Online journalism bloggers on Virginia massacre

A roundup of some online journalism bloggers’ posts regarding today’s shootings:

[UPDATE] Poynter’s Al Tompkins has links to all sorts of excellent coverage: http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=2&aid=121541

Steve Outing: Social networking plays a role in another big story

Bloggers Blog: Blogs, Cell Phones Provide Coverage of Virginia Tech Shootings

Innovation in College Media: The problem with pre-roll advertisements: now is not the time

Mashable!: Virginia Tech Shootings: Facebook Groups to Join

Arvinder Kang: Virginia Tech Shooting- News Coverage Analysis (via Bryan Murley)

Make sure to check the Roanoke Times’ blog-style coverage. They were quick to get maps, video, photos and all other sorts of content to their site. Also, Josh Hallett points out how the university wisely switched to a low-bandwidth version of their site.

France bans filming of violence

The French Constitutional Council has enacted a law to prevent the filming of an act of violence by anybody other than a professional journalist, according to a report from Macworld.

While the law is meant to target the practice of “happy slapping,” it seems as if it could be citizen journalists who get slapped down, a French civil liberties organization argues, referencing the 1991 Rodney King incident. The law is also notable for drawing a distinction between who is a professional journalist and a citizen journalist. Domestic violence charges аrе vеrу ѕеrіоuÑ•. You should see here for best domestic violence attorney. In fact, Ñ–t Ñ–Ñ• devastating аnd саn destroy уоur life Ñ–f уоu don’t hire thе right attorney. Thеу саn ruin уоur reputation аnd it’s important tо deal wÑ–th Ñ–t Ñ–n thе right wау. Onе оf thе worst things Ñ–Ñ• thаt уоu mау hаvе tо stay Ñ–n thе jail fоr a lоng tÑ–mе Ñ–f уоu hаvе domestic violence charges аgаіnÑ•t уоu. Whеn Ñ–t соmеѕ tо domestic violence оnе Ñ•hоuld remember thаt it’s nоt a federal crime аnd ѕо thе laws prohibiting Ñ–t wÑ–ll definitely vary frоm оnе state tо аnоthеr. Hоwеvеr, it’s definitely оnе оf thе biggest crimes Ñ–n аll thе states. WhÑ–lе thе concept оf domestic violence Ñ–Ñ• ѕаmе еvеrуwhеrе thе wау thÑ–Ñ• crime committed wÑ–ll vary frоm оnе state tо аnоthеr. WhÑ–lе уоu аrе looking fоr a domestic violence attorney уоu Ñ•hоuld make sure thаt thе attorney уоu hаvе hired Ñ–Ñ• aware оf thе particular state law whеrе уоu аrе currently staying. A bad lawyer mау nоt help уоu gеt оut оf thе mess аnd thÑ–Ñ• Ñ–Ñ• оnе оf thе major reasons whу уоu Ñ•hоuld tаkе tÑ–mе tо dо a background research оn thе lawyer bеfоrе hiring hÑ–m fоr thе task.

Rather than targeting the actual assault with punishment, the French council is targeting the filming of the act. Such a law, enacted without being narrowly tailored, could have far-reaching consequences.

Examining the relationship between writer and message board troll

Salon’s Gary Kayima has written a thoughtful, well-written (if somewhat long) piece examining how the outpouring of public commentary is affecting writers’ relationships with their readers. Also, make sure to browse through the comments.

Some highlights from his article:

“All of us — writers and editors and readers alike — are still struggling to get used to this cacophonous cornucopia of communication. It is a brave new world, filled with beautiful minds and nasty Calibans and everything in between. Its benefits are undeniable. But it has some downsides, too — not all of them obvious.”

“The information revolution has set off a million car bombs of random knowledge at once, spraying info fragments through the marketplace of ideas.”

“Formality? The context of online communication is more like being in your car in a traffic jam than sitting across a table from someone and having a talk — and it’s easy to flip somebody off through a rolled-up window.”

“Nasty and ignorant letters affect the reader, too. A few ugly or stupid comments in a discussion thread have a disproportionate impact. Like drops of iodine in a glass of water, they discolor the whole discussion and scare more thoughtful commentators away.”

“Forget the word “elite”: In our laudable all-American haste to trash bogus royalty, let’s not forget there’s a completely different category. It’s called professionalism.”

Thankfully, Kayima does not simply tear into message board users and does concede that certain controls can better the situation. For instance, Slashdot has a tiered system for weighing users’ contributions. Lifehacker requires you to ask nicely. Wikipedia has its own complex system and hierarchy of users.

Many in the online news industry agree that story comments, while excellent to have, often result in simple-minded, often boorish spleen-venting and do not constitute a true online community. Personally, I am not even slightly loathe to nuke a message board if the conversation takes an offensive or disgusting turn, particularly when it involves someone’s death.

However, through user blogs and other innovative tools, I believe it’s possible to elevate the conversation to something that is even more useful for both writer and reader.

CNET, Yahoo and making use of social networks

Martin Stabe highlights a story by the Guardian’s Jemima Kiss covers a forum by the Association of Online Publishers in which representatives from CNET and Yahoo! get into the nitty-gritty of how they’re leveraging content from users and some of the practical challenges associated with that (including grumbling from the editorial staff at CNET).

Buried way in the story is an interesting nugget about CNET’s blogs:

“Every journalist has their own blog and are not allowed to “hide behind a brand”, [Suzie Daniels, head of business media at CNET Networks] said. They must use their real name because users nowadays expect transparency, honesty and authenticity. Where the authority of editors used to be in being in charge, it is now in participating and building a relationship and credibility with users in a more direct way. The life of a journalist, she said, looks very different now and is as much about responding and blogging as reporting.”

Sounds like a stab at the infamous unsigned editorial to me.

Web sites for citizen journalism techniques, tutorials

In response to a question on the Placeblogger listserv, I put together a list of Web sites that are great for citizen journalism tutorials (particularly free ones). Here’s the list:

Knight Citizen News Network -  http://www.kcnn.org  This site was created by J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism (another great resource), which is funded in part by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. KCNN  features training modules, tutorial, featured multimedia and more.

J-Learninghttp://www.j-learning.org/ Online journalism tutorials galore for reporting and Web technology.

News Uhttp://www.newsu.org/about/faq.aspx Run by the non-profit Poynter Institute and has many great (and FREE!) online journalism courses open to everyone.

OurMedia Personal Media Learning Centerhttp://www.ourmedia.org/learning-center/topic/citizen-journalism A great resource containing interviews with citizen media pioneers, summaries of media law and more.

EditTeach.orghttp://www.editteach.org/ A site funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation with many resources for editors, as well as a growing online section.

Online Journalism Review Wikishttp://www.ojr.org/ojr/wiki/ A series of in-depth articles here cover everything from news terms to ethics to how to make money off your work.

Investigative Reporters Resource Centerhttp://www.ire.org/resourcecenter/ Has great tips on developing leads and using public records. You can also buy cleaned public data from them if you’re interested. Check out the IRE listserv as well.

Reporters Cookbookhttp://forjournalists.com/cookbook a wiki with how-tos, particularly about computer-assisted reporting

Florida Public Records Handbookhttp://www.newsu.org/about/faq.aspx Perhaps your state has an author who has done what Joe Adams has for Florida. His book is a staple for Florida journalists. He highlights Florida stories that have used public records in them.

I’ve also been compiling whatever Journalistopia tutorials I write into the Tutorials category.

Suggest any other nifty sites in the comments, and I’ll be sure to add them to the post.

Placeblogger’s Top 10 in America list

placeblogger.gifIf you haven’t perused the Top 10 list of placeblogs over at Placeblogger, you are certainly missing out. There were a few local blogs on the list I had not yet run across that I will be sifting through in the next few days. The list is a great starting point for educating yourself about what’s out there, preparing for a presentation or for sharing as an example of what local citizen journalism is all about.

Washington Post on the Backfence meltdown

The Washington Post has a more in-depth report on the recent staff cutbacks and loss of the CEO at the hyperlocal site Backfence. Some of the more stinging remarks:

“Realistically, it’s going to take close to 10 years for the business models to be there and for there to be enough advertisers willing to give money to hyperlocal start-ups,” said Vin Crosbie, managing partner of Digital Deliverance, a Connecticut media consulting firm. “Backfence’s problem is that it was too early.”

“They haven’t really been able to capture the genuine interest of local residents on passionate issues like crime,” said Peter Krasilovsky, a consultant who has been following Backfence’s development.

“It’s downsized to a modest team of people and they’re out of money,” [Frank Bonsal, one of Backfence’s angel investors] said. “At this point, I don’t look for any return or any prospect of recovery.”

Ouch.

Does this mean Backfence is not a viable model, or is it just too ahead of its time? There is a sharp distinction to be made between Backfence’s cookie-cutter type of approach and a site with such local flavor as Baristanet or an aggregator of such sites like the new Placeblogger. See Tish Gier’s recent post, “Citizen Shovelware isn’t Citizen Journalism.”

Nevertheless, I’d say that the lesson for those of us who are in the business of producing content is that traditional media outlets, that is newspapers, need to put it in gear quickly and leverage their standing in the community so they can become an integral part of the discussions taking place online.

Make no mistake: If the local newspaper doesn’t get hip and develop an online community (and that doesn’t just mean snarky message board minions), they will eventually face someone who will. And it will then become a choice of bearing another spirited online competitor or spending the bucks to buy them out.

Source: Bitcoin Up Fake

New York Times covers citizen journalism trend

Just caught an article that ran in yesterday’s New York Times about various local citizen journalism initiatives being carried out by individuals. (Also, make sure to check out David Carr’s interesting take on journalists blogging, and pay particularly attention to the section about news judgment being affected by page view metrics).

While Bob Tedeschi citizen journalism story is a nice look at the trend, I felt the story glossed over the profitability of the sites. About one site, Tedeschi writes:

“Readership [at WestportNow.com] is growing, he said, with between 5,000 and 7,000 visitors clicking on the site daily. Advertising revenues are also increasing, he said. Although the site still loses money, Mr. Joseloff said he hoped to develop similar sites elsewhere in Fairfield County.”

Aside from that line, the article gives no sense as to whether these other small hyperlocal sites will implode like Backfence seems to be doing. Of course, for those doing it strictly out of passion, then I suppose it doesn’t really matter, now does it?

And on a side note, let me give kudos to the Times for their new social networking features, particularly the permalink feature. Even though Michael Arrington angrily dissed it, I think it’s a great thing.

[UPDATE – Jan. 16] Liz George from Baristanet and Gordon Joseloff from WestportNow have responded in the comments. Tish Grier says on her blog that “the New York Times doesn’t quite get what citizen journalism is about.”

Roundup of Yahoo! Local features

Search Engine Watch has published an interesting feature on Yahoo! Local’s attempts to increasingly incorporate user-generated content into their listings. Some of the new features include allowing users to edit business listings by updating outdated addresses or flagging locations that have been closed. Yahoo also commissioned a poll with some interesting results:

The Harris poll also asked users about the effect ratings and reviews might have on their decision to patronize a particular business. Overall, 79 percent of respondents said they’d be likely to be influenced by a rating or review on Yahoo Local, with 9 percent of respondents more likely to be influenced by a review that was negative, 23 percent more likely to be influenced by a review that was positive, and 47 percent likely to be influenced by both positive and negative reviews.

Last fall, Yahoo commissioned Harris Interactive to conduct a poll to gauge users’ likelihood of posting ratings or reviews of local businesses to Yahoo Local. Overall, 67 percent of respondents said they would be likely to post a review, with 9 percent of respondents more likely to post a review that was negative, 8 percent more likely to post a review that was positive, and 50 percent likely to post a review either way.

Yahoo has constantly been adding new features to their site and the latest one launched in 2007 is the dating section. They have a whole list of new things that they can do with the dating section, checking profiles or adding people from Facebook. We will see how it pans out because it looks to be extremely promising right now. It’s not looking like a friend with benefits thing either, mainly for people seeking long distance or serious relationships. They always tend to work out best when you invest the time and effort into it.

Asia leads the way in blogs

Steve Safran at Lost Remote drew attention to a surprising discovery: Asia, particularly Japan, South Korea and China, are way ahead of the United State in terms of blog readership. Check out Safran’s post for links about the study, or just check out the whole PDF of the study.

Would any of you happen to know of any data or investigations about the state of blogging in Spanish-speaking countries?

Downsizing drama at Backfence

backfence.gifPoynter’s Amy Gahran has a good roundup on the bloodletting (that is, the CEO leaving and the big staff cutbacks taking place) at the hyperlocal site Backfence.

Gahran wonders whether an operation such as Placeblogger has a better shot at becoming a nationwide hyperlocal operation. Is that an oxymoron? I’m of the mind that the institution best positioned to encourage community participation is the local newspaper. And really, it’s a critical way to maintain the newspaper’s standing as a vital part of the area’s identity and the reflection of the community it serves.

Nevertheless, it’s likely that an aggregator will emerge to successfully bring together hyperlocal media outlets, much in the way that Google News brings together many local sources of news into one window.

Jimmy Wales on ‘crowdsourcing’

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales summed up the spirit of working together online in an e-mail to folks working on the new Wikia search project. In part of his message, he wrote:

“One of the things that I believe in passionately is genuine human communities, as opposed to ‘crowdsourcing.’  What do I mean by that? I mean, people who get to know each other, over time, as real human beings, and through that process, gain a sense of trust and responsibility for each other and for the task at hand.  So for me, if we are to succeed here, this is the first place we need to focus attention…”

Wales summed up the key to creating a successful local community online. Sure, having a bunch of people hollering on a message board is a kind of community. Every message board has its regulars. But message boards become more of a cacophony, as opposed to a group of citizens working together toward a harmonious cause.
The people participating in citizen journalism efforts locally should be made to feel like a team dedicated to a clear goal, not just a bunch of faceless contributors creating page views.