The Philippines’ inquirer.net, led by editor-in-chief JV Rufino, has a strong multimedia mindset. Journos are given mobile phones and digital cameras and can file news from on the run, beating Manila’s traffic jams.

The Brisbane Times is the only totally online newsroom in Australia and it beat competitors’ website traffic within four months of launching.

Food for thought.

But as Stephen Quinn explains in New tools 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.

It touched on “citizen” or “grassroots” journalists: ordinary who make their photos, video and audio available to the wider public.

YouTube video: “Citizen Journalism – What Is It?“

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?

– Koren

This week I read the second chapter of Stephen Quinn’s Convergent Journalism: The fundamentals of multi-media reporting (2005, Peter Lang, New York).

Convergent journalism – the delivery of news using multiple formats to reach multiple audiences around the clock – can only be the way forward for the media industry.

It seems inevitable in an age where we struggle with time constraints and the internet is increasingly used for quick grabs of information that aren’t readily available from other sources. An age where we want access to the old ways, too.

There are downsides to convergent journalism, like the increasing use of poor quality images and videos. And, in Australia where access to cheap broadband is limited, the internet factor can’t possibly take off as well as it might elsewhere… yet. The convergence roll-out would be incredibly expensive and there are technological issues to overcome. Journalists could react adversely to the change, particularly the increase in deadlines and the need to be more multi-skilled (a common theme in new media).

Nonetheless, I reckon media has to look to convergence because the old ways, alone, don’t work anymore. And I like the idea of getting all the journos to work together. The old adage ‘two heads are better than one’ seems to fit. There’s an emphasis on teamwork (which needs to come from top-level management) and this can ultimately only produce better journalism for our consumers.

And that’s my final point. Convergence has to be rolled out with the reader in mind, not the media owner’s hip pocket.

Cheers – Koren