Newsecology-conserve-embrace
From Media Giraffe
Here are notes of the first Monday morning session after participants broke into standing discussion groups. They were asked to consider what they think should be conserved from the old news ecology and what might be created or embraced from the new news ecology. Notes by Bill Densmore
A discussion about the sheet, which is prejudicial. Some thought to inform, engage inspire and activate is what we’re doing now. Out of that came a little bit of an agreement that we need to keep some of the values that come out of the old values. “We like immediacy and asking questions and a healthy dose of skepticism.” From the new ecology would like to adopt a multiplicity of sources.
One of the things in the embrace category, several we agreed that scared us was the idea to cross media platforms depending what you think works best with the story, to not be tied down to print, broadcast or anything. They liked the ability to meet and reach more people through much broader distribution. And the idea of having more citizen participation and interaction and get more sources than the all-journalism usual suspects. As to what to conserve – some of the standards and values, the need to pursue facts, balance, fareness, to work in the public interest and to practice verification. Also said the ability of journalists to live a middle-class life should be one of the things we can serve. We all liked eating. (chuckles)
Barbara Iverson: The negative language is journalists need to lose a sense of superiority, to be negative about everything, the positive language is to be more open to things. In journalism she is surprised about the reflexive reaction that journalists no better. You need to understand what you do know but understand that other people know better.
Joe Shea: Iterations of the same story – none of the stories are pointing out the inside story of AIG. We need to have an institutional memory and respond with the institutional memory to news that breaks today. With a cell phone, Google, Delicious etc. is a multiplicity of stories and keys to the past and future. In preserving historicity we are well served by the new media.
Chris Peck: His group thought one thing to try to preserve is the ability to ask questions about information that is emerging in the digital. Editors did that in the old world. That’s hard because there is no central place where someone is asking the question. How do you build in a central place where somebody can ask the question and get it answered?
The question of accountability: We need to be accountable to people on the street. Walking out and asking people on the street what the stories are.
Peter Rineheard – A journalist should put the interests of the reader or the consumer first. You get clarify if at all times you are not looking out for the interests of the publisher, you are putting the interests of the reader first. We are not just the watchdogs, we are empowering the consumers and readers to be watchdogs.
There is still a need for enterprise journalism to be supported in the new news ecology. How would we find out about Walter Reed. We felt like that has to be preserved. As for needing change – the journalist has to be more involved in the business side.
Our group agreed on all the principals outlined. We talked about maintaining respect for our audiences and being cultural sensitive – working toward a degree of culture sensitivity. She talked about the possibilities of service journalism. How do we work to narrow the digital divide. Everybody doesn’ thave an individual laptop yet.
Our group talked about the anthropological stuff The AP was talking about yesterday. The idea of getting people to buy into investigative and enterprise work. We want to get people to stages two and three. How do we differentiate ourselves from the mindless blogging that is filled for whatever reason, information that may not be accurate or twisted or Limbaughed. None of us had an answer for that and if anybody does … how do we differentiate solid reporting and writing from the opposite.
Lisa Williams: Our talked about whether we want to preserve objective. Objectivity was something that was used to capture a market – you could get more people to read your paper if both Democrats and Republicans read it. Is that always useful? I don’t think it always is.
Peggy Holman now takes the microphone back to direct the next segment of the morning.
