Web 2.0 and the lifecycle of a news story
Spot of essential reading from Alison Gow for anyone interested in journalism, education or journalism education.
Alison, who blogs over at Headlines and Deadlines, has taken a look at the cycle from gathering to publication and follow-up and comparing web 1.0 to web 2.0.
I had no idea when I started doing this how thin the ‘old’ opportunities for investigating stories would look compared to the tools at our disposal now; it’s quite stark really. It drives home just how important mastering these tools is for journalists as our industry continues to develop and change.
This is a quote you will see all over the place (Paul Bradshaw switched me on to this via his Twitter stream and he used this quote in his blog post) - because it is very astute. The Web 2.0 services Alison talks about are important tools that are vital to all sorts of people - you’ll see the same things being talked about in edupunk, eduwomble, PLE, loosely-coupled teaching.
Alison’s point is major - things have changed in a major way and educators need to understand we are getting the point. I’m in the middle of putting together resources on Web 2.0 for my students, so this has been a great little fillip for me.
If you don’t get why WEb 2.0 is such a big deal here’s a a video by Digital Ethnographer Dr. Michael Wesch.
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Journalism 3G (or computation and journalism)
Not the fanciest of names - some of the NICAR crew are calling it COJO.
There’s also an interesting article on the conference by Rich Gordonn over at MediaShift Idea Lab which quotes Aaron Bobick, chair of the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech (and I think the big clue is in the name of the Aaron’s school here).
Aaron wants to know “What is the future of story, and how does that affect the future of journalism?”
Think we all do - CAR, COJO, MOJO/RGC, UGC, et al are fascinating and give journalism educators and students massive grounds for exploration.
The most interesting thing is that the traditional business models are under threat from what was once the product - the news itself.
Newspaper sales are down, TV and radio are losing audience too. Paul Bradshaw has a great article about new business models for the 21st century newsroom which makes for interesting reading if this is your field.
So, how do you train journalists when the very landscape is constantly moving under everyone’s feet?
With good core journalistic skills and an open mind - train an inquisitive mind and hone new skills.
With the advent of the journalism technology labs - and all the top UK J-schools including Cardiff University are doing this - this is just set to become a technophile’s playground. I’m having fun already!
All makes for very exciting times for journalists - if only the bloody process would stop long enough for us to get it pinned down properly 
60 seconds of pure terror
Paul Bradshaw has unveiled what he believes to be the worst example of newspaper video - Reading Evening Post’s 60 second news.
It’s well worth a look at what is going on here, the poor reporter has obviously just been stuck in front of a video camera and told to read off the autocue - he looks like a bunny in the headlights.
Both Paul (UCE) and Andy Dickinson, from UCLAN, have been highlighting the problems associated with the big companies just jumping on to the bandwagon.
Andy has done a couple of very funny cartoons on this - well worth a look.
It’s a salutory lesson for any ‘print’ journalist looking to get ahead in an increasingly online world.
(This is a repost, lost the one last night due to a technical problem - sorry folks!)