social journalism
DESCRIPTION
A discussion deck developed for Communications students at Drexel.TRANSCRIPT
SOCIAL JOURNALISM
///////////
Evolving Media
Radio stations: 4,400
1960Mass Media, Matures
Magazine titles: 8,400
5.4 Billion pages indexed by Yahoo!:
Magazine titles:
17,300
TV channels per home: 82.4
Internet broadcast stations:
25,000+
2006Mass Media, Evolves
TV channels per home: 5.7
Radio Stations: 13,500.
Slide Credit: Yahoo
Headlines and social content love to scream “THE MEDIA IS DYING.”
Traditional media is not dying. It’s changing.
Despite naysayers, radio wasn’t the death of newspapers. And television wasn’t the death of newspapers or
radio.
“Looking down is the new looking up.”
- Katie Rosman, WSJ
So what is traditional media’s role in social?
MSM or “traditional” media are launch pads for viral content.
Case Study: @InvisibleObama
@InvisibleObama was mentioned by scores of press, growing the account.
At it’s highest, up to 68,000 followers.
"Big media has always been the way things blow up from the grassroots into the culture,”
- BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith
"But we don't get to decide what goes viral.”
- Ben Smith
"Are we reporting in an echo chamber? To a certain extent that is what we are
doing – but that doesn't mean it is without value. That's not so different from traditional journalism – ‘finding
interesting information and publishing about it.’ ”
- Len De Groot, a lecturer at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California-Berkeley.
Case Study: Shashank Tripathi aka @comfortablysmug
6500 Followers
How fast does a tweet travel?
Tripathi's claim about the New York Stock Exchange was shared nearly 650 times, during the height of the storm, largely because journalists and others with powerful credibility carried it across
their Twitter accounts.
“The reach of Tripathi's single tweet on the NYSE was so powerful that the
National Weather Service repeated it, which then allowed it to make its way to the Weather Channel and CNN. Within an
hour, the national press was reporting this completely made-up statement as
fact.”- Heidi Moore, The Guardian
The Blame Game
“The truth is, Tripathi had a relatively small niche on Twitter. His influence would have been limited had not journalists on Twitter been desperate for information to
share, regardless of provenance.”
- Heidi Moore, The Guardian
“The decision to publish Tripathi's information was made by journalists,
even when his persona and the nature of the information called for
skepticism.”
-Heidi Moore, The Guardian
The Responsibility of the Press in Social Tripathi, as an internet troll, was completely in character,
and he had no responsibility to the public. But journalists do have that responsibility – and so, if Tripathi's silly tweets
made it into the national press, it is the national press that is, at heart, to blame for not protecting journalistic
standards as well as they should. It is a matter of a few minutes to call a spokesperson or check a live camera, and that is what journalists get paid to do. Producers or editors should not rush information to air or print until those calls
have been made, and answered.
-Heidi Moore, The Guardian
The New Role of Journalists in Social
“When Twitter pronouncements make it to TV, the web or papers, it is journalists who are the
gatekeepers who allow that. Even in the internet age, when information is easier to obtain,
individual judgment counts: judgment on who to trust, the character of sources, knowing their
agendas and history.”
-Heidi Moore, The Guardian
Now, the Good News.
1. Job creation: social media reporters.2. Job need: ombudsman.3. Power to break a story like never before.4. Power to push a story further.5. Filing limitations have been decimated. 6. A byline has never been so powerful.
Media Twitterati• @Moorehn• @antderosa• @thematthewkeys• @lou_dubois• @thestalwart• @brianstelter• @katz• @morningmoneyben• @nytjim• @chrisgeinder• @Darrenrovell• @danamo• @carr2n• @Chanders
• @JeffJarvis• @JonathanWald• @ClaraJeffrey• @Xeni• @reformedbroker• @buzzfeedandrew• @Karaswisher• @benparr
Follow them. Tweet Smarter.
Sources• http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/
2012/10/21/twitter-media-invisibleobama-binders/1641967/
• http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/193865/whose-fault-is-it-that-shashank-tripathis-lies-about-hurricane-sandy-spread/
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/31/superstorm-journalists-check-twitter-troll