Is This the Future of News? 147
WirePosted points us to a story discussing the future of news reporting. For over a year, CNN has been accepting user-generated news stories and posting the best of them for all to see. Earlier this week, CNN handed over the reins of iReport.com, allowing unfiltered and unedited content from anyone who cares to participate, provided it adheres to "established community guidelines". Analysts point to the amateur footage from the Virginia Tech shootings and the Minnesota bridge collapse as an example of the capabilities of distributed reporting. Will this form of user-driven reporting (with which we are well acquainted) come to challenge or supplant traditional new broadcasting?
newsvine (Score:5, Interesting)
It did some time ago. (Score:4, Interesting)
They were one of few sites with the bandwidth and the eyewitness accounts to accurately describe and present what was going on. I can wait a day or two for analysis -- when something big happens, I'll turn to somewhere like that for immediate presence. It's more annoying to separate the wheat from the chaff, but it's also an experience one doesn't get sitting in front of a TV or reading the sanitized version on the AP.
Prelude to the Future (Score:4, Interesting)
The "open news content" will come first, but it will suck until our social networks make our filter as easy as flipping to "Cronkite" used to be.
Re:A Million Monkeys (Score:5, Interesting)
The incredible inaccuracy of eye witness accounts is well known. It is also a truism that the camera lies; a singe perspective can be dangerous. Grammar has nothing to do with it. Being objective does not mean elitism.
There's a helluva lot to be said for people interested in journalism to be able to earn a living from it, to earn respect for doing a good job, and for having an organisation that can support them, mentor them as they learn their trade, and get them direct access to the highest politicians in their country.
I personally don't think anyone has managed to beat the model of the UK's BBC, where the state-funded-but-independently-governed design allows for experienced commentary and challenging interviews without the ratings and advertisers having any influence. Not a perfect system, but the best I'm aware of. The BBC takes in photos and other submissions from the public, which allows the first person experience even where the network does not have resources on the ground, while still allowing for some editorial quality control.
Yes (Score:2, Interesting)
I think it's already happening.
This doesn't mean that news will become inaccurate or drop in quality. People will still want to read edited content produced by intelligent writers and those who provide them will naturally gain prominence and credibility. It's a rather nice change from the past where credibility depends on how much money you have to produce and distribute the content.
Of course, I'm only talking about corporate publications vs. blogs. TV newscast still has requires some infrastructure to support it. That said, I think getting news from linear broadcasting with fixed time slots is silly in the first place, so I don't see why we should create an online replacement for it.
Re:Not just No (Score:1, Interesting)
It won't work. As soon as you post the video clips online, the news companies will be able to use the footage on-air without compensation thanks to fair use rights. It goes both ways, y'know. You can try to limit their access to the footage via blind auction, but then people won't even really know what they're bidding on. The reason that will fail is pretty obvious.
Not as easy as it looks (Score:5, Interesting)
When I first started writing news, for alternative newspapers, I thought it was easy. I knew who the good guys were, and who the bad guys were, and all I had to do was expose them. Just try it. If only it were that easy.
The most important lesson I learned as a real journalist, as distinct from a hippie journalist, is that whenever you attack the bastards, always call them up and give them a chance to respond. Let them defend themselves, and then show how they're lying. Just try it. Every real journalist (Molly Ivins, for one) will tell you all the times they thought they had the guy nailed, but when they called him up, it turned the story completely around.
There was a story on This American Life http://www.thislife.org/ [thislife.org] about a kid who was in Europe, and talked his way into a press conference with George H.W. Bush (the father, not the stupid one). Good work so far. Then he got a chance to ask the President of the United States a question on the environment. Bush said that he supported nuclear power because it would do, overall, less harm to the environment. He actually made some good points.
The kid hadn't done his homework. He didn't know how to frame a good question that would pin the bastard down, and he didn't know how to follow it up. He didn't know shit about the environment. Bush had probably answered the same question a dozen times before, knew more about the environment than the kid did, and knew how to give a good answer. TAL played a tape of the press conference, and it was painful for me to listen, because I'd been in that same situation so many times before. (If you want to become a citizen journalist, you can practice getting prepared by looking up that story on the TAL web site. This will give you an idea of how hard it is to do research.)
Look at what I think is one of the best news sources in English: Democracy Now http://www.democracynow.org/ [democracynow.org] Take a look at this: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/28/the_democrats_suharto_bill_clinton_richard [democracynow.org] There is no way that any citizen journalist is going to be able to question Richard Holbrooke or Bill Clinton about human rights the way Alan Nairn and Amy Goodman did. Or this http://www.democracynow.org/features [democracynow.org] They know their facts thorougly.
Who do you want grilling your so-called elected leaders -- Amy Goodman, or some well-intentioned "activist" who doesn't know his facts (like those ringers they have in the audience during the presidential debates)?
I'm not defending the White House press corps either. Sure, the average stoned activist could do a better job than Judy Miller, but that's a pretty low bar.
There is one case where citizen journalists can do a good job, and that's as first-hand eyewitnesses. I remember going to an anti-war demonstration during the '60s, and having the New York City police viciously attack non-violent demonstrators (including me), some of whom had brought their children, and put some of them in the hospital with permanent injuries, for no reason that I could see (or that the City's lawyers could come up with in subsequent lawsuits). Running for safety, I came across a bunch of guys with press badges, huddled safely away from the scene where they couldn't witness the police brutality. On WBAI-FM radio, we heard first-hand accounts of what happened on the scene, which was consistent with what I saw.
Next morning, I picked up the New York Times, and saw a complete propaganda job, quoting only the police and City officials, claiming that the demonstrators had started it, it was the demonstrators' fault, and the cops had behaved with proper restraint. The Times didn'
Re:when pigs have wings ... (Score:4, Interesting)
>When I can a.) call the White House and get a serious answer to a serious question
Are you SERIOUS? Can you not remember ANY of the press coverage post-911, when the PRESS was as guilty as the White House in drumming up The War?
Remember, this ALSO came at a time when 2 of the 3 major networks are subsidiaries OF military industrial complex corporations.
To keep pressure on the fourth network, Fox... oh wait, no pressure was needed.
Oh yeah, to keep pressure on the third network (Disney), the FCC was looking to "relax ownership limits" on broadcast TV (which leads to greater concentration in one network but the real value is the individual local channels become inflated, can actually have buyers)
The press wasn't misled... they dodged some very serious issues and questions. After all, they have an obligation to serve the stockholders (funds mostly, and funds could see the spending spree written on the wall)
Re:Not What I Want (Score:3, Interesting)
Editors are an artifact of the, for lack of a better term, "non-interactiveness" of traditional media. They are supposed to act as the filter on behalf of the general public, but, as it turns out, editors have their own opinions and world views. Only by allowing the general public to comment on the news will all sides be expressed. You'll have mouth-breathers from the Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, Communist, Socialist, Green, and Martian parties all jumping in, and that will give you a much better feel for the different perspectives on the issue. You remain free to form your own opinion.
The fact is that the age of unbiased news is very likely gone forever. The only other method is to take all the bias and try to come up with a reasonable approximation of the truth. Editors are not on your side any more than Bill O'Reilly is.
I'm no mathematician (Score:3, Interesting)
Scoopt.com (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:One can only hope (Score:3, Interesting)
Regrettably, many so-called reporters such as Keith Olbermann pass off their opinion as news. There's no problem with a reporter offering his/her opinion, but they could be honest about it and label it as such. O'Reilly clearly states this on his show, although when he spends much time as he does reporting on tabloid material like Natalie Holloway or Britney Spears, at that point the character of the "news" has changed.
The real problem in the US and other places is not the quality of the news being presented. It's the widespread lack of critical thinking skills that many of these so-called journalists take advantage of.