4 ms·
Journalistic institutions, in an effort to inform the masses, perform three critical functions: 1. Production of information, 2. Curation of information 3. Veri
by austenallred 13y ago
Journalistic institutions, in an effort to inform the masses, perform three critical functions: 1. Production of information, 2. Curation of information 3. Verification of information. A more colloquial way to say that might be "creation, curation, and fact-checking."
So far the creation aspect is almost entirely dominated by ordinary citizens. With nearly everyone carrying internet-connected devices for photo, video and text input, there's simply no way a news organization, no matter how large or well funded, can keep up.
Where "News" is still lacking now has more to do with the latter two points. The best content is invariably on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Vine, etc. but finding that needle in the haystack that is a news event is borderline impossible for the "ordinary citizen." Even the major news organizations are largely poring over the data that comes in and trying to find the best stuff. The third part - the fact checking- not many have time for anymore. The world moves so quickly that verifying accuracy is much less beneficial than seeking the next scoop. News orgs can move fast, make mistakes, and issue retractions later if they were wrong. Or they can just say "we're getting reports that..." (Translation: "We're watching Twitter and people are saying...")
I truly believe that creating a system that allows ordinary citizens to curate (vote on) and fact check the firehose of information flowing through social media networks is the bright, sustainable, profitable (!) future of journalism.
Full disclosure: I've been building and testing a product for a year that does precisely that, so I'm a little bit biased.
- chadzawistowski 13y agoThat product sounds interesting! Let us (or at least me) know when it begins to come available!
- austenallred 13y agohttp://grasswire.com http://grasswire.com should be launching in a few weeks, just have to tie a few loose ends together.
- SimHacker 13y agoMmmmmm, grass!
- austenallred 13y agoGrassroots + newswire = grasswire
- netcraft 13y agoI think that is what http://www.newsvine.com/ http://www.newsvine.com/ set out to be in the beginning - the curation and verification of submitted content - I haven't thought about it in years though and a quick look at the home page shows that it still isn't very popular and seems pretty partisan. But I agree, finding a way to crowdsource all three points of journalism without it becoming a mob (see reddit after the boston bombing) sounds like exactly the sort of newsource I would be interested in.
- austenallred 13y agoEh, kinda. Newsvine was a mix of syndicated news and user-produced articles (think bleacher report for news without paying the writers). It went to hell when MSNBC.com bought it in 2007. The problem with Reddit is upvotes encourage sensationalism (that's what Reddit is, after all), but there's no feature to reign it in or induce some sanity. That's why having a fact check built in is critical.
- wildster 13y agoI can't imagine what Reddit would look like with fact checking. Redditors would not be happy if a popular story drops off the front page because someone deemed in inaccurate. How would the incentive structure work?
- austenallred 13y agoReddit was built with a different purpose in mind. People just use it because its the closest thing you have to what should exist
- prawn 13y agoSome of the serious communities (like AskHistorians) have very active and by-the-books moderators who foster really solid content. A reddit/sub-reddit structure with strong editors and encouragement could be useful in the news space.
- mbesto 13y agoJournalistic institutions, in an effort to inform the masses In my opinion this is very shortsighted and arguably the most commonly misconceived part of "today's" journalism. "Journalistic institutions" are commonly referred to in business as Publishers. Publishing has one very specific goal, just like any other business that exists, which is simply to make money. I truly believe that creating a system that allows ordinary citizens to curate (vote on) and fact check the firehose of information flowing through social media networks is the bright, sustainable, profitable (!) future of journalism. I agree. The problem is that this effort should not be monetized, or at least it should be monetized in a way that doesn't bias and obfuscated the proper dissemination of information. I can't grok a single possible way of this concept to exist in harmony. Good on you (and your team?) to try to tackle this.
- SideburnsOfDoom 13y ago> So far the creation aspect is almost entirely dominated by ordinary citizens. Not true at all. The in depth long-form journalism that e.g. Matt Taibi does at Rolling Stone http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog cannot be done by people who have day jobs with smartphone on a street corner. And it's thousands of times more valuable than the "man bites dog" type of stories that Joe Smartphone can capture.
- mercer 13y agoIndeed! I have some journalist friends who, as a group, spent months just to write one piece of investigative journalism. Another journalist friend once managed to work on something like that on his own, but only through crowdfunding. Good journalism is expensive!
- SideburnsOfDoom 13y agoAh yes, "investigative journalism", or as I like to think of it, "journalism". Not just reporting.
- mercer 13y agoIndeed! I did a minor in journalism in the hopes of perhaps going in that direction professionally, only to realize that my idea of journalism was nothing like reality. We spent a significant portion of the classes just learning how to write news items. The teacher then told us that what we were doing one day a week for six months is what full-time journalism students spend an entire year doing, and that this is much of what they'll be doing once they enter the job market. She specifically advised those of us interested in being journalists to just get really good in our academic field, and move into journalism as 'specialists' from there.
- dtkuhn 13y agoCan this be scaled? http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/23520052/the-big-roundtable http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/23520052/the-big-roundta...