Comments on: Was/Is/Will be

By: Ken

Ken — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 14:11:00 +0000

1) Who, what, when, where, why, and how? And local? Then you’re a reporter; a local one.

2) Blog an opinion, without text messaging, then you’re a writer with an opinion;

3) Blog an opinion, with text messaging and video; then you’re a photo reporter, not to be confused with a photo journalist….

Everyone else thinks they’re a member of the ‘Fourth Estate’ and a thinkyabig.

The latter is right up there with a whatchamacallit, in the first mover experience of chaos theory.

– Ken

By: Jeff Crigler

Jeff Crigler — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 20:04:52 +0000

[...] the Reader’s election-day experiment helped confirm for him that there’s something to the newspapers-as-networks argument [...]

By: Anthony Hunt

Anthony Hunt — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 22:43:49 +0000

Great concepts, but I agree with Mark’s comment…maybe everyone becomes a potential journalist, but how do we establish standards? You don’t have to have particular training to be a journalist, but isn’t there ultimately some specific benchmark that should be met before you give news (as opposed to opinion). Maybe you are just the press agent for [insert celebrity, cause, corporation, etc.].

If there is enough trouble in today’s news discerning the press release and video news release, what will more channels and less scrutiny produce?

By: Natalie Sannuti

Natalie Sannuti — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 02:53:06 +0000

Check out KMEG.com. The South Dakota based television station is encouraging citizen reporting through its webpage ” Be a Community Correspondent”.

By: Justin Kownacki

Justin Kownacki — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 21:42:34 +0000

The way it is: The news expects you to care about it.
The way it will be: The news will care about you.

(Out: Disseminated facts, Misnomered objectivity, Paternalism.
In: Aggregated POVs, Admitted subjectivity, Fraternalism.)

By: Notes from a Teacher: Mark on Media » Monday squibs

Notes from a Teacher: Mark on Media » Monday squibs — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 17:41:06 +0000

[...] Was/Is/Will be. Jeff Jarvis picks up on Mark Glaser’s post I noted last week, Imaging a Future Tense for Newspapers, provides commentary and makes some additions to the list. [...]

By: Ron Davison

Ron Davison — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 17:29:14 +0000

The way it is – you find the news.
The way it will be – the news finds you.
(We already see some of this with RSS feeds, custom pages, etc. In the future, you could receive a phone call informing you of something important (“The Mets lost!” or “The Fed just lowered interest rates!” (note that only news that ends in an exclamation mark deserves to phoned in)) just as you would if someone in your family were in a car wreck or won the lottery. That’s personalized news.

By: Mark Rutledge

Mark Rutledge — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 17:00:25 +0000

As one who has worked in newspaper newsrooms and bureaus for nearly 20 years, I agree with most of the above comments. The “the way it will be” that envisions editors scrambling to find citizen reports on breaking news, however, invites words of caution. I do believe that journalism has always been a work in progress, a classroom, and a craft that anyone has the “unique” tools to practice. But any editor will tell you that relying on citizen reports without a paid reporter in the mix is as dangerous to the news organization’s credibility as printing information that comes across the scanner about an automobile accident. You simply cannot primarily rely on what is seen and heard by people who have no sense of accountability tied to what they are reporting.
And besides all that, editors have enough on their plates without having to edit and check facts for a world of scanner buffs. When it comes to that, look for the editors to jump ship. Then what you have is a heap of unchecked news organizations that readers will soon decide are not worth their attention.