The new news makers
Jul 1, 2008 12:00 PM, BY Craig Birkmaier
Citizen reporting and blogs are changing news.
CNN has created a user-sourced Internet news portal that feeds news stories to its cable network.
Over the years, I have spent a great deal of time making news. Lest anyone get the mistaken impression that typing my name into Google is going to provide links to news stories about things I have done, let me explain.
There is a huge global industry involved with the acquisition, production and delivery of various forms of news and information, such as newspapers, magazines, radio newscasts, TV newscasts and now the new media — Internet news portals, blogs and social networking sites. And let's not forget about “Entertainment Tonight” and “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”
Journalism has changed dramatically during the television era, and it continues to evolve as news consumers use the Internet to gain access to alternative news sources and the technology to become news “makers.”
I started making news in college, first as a reporter for the “Technique,” the Georgia Tech student newspaper, and then working both in front of and behind the mics and cameras at the University of South Florida radio and TV stations. During my career in broadcast television, I spent nearly a decade producing and directing newscasts for commercial stations in Florida.
One of my first big scoops, while attending Georgia Tech, foreshadowed what is becoming a trend in the Internet era — user-sourced news. During a physical education class at the track, which surrounds the field in the football stadium, a student collapsed and died from a genetic brain aneurism. As a first-person witness to the event, I was asked to write the story for the “Technique.”
Today user-sourced news is becoming commonplace — so much so that CNN has created a user-sourced Internet news site called “iReport.” (See “Web links” on page 18.) The site, and its contributors, takes pride in the number of stories that wind up making it to the CNN cable network. Meanwhile, the Internet blogosphere is becoming both a destination for news and information, and a significant influence on the journalists working for traditional news organizations.
A recent study by Brodeur, a market research and public relations firm, found that the new media (social media and blogs) is having an effect on many different aspects of reporting, particularly the speed and availability of news. (See “Web links.”) Among the findings of the report:
Blogs are a regular source for journalists. More than three-quarters of reporters see blogs as helpful in giving them story ideas, story angles and insight into the tone of an issue.
The majority of journalists think blogs have a significant effect on news reporting in all areas tested, except in the area of news quality. The biggest effect has been in speed and availability of news. More than half said that blogs have a significant effect on the tone (61.8 percent) and editorial direction (51.1 percent) of news reporting.
Technology and the citizen reporter
Clearly, the widespread availability of tools that were at one time the exclusive domain of news professionals is a large factor in the rise of user-sourced journalism. Affordable digital photography, video camcorders, and networked mobile devices with digital cameras and video acquisition capabilities enable average citizens to capture breaking news events. And the rise of user-sourced video sites, such as iReport and YouTube, demonstrate how easily citizens can share video on a global basis.
Benjamin Moss, director of mobile products for the Associated Press, demonstrates the ability for users to file news reports with the AP via Apple’s iPhone.
Add to this the use of surveillance cameras, cameras in police cruisers and the sheer number of people who happen to be in the right place at the right time, and it's clear that news events are more likely to be captured by citizens and surveillance cameras than by working journalists.
This reality is not lost on professional news organizations. At Apple's recent Worldwide Developers Conference, a demonstration of a new application that the Associated Press is developing for the iPhone drives home the point. The application draws upon the resources of the global network of member AP news organizations. In addition to the expected news headline service, the AP application takes advantage of the capabilities of mobile devices that are aware of their location to present stories of local interest to the user. And the application takes advantage of the image acquisition and text input capabilities of the iPhone to turn users into reporters. A “Send Report” feature allows users to send photos and file text reports about a news story to the AP via the telco data network or a Wi-Fi hot spot.
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