AG on New Media

For this, the last blog of the quarter, we were asked to compare the site design of two hometown news outlets. I’ll be looking at my home paper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune and our local ABC affiliate, KSTP TV. Though neither site are true design “home runs” the Star Tribune’s layout is more professional and functional, though they lack serious multimedia integration. KSTP’s site attempts to integrate video (as they should, given that they’re a TV station), but falls flat in its implementation.

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Evan Cornog, in his Columbia Journalism Review piece “Let’s Blame the Readers” discusses how newspapers might combat the marked decline in readership currently in progress in the United States. He mentions two opposing solutions: changing what papers cover and reeducating the American public. Cornog’s prognostications are faulty in that they are not extreme enough. Blog networks are doing a better job than newspapers ever can of coverage on topics readership studies say younger readers care about most meaning the educational role of the newspaper must improve if papers are to survive.

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In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., Americans interest in international news was reinvigorated. Journalism organizations that closed and consolidated bureaus around the world were jolted into action. And, according to the Pew Research Center for People and The Press’ study, the Internet is bringing that news to people, though admittedly fewer than in the past. Though interest in international news on the internet is up, people still care more about news that is inherently local and impactful such as the weather.

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The Pew Research Center for People and The Press’ study of the effects of the Internet on newspaper readership had two particularly interesting parts. First, users do not cite the medium’s multimedia capabilities as a reason for getting news online. Second is the importance of search for online news consumers.

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As Professor Rich Gordon highlights, Convergence is a tricky thing to define. Gordon latches on to Ithiel de Sola Pool’s explanation:

“The current convergence between historically separated modes of communication lies in the habitability of digital electronics. Conversation, theater, news and text are all increasingly delivered electronically … [E]lectronic technology is bringing all modes of communications into one grand system.”

Not only is this exciting, but it is already happening for me in a real, concrete way. There are two obvious examples of how converged media directly benefit me as a student here at Northwestern. First is something almost everyone here can relate to: NUTV. Second is the Byzantine-yet-powerful Voice-over-IP telephony system I rely on.

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In chapter 3 of “We the Media,” Gillmor highlights one way that the Internet has already made journalism better; bloggers and other citizens can act as the watchdogs of the watchdogs of democracy. To summarize (later in the book) Gillmor quotes early blogger Ken Layne: “We can Fact Check your ass,” (187).

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In Chapter 2 of “We the Media,” Dan Gillmor gives a brief overview of the technologies that make citizen journalism possible. Though already outdated (note how his discussion of the expense of delivering video on the Web is no longer valid thanks to services like Google Video, YouTube and clones), the most important argument he makes is for RSS feeds. RSS is important not because it can deliver headlines to your desk, but because it is a precursor to the Web service future; RSS is an early mechanism designed to atomize content and free it from any particular display device.

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Cheryl Diaz Meyer’s piece on digital photojournalism in Afghanistan revealed two new “truths” of journalism today: the importance of a deep understanding of the tools we use daily and the value of the Internet as a reporting aid.

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In “From Tom Paine to Blogs and Beyond,” from his book We the Media, Dan Gillmor outlines the three most important new realities for journalists working in an Internet age: news consumers attention span are growing ever shorter, “tap[ping] the network” (8) can be a powerful tool for journalists, and the idea that “my readers know more than I do,” (17).

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Perry Parks, in “The Online Revolution” from Making Important News Interesting, suggests that the newspaper audience is moving from print to online and that there are three different types of interaction between the traditional media and blogs. First, online news has moved journalism from a lecture to a conversation. Second, blogs act as the watchdogs of the watchdogs of democracy by critiquing the coverage of news organizations (Dan Rather’s retirement). Third, blogs can direct and control the news agenda (the Trent Lott story). He also discusses citizen journalism, or content creation by those in the community instead of those employed by a paper (YourHub.com of the Rocky Mountain News). Parks then presents a list of ways news organizations can make their online offerings more relevant.
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