News, Blogs and a New Media Ecosystem by Allison Quering
As blogs become permanent additions to many news organizations’ websites, professionals and readers are beginning to evaluate the value blogs have to news. Publications such as The New York Times maintain such a vast collection of blogs that many include a directory online to navigate through them; writers cover various subjects, including news and politics, business, technology, science, travel, and more; however, as a supplement to their main publications, blogs can never completely replace news, because of the difference in their nature. What news organizations have now is an entirely new form of communication between journalists and their readers, one that is meant to extend—rather than substitute—news stories. For the moment, the development of blogs in the news seems to have slowed, and possibly halted. Now that news organizations are eagerly immersing themselves in the so-called blogosphere, we are reaching the point when we must decide the specific use and value of blogs in the news, to appropriately shape this relationship and prepare it for the future.
As these issues arise, many thinkers from different fields have begun to emerge with important perspectives in the conversation. Clay Shirky, an author, consultant, and teacher of the social and economic effects of the Internet and its subsequent technologies[1], is an influential voice in the ongoing discussion about the relationship between the Internet and news. As a new—and much more complex—media ecosystem unfolds, Shirky maintains an essential position in developing a path that reflects both the preservation of some traditional news values and the necessary changes needed to match the current technologies and needs of today’s reader. In his book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, Shirky examines the results of an intriguing new technological combination: the availability of tools to compose, synthesize, and organize information, along with the disappearance of the need for traditional organizational structures.
Considering some of the salient ideas in Here Comes Everybody and a his 2009 talk at the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University, I will examine different views regarding the relationship of blogs and news, to begin to understand how the nature of blogs is affecting and changing journalism, and whether the gains to readers, writers, and news organizations outweigh the losses. Blogs are clearly changing the ways that newspapers develop and interact with their audiences, but what does this mean for the reporters, and the audience, for that matter? Some have suggested that users may need to redefine the qualifications of a journalist and journalism, but this may not be totally necessary. Based on Shirky’s claims, there is an entirely new ecosystem budding with the development of new Internet tools, so what the field may require instead is a reframing of the way users compose and receive information, rather than changing the original—and possibly outdated—definitions that involve journalism.
Because he is a particularly influential voice in the field, I will use Shirky’s book and Shorenstein Center talk as a lens in discussing some of the stakeholders, issues, and potential solutions surrounding these new forms of communication. I will examine the relationships between some of Shirky’s claims with those set by several other important writers in the field, such as Rebecca Blood, Jay Rosen, Charlie Beckett, and a few contributors to Nieman Journalism Lab, a project of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard. Together, their perspectives regarding various components of the discussion—online journalism, newspapers and news organizations, blogs, and media tools like Youtube, and Flickr—begin to reveal some explanations as to how news organizations’ blogs are affecting journalism, and why these shifts in the roles of the author and audience are actually positive changes.
Problems with the Newspaper
To begin to justify many of his arguments regarding why new technology as an agent for news is inevitable and necessary, Shirky examines the organization of the newspaper to demonstrate that its coherence is industrial, rather than intellectual. That is to say, according to Shirky, that though readers have long regarded the newspaper as a stable, sensible object, the sum of the newspaper’s elements is not logical, and instead, reflects publications’ priority of making a profit[2]. However, when the costs of publication disappear—as we are seeing with the emergence of online news organizations, blogs and other networked journalism, and additional news outlets—users, meaning those who compose and those who read, are able to both divide and centralize topics more efficiently. Lovers of crosswords no longer need to shuffle through sports and politics pages, and vice versa; rather, separate websites or pages place users in front of one site that contains an abundance of information on any desired subject. At the same time that new centralized sites are forming, Shirky claims, users no longer go to the news site; they go to the specific news story[3]. Now that this option is available, readers’ needs have changed; to respond to this need, tools such as linking and blogrolls allow readers to not only locate a specific story or topic, but also to connect to followup articles, authors’ sources, and related information. Media is thus “created by demand rather than supply†and, therefore, has changed the aggregation of news sources from server-side to client-side operation[4].
These new needs and technological responses change the way journalists must deliver news. Charlie Beckett, founding director of POLIS, the London School of Economics’ journalism and society think-tank, extends Shirky’s claims by arguing that because news has become a multi-directional interaction between users, the journalist must then move “from a linear, one-off story to a stream of instant witnessing, often combined with background context and analysis as well as public interactivity through comments or email†[5]. Blogs are a useful answer to these shifts, because bloggers can act as watchdogs, tracking common searches and popular topics and then providing information accordingly. While readers always received essential information from mainstream news sites, blogs, even those that are supplements to the mainstream news sites, provide a service to readers by monitoring the web for unique information or updates on a story. The reader no longer has to visit many websites to gather multiple facets of a story, because good topical bloggers put all the information in one place. And, at the same time, blogs allow readers to respond through comment functions[6].
However, these new values are not solely an answer to the increasing financial troubles of newspapers. Even if newspapers suddenly began running a profit, Shirky claims, it would not be enough to reverse the current threat and changes[7]. Other characteristics are at play here, which make the changes seemingly irreversible. The scarcity premium that was present in previous forms of media is vanishing, and this certainly has its benefits. For one, advertising has changed for the better. In the twentieth century, advertisers were overcharged and under-served; newspapers were able to charge high amounts for space, and advertisers had no say in whether those newspapers could report on their industries. According to Shirky,
There was a time when Ford went to The New York Times during the rollover stories        and said, “You know, if you keep going on this, we may just pull all Ford ads in The New York Times.†To which the Times said, “Okay.†And the ability to do that—to say essentially to the advertiser, “Where else are you going to go?â€â€”was a big part of what kept newspapers from suffering from commercial capture. It worked better for bigger papers than smaller papers, but that bulwark of guest commercial capture was a feature of the 20th century commercial market. Neither of those, neither the overpaying or the underserving, is true in the current market any longer….[8]
Now that advertisers have an abundance of options online, they can choose where to advertise, and possibly even negotiate prices if a website wants their business badly enough. Blogs, in particular, create a new dynamic with advertisers in this respect. Topical bloggers can choose to reach out to businesses that relate to their subjects, which, while the advertisers are making a profit, blogs have a connection to the sources, products, and services that they discuss.
As the conversation shifts from how the Internet improves news to the fear of losing newspapers, many in the field often oppose the idea that the Internet’s subsequent technologies—particularly blogs—should replace newspapers. Alex S. Jones, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for the New York Times, author and director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University, fears the loss of the institutional power that newspapers hold, arguing that newspapers should not be abandoned[9]. However, many responses in the field have made clear that there is not much of a question as to whether an Internet technology will fully replace news. Jay Rosen, part of the New York University faculty and creator of journalism blog PressThink, argues that these concerns with replacement stem not from the loss of the newspaper as a functional news outlet, but from concerns for losing the business: “Ask bloggers why they blog and they might say: because big media sucks! But they will almost never say: I AM YOUR REPLACEMENT. This fantasy of replacement comes almost exclusively from the journalist’s side, typically connected to fears for a lost business modelâ€[10]. Newspapers are clearly irreplaceable in several aspects, but especially in their production of accountability journalism[11], and because of this, blogs and other network journalism tools are not intending to compete with professional journalism; rather, they are complementing it.
However, there is still blog versus journalism conflict, which is slowing the process of accepting blogs as a supplement to news. Rosen discusses this issue in several articles, claiming that the relationship between blogs and news is neurotic. Bloggers, he explains, “can’t let go of Big Daddy media—the towering figure of the MSM—and still be bloggers. Pro journalists, meanwhile, project fears about the Internet and loss of authority onto the figure of the pajama-wearing blogger. This is a construction of their own and a key part of a whole architecture of denial that has weakened in recent years, but far too slowly.†The only way to put this conflict to rest, Rosen argues, is to examine the psychological element to it: “the denial, the projection, the neuroses, the narcissism, the grandiosity, the rage, the fears of annihilation: the monsters of the id in the newsroom, and the fantasy of toppling the MSM in the blogosphere.[12]†Bloggers and professional journalists must overcome these disagreements and, as Rosen calls them, psychological problems, if the relationship between blogs and journalism can move toward an acceptance of networked journalism as an appropriate and useful news outlet in the field. I will provide some potential reasons for the conflict between journalism and user-generated content, as well as solutions to these issues later in this essay.
News and Blogs Are Part of a New Media Ecosystem
One solution to the conflict—an idea that Shirky supports—is to allow news and blogging to exist in symbiosis in the current media landscape; in other words, Internet writers will have to accept the features of a media ecosystem in which the power shifts from one class of institutions to the ecosystem as a whole. Shirky argues that because the current ecosystem already differs from the twentieth century ecosystem, those in the field should be looking at ways to balance the production of accountability journalism with the possibility of public reuse, to receive the important values that come from each[13].
Accompanying this new media ecosystem are important questions regarding the issue with determining the credibility of blogs, more so than there ever was with traditional news sources. Hong Ji & Michael Sheehy, in a content analysis that quantifies how bloggers define their work, mention that, “As blogging becomes more identified with journalism, the long-standing importance of traditional journalistic procedures and standards may begin to weaken, thus possibly impacting public perception of media credibility across all platforms, not just the Internet.[14]†Additionally, the voiceless nature of traditional journalism that blogging disrupts creates not just credibility issues, but also questions of morality, and how readers will be able to sort through the levels of trustworthiness in different blogs.
A simple solution to these questions is to accept that fact that not all blogging is journalism[15]. Moreover, because blogs have a new freedom of voice that traditional always tried to avoid, readers should not look to blogs to maintain the same values, as they have a different nature and users must treat them as such. While journalism studies suggest “opinionated writing lowers credibility, bloggers and blog readers contend that Weblogs contain thoughtful analysis of the news events missing from mainstream mediaâ€; and, at the same time, traditional media users should have a sense for trustworthy sources, and know how to locate valuable news sources online[16].
On the other hand, the more saturated the Internet becomes, the more difficult it may be to decipher news from everything else. Unfortunately, the problem with what many refer to as saturation—though a better word may be overloading—of material is inevitable and irreversible as the Internet expands. The only solution, then, would be to figure out the use of this surplus of information. For one, as sharing information becomes accessible to more people, more users will republish stories, and more eyes will see those stories; this is of exceptional use if situations require more support, collective action, or attention. Shirky notes recent situations in which republishing material had a productive effect. The story of the Father John Geoghan scandal in Boston, for example, became known with the help of not only the newspapers that published articles on the subject, but even more so from the public, who passed on the information through online groups, blogs, forums, and other media outlets[17]:
A huge number of the positive effects from that report were not created by The Boston Globe. They were created by The Boston Globe’s initial audience. The Globe does not have a worldwide audience of millions of Catholics. The Globe is a regional paper. The worldwide audience of millions of Catholics got that story because it was forwarded and forwarded and forwarded. The audience created the public…. The public created itself.
Today, the ability to reuse and republish material plays a significant role in spreading information to the public. As Shirky explains, the reuse of an original article can greatly increase the amount of value of that article[18].
At the same time, according to Simon Owens of Nieman Journalism Lab, events currently happening sometimes seem as if they are “tailor-made for web coverage.†The topic of the Occupy Wall Street protest, in October 2011, holds four of the five most popular stories on the New York Observer’s website[19]. Foster Kamer, senior editor for the Observer, describes the various coverage of the Occupy protest as “spiderwebbingâ€; like a crack in a piece of glass, one pebble can cause different lines and cracks. The narrative as a whole began with the initial protestors, which expanded to the newer characters, the police. After the arrests began and interest was increasing, journalists started approaching the situation from new angles: “the protesters, the police, the Wall Street executives, the celebrities visiting the protests, taxation policy, and, eventually, the presidential race. And as the protests spread to dozens of cities, there were suddenly dozens of local angles, generating coverage in more regional outlets.[20]†In this case, saturation allowed complete coverage of the Occupy protest from varying perspectives. As interest grew, writers found new angles from which to produce stories, which, while their sites gain traffic, readers gain a better grasp on the entire situation.
This shift also shows that news organizations are beginning to become much more audience-based, aiming at reader interest. Shirky poses the following question: “Can we provide news that gathers an audience, that has the function The Boston Globe has of assembling a public that matters to these institutions, in ways that bring those institutions to heel?[21].â€
Blogs may be at least part of a potential solution. A study called “Uses and Perceptions of Blogs: a Report on Professional Journalists and Journalism Educators†by Deborah S. Chung, Eunseong Kim, Kaye Trammell, and Lance Porter, claims that blogs are a new form of communication that shifts control of information from the mainstream organizations to the audience. Current technology allows news audiences to also become information providers when bloggers express views and readers engage in the conversation[22]. Though Twitter and Facebook have become news distributors, topical blogs—both amateur and those belonging to news organizations—provide a slightly different approach, by supplying readers with an entire website that contains a collection of posts, discussion forums, polls, photos, and videos of a specific niche, all in one place, sorted by date. Readers can see the progression of a story or of a reporter’s gathering of sources and new angles; and, on the same site, they can access additional materials.
Blogging popular stories, such as the Occupy Wall Street protests, while often providing a one-stop for information for readers, also has its benefits to the blogs—and their news organization, if they have one. Blogging in-demand stories brings more traffic to the website, and more readers will view other content on the website through links and other online tools.
Blogs also allow individuals to play an active role in collecting, reporting, sorting, and disseminating news[23]. Readers can also interact with bloggers and other readers; this kind of “group undertaking,†Shirky explains, is like a ladder of activities that these social tools improve. Sharing, which makes the fewest demands on participants, is the simplest way to take advantage of social tools; users can upload media and then choose who is able to see it. Cooperation, the next rung on the ladder, is slightly more difficult than sharing because it involves changing one’s behavior to synchronize with others, creates a group identity. A simple example of cooperation is conversation, which is common in forums or in a blog post’s comments section. While cooperation creates a larger sense of community, there are difficulties; disagreements in a forum conversation, for example, can lead users to go off topic and often escalate to verbal attacks on a personal level[24]. These activities are what allows users to feel so connected to blogging and other forms of networked journalism; they give a voice to the reader, which greatly diminishes the original producer-consumer relationship where the author was once the almighty and the reader simply listened.
At the same time, in blogs, users can see the full process of production, and they are more engaged because they can be involved at every stage. This creates not only a better relationship between the reporter and the reader, but also a better business model; blogging creates stakeholder-funded journalism, as different organizations back the creation of media that helps to further their aims, ideally, according to Beckett, “…in a transparent, interactive and accountable way.…Local councils, universities and NGOs like Oxfam produce so much media that they are themselves becoming part of networked news production.[25]†There are more entities involved in this model, so the news production can work to satisfy everyone’s needs.
One arguable downside to these conveniences is the potential isolation of users who only choose to read topics that interest them. However, readers have always had many choices regarding which reporters or news outlets to follow, and which sections or stories to read or ignore. What would the difference be if the website simply left out the information that the reader was not going to read anyway? Newspapers and broadcast news never forced readers to expand their interests to topics in different sections, so blogs need not make the effort, either.
Another disadvantage of the widespread availability of this kind of interactivity, one that Shirky discusses in Here Comes Everybody, is the emergence of endless user-generated content to sift through. While the scarcity of old media had drawbacks, “it spared us the worst of amateur production.[26]†Currently, there is no obvious line between a blog as a diary and a blog as a media outlet[27]. But, as Shirky explains,
We misread these seemingly inane posts because we’re so unused to seeing written material in public that isn’t intended for us. The people posting messages to one another in small groups are doing a different kind of communicating than people posting messages for hundreds or thousands of people to read…. An audience isn’t just a big community; it can be anonymous, with many fewer ties among users.[28]
It would be is the user’s job, then, to understand which content is professional and which is amateur. The distinction is not always an easy one to make, but as blogs peak and become more of a social norm, users will eventually know the most efficient way of sorting and labeling information in the online ecosystem, and which websites to always trust as accurate news outlets. News organizations have already begun to set a standard for news blogs, so it is only a matter of time before these standards develop into an Internet-wide norm.
Each of these new communication technologies is a challenge, not an improvement, to the old technology,[29] so while users may choose to maintain some of the old guidelines, they are also able to create new rules and standards for news outlets. In her article, “Weblogs and Journalism: Do They Connect,†Rebecca Blood openly rejects “the journalistic standards of fairness and accuracy in favor of transparency as the touchstone for ethical blogging. As media participants, we are stronger and more valuable working outside mainstream media, rather than attempting to mirror the purposes of the institution we should seek to analyze and supplement.[30]†Bloggers do not have to follow the journalistic standards; using transparency through linking and open sourcing is a more sensible alternate for their particular media outlet. While worthless in print, links provide excellent online transparency; writers can directly reference their online sources, which allows readers to examine the writer’s understanding and representation of the referenced piece[31]. Linking helps to develop the same credibility for readers that traditional journalism has always tried to maintain; though the method may change, the ethical aims do not—and should not—have to.
Combining the ethical aims of journalism with an updated media outlet such as blogs has potential for the future answer to Shirky’s question regarding whether organizations can provide a space for news that can both gather an audience and assemble collective action when necessary. Beckett extends this idea of maintaining some traditional ethical practices; he asserts that networked journalism—which includes blogs—builds on, rather than totally changing, many of the traditional functions of journalism: reporting, analyzing, and commenting. These new practices return to old “editorial virtues: independence, oversight, and human interest. It can enhance existing genres such as political reporting and specialist practices such as investigationâ€[32]. Furthermore, news organizations’ blogs, or those written by journalists, will naturally provide a more complete version of stories. Sometimes, however, those professionals, who often have a stake in the public perception of a certain issue, are least reliable for unbiased perspectives. Their commentary—if written with integrity—can be a good source of information and analysis[33]. Though blogs may not be able to replace journalistic news stories altogether, this hybrid of ethics and new media tools in the new media ecosystem does have the potential to provide consistent, high quality stories with the general population as the intended audience.
On the other hand, some find that these tools are not an improvement to how people receive news. Jacob Harris, in an article for Nieman Journalism Lab called, “This Post Won’t Save Journalism. (Sorry.),†rejects the idea that new media tools are simplifying news production:
Yes, there are new tools for slideshows and timelines. Even tools for generic reporting like game recaps are coming, but a tool can’t explain why the team has been choking lately or explore the troubling rise in concussions across the sport. A tool might be able to create a shiny artistic jumble for you, but it can’t find you the story in there or explain to your readers why they should care[34].
That is the beauty of blogging though. A blogger can create a “shiny artistic jumble†with these tools and then provide an analysis that considers why the team is not doing well. Furthermore, a blogger can not only report, but also offer a discussion or detailed examination; these new tools simply better the transmission of information. Shirky uses Flickr and user-generated labeling as an example, describing how these supplement reporting, rather than complicate it. After the London Transport bombings in 2005, some of the first photos appeared on Flickr, which reached users faster than most news outlets. Additionally, Flickr users did not simply upload amateur photographs; they also included actual notices from schools, “I’m OK†notes, and messages of support from around the world. Flickr made the photos available for reuse, so bloggers began using them immediately, “creating a kind of symbiotic relationship among various social tools…. The basic capabilities of tools like Flickr reverse the old order of group activity, transforming ‘gather, then share’ into ‘share, then gather[35].’ â€
Similarly, Youtube is a unique media outlet that allows users to broadcast from their computers, cell phones, and other devices. As a part of the ecosystem, Youtube users and professional broadcasters have developed a symbiotic relationship; Youtube users upload videos to get more exposure, and, at the same time, broadcasters are able to view patterns and video popularity to both expand the scope of their reporting, and to also stay relevant and timely. On the business side, citizen reporting is cheaper and sometimes more efficient; when amateurs are recording video of events, news organizations can avoid sending satellite trucks to those scenes[36].
Because of tools like Flickr, Youtube, and others, information now moves horizontally between peers just as effectively as it does vertically, from producer to consumer[37]. Now that users have both patterns of information flow, news moves faster. People can connect more efficiently in both good and bad situations. More people are able to document events though media. There is an increase in content production, so users can view, read, synthesize, and understand for themselves.
In the ecosystem of tools that allow these new opportunities, blogging can be a useful outlet. Beckett anticipates blogs to be “the new front page,†which also act as “the signature offering that helps define the editorial brand[38].†If this new development is accurate, some believe that the definitions of “journalism†and “journalist†must also develop[39] in this new ecosystem. However, it is not “journalism†that must change; rather, a new term that labels this type of user-generated content should emerge. Why shouldn’t everyone just get together and alter the qualifications for “journalist?†The answer is: because it will not happen. Journalism is a system that already works; while tools such as Flickr and social media make the transmission of news more efficient, professionals in the field are not in the same category of writers as amateurs are, because they are professionals. Combining user-generated content and articles from a news organization such as the New York Times under one umbrella of journalism would not be fair to either side, as they are each doing something different, if only slightly. Douglass Rushkoff, in a Nieman Reports article called “There’s More to Being a Journalist Than Hitting the ‘Publish’ Button,†clearly explains exactly why the definition of journalist should stay the same:
A professional journalist isn’t just someone who has access to the newswires, or at least it shouldn’t be. A professional newsperson is someone who is not only trained to pursue a story and deconstruct propaganda, but someone who has been paid to spend the time and energy required to do so effectively. Corporations and governments alike spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year on their public relations and communications strategies…. Without a crew of equally qualified—if not equally funded—professionals to analyze and challenge these agencies‘ fictions, we are defenseless against them[40].
More simply stated, journalists are different. Even with the overlaps in purpose and tools, professional journalists have guidelines that amateurs and untrained users do not have. Furthermore, as Shirky mentions, all of these next steps require experimentation, “not the transfer of allegiance from one institution to another[41].†This may be the biggest reason for the problems those in the field of journalism have with user-generated content—if we keep the two separated, with nothing totally replaced or redefined, then we are simply welcoming journalism into the new media ecosystem, along with blogs and other online tools and media outlets.
Blogs are Beneficial to News
Shirky’s salient claims regarding the emergence of a new media ecosystem certainly begin to work toward explaining how the nature of blogs is changing journalism for the better. New, widely available and often free tools allow for more user-generated content, which promotes more readers to be writers as well. At the same time, online blogging encourages discussion through comments, so readers are also able to interact with the authors and each other. The result is an increase in voices, and a new desire to report—creating a new blend of professional, amateur, and in between—in the field. Because people have been used to the producer-consumer relationship of newspapers for so long, many are still unsettled about this shift. However, there are many clear benefits:
1.1.      There are more eyes to catch breaking news, and more video-recording devices to capture firsthand accounts.
1.2.      More users are eager—and able—to uncover the mistakes of other users, and therefore can provide readers with more accurate reporting.
1.3.      An increased number of reporters means an increase in perspectives, which provides readers with more complete news stories and discussions.
1.4.      News organizations can track the popularity of topics and report based on their readerships’ interests and needs.
1.5.      News organizations can interact directly with readers through comment tools and forums, which also help them understand the interests and needs of their readerships.
The gains certainly outweigh the losses. In addition, as Shirky argues, the compilation of topics in newspapers was never totally sensible for readers, and with the emergence of online news and blogs, newspapers are now even less sensible; because readers no longer have to rely solely on newspapers for news reporting, sorting through a collection of topics to locate only a few is outdated and unnecessary. Topical blogs—whether they act as supplements to news organizations or are standalone—provide readers with exactly what they are looking for, and the organization of blogs makes for easy access and sorting of information.
In consequence, we have new, more updated and technologically appropriate outlets for reporting, as well as new reporters. Rather than trying to fit blogging and online news in with the definitions of journalism—or redefining journalism to make these changes make sense—perhaps they need to remain separated, at least for now and in the foreseeable future. Yes, there is more of an issue with determining credibility with blogs than with traditional news sources, so as the Internet becomes increasingly more saturated with information, the question isn’t necessarily which information or websites is journalism, but rather, which information from these media outlets is credible. To totally solve this problem, the Internet still requires a system that sorts secondary sources or user-generated content based on credibility. Though some argue that users should already be able to “weed out†amateur content from real news, a tool that would guide users to the most credible content would take some of the guesswork out of the process.
Some online publications have already noted that media outlets must work together, rather than against one another, in the new ecosystem. The Voice of San Diego—which, on the website, rarely refers to itself as anything but simply “voiceofsandiego.orgâ€â€”is already working to develop and occupy its niche in the ecosystem. The news organization offers an approachable “About Us†section that speaks to its awareness of the vast number of available outlets, and how its members try to provide something different:
We are a public-service, nonprofit news organization that focuses on in-depth and investigative reporting…. We don’t try to be everything to everybody. We don’t think we’re the only place you’re going to get news today. We know that in today’s world you’ve got plenty of places to turn for national and international coverage, and there are other publications in San Diego doing work that we don’t need to chase after or replicate…. That’s why we follow a simple maxim: We don’t do a story unless we think we can do it better than anyone else or no one else is covering it.
The description also notes the publication’s consideration of its readers specific needs and interests, as well as its commitment to credibility and care:
We try to be the best at the areas we can cover with our small but growing staff: Politics, education, neighborhoods, environment, public safety, housing, economy and hopefully more as we move forward. We can’t get to everything, but we can promise you to put all of our hard work and care into the issues we can get to. We try to go beyond the press releases and press conferences to bring you the stories that our leaders and powerful don’t want to announce — the kind of stories that result in positive change, uncover vital information for San Diegans, and bring us together as a community.
Finally, the description adds a welcome for the direct interactivity that allows news organizations to connect with their readers through conversation: “And we put perspective and analysis into the things they do announce…. Our commitment is to engage you through lucid storytelling and serial narratives, to bring you along with our reporters as they do what they love and get you involved in a conversation about San Diego[42]â€. Clearly, VOSD provides a timely example of many of Shirky’s claims, successful in practice. The publication’s articles use many traditional journalistic techniques for reporting, while also adding the conversational tone of a blog where appropriate. The site employs sharing, cooperation and collective action, the three rungs on Shirky’s ladder of activities improved by social tools. VOSD doesn’t attempt to redefine any journalistic parameters to make its system work; members simply report as completely as possible, incorporating whichever tools are most beneficial to each story.
What does this example demonstrate? That based on different models we see working already, all the tools in this new, complex media ecosystem can function symbiotically.
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Voice of San Diego. 2011. Web.
[1] “Clay Shirky.†Wikipedia. Web.
[2] Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody. New York: The Penguin Press, 2008. p 60. Print.
[3] Clay Shirky. “The unbundling of content.†Talk at the Shorenstein Center, Harvard University. 22 Sep 2009. Web.
[4] Clay Shirky. “The unbundling of content.†Talk at the Shorenstein Center, Harvard University. 22 Sep 2009. Web.
[5] Beckett, Charlie. “The Value of Networked Journalism.†Value of Networked Journalism Conference. London School of Economics and Political Science. Polis Journalism and Society. 11 June 2010. p 207. Print.
[6] Tremayne “Introduction: Examining the Blog-Media Relationship.†Blogging, Citizenship, and the Future of Media. p xiii.
[7] Clay Shirky. “The temporary revenue moment.†Talk at the Shorenstein Center, Harvard University. 22 Sep 2009. Web.
[8] Clay Shirky. “The ability to push back advertisers.†Talk at the Shorenstein Center, Harvard University. 22 Sep 2009. Web.
[9] Jones, Alex S. “Questions and answers.†Talk at the Shorenstein Center, Harvard University. 22 Sep 2009. Web.
[10] Rosen, Jay. “The Twisted Psychology of Bloggers vs. Journalists: My Talk at South By Southwest.†PressThink: Ghost of Democracy in the Media Machine. 12 Mar 2011. Web.
[11] Shirky, Clay. “Replacing newspapers.†Talk at the Shorenstein Center, Harvard University. 22 Sep 2009. Web.
[12] Rosen, Jay. “Why ‘Bloggers vs. Journalists’ is Still With Us.†PressThink: Ghost of Democracy in the Media Machine. 4 Mar 2011. Web.
[13] Shirky, Clay. “Paywalls stop spreading.†Talk at the Shorenstein Center, Harvard University. 22 Sep 2009. Web.
[14] Ji, Hong and Michael Sheehy. “Growing Number of Bloggers See Their Work as Journalism” Newspaper Research Journal. Vol. 31, No. 4. Fall 2010. 38-47. Print.
[15] Lasica, J.D. “Blogs and Journalism Need Each Other.†Nieman Reports. Fall 2003. 71. Print.
[16] Johnson, Thomas J. and Barbara K. Kay. “Wag the Blog: How Reliance on Traditional Media and the Internet Influence Credibility Perceptions of Weblogs Among Blog Users.” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly. Vol. 81, No. 3. P 625.
[17] Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody. New York: The Penguin Press, 2008. p 146. Print.
[18] Shirky, Clay. “Spreadable media.†Talk at the Shorenstein Center, Harvard University. 22 Sep 2009. Web.
[19] Observation from Simon Owens, described in the article: “As Occupy Wall Street evolves, news sites find it a great opportunity for web journalism.†Nieman Journalism Lab. 25 October 2011. Web.
[20] Owens, Simon. “As Occupy Wall Street evolves, news sites find it a great opportunity for web journalism.†Nieman Journalism Lab. 25 October 2011. Web.
[21] Shirky, Clay. “Questions and Answers.†Talk at the Shorenstein Center, Harvard University. 22 Sep 2009. Web.
[22] Chung, Deborah S., Eunseong Kim, Kaye D. Trammell, and Lance V. Porte. “Uses and Perceptions of Blogs: A Report on Professional Journalists and Journalism Educators.” Journalism and Mass Communication Educator. Vol. 62, No. 3. p 305. 2007.
[23] Lasica, J.D. “Blogs and Journalism Need Each Other.” Nieman Reports. Fall 2003. 71. Print.
[24] Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody. New York: The Penguin Press, 2008. p 49. Print.
[25] Beckett, Charlie. “The Value of Networked Journalism.†Value of Networked Journalism Conference. London School of Economics and Political Science. Polis Journalism and Society. 11 June 2010. p 221. Print.
[26] Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody. New York: The Penguin Press, 2008. p 83. Print.
[27] Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody. New York: The Penguin Press, 2008. p 89. Print.
[28] Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody. New York: The Penguin Press, 2008. p 87. Print.
[29] Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody. New York: The Penguin Press, 2008. p 106. Print.
[30] Blood, Rebecca. “Weblogs and Journalism: Do They Connect?” Nieman Reports. Fall 2003. p 63. Print.
[31] Blood, Rebecca. “Weblogs and Journalism: Do They Connect?” Nieman Reports. Fall 2003. p 61. Print.
[32] Beckett, Charlie. “The Value of Networked Journalism.†Value of Networked Journalism Conference. London School of Economics and Political Science. Polis Journalism and Society. 11 June 2010. p 219. Print.
[33] Blood, Rebecca. “Weblogs and Journalism: Do They Connect?” Nieman Reports. Fall 2003. p 63. Print.
[34] Harris, Jacob. “This Post Won’t Save Journalism. (Sorry.)†Nieman Journalism Lab. 28 Oct 2011. Web.
[35] Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody. New York: The Penguin Press, 2008. p 34-35. Print.
[36] Grove, Steven. “Youtube’s Ecosystem for News.” Neiman Reports. Jun 2010. Web.
[37] Rosen, Jay. “The Twisted Psychology of Bloggers vs. Journalists: My Talk at South By Southwest.†PressThink: Ghost of Democracy in the Media Machine. 12 Mar 2011. Web.
[38] Beckett, Charlie. “The Value of Networked Journalism.†Value of Networked Journalism Conference. London School of Economics and Political Science. Polis Journalism and Society. 11 June 2010. p 208-09. Print.
[39] Chung, Deborah S., Eunseong Kim, Kaye D. Trammell, and Lance V. Porte. “Uses and Perceptions of Blogs: A Report on Professional Journalists and Journalism Educators.” Journalism and Mass Communication Educator. Vol. 62, No. 3. p 305. 2007.
[40] Rushkoff, Douglas. “There’s More to Being a Journalist Than Hitting the ‘Publish’ Button.” Neiman Reports. Jun 2010. Web.
[41] Shirky, Clay. “Replacing newspapers.†Talk at the Shorenstein Center, Harvard University. 22 Sep 2009. Web.
[42] “About Us.†voiceofsandiego.org. 2011. Web.