Had a lot of fun on Jon Hansen's BlogTalk Radio Show on November 10, 2009.
His subject was, How will journalism survive the internet age?
Joining me on the international panel were Cenk Uygur, the HufPo writer (who gets 13m views for his Youtube channel), Baby Boomer agitator Ellen Brandt and, author and publisher Sherrie Wilkolaski.
We covered citizen journalism, news vs relevance, friends as filters, fact checking (crowd vs pros) among much else
Listen for yourself here:
The further ahead you look - the faster you go | davidpcushman AT gmail.com | These are my views and my views only.
Showing posts with label journalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label journalism. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
The future of journalism. Blogtalk Radio. Today
This evening (8pm uk, 3pm EST) I'll be joining a panel on Jon Hansen's Blogtalk Radio show to discuss what journalism becomes - if it can exist at all - in the Internet age.
Interesting question always, of course but with an added piquance in a week when News International's Rupert Murdoch talks about removing 'his' content from search engines.
Listen live here.
And if you're opn a mobile: http://m.blogtalkradio.com/Jon-Hansen![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=917c312a-8ec9-45df-adb9-5b7c17b9ab87)
Interesting question always, of course but with an added piquance in a week when News International's Rupert Murdoch talks about removing 'his' content from search engines.
Listen live here.
And if you're opn a mobile: http://m.blogtalkradio.com/Jon-Hansen
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
We're trying to change the world - not report on it
Some time ago Neil Perkin asked me to contribute some best practice ideas for social media. ( I must be thinking about that because i'm meeting Neil today - and you really should check out his latest post).
My response was 'best practice being human'.
I've been thinking about the skill sets required to 'do' social media. Many (though not all, as a quick quiz on Twitter revealed this morning, see image, right) of the people I know who have landed up in social media come from a media background one way or another - pr, advertising and journalism.
But of course the key skills required are not the abilty to craft a good piece of content.
We're trying to change the world here, not report on it.
Look at what's going in in Iran. All the fabulous social media activity Is NOT for our passive consumption, our entertainment. It is individuals using the tools to express what matters to them - and through this to organise without and around those who would control from the centre.
A BBC correspondent prophesised, as the post-election fury uncovered in Iran, that there would be no coup.
"You can't have a revolution without proper organisation", he opined.
If he meant without 'from the top' organisation he was and is, wrong.
Humans organise to do things. Things they share a belief in achieving. Always have. Now they have tools to do this more rapidly and effectively. And they don't wait for permission from the boss.
The ability to use these tools is an important tactical skill for anyone right now. Understanding the value of real-time self-forming communities of purpose is the more strategic requirement.
Because bringing people together to build stuff they care about is the most important part of this thing we call social media (and it ain't social media if it don't change your organisation!)
How much has that got to do with creating content?
How much has it got to do with media at all?
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=0f45af56-8a09-4558-b5b2-3832575a9a5d)
My response was 'best practice being human'.
I've been thinking about the skill sets required to 'do' social media. Many (though not all, as a quick quiz on Twitter revealed this morning, see image, right) of the people I know who have landed up in social media come from a media background one way or another - pr, advertising and journalism.
But of course the key skills required are not the abilty to craft a good piece of content.
We're trying to change the world here, not report on it.
Look at what's going in in Iran. All the fabulous social media activity Is NOT for our passive consumption, our entertainment. It is individuals using the tools to express what matters to them - and through this to organise without and around those who would control from the centre.
A BBC correspondent prophesised, as the post-election fury uncovered in Iran, that there would be no coup.
"You can't have a revolution without proper organisation", he opined.
If he meant without 'from the top' organisation he was and is, wrong.
Humans organise to do things. Things they share a belief in achieving. Always have. Now they have tools to do this more rapidly and effectively. And they don't wait for permission from the boss.
The ability to use these tools is an important tactical skill for anyone right now. Understanding the value of real-time self-forming communities of purpose is the more strategic requirement.
Because bringing people together to build stuff they care about is the most important part of this thing we call social media (and it ain't social media if it don't change your organisation!)
How much has that got to do with creating content?
How much has it got to do with media at all?
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Worrying
"...the majority of Twitter is PRs, journos and indos... not playing any more, sorry." - LittleBoots
It does sometimes feel like that.
Pity littleboots didn't hang around a little longer and follow a few more back - she might have found a little more value in the connections.
I can't believe the 63,000+ people following @stephenfry are all PRs and journos, for example.
Lord I hope not...
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=97988733-a616-4db2-b21e-d7f65827b02a)
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
I'm in media! Oh really? So are my children...
I responded to Paul Bradshaw's interesting question about the future of training for journalists here and by way of introduction mentioned that: "I've been in media for 20 years, unless you count the fanzines I wrote as a kid." Actually, I was in media as soon as I could be. I even made my own comics and newspapers before I had any means of distributing them.
Which makes me think today's kids will be in media rather earlier and rather longer - and they'll understand the power that gives them rather earlier.
As soon as they connect via the likes of habbo hotel, club penguin, or many of the other social networks for kids they are in media. (image by Terry Lloyd Smith)
They have the tools to enable what we've all become:
We're all publishers now, we're all distributors now, we're all advertisers now, as I've said before.
Which means as soon as we start forming into groups via the network we're in media.
Perhaps we are really in media even before we reach out for our first mouse - part of the eighth mass media I've started exploring here and here?
Monday, July 21, 2008
Are journalism students being equipped with the wrong skills?
A really interesting question from Paul Bradshaw, who teaches a journalism degree at Birmingham City University. Watch the video below.
Paul has asked me to join his 'expert panel' to (attempt to) answer it... which I will do in due course...
In the meantime; consider the question for yourself (by playing the video below) - and please add your responses as comments - which I'll be happy to feedback to Paul.
A few initial thoughts: The price of content (read information/news) was sustained by scarcity. Now information is abundant.
We can of course still make money in this networked world. We can make money because of content rather than with it.
The traditional training of journalists has been about gathering, editing, filtering and broadcasting. Perhaps it's time to shift a little more towards the value creating skills of the networked world - the creation of useful services people will want to share?
In the context of information that takes us to ideas like apple's itunes - where I believe you are paying for a useful service rather than the content itself. Google does a rather good job of making money because of content rather than with it, too.
It also places a value on synthesis (and therefore reasoned opinion) rather than 'reporting the facts'.
And crucially places value on collaboration rather than working to the exclusion of others.
Services, synthesis and collaboration - skills for a world in which media doesn't get to control who makes content, who distributes it, or even the user journey.
Paul has asked me to join his 'expert panel' to (attempt to) answer it... which I will do in due course...
In the meantime; consider the question for yourself (by playing the video below) - and please add your responses as comments - which I'll be happy to feedback to Paul.
A few initial thoughts: The price of content (read information/news) was sustained by scarcity. Now information is abundant.
We can of course still make money in this networked world. We can make money because of content rather than with it.
The traditional training of journalists has been about gathering, editing, filtering and broadcasting. Perhaps it's time to shift a little more towards the value creating skills of the networked world - the creation of useful services people will want to share?
In the context of information that takes us to ideas like apple's itunes - where I believe you are paying for a useful service rather than the content itself. Google does a rather good job of making money because of content rather than with it, too.
It also places a value on synthesis (and therefore reasoned opinion) rather than 'reporting the facts'.
And crucially places value on collaboration rather than working to the exclusion of others.
Services, synthesis and collaboration - skills for a world in which media doesn't get to control who makes content, who distributes it, or even the user journey.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Journalists: A tool to change the way you work
Livescribe, which you'll see in the video below, has, according the journalist demo'ing it here, "changed the way I work".
It's a notepad and pen, Jim, but not as we know them.
Robert Scoble (who shot the video) reckons it's the coolest new bit of kit he's seen in an age.
Enjoy.
It's a notepad and pen, Jim, but not as we know them.
Robert Scoble (who shot the video) reckons it's the coolest new bit of kit he's seen in an age.
Enjoy.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Necessity could prove the mother of a better fit with your community
Recently I spoke with an editor who bemoaned the fact he didn't have the staff to perform the simple act of adding a couple of news pages to his monthly magazine - and the lack of resource he had for the website that represents his brand online, too.
I had a simple solution: Hand control to the community - via the gift of submitted User Generated Content (UGC).
Allow that same community to vote for the UGC stories they like most (I don't usually advocate the digg-style lowest-common-denominator approach, but this is to create a result for 'mass media' publication) .
UGC beats rehashing centre-out press releases any day, for me.
Allow the stories to sizzle gently online for a couple of weeks (during which, in a wiki, wisdom of crowds-style errors are corrected, and assertions challenged)
Take those which score highest (those the community has filtered as best fit with what they want to read about) then run the usual 'professional' journalistic pre-publication accuracy and legal checks.
And finally reward, with publication in the magazine (and more... who knows, a job in the end for regular stars?)
Next use magazine to inspire next round of 'Your News'... and allow the cycle to repeat.
Watch like a hawk to learn what it is your community is telling you about their brand. Respond with improvements to magazine and site.
Celebrate, with the people who made it happen.
I had a simple solution: Hand control to the community - via the gift of submitted User Generated Content (UGC).
Allow that same community to vote for the UGC stories they like most (I don't usually advocate the digg-style lowest-common-denominator approach, but this is to create a result for 'mass media' publication) .
UGC beats rehashing centre-out press releases any day, for me.
Allow the stories to sizzle gently online for a couple of weeks (during which, in a wiki, wisdom of crowds-style errors are corrected, and assertions challenged)
Take those which score highest (those the community has filtered as best fit with what they want to read about) then run the usual 'professional' journalistic pre-publication accuracy and legal checks.
And finally reward, with publication in the magazine (and more... who knows, a job in the end for regular stars?)
Next use magazine to inspire next round of 'Your News'... and allow the cycle to repeat.
Watch like a hawk to learn what it is your community is telling you about their brand. Respond with improvements to magazine and site.
Celebrate, with the people who made it happen.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Journalist2.0
I posted this as a response to Ajit Jaoker's post on his excellent OpenGardens blog. You won't read my response there because it was written as a reply to Ajit posting the same item on Forum Oxford, which we both belong to.
Anyway, since it was so relevant to the content of this blog - I thought I ought to record it here, too.
As a journalist (at least that was how I once described myself) of almost 20 years experience, it's hard for me to admit - but the role of the pro is being marginalised by the wisdom of crowds.
But as an evangelist for the new ecology - it makes me excited about the future.
There are some areas where the pro still has advantages - notably access to exclusives and trust with traditional advertisers - but as I've argued in this post (niche brands need ugc, broad brands need ultra exclusives) - when the whole world is a blogger there's no way you have enough control to claim an exclusive.
And over time advertisers will learn that the trust is vested in the community not the brand itself. Response rates will teach them,
But there's an argument that the relevance of the professional journalist lives on - for 'journalist' read blogger. For 'professional' read reputation systems. For 'Highly resourced' read community-funded.
Simply: The professional journalist of yesteryear is being replaced by a community-validated blogger, who gets paid through models like ohmynews or, less-aggregated, google adsense etc.
If his community grows large enough to support his efforts full time - he can perform this role full time.
Journalist2.0 lives and dies by his relevance to his community and reputation as judged by all (now everyone is his employer).
And there is no professional or technical barrier to entry.
One conclusion to draw is that the arrival of blogging deprofessionalises journalism. It makes it something anyone can do and anyone can contribute to.
That's why the likes of Alan Moore describe the arrival of the blogging platform as being as significant as Gutenburg and his printing press. It's all about the decentralisation, the relaxation of control, on information.
We should all end up with a closer approximation of the truth.
Anyway, since it was so relevant to the content of this blog - I thought I ought to record it here, too.
As a journalist (at least that was how I once described myself) of almost 20 years experience, it's hard for me to admit - but the role of the pro is being marginalised by the wisdom of crowds.
But as an evangelist for the new ecology - it makes me excited about the future.
There are some areas where the pro still has advantages - notably access to exclusives and trust with traditional advertisers - but as I've argued in this post (niche brands need ugc, broad brands need ultra exclusives) - when the whole world is a blogger there's no way you have enough control to claim an exclusive.
And over time advertisers will learn that the trust is vested in the community not the brand itself. Response rates will teach them,
But there's an argument that the relevance of the professional journalist lives on - for 'journalist' read blogger. For 'professional' read reputation systems. For 'Highly resourced' read community-funded.
Simply: The professional journalist of yesteryear is being replaced by a community-validated blogger, who gets paid through models like ohmynews or, less-aggregated, google adsense etc.
If his community grows large enough to support his efforts full time - he can perform this role full time.
Journalist2.0 lives and dies by his relevance to his community and reputation as judged by all (now everyone is his employer).
And there is no professional or technical barrier to entry.
One conclusion to draw is that the arrival of blogging deprofessionalises journalism. It makes it something anyone can do and anyone can contribute to.
That's why the likes of Alan Moore describe the arrival of the blogging platform as being as significant as Gutenburg and his printing press. It's all about the decentralisation, the relaxation of control, on information.
We should all end up with a closer approximation of the truth.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Journalism Leaders forum - join in Q&A with live webcast
Just a quick plug for an event Alan Moore at Communities Dominate Brands is involved with.
On Tuesday February 6, there will be a forum in Preston (University of Central Lancashire) to discuss leading journalism into a digital age.
Details of the event (it's free) and how to get there are all in Alan's post on CDB.
Sign in as a guest through the link that follows for the webcast: join the debate (putting in your own questions) here: http://breeze01.uclan.ac.uk/journalismleadersforum
On Tuesday February 6, there will be a forum in Preston (University of Central Lancashire) to discuss leading journalism into a digital age.
Details of the event (it's free) and how to get there are all in Alan's post on CDB.
Sign in as a guest through the link that follows for the webcast: join the debate (putting in your own questions) here: http://breeze01.uclan.ac.uk/journalismleadersforum
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The rate of change is so rapid it's difficult for one person to keep up to speed. Let's pool our thoughts, share our reactions and, who knows, even reach some shared conclusions worth arriving at?
