Category: journalism

Listen Up

Anyone who thinks they know Dave Winer based on the reports from BlogNashville should listen to this 25-minute podcast for a conference in Pisa.  But that’s not the real reason to spend a half-hour or so downloading and listening; listen if you want a clear understanding of the hows, whys and whats of today’s internet — blogs, RSS, podcasts — and how the "unconference" concept fits in.. 

Julie Leung transcribed a bit of it; her post, too, is worth reading for other reasons. This is another part that jumped out at me:

"We have moved from an age of information poverty into an age of information excess in an incredibly short period of time,  in 10 or 15 years. Not only has the amount of information gone up but our expectation of information has gone up dramatically. "

Dave goes on to talk about managing information and how that led to the popularity of RSS, which got me thinking about the side effects of information management.  More on that in the next post. In the meantime, listen up.

Techy note: This was the first time I used my Nokia 6620 to listen to a podcast. I didn’t want to wait until I got home from my WiFi-enabled coffeeshop and thought it would be good company for a round of errands.  I didn’t have the right cable to move it to the iRiver I’m testing so downloaded it to the laptop and ported it by infrared to the phone, popped in the bluetooth headest et voila. Little strange grocery shopping with Dave …

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Too many codes?

Jeff Jarvis wonders if we have too many codes of ethics.

"Methinks the volume of codes of ethics is, itself, a symptom of a
problem. Doth we protest too much? Are we overcomplicating it? Are we
overcompensating?
Doesn’t it pretty much add up to this: Don’t lie. Don’t sell out."

Nice idea but it’s a little more complicated than that. (If I were going for a one-liner I’d borrow from Hillel — "do not do to others what you would not do to yourself, the rest is
commentary.") I offered the SPJ Code of Ethics guiding principles during the "Committing Journalism" session at BlogNashville this weekend, for a couple of reasons: 1) I was one of the hundreds or more journalists involved in the creation of this version, which was approved in 1996 after much debate and a year’s postponement.  The ethics listserv I’ve operated for the past decade began as a place to discuss the proposed changes. 2) I still believe that the four  principles — especially when combined with the preamble but even on their own — form one of the simplest, best guides for ethical decisionmaking. You can go through all the steps and still come out with a decision others might question — see the Spokesman-Review for an example — but it’s a good, solid foundation.

  1. Seek Truth and Report It: Journalists should be honest, fair and courageous
    in gathering, reporting and interpreting information.
  2. Minimize Harm: Ethical journalists treat sources, subjects and colleagues
    as human beings deserving of respect.
  3. Act Independently: Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest
    other than the public’s right to know.
  4. Be Accountable: Journalists are accountable to their readers, listeners,
    viewers and each other.

It wouldn’t hurt to read the full version, linked to above,  every now and then. You don’t have to agree with everything in it but thinking about ethics won’t hurt.  It also doesn’t hurt to talk to colleagues or others when you’re not sure about the decision you’re making. I was called by a student reporter a few weeks ago, who wasn’t sure his publication was going in the right direction. I tried not to answer it for him, instead asking the kind of questions I hoped he would be able to ask himself next time. Then I gave him the url for the SPJ code.

Usually, the problem isn’t too many. It’s the lack of one.
 

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BlogNashville: “Commiting Journalism”: Real-time Notes

These are my real-time notes from the session we just finished on "committing journalism." I’ll add and expand later — and I hope others at the session will contribute via their own blogs or here. If you post something on the session, the tags are and BlogNashville. Josh Hallett live blogged the session. Update: K.Paul mentions that this is sparse. These were the notes I posted on the screen while I was leading the  session so it’s closer to a collection of bullet points  than a live blog. Frank Paynter writes up some highlights.

Journalism
is an activity

— can be verified

— can be trusted

— transparency
— who, background
Journalism is the presentation of news in an organized fashion
deal with, credible<

Can
be in the form of an opinion column — with facts

Lash:
The lost art of political argument

Decline of political process with rose of professional
journalism

Struggle between argument and myth of objectivity

Presenting observations as a journalist

 

History: professional journalism

 

Jeff brown — presentation of news and events in an
organizaed fashion supported by facst and indepdenent verification balanced by
editorial review

Journalism — popular presentation of information

Pulse: Live blogged mayoral election

How blogging has changed what we do:

— sources

— experts

— blogging — sources available at any given time, makes
them have to think

blogs at the root are a technology

Journalism —

Fact

Opinion journalism

Couldn’t be friends with people you’re writing about

Uncovering hypocrisy

Lot of chumminess — friend of mine

Pre-telegraph: Very hard to get basic facts

Internet has accelerated that process

Not only available but overwhelming

Context to information

Brands add instant credibility

Opp to have information provided context 

deconstruction

From the SPJ Code of Ethics:

Seek Truth & Report It 

Minimize Harm 

Act Independently

Be Accountable

John Jay Hooker

Most important thing that’s happened in democracy

Journalism is a form of communication — no more, no less

It is the backbone of democracy, the key part of the first
amendment

Our ultimate ability to protect ourselves against the
government

Exposure of malfeasance

The first essential to journalism

Most imp thing is a sense of relevance

To be able to distinguish between the ache in your finger and
ache in your heart

Ability to say something 

The opportunity to blog is like a gift from g-d, the ultimate
aspect of freedom

We are journalists to the extent you want to be

Better journalism —

I know bad j when I see it

Obligation to reach beyond usual suspects?

Get out of the echo chamber

TRANSPARENCY

How far do you go with transparency? 

Cynicism 

Filling in the gaps

Expand coverage

Encourage community interaction

JJH — grade your own journalism …

Art is art

Sources you choose

Chris Nolan —

It’s not doing journalism or committing journalism — it’s
reporting

Your loyalty is to the reader and the story

Unambiguous bases (foundation)

What you add to that is journalism

———————-

Opens, not closes

———————

Trust 

Nashville’s talking —

Hoder —

Filling the gap between the local media in Iran, mainly in
Persian, and international media

Hoder.com — blogs in two languages

Three functions:

presenting facts or
reporting –MSM

Challenging 

Creating public debate (highest level?)

Web logs performing functions msm doesn’t do -challenging and
creating debates

Middleware — if it works well you don’t hear about it —
blogging host system at usc, entire campus community 

Mislede-ing

There’s a vast difference between defining simply and flat out leaving the wrong impression. Here’s the lede from Tuesday’s WSJ story by Brian Steinberg about corporate blogging:

"Found amid the unvarnished opinion and helter-skelter discussion on Web logs, or blogs, is something crucial to any marketer: raw consumer feedback. With that in mind, companies are embarking on the delicate task of turning ‘corporate blog’ from an oxymoron into the latest channel for direct marketing to customers and prospects."

Well, yes. There’s a lot of journalism, too, and a lot of information and a lot of thoughtful discussion and a lot of consumer feedback that falls between raw and professional. Blogs run the gamut, and I don’t mean the one Dorothy Parker used when she said Katherine Hepburn ran the gamut from A to B.  I doubt Steinberg was trying to leave the impression that all blogging falls into the boundaries he used but that’s the problem with a lot of well-meaning journalism about blogs. Even a place like the Journal that’s working with blogs of its own and working with bloggers too often misses the mark in its own coverage.