Journalists are the audience formerly known as the media
Here are my notes from the Media 140 talk, the video should be available soon. I will post it, when it is.
It’s great to see so many journalists here who are on Twitter and I think if anything it’s provided a great forum for some robust debate about issues facing media.
Perhaps many journalist’s natural curiosity has been piqued by the fact that they are in danger of becoming largely irrelevant?
I’m not anti-journalist, I’m not pro-blogger, I’m pro-journalism and it’s core function to inform. I didn’t say inform the masses on purpose there. Who performs that function is less relevant to me.
The way I see it, and for the purposes of this discussion, there are two main issues that remain largely misunderstood by journalists working in news organisations when it comes to engaging in social media.
The first pertains to the issue of control, or loss of control and the second is around transparency.
I don’t talk about old media and new media – I think it’s unconstructive and divisive.
But there has been a shift and I’m not averse to calling it a revolution. The revolution in media has largely been about loss of control and that is not necessarily a bad thing.
I use the term ‘control media’ to describe the mindset we have had until the internet came along and disrupted that.
I think it’s an important part of understanding how things like Twitter have turned media-as-we-know-it on its head. It’s also important for journalists in social media communities to fully understand the enormity of this change.
Until recently we’ve lived in a control media environment – the ability to report and share information was limited to those that controlled the technology that made it possible – those who owned the printing presses, radio and TV licences. But more importantly news was controlled by those in charge of deciding who /what /why and when something was newsworthy.
Twitter is an example of almost the exact opposite of “control media” because journalists are not in control the flow of information anymore.
It wasn’t journalists who covered the recent Iran uprising.
It wasn’t journalists who broke the news of the last major earthquake in China. in fact the previous earthquake of a similar magnitude was reported three months after the event and the Chinese Government still tried to deny it ever happened.
It wasn’t a journalist’s twitpic – that’s a picture posted to Twitter – I saw 3 minutes after the cable snapped on the bay Bridge in San Francisco – just over a week ago.
Participatory media doesn’t mean you letting your audience participate in the creation of news, it about acknowledging that you participate in news creation along with your audience.
It still astounds me how many journalists on Twitter, many of whom have spoken here today (I know because I checked) only follow other journalists – and who are the first ones to complain that the internet is an echo chamber?
My second point about journalists using Twitter is the need for full transparency, which can run counter to the notion of objectivity.
How can you be honest and open about things – or have a personal opinion – when it might align you with one party in a story over another? It was something Mark Colvin and Leigh Sales touched on in their talks with regard to being cautious in letting their opinions on a subject known. I believe that if we knew where journalists stood on a matter, it would in fact increase their credibility and create a greater trust with their audiences.
As journalist Amy Gahran put it “when journos pretend to have NO opinions/biases, it *undermines* their credibility.”
The Washington Post recently published some guidelines for their journalists in using social networks like Twitter and Facebook, in which it said, and I quote:
All Washington Post journalists relinquish some of the personal privileges of private citizens. Post journalists must recognize that any content associated with them in an online social network is, for practical purposes, the equivalent of what appears beneath their bylines in the newspaper or on our website.
It’s quite alarming really. Instead of finding ways to encourage engagement, these guidelines are in fact doing just the opposite.
Its important in this time of change, that journalists are encouraged to have open conversations, not have restrictions placed on those.
Truth is, objectivity as an ideal was always somewhat flawed, and in part is responsible for the large cynicism that exists among audiences today.
I subscribe to the disclosure of personal views and opinions whenever and wherever possible, rather than a pretense that they don’t exist. And I encourage all journalists to do the same.
Can journalists do it better?
We’ve heard Jay Rosen’s quote here a few times today about “the people formerly known as the audience.” To which I’d like to add:
Journalists are the audience formerly known as the media.
Very nice article.
I am wondering how #media140 or twitter will also work for developmental journalism (for want of a better word) not necessarily news only.
Have been trying to use twitter/youtube for these issues and found it fascinating AND with an audience ready to engage in conversations.
Interesting and provocative. But it’s a bit cheeky to claim you are ‘pro-journalism’ at the start, then finish by coining a phrase that banishes journalists to irrelevance.
Also, you come close to that annoying recent habit of saying ”It was on Twitter first”, and implying that means ”So there’s no point anyone else covering it”.
Being first on a story (which electronic media such as the internet and radio naturally do best) is no guarantee of accuracy, or intelligibility. In fact it often puts those at risk, and other media must later knit the fragments together into a story that more closely resembles history.
This whole conversation is about journalists by journalists and one of the reasons is some smart person added the word “media” to the word “social”. The only people who are relly interested in the “media” part of “social media” are journalists and advertisers. Because the users of “social media” don’t see themselves as audiences anymore than mobile phone users see themselves as audiences, they don’t really see it as media in the same way journalists and advertisers do.
Whenever a journalist sees the word media they know it’s about them because many did media studies and media theory way back whenever.
Many of the tropes of journalism – breaking stories, just the facts, no personal bias etc were always medium is the message tropes Every medium has its versions of these and as media evolve so do these.
I would think a future journalist will operate the same way as a past one just differently as they say. Journalists should settle down about all this and go with the flow. Different for the owners of the printing presses of course.
full transparency: I’m a journalist.
also, a regular Twitter user.
it all sounds so simple, don’t it? journalists are now the audience (actually, we’ve always been part of the audience) and everyone is, or has the potential to be, a “journalist.”
my definition is slightly different: journalists are those who are paid to report the news. and as we dwindle in number — because publishers will almost always opt for free or cheap whenever they can — actual journalism will suffer.
yes, twitter is great for saying “hey, a cable on the bay bridge snapped.” it’s even great for updates on the status of repairs. my wife followed this on her phone on a recent trip to SF.
what twitter isn’t great for: why the cable snapped. who was responsible. who’s trying to duck responsibility. who will fix it. what it will cost. why it wasn’t fixed correctly the first time. how safe are the other cables? do other bridges have this problem? is this part of a greater problem of infrastructure crumbling due to neglect? what happens to all those tax $$ that go to Caltrans anyway? and do they really need 5 people to fill one pothole?
kinda hard to cover in 140 characters, no?
this is why we need journalists. but not the unpaid kind.
cheers,
dt