But as Stephen Quinn explains in Newtools for reporting (can’t seem to find a link for you, sorry), some entrepreneurial journalists are using these latest technologies to scoop the opposition, find great stories and actually save time.
I’ve seen how handy RSS feeds (“really simple syndication”/”rich site summary”) can be when job hunting: the jobs come to you! For time-poor, information-hungry journos the concept is brilliant. Spend a few hours hunting down some decent blogs and then sit back and wait. As simple as checking the emails in the morning.
Of course, the big beef with blogs and homemade sites is whether they’re authentic. We even have some sneaky marketing companies masquerading as citizen journos to peddle products (”astroturfing“). Never fear, whois is here! Of course, the database of registered domains requires a little technological know-how and does take away from the quick and ease of an internet find.
But no one wants to end up like poor old Terry Lane… He sure could have used this.
– Koren
Oh – and if you’d like to see an interesting YouTube video on a solo journalist and his escapades in war-torn countries, armed only with a video camera and laptop, head here.
Creator Oh Yeon-ho goes by the motto “every citizen is a reporter“. But, unlike blogs, contributors must conform to a strict code of ethics. I reckon this is a smarter way of tapping into the blogging world, a way of overcoming the Wikipedia-type problem of not being credible while still building that all-important sense of community.
Even more ingeniously, writers are paid according to the story’s popularity. So unlike many other news forums (apart from their few token attempts), it’s the readers who decide what the top news story is, not editors.
The format is clearly working: the site has been profitable since 2003 and makes 70 per cent of its revenue from advertising. It seems to me the concept worked because it moved a step ahead of other mediums stuck doing things the old way.
So what’s to stop the journalism world from heading this way in the future, especially if the advertising model is working?
In launching wholly online, OhmyNews also saved a heck of a lot of money. Makes me wonder if Fairfax Media had something similar in mind when it launched the Brisbane Times last year…
Blogging seems to be a hot topic this semester, so here’s my favourite blog by Meagan, an American woman working with the Helping Hands charity in a Cambodian village where I volunteered last year.
This week’s reading by Fred Wilson tried to address the question on the lips of every media owner: How the hell can money be made around free content?
The answer seems to be: look beyond the traditional advertising model. Wilson lists a whole gamut of “thinking outside the square” options, including streaming audio and video advertising or getting users to create the advert and then on-selling it.
But the idea that struck me as most interesting was the Rhodes brothers’ suggestion about selling emails. Essentially, it involves making people pay for information that is also available for free… somewhere on the net. As the Rhodes brothers suggest, people will pay because it makes finding what they want quicker and easier.
It’s a concept that could work for print-turned-onliners. Local businesses could take out adverts in the relevant news emails and be sure they are targeting fellow locals.
Then there’s the free-to-use News Limited concept, TrueLocal, where everyone gets a listing and businesses pay to upload more content.
I like this option best. A tight-ass at heart, I’ll always be prepared to spend a little longer finding my banana cake recipe (yes, tasty as tested by moi) the free way. Although as Chris Anderson points out, I’m probably paying without realising! But then, this is the age-old essence of marketing.
This week I read Stephen and Deirdre Quinn’s article ‘User-generated content and the changing news cycle’ (Australian Journalism Review, volume 28, number 1, pp.57–70).
It touched on “citizen” or “grassroots” journalists: ordinary who make their photos, video and audio available to the wider public.
This can be a handy form of news breaking during extraordinary events because it gives the public an insider account of the action (think of the Qantas air disaster passenger footage). It effectively means journalists are everywhere.
There’s a second positive to user-generated content: journalists can use these news gatherers for future stories. It’s a huge bonus because finding witnesses and victims for the first-hand-account story is often difficult. And these golden news sources often come to us!
Of course, there are downsides. Checking the accuracy of the account may be difficult in some cases or legal issues may arise. And peer written and reviewed sites, like Wikipedia, are intrinsically dangerous when it comes to being factual, credible and truthful. But consumers are generally aware of this and many use Wikipedia as a first point of call to get the basic idea and research on from there.
The main problem I see – and it’s a major issue with all new media – is how to make money. How will advertising work in this format? Because without traditional news outlets creating revenue to fund blogs, podcasts and vlogs, can the industry continue to pay top quality journalists?
