’

Journalism worth taking note of?

Professor Richard Tait, Director of the Centre for Journalism at Cardiff University and BBC Trustee, says responsible journalism is about accuracy, impartiality and the ability to see facts from opinion.

For Mark Byford, Head of Journalism at the BBC, the corporation constantly strives to uphold a set of trusted values: truth, diversity of opinion, independence, accountability and accuracy and he defines key characteristics of good journalism as excellence, ambition, creativity, authenticity, integrity, curiosity and originality.

The question we now face is whether or not journalism can uphold such standards in this new digital era? This is an era during which the proliferation of social networking sites like Twitter and blogs has meant that anyone can play the journalism game.

The former Chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, Sir Christopher Meyer, declared good journalism in the digital age “will need as never before to rest on the tried and tested principles of our system of self-regulation.”

He argued the most important issue in the digital age is trust. In a sea of online material, there is a ‘crying need’ to distinguish between what is good and what is not.

Citizen Journalism? It’s all rubbish!

Traditionalists have argued that the advent of the Internet has led to a rapid growth of shoddy journalism from the average Joe and no one, bar the professionals, can pretend to create valuable and credible work. Blogs are biased and subjective and therefore can hardly be of journalistic value, say the doubters. They are vehicles for the politics of dissent.

And to a certain extent they are correct. There is indeed much questionable journalism out there. How do we hold individuals, purporting to write expertly on an issue or writing into news organisations to contribute to a story, to account? How do we check their facts and where is their credibility? Citizen journalism, as it is known, can be very hard to verify.

Rosalind Coward, Professor of Journalism at Roehampton University in London, argues that what citizen journalism often lacks is authenticity. “It is open to abuse, vaguery and fantasists who want to get forward.”

Rubbish has always existed

Yet, one could say that bad journalism practice is not limited to the digital sphere and accountability is just as much of an issue with traditional journalism.

Take Walter Duranty, the New York Times Moscow Bureau chief from 1922 to 1936 and recipient of the Pulitzer Prize. He won for his reporting of the famine in the Ukraine in 1932. It was widely claimed that he had covered up Stalin’s crimes in the country and in 2003 the Pulitzer board found his reporting to be unbalanced and uncritical and gave voice to Stalinist propaganda. Good journalism it was not.

Then we have what is called ‘churnalism,’ a relatively new practice which has emerged with 24/7 news. The pressure to report and find stories often, it is claimed, leads to the abandonment of good journalism practices – namely verification and research.

Yes, bad journalism has existed for many decades and whilst it has certainly continued in the digital age, those critics of the new media are perhaps suffering from a crisis of confidence.

They are seeing the barriers which once existed between news corporations and the audience crumble. It is no longer the lecture of the past, but a conversation.

Jim MacMillan, Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist, has called this the ‘golden age’ of journalism.

The dawn of something new

Nick Brett, Deputy Managing Director and Group Editorial Director of BBC Magazines explains that the digital age has given people the tools to destroy traditional media. You no longer push information at people. The new landscape is all about the ‘community.’ It is a two way process and you have to get people to interact and get involved.

Ian Hargreaves agrees. In his book, ‘Journalism: Truth or Dare,’ he declares: “journalism today is a two-way street, or rather a multidirectional process in a boundaryless place, rather than the one-way street of the traditional newspaper or television news bulletin.”

Professor Glenn Reynolds, creator of Instapundit, one of the most widely read political blogs in the US, says technology has ushered in a world of ‘everyman.’ “It is lowering the minimum efficient scale for doing things. Individuals can now do things that could only once be done by large organisations. Newsgathering can be done very well and can be done on the cheap.”

We are witnessing the creative destruction of traditional journalism.

Technology and citizen journalism, when harnessed by news organisations, can be a force for good. After all, very few journalists are true experts in their field and the voice of one is often far less effective than the voice of the crowd.

News behemoths capitalise on citizen journalism

And many organisations have been quick to recognise this. CNN has ‘Ireport’, allowing viewers to submit audio and video. The BBC has ‘Have Your Say,’ enabling the audience to comment on a story, send in video, audio and suggest ideas. Far from replacing professional news, the public’s contribution can be seen as an insightful complement to standard news coverage. Peter Horrocks, Director of the BBC World Service, says “text messages and e-mails from our audiences have brought a valuable additional aspect to our journalism.”

And both the BBC and CNN verify user submissions.

Dan Gillmor, online news evangelist and once columnist for the San Jose Mercury News, believes the feedback from audiences that exists thanks to the new digital revolution opens journalism to scrutiny and criticism and requires the journalist to be thorough with their research and accurate with their facts. This defines good journalism.

And as Andrew Marr says in ‘My Trade’: “modern communications are so fast and easy to use, it is probably harder to lie in journalism than it used to be.”

Consider the number of stories and events that have either been broken or spruced up thanks to citizen journalism: the 2005 London bombings, the Mumbai bombings in 2008, the riots in Iran after the Presidential election in 2008 and the crash landing of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson river in 2009 – all captured on people’s cameras or news of the events texted into organisations such as the BBC. And there are countless more examples.

Here is footage from the Iran protests

And therein lies the real strength of technology and how when used correctly, can lead to some very good journalism. Digital has allowed citizen journalism to thrive and news organisations and journalists can use it to tap into local communities and knowledge to get up to the minute information on events with an immediacy and intimacy that was not possible before.

Such is the value of citizen journalism and this new media that some traditional news organisations have invested in it. In 2007, MSNBC bought citizen journalism website Newsvine, recognising the site’s potential.

And there are many examples of fine online journalism ventures. Gawker Media, which owns several popular sites like Gawker.com and Gizmodo, is one of many independent online news sites that produces volumes of original, high-quality content.

Charles Reiss, once political editor of the Evening Standard, said that “the internet is merely the pipe down which we put our work.”

Provided tried and tested editorial and ethical standards are maintained, good journalism in the digital age cannot only survive; it can flourish.

Capturing Cardiff: a new shopping destination

Cardiff welcomes you

A recent Experian Report has found that Cardiff has risen to sixth in the Retail Centre Rankings.

The results mean the Welsh capital has moved ahead of cities such as Edinburgh, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle and Bristol, who are all home to a far greater number of residents thus placing it at the forefront of UK shopping – a destination to be admired and envied in equal measure.

Cardiff’s new popularity has been attributed chiefly to the gargantuan development that is St. Davids 2.

St Davids Two Atrium

Attracted by this new commercial complex, shoppers are flocking to Cardiff city centre in their droves, making Christmas 2009 a bumper one for retailers. The city has even become an attractive prospect for shoppers as far afield as London.

The complex was four years in the making, ten if you count the planning. With consumer spending falling as a result of the global economic crisis, few could have known that the timing of the centre would make it a big gamble.

Built at a cost of £675 million, over 160 shops and catering outlets now call St Davids 2 home, a home that covers 967,500 sq feet and employs 4,000 people.

Christmas at St Davids

When it opened on the 22nd of October this year, St Davids 2 instantly provided 30% of the commercial real estate in Cardiff city centre.

One of the principal attractions of the development is the new John Lewis department store. It is the second largest John Lewis after that on Oxford Street in London and alone covers 280,000 square feet.

John Lewis in the Hayes

And it seems the city’s bravado has already paid off and shoppers are defying the recession to dig into their wallets and purses. Opened in time to welcome the Christmas shoppers, one million people are expected to descend on the shopping complex every week in the run up to the 25th of December. Should predictions be fulfilled, St Davids 2 will become the busiest mall ahead of the likes of Birmingham’s Bullring and the UK’s largest inner-city shopping centre, the Manchester Arndale.

It seems that St Davids 2 is a formula for success, attracting shoppers in search of gifts. Reservations remain, however, over the cost of many of the goods.

Many of the shops people will find are a first for Wales. Indeed, they can now enjoy Hugo Boss, Crabtree & Evelyn and Kurt Geiger as well as a number of restaurants, including a branch of Jamie Oliver’s eatery, Jamie’s. These shops, along with many others, plug a gap in the high-end retail market that Cardiff suffered from.

It is clear that the St Davids development has completely transformed the city centre, giving it a serious face lift. It has even prompted many of Cardiff’s older stores to revamp their look too. Indeed, House of Fraser underwent a makeover.

What is clear is that Cardiff, like many regional cities, has undergone significant transformation over the years as local and national authorities sought to regenerate often dated city centres in a bid to lure people back into these.

In Cardiff, this process of regeneration began with the Bay area which is now a thriving entertainment hub, with restaurants and bars sitting side by side waiting to receive customers.

Cardiff Bay

In the city centre, old meets new, giving the Welsh capital a sense of past, yet capable of looking to the future. Indeed, what the development achieves is to complement the popular systems of Arcades that have existed in Cardiff since the 19th century, where quirky, independent shops jostle for shoppers’ attention.

Cardiff Arcade

Christmas Shopping in the Arcades

To add to the experience, the run up to Christmas see the city come alive with Christmas markets.

Shopping at the Christmas Market

Jams and Preserves at the Christmas Market

Stalls are dotted around Queen Street.

Christmas Market Stalls

They give the city a very festive feel which, lasts well into the night should people wish to continue their day with a visit to Winter Wonderland and its main attraction, the ice rink.

The John Lewis ferris wheel at Winter Wonderland

Cardiff has something to offer everyone. The new St Davids extension breathes life into what Cardiff Country Council perhaps felt was a flagging city centre. City authorities must surely now deem Cardiff worthy of its capital status.

St Davids has propelled Cardiff to the centre stage of UK shopping, attracting not only people from Cardiff and the surrounding area, but also visitors from beyond the Welsh borders. It has put Cardiff on the map and in tough economic times such as the ones we are currently experiencing, the boom that it has created is welcome relief to no doubt worried retailers who thought the 2009 Christmas period would not yield the results of yester year.

Christmas in Cardiff

Rory and the BBC Technological machine

What struck me most was the candid and honest take on his work.

We are constantly told that journalists are not experts in their field and Rory Cellan-Jones, by his own admission, certainly fits the bill.

Originally one of the broadcaster’s business correspondents, he is now their technology reporter.

“I came late to technology, but that makes me all the more keen to communicate just what is exciting and important about it to as many people as possible” he says on his BBC blog bio page.

And that’s what matters most. He was an enthusiastic speaker when he came to see us last week, keen to impart his experiences as a broadcaster and his work with the digital world.

In the hour and a half that he was with us, he made his world sound exciting, allowing us to come away thinking ‘wow, that’s pretty cool. I’d like to do that.’ Or maybe that’s just me. Afterall, I did spend the a good few months locked in a passionate affair with my Iphone when I first got hold of it, much to my girlfriend’s annoyance.

Anyway, I digress as usual. I don’t necessarily believe that one needs to be an expert on their ‘patch.’ Of course, a strong knowledge of your subject matter helps, but I don’t think the audience will hold it against you if you don’t have a Ph.D in technology etc…

Rory was quite open about the fact that he is not a geek and that he regularly gets blog comments from readers chastising him on an erroneous fact, insulting him because he was not born with technology expert branded on his forehead.

No, I do believe that what matters most is the manner in which you communicate your news. I’d much rather sit and watch an engaging reporter who makes the news accessible and exciting than someone who makes his news sound like a thesis recital. I want to watch someone the audience can relate to and I think Rory fulfills that requirement nicely. As the audience, you want to feel like the reporter is someone you could have a decent conversation down the pub with and not be lectured by. That’s why people like Rory, who don’t live and breathe their subject matter, are so successful.

What was particularly interesting was the fact that although he saw the merits of social media (Twitter, Facebook, et al) and accepted them as useful tools in the journalist’s arsenal, he was also keen to point out their limitations. Namely, reliability. Indeed, how can you tell if the person you are speaking to is really the person you think you are speaking to? There are regular accounts of celebrity impostors on Twitter for example.

Anyway, I found his lecture to be one of the most interesting and down to earth we’ve had so far. Of course, all of the others have been great. The speakers have been enthusiastic and willing to open up about the online world. Yet, for me, Rory was the first I felt I could relate to. He spoke about technology from a ‘human point of view’, rather than from that of a cyber geek.

I liked his candidness about his work and his open admission that whilst he enjoyed all things technological, he was not consumed by them.

Quite refreshing.

A picture tells a thousand words

A couple of weeks ago, we had a lovely guy come in to speak to us during our online lecture. His name was Daniel Meadows and he was about to be honoured by the Royal Television Society for his work over the past 30 odd years.

In the 1970s he bought a bus in which he lived for 18 months. He travelled the length and breadth of the country to carry out an experiment, the adventure of a documentarist he calls it.

His goal: to stop in villages, towns and cities and take pictures of the people who called his stops home. He named his bus the ‘Photobus‘.

Over the years the photos were published and republished. They even featured in the Tate Britain.

25 odd years later he thought he might try and get back in touch with those people.

A nationwide search was launched and very soon his mission was being publicised the world over. Bit by bit, people got back in touch with him to say that they recognised the photos.

What is most fascinating is the interest that Daniel’s photos and project ignited in those who heard about it. A picture tells a thousand words and people started to weave a story around each of the pictures – what those faces were saying. The story behind the picture. One guy from New Zealand even composed a piece of music around one of Daniel’s subjects!

Daniel’s passion to document life in the UK through the photographic medium had generated debate and storytelling – discussion amongst those who participated in the project all those years ago and amongst those who were spectators to Daniel’s work.

Despite the project’s success and the recognition that he is receiving, Daniel remains a modest man. He won’t even be attending the Royal Television Society’s ceremony.He wishes to remain on the fringes of mainstream media, quietly getting on with documenting the world around him and the people who make up the island in which he lives.

Blogging your way to work

Ahh, I knew I should have kept on top of this blog. Silly me. It’s been about three weeks since I last posted and I am desperately trying to catch up on all the things that we have spoken about in our online lectures.

We seem to be lucky enough to hear from a variety of interesting online media types who are willing to give up their time to come and speak to budding journalists. They never fail in their enthusiasm and openness to discuss all matters related to their work.

Adam Tinworth was no exception. I came across his blog at the beginning of term and have always found it to be the source of some very useful and interesting information.

He is head of blogging at Reed Business Information, Europe’s largest B2B publishing company.

His lecture was a chance for us to see that it is possible to make a living out of blogging. It’s not just some pastime that you do in your room after you’ve finished a long day in the office.

In just three years, RBI has built up 120 blogs and their online business is outperforming the print side of things. And this is growing continuously.

Obviously they are doing something right. Adam gave us his insight. What makes a successful blog and keeps people coming back? Well, find a niche. One thing for certain is that you want people to refer to your site when they want to find out about a particular topic they are interested. The more specialised the blog, the greater the opportunity to create something unique and special that sets itself apart from the general rant pages that you find out there in cyberspace.

Be an expert! RBI is successful because they have managed to create and maintain blogs that are written by people who are passionate about their subject matter. Adam spoke of one blogger they have who writes about the aviation industry. He has become so successful at what he does that people know they will find the news on his blog before it appears in the mainstream press. He is breaking it.

This new digital age of communication is characterised by what Adam called the ‘distributed space’, a space that is unregulated where audiences can find a plethora of information on any topic they want. There are no boundries.

As future journalists, we need to be part of this space and make sure we take full advantage of it.

Blogging shouldn’t be seen as a chore, but as something that allows journalists to communicate openly with their audience – inviting comments and opinion from them. Blogging is a chance for us to specialise and to create a community around our work.

RBI has shown that it is possible to do just that and be very successful at it.

 

 

 

 

The BBC: The Social Broadcasting Corporation

Firstly, apologies for the lack of posting. I’ve been a little bit (too) quiet recently, mainly due to the mounting workload which is slowly taking over my life. Luckily I enjoy it, so am not really feeling sorry for myself as I drown under it all

Anyway, I’m back and am here to talk a little about a very interesting lecture we had just over a week ago. A lovely and highly energetic lady by the name of Dr. Claire Wardle came into visit us. She is an Honorary Lecturer here at Cardiff and also works for the BBC College of Journalism, conducting in-house training for the army of journos that the BBC employs.

We were lucky enough to hear her give a run down of how the BBC is using social media tools to help it report, news gather and stay in touch with its audience, the latter particularly in the regions.

And so we learnt about things like Addict-O-Matic, Netvibes, Technorati and hyper-local blogs. Or perhaps I’m just really uncool and was the only one in the lecture hall to have remained until recently firmly ‘out of the know’ so to speak on all these sites.

I’ve since had a play with Addict-O-Matic, it so happens that it is indeed quite good. Type something you want to learn about into the search field, a buzz word as the site calls it, and in a matter of nano seconds it pulls up results from Google news, Youtube, WordPress, Digg and Ask.com, plus many, many more. Very, very handy if you ask me. Gone are the days when if you were interested in a particular topic, you had to go and search each website individually. What makes Addict-O-Matic all the more relevant to the new digital age is that it searches social media sites such as Twitter, Friendfeed and Flickr for results.

Anyway, I digress.

I, who has until recently been quite skeptical about sites such as Twitter, was almost a convert by the end of her lecture. Dr. Wardle’s enthusiasm was very infectious and inspiring. She made me feel very excited about the world of online and how it can be put to use in our day to day work as broadcast journalists. Her lecture was insightful and her audience engaged. Speaking to friends after it had finished, we were all excited about finding out more about the various issues she had spoken of. It was nice to see a real world application of all the things that we are learning about.

There were videos of BBC journalists explaining how they put social media to good use each and every day. A recurring example was a rather forward thinking and avant-garde fellow working in North-East Wales who uses a site called Delicious to research his stories. He also used it to maintain transparency and so his audience could see what he was doing outside of the daily bulletin etc. He also uses Twitter to stay connected with his patch.

What seemed apparent was that the use of social media is gathering pace within the BBC. Yet, there is no uniformity in its use. In other words, it is almost to the discretion of each journalist how they use it and the extent to which they do. And that’s where Dr. Wardle comes in. It is her job to get everyone blogging, social bookmarking and Tweeting so as to ensure that the BBC connects and engages with its audience (something that is so vitally important at the local level).

And with her love for the digital world and the enthusiastic manner in which she teaches others about it, I have no doubt that she will succeed in her ‘techno-vangelical’ mission.

 

Twitterverse goes supernova

I did the unthinkable this week…I signed up to Twitter. Not of choice I must add, but rather because:

1. We were politely asked to by our online journalism tutor;

2. I feared a fate worse than death if  I didn’t, with possible retribution for non-compliance including waterboarding, electrocution and a couple of hours on the rack.

Now, before I continue I should point out that although I do have reservations about Twitter, I do see the value of the site when it comes to the corporate sphere. The press office of a non-profit health association I used to work for recently signed up and they have had much success in promoting media releases and conferences as a result. I can also see the value in a company promoting its goods and services, a newspaper posting its headlines or a band advertising its latest single or album, for example.

Where the buck stops in my mind is with Joe Blogs. I really just don’t see the interest in providing people with a minute by minute account of my day. Who wants to hear that I’m eating a sandwich, stuck in a lift or having a cup of tea?…you get the idea. It’s voyeurism at its worst – internet stalking. In the real world you can go to jail for that. Why can’t people just get out there and speak to one another like they used to do not so long ago?

The Twitter brigade would have you believe that it makes the world go round, that it’s the second coming of Christ.

As far as I’m aware, mankind survived quite happily and successfully without it for millenia. Rome wasn’t built in a day granted, but I don’t think Twitter would have sped up the process.

Attila the Hun was able to pillage his way from the Asian Steppes to Germany without so much of a Tweet.

However, something happened last week which has altered my perception of not only Twitter, but social media in general. I am sure that everyone is familiar with the Trafigura and Guardian episode so I will refrain from repeating what has been said time and time again.

What is plain to see is that social media has matured and developed into a simple and effective communication outlet. Through the power of tweets, users forced Trafigura and their lawyers, Carter-Ruck, into a rather uncomfortable corner. The virtual mob had spoken. Social media has come along way in a very short space of time. It is extremely versatile and sites such as Twitter can be used to influence real world events.

This was further demonstrated a few days later after a rather charming journalist going by the name of Jan Moir, wrote an even more charming piece in that most charming of papers, the Daily Heil. In it, she alluded to the fact that Steven Gately’s premature death at the age of 33 could not have been from natural causes, but had something to do with his lifestyle choices (he was homosexual). This naturally caused outrage within the online community, particularly Twitter, causing some advertisers to remove their ads from the page and forcing Jan Moir to apologise.

We are living in a truly digital age, where information has never been so readily available and easily accessible. The digital age has made every journalist immediately accountable for their words. The digital age has allowed people to make their voice heard on a global scale.

The internet, however, not without its faults and one can get easily carried away extolling its virtues. Yes there is plenty of information out there, but does it all get checked for accuracy? Wikipedia is a great resource, but not all information on there is factually correct. Jan Moir went on Twitter to apologise for her article. The only problem, and as far as problems go this was a biggie, was that it wasn’t her, merely someone who had signed up using her name.

Some say that internet censorship is spreading. Bloggers and journalists are being scared by the threat of libel. The real world has woken up to the power of the net and their lawyers are working overtime to redress the balance of power.

Those Germans are so Sensible

So, a group of German bloggers have launched an appeal to journalists and newsrooms around the world. Times are a changin’ and people aren’t reacting fast enough. Tut, tut. These digital evangelists have created a 17 point manifesto and their mission is to let everyone know that the internet is key to the future of journalism and news. Ok, but it’s 2009, and I think that most people, unless you’ve been living under a rock since the 90s, have already made this realisation.

Fundamentally, I agree wholeheartedly with the vast majority of the points made and they are made convincingly. However, I cannot help but feel that the manifesto is merely repeating what has already been said and what is common knowledge.  At the end of the day a manifesto is a call for action and a declaration of intentions and I just get the feeling that the manifesto, though well intentioned, has arrived fashionably late at the digital party.

The authors emphasise, quite rightly, that the internet is about free speech and the dissemination of information. Never has it been easier to stay informed, but never has it been easier to disseminate false information. Point 16 states that quality remains the most important quality and this is of course true. The authors mention that if a site, a blog etc does not contain quality material, then it will not enjoy a stable following. I have to take issue with this. There are plenty of newspapers and magazines whose output is questionable in its accuracy, yet they still enjoy heavy readership.

Alison Gow has reacted rather forcefully to the manifesto and says that the key issue undermining the document is the fact that many people in newsrooms just don’t get the internet and until they do, nothing will change. She has far greater journalistic experience than I do, but I do find that to be a gross generalisation. The media no doubt has its fair share of technophobes, but on the flip side there are more who have embraced it and who are trying to understand it.