The end of Newspapers?

Its comes by RSS, by email and on the web page. It comes as SMS to your mobile phone or you see it on WAP sites. Its on interactive TV, terrestrial or satellite. News now has multiple ways of getting to you, is this the end of the newspaper as we know it?

The newspapers know they need to change, that’s why many are improving their online presence. Just take a look at the Gaurdians new site, Comment Is Free. Their leading columnists post there and others such as David Blunkett (UK Labour Party).

Is the fact the Internet is taking over as the main source of news from Newspapers the only reason? Well mainly yes and the fact they are losing advertising revenue. A good article by Mike Butcher on his blog “Mbites” discuses what the editor of The Guardian had to say in front of the Royal Society of Arts in London. Alan Rusbridger said…

"A lot is down to Craig Newmark, an archetypal West Coast liberal who is almost single-handedly destroying the American newspaper industry with Craigslist.org

For those who have not come across Craigslist before, it is a listing site covering 192 cities, and only charges for want ads in three of them, and only $25. While newspapers such as the New York Times charges $300! Oh and he is making around $10 million a year and has no intention of selling up.

So Newpapers are loosing money on advertising, what about readership? As mentioned above, you can get your news fix in many differing ways. Here is another quote from Mike Butchers blog…

The latest research from the Pew Internet Foundation has shown that in the US there's not a great appetite for reading newspapers among 18-30 years olds. Meanwhile, the existing newspaper readership is slowly dying off.

Another point of pressure is Citizen Journalism blogging. It’s taking off in a big way and possibly more trusted that traditional media.

So we have the Internet taking over as a source of news, loss of advertising revenue and lack of trust in the media corporations. Craigslist.com employs 18 people while the New York Times, who is about move into a massive new headquarters, employs around 10,000 people. You don’t have to look too close to see the Newspaper giants quaking in their boots!

Technology has brought a radical change in the way we see the world and how news is presented. We have more control than ever over what we read thanks to RSS and email alerts, we can filter out the stories we don’t want and select just the ones we do. This sort of “people” power will be the downfall of traditional newspapers. So what are they going to do about it? Most are just hoping it will go away. Many will sell off regional papers and sack journalists in an effort to cut overheads.

The obvious answer is to join the revolution while they still can, that’s if they are taking any notice.

Posted by Bob Toovey on 22 March 2006
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Arianna Huffington on Citizen Journalism

The Guardian Unlimited (UK newspaper) website has an article written by Arianna Huffington. Here she discusses weather big media is dead. She also talks about how the blogosphere has become the US’s most vital news source.

Arianna Huffington has a successful website called the Huffington Post and she has written 10 books so she knows what she is talking about, you might also see her on the front page of Technorati now and again.

Her article talks about how blogging has become an important source of news, a way of getting up to date news and reactions of events almost as they happen. And of course they way people can comment and be part of the story as it develops.

You can find the article here

Posted by Bob Toovey on 14 March 2006
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Gather.com launches Citizen Journalism competition

Found on Yahoo Finance is a press release about a Citizen Journalism competition for students. Four finalists will win internship with Arianna Huffingtons website. She will also act as judge to decide the winners.

Tom Gerace, Gather.com founder and CEO said "Citizen journalism is a tremendously important segment of user-created content. Gather.com is excited to provide the scholarships that will help propel citizen journalism into the mainstream."

The well known site http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ run by Arianna Huffington will offer the internships in either New York or Los Angeles.

Complete rules of the contest are posted on Gather.com at http://journalism.gather.com. Interested students should go to http://journalism.gather.com/groupInvite.jsp?grpRef=journalism to register for the contest.

The press release on Yahoo Finance can be found here

Posted by Bob Toovey on 14 March 2006
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Steve Rubel talking about CBSNews

There is an interesting article by Steve Rubel, senior vice president at Edelman public relations and author of the blog Micropersuasion, who writes as a guest for the CBSNews.com section, Public Eye. He discusses how CBS is using elements of Citizen Journalism to improve its 'transparancy' in its news gathering and reporting.

Posted by Bob Toovey on 10 March 2006
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Nepals first citizen journalism website

There are many reasons for starting a Citizen Journalism website, dissatisfaction with current media efforts or just a way to spread local news for example. How about when news is being filtered by governments? How does the real news get out?

Mero Sansar is “Nepal’s premier citizen Journalism site”, covering news and more as well as a mix of stories from many otehr sources. The site is run by a four person team based in the New York, Kathmandu, New Delhi and Brussels.

The site started out as a blog created by Kathmandu resident Umesh Shrestha, some thing to fill the time between jobs.

From the about page …

“…merosansar was nothing more than just another blog. But Umesh's contents were not just another blog entry, his articles, news reporting, audio and video blogs were professional, true and quick. Videos and pictures in Merosansar were very good but risky for Umesh; he was attacked several times. However against all odds Merosansar still is up and running; in fact its Nepal's most popular blog!

In the time when journalism in Nepal being tightly checked by the government and true news are almost scarce, merosansar aims to be a major source of independent news from Nepal. Merosansar also includes news items and news links from-to other mainstream news website to save users' time and make it easier for them to find all news in one place.”

The site layout seems basic but the words are so much more important, coming from a country where the Government is controlling media output. This is where Citizen Journalism really comes in to its own.

 

Posted by Bob Toovey on 09 March 2006
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Citizen Journalism spreading in South Africa

Another South African website has been established for Citizen Journalism. It seems more are cropping up over there all the time! This site seems rather young but does seem to be going places.

Represent.com was established back in February 2005 and already planning a site redesign for the first year anniversary. The front page has many comments in several languages including English, French and another that may be Afrikaans. There are 19 topics so it seems the site is being used and is popular, most postings I viewed had been commented on.

The site is, well how can I say it, hard on the eyes? It has a bright orange and purple background with orange decoration, I am glad the writing is in black! However the site does size well so it will suit high and low resolution screens. Unfortunately some pages, such as the archive, were not viewable due to application errors reported by the web server.

On the whole an interesting site with some minor niggles but of course the most of important thing is that it is being used and providing a place for citizen reporters to publish their reports.

Posted by Bob Toovey on 03 March 2006
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What is Citizen Journalism?

Citizen Journalism goes by many names including citizen reporting and participatory journalism. However the idea is the same, the citizen or man in the street writes and publishes news as they have see it, normally something local to them.

Most citizen Journalist websites take the form of a blog, an online system of publishing short articles, blog sites provides tools to create an article and sometimes to add pictures to emphasize the content. The tools provided vary but normally it is a very easy process and quick to do. The most difficult part is the writing itself!

These sorts of web sites are being created due to the growing mistrust of large corporate publishers of newspaper, magazines and TV broadcasts. It is felt by many that too much of a ‘spin’ is placed on the news to convey the publishers own political viewpoint or inaccuracies or carelessness by a reporter.

The idea behind Citizen Journalism is that those involved in the story or those who witnessed an event write the story and publish it. Others who may be connected to the story can then comment on it to either correct details or add to the written account. Thus trust is built up as it becomes a community effort and a true picture is established of the event.

However the edges are becoming blurred as the big corporates are now allowing citizen reports to form part of their news gathering. Citizen reports are gaining weight and are now making traditional media very worried. Sites such as MSNBC are now featuring sections dedicated to these kind of reports, something that more and more news sites will start to offer if they have not already done so.

The traditional media still has an important role to play, news still needs to be interpreted, viewpoints still need to be made and investigative journalism is still a very important part of news gathering and reporting and will always be so. However, citizen journalism is at its best when it by and for local communities. Let the traditional media take care of the international and global reportage, let the citizens take care of their own news.

So this is my view of what it is all about, what’s yours?

Posted by Bob Toovey on 01 March 2006
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Battleboro's home on the net

There is an interesting interview on Hypergene Media Blog with the creators of iBrattleboro.com, a Citizen Journalism site created in 2003 by Christopher Grotke and Lise LePage. iBattleboro.com is a moderated site based in Vermont USA with all contributions made by the residents.

As with many such websites, the inspiration comes from the worries of biased media reporting,

"We were also hearing rumblings about the FCC wanting to allow major media outlets to consolidate and take over more territory, and this bothered us. We have one paper in town and thought it was, well, a dangerous situation from the point of view of an informed public."

The site itself is well laid out and fits high (1024x768) and low resolutions (800x600), no annoying scroll bars. Going by the number of contributions in the sections listing, this is a very busy site indeed. There is plenty of local advertising and relevant local news. There is also an events guide, local links, whats hot, polls and an interactive local map.

As I have mentioned, the site is moderated. Each posting is reviewed, normally within 24 hours, before going live on the site. Pictures can be submitted via email to be attached to a posting. What I did like in particular is the various warnings about possible bad language and advice for parents about the sites suitability for younger people. Shows responsibility, I have not seen that on the sites I have visited in the past.

All in all a good site dedicated to the local area and residents.

Posted by Bob Toovey on 27 February 2006
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Peru newspaper begins experiments in citizen reporting

The newspaper El Comercio (Peru) has now started to integrate photos in both print and web editions from citizen journalists.

The editors weblog has an interview with the paper's web editor, Juan Carlos Lujan. Here is a small snip...

"We are trying to create new relationships and new links with the audience in a new scenery where the abundance and proliferation of virtual communities and collaboration environments provide the opportunity for anyone to play the citizen journalism.

The advance of the technology (digital cameras and telephones) allows us to create new contents where the dialogue, conversation and collaboration are strategic issues to reach new audiences, especially young people."

Currently they are using submitted photos and videos and plan to feature reports but they feel training and knowing what readers want to be more important.

Here is a link to a translated version of the home page (via Google)

Posted by Bob Toovey on 27 February 2006
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Citizen Journalism in South Africa

Citizen Journalism is catching on all over the world and that includes South Africa. Johnnic Communications, South Africa's leading media and entertainment company, has created a site whose content is entirely created by its readers, totally fuelled by Citizen Reporting.

Reporter.co.za features articles, images, audio and video from ordinary members of the public. From their about page they state…

"...it is a truly South African and African enterprise. In a continent where social reform and economic progress are critical goals, Johncom stands proud. It is a profitable - and equally important, ethical - South African company owned and operated by South Africans..."

The lead article is about Cricket against the Australians and something about sledging. I did read the posting to find out what sledging is but unfortunately it was not explained. However there seems to be plenty of rivalry as there are some posters to down load with rather poor taste captions though I am sure it is all in good spirit. There does not seem to be any shortage of content, there is a wide range of topics covered and from what I have seen so far, written rather well.

The layout of the site is good though it seems to be designed for a resolutions of 1024 x 768, those with a lower setting may get annoyed by scroll bars.

Posted by Bob Toovey on 24 February 2006
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