New York Times reporter Jon Pareles takes a pretty condescending view of big-time names in New Media YouTube and MySpace. In a Sunday story, Pareles criticizes Google and News Corp. for buying the two online sharing sites calling them "a couple of empty vessels." Pareles denigrates MySpace to "an ever-expanding heap of personal ads, random photos, private blathering, demo recordings and camcorder video clips" not worth the $580 million it was bought for and YouTube "a flood of grainy TV excerpts, snarkily edited film clips, homemade video diaries, amateur music videos and shots of people singing along with their stereos" definitely not worth the $1.65 billion.
Not suprisingly, Pareles got slammed by the blogosphere for his point of view. Stacy Kramer wrote a post on paidContent.org "As he explores the cultural meaning, what Pareles skips over is that News Corp.and Google weren’t buying the content as much as the community, the massive traffic and the distribution MySpace.com and YouTube.com provide respectively. That, and the idea that sophisticated online advertising can overcome fragmentation. Of course, that’s our job, not his." I think she's right -- News Corp and Google now have one of the key demographics at their disposal, and that's definitely worth something.
Jeff Jarvis wrote on his media blog BuzzMachine that Pareles, more than anybody, should be celebrating the expanded freedom of expression allowed by these new mediums. "Choice is good, not something to be lamented. Indeed, I find it ironic that a critic, of all people, should be complaining about choice. Choice is precisely what necessitates criticism," he said. Furthermore, he points out that Pareles, being a Big Media hotshot at the New York Times, just doesn't get it. "Pareles makes the common mistake of bringing old-media, mass metrics to the new-media, niche world." From what I've seen, most professional journalists do not understand the value of niche media, but clearly there is since both of these sites are so popular.
While of course traditional journalists feel threatened by user-generated content because it makes their profession a simple pasttime for anyone interested, but Pareles should know better to slam Web users and two of the most important sites online today. Online journalism is the future and Pareles, who probably wants to keep his job at the times, should consider adapting and accepting New Media, in all its forms.
Monday, December 11, 2006
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Online media's younger crowd
CNET published the findings of an interesting study done by The Harrison Group Friday. According to the study on 2006 Teen Trends, they found that Americans aged 13 to 18 spend more than 72 hours a week using electronic media (that includes the Internet, cell phones, television, music and video games). They also found that the devices and platforms on which teens use electronic media often overlap.
While I kind of already assumed that technology was big among the generation younger than me, I think it's good to have studies to back it up. It's empirical proof that media companies are going to have to work harder and faster and disseminate its news across multiple platforms to their reader's attention. And this study is also kind of telling us in an indirect way that soon, as my generation and the teens in this study continue to get older, online media is going to replace print and television as the dominant platform and media companies should start preparing for that now.
It just really makes me wonder what news will be like in the future. From my point of view, there are only amazing opportunities for journalism online.
While I kind of already assumed that technology was big among the generation younger than me, I think it's good to have studies to back it up. It's empirical proof that media companies are going to have to work harder and faster and disseminate its news across multiple platforms to their reader's attention. And this study is also kind of telling us in an indirect way that soon, as my generation and the teens in this study continue to get older, online media is going to replace print and television as the dominant platform and media companies should start preparing for that now.
It just really makes me wonder what news will be like in the future. From my point of view, there are only amazing opportunities for journalism online.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
GW Hatchet online proves itself to Web community
Maybe this is a little bit self effacing and biased because I work for the student newspaper here, but I wanted to point out something that shows the importance of online media at a student level. Yesterday, The GW Hatchet broke the news that GW has chosen a new president to replace Trachtenberg when he retires this spring. It was probably the best use and design (and the biggest story for the paper since Trachtenberg announced he was retiring after 18 years as president) of The Hatchet's Web site I've ever seen and was really impressed.
The Hatchet's site shows that it can compete on a professional level with the rest of online news -- it's big headline giving the story prominence, the graphic behind the text, the links to other stories about the presidential search and the photo slide show of Trachtenberg's reign was a completely multimedia approach to the biggest story this semester.
Also, it should recognized that The Hatchet scooped all other media outlets on this story and even today's Washington Post story on the new president selection mentioned that GW's student newspaper was the first to report the story. In an e-mail to the staff last night from Hatchet Editor in Chief Caitlin Carroll, she said, "(GW media relations director) Tracy Schario called me tonight and said congratulations on our reporting job. She also said that she's received calls tonight from some other publications, including the Washington Business Journal, who said they can't believe they got scooped by a student paper...."
I also think it's important to point out that for The Hatchet, having a great Web presence on this story is essential. The student newspaper only prints twice a week (Monday and Thursday) and the story broke Monday afternoon, meaning it won't be in the print version until three days later. I just thought it was worth it to point out that even at GW the advancement of online news is having an effect.
The Hatchet's site shows that it can compete on a professional level with the rest of online news -- it's big headline giving the story prominence, the graphic behind the text, the links to other stories about the presidential search and the photo slide show of Trachtenberg's reign was a completely multimedia approach to the biggest story this semester.
Also, it should recognized that The Hatchet scooped all other media outlets on this story and even today's Washington Post story on the new president selection mentioned that GW's student newspaper was the first to report the story. In an e-mail to the staff last night from Hatchet Editor in Chief Caitlin Carroll, she said, "(GW media relations director) Tracy Schario called me tonight and said congratulations on our reporting job. She also said that she's received calls tonight from some other publications, including the Washington Business Journal, who said they can't believe they got scooped by a student paper...."
I also think it's important to point out that for The Hatchet, having a great Web presence on this story is essential. The student newspaper only prints twice a week (Monday and Thursday) and the story broke Monday afternoon, meaning it won't be in the print version until three days later. I just thought it was worth it to point out that even at GW the advancement of online news is having an effect.
Huffington Post: what other bloggers think?
I've been scouring the net to try and find some passionate, angry reaction typical of the blogosphere to last week's news that the Huffington Post will start hiring reporters and paying them, much like the traditional media does. I automatically thought that the blogosphere would be in an uproar over this - the overall tone of blogs is anti-MSM and they see themselves as more transparent, democratic, etc. But so far all I've found are shockingly positive responses from the head honchos:
Jeff Jarvis, creator of Buzzmachine, a respected blog that covers media developments, sees this as a good step for the blogosphere and says, "It’s the next step for HuffPo and the blogosphere, to add more original reporting as it becomes worthwhile to do so. And it’s the next step for more and more institutional journalists to venture into the future," he wrote. He clearly thinks it's good that more traditional journalists are moving to alternative media, and points to the Washington Post's political editor John Harris and top political correspondent Jim VandeHei moving to jump start the online publication The Capitol Leader. He points out one more important thing: "Note, too, that it will soon be more difficult to tell the difference between old and new, as blogs and reporting and reporters blog. It’s all news." Is this blurring of the line a good thing? Jarvis doesn't explicitly say, but he seems to think so.
In Matthew Ingram's blog, he support's HuffPo's move as well, but doesn't mention what this means for the blogosphere. Ingram seems to think that the HuffPo is transforming traditional journalism, when it seems to me that it's actually the opposite. "In my view, newspapers had better get their running shoes on, because online media like Huffington Post and PaidContent are already halfway down the track," he writes.
The IP Democracy blog poses: "Which raises an interesting question about the difference between blogs staffed by top-notch journalists and newspapers staffed by top-notch journalists. The question is: what’s the distinction between those two? The Huffington Post’s decision to hire “real” journalists only further blurs the boundaries between newspapers and blogs..." but he doesn't answer it, which was what I was looking for.
One of Buzzmachine's commentors from Brooklyn Kitchen has the sort of reaction I expected: "That said, it’s hard for me to believe the hype about how new media will revolutionize the way news is produced and distributed, when it very quickly falls into line with the same-old-shit that we’ve always known. The new editor coming as she does from established media sources, is hardly a HuffPo challenge to old media, it’s more of a capitulation." With this Huffington Post news it does seem that the blogosphere is just following the mainstream, when their goal was to fight against it.
Surprisingly the reaction among most bloggers was to report the news of the Huffington Post jumping ship into traditional journalism, but not delve deeper into it. Maybe they are posing questions and not following up with it because no one really knows the answer. It will be interesting to see how this all works out and if other blogs following in HuffPo's footsteps.
Jeff Jarvis, creator of Buzzmachine, a respected blog that covers media developments, sees this as a good step for the blogosphere and says, "It’s the next step for HuffPo and the blogosphere, to add more original reporting as it becomes worthwhile to do so. And it’s the next step for more and more institutional journalists to venture into the future," he wrote. He clearly thinks it's good that more traditional journalists are moving to alternative media, and points to the Washington Post's political editor John Harris and top political correspondent Jim VandeHei moving to jump start the online publication The Capitol Leader. He points out one more important thing: "Note, too, that it will soon be more difficult to tell the difference between old and new, as blogs and reporting and reporters blog. It’s all news." Is this blurring of the line a good thing? Jarvis doesn't explicitly say, but he seems to think so.
In Matthew Ingram's blog, he support's HuffPo's move as well, but doesn't mention what this means for the blogosphere. Ingram seems to think that the HuffPo is transforming traditional journalism, when it seems to me that it's actually the opposite. "In my view, newspapers had better get their running shoes on, because online media like Huffington Post and PaidContent are already halfway down the track," he writes.
The IP Democracy blog poses: "Which raises an interesting question about the difference between blogs staffed by top-notch journalists and newspapers staffed by top-notch journalists. The question is: what’s the distinction between those two? The Huffington Post’s decision to hire “real” journalists only further blurs the boundaries between newspapers and blogs..." but he doesn't answer it, which was what I was looking for.
One of Buzzmachine's commentors from Brooklyn Kitchen has the sort of reaction I expected: "That said, it’s hard for me to believe the hype about how new media will revolutionize the way news is produced and distributed, when it very quickly falls into line with the same-old-shit that we’ve always known. The new editor coming as she does from established media sources, is hardly a HuffPo challenge to old media, it’s more of a capitulation." With this Huffington Post news it does seem that the blogosphere is just following the mainstream, when their goal was to fight against it.
Surprisingly the reaction among most bloggers was to report the news of the Huffington Post jumping ship into traditional journalism, but not delve deeper into it. Maybe they are posing questions and not following up with it because no one really knows the answer. It will be interesting to see how this all works out and if other blogs following in HuffPo's footsteps.
Friday, December 01, 2006
Blogs turning into mainstream media?
The news that the popular political blog the Huffington Post is going to start doing some of it's own original reporting sort of caught me off guard when I read a story in the New York Times yesterday.
I know blogs are a big deal and that some of them do their own original reporting (they're definitely not afraid to break big stories), but this was different because the Post blog is hiring journalists like any other media organization would to do reporting on the 2008 campaign and Congress this January. Arianna Huffington, who started the blog, said the site hired Melinda Henneberger, a print journalist who worked with Newsweek magazine most recently and was a New York Times reporter before that.
The Post site got a $5 million investment earlier this year and Huffington said that it was always her intention to do original reporting and now she has the funds to do so. “That’s the combination you need online,” she said in the New York Times story adding that her reporters will have deadlines, regular schedules and travel for stories, which is very atypical in the blogosphere. Her reporters will also be paid, also an anomaly for the blogosphere.
So, for all this talk about the blogosphere being "new media" and it's own form of journalism, I think news like this shows that bloggers are going to continue to more more toward the mainstream media.
I know blogs are a big deal and that some of them do their own original reporting (they're definitely not afraid to break big stories), but this was different because the Post blog is hiring journalists like any other media organization would to do reporting on the 2008 campaign and Congress this January. Arianna Huffington, who started the blog, said the site hired Melinda Henneberger, a print journalist who worked with Newsweek magazine most recently and was a New York Times reporter before that.
The Post site got a $5 million investment earlier this year and Huffington said that it was always her intention to do original reporting and now she has the funds to do so. “That’s the combination you need online,” she said in the New York Times story adding that her reporters will have deadlines, regular schedules and travel for stories, which is very atypical in the blogosphere. Her reporters will also be paid, also an anomaly for the blogosphere.
So, for all this talk about the blogosphere being "new media" and it's own form of journalism, I think news like this shows that bloggers are going to continue to more more toward the mainstream media.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Blogging's policing function?
While everyone knows that blogging has become the new popular Web 2.0 thing to do online these days, I heard something this week that made me consider a new possible function of blogs and just how their "citizen journalist" aspect might play out.
I read on Poynter Online this week that last Friday Jackie Danicki, an American blogger and social media consultant living in London, was attacked by two men in a London Underground. But, instead of letting the traditional methods of justice take their course, Danicki turned to her blog in addition to going to the police. Danicki was able to snap a picture of the attacker on her camera cell phone as he yelled at her and later posted it on her blog to get the word out and help the perpetrator be brought in, asking her loyal readers to identify the men and report them to the British Transport Police. While it seems like a logical thing for a woman seeking justice to do, it could potentially mean that technology might have implications for governmental bureaucracies or the justice system in general.
In the Poynter post, blogger Amy Garahan quoted a University of Florida professor who was concerned with this use of technology as well and its societal implications. Mincy McAdams wrote in her blog of the man in Danicki's photo, "Now more than a dozen other bloggers have linked to or reposted the picture of this young person. He might be guilty -- but doesn't Britain have courts to determine that? I live in a country with a long and horrifying and all-too-recent history of lynching. This viral photo manhunt in London scares me down to the marrow of my bones." Garahan agreed and said, "It's a valid concern. Someone who merely resembles the man in the picture could end up in dire straits," she said.
I think this is a concern and something that governments have to take into consideration for the future. If citizen journalists have the opportunity to seek their own justice, will that lead to going over the police's head, which ultimately leads to anarchy? Maybe that's going a little too far, but after all this talk about newspapers having to adapt to Web 2.0 culture to survive as a business, I think that maybe national governments shouldn't be left out of the conversation and should recognize their vulnerabilities because of changing technologies as well.
I read on Poynter Online this week that last Friday Jackie Danicki, an American blogger and social media consultant living in London, was attacked by two men in a London Underground. But, instead of letting the traditional methods of justice take their course, Danicki turned to her blog in addition to going to the police. Danicki was able to snap a picture of the attacker on her camera cell phone as he yelled at her and later posted it on her blog to get the word out and help the perpetrator be brought in, asking her loyal readers to identify the men and report them to the British Transport Police. While it seems like a logical thing for a woman seeking justice to do, it could potentially mean that technology might have implications for governmental bureaucracies or the justice system in general.
In the Poynter post, blogger Amy Garahan quoted a University of Florida professor who was concerned with this use of technology as well and its societal implications. Mincy McAdams wrote in her blog of the man in Danicki's photo, "Now more than a dozen other bloggers have linked to or reposted the picture of this young person. He might be guilty -- but doesn't Britain have courts to determine that? I live in a country with a long and horrifying and all-too-recent history of lynching. This viral photo manhunt in London scares me down to the marrow of my bones." Garahan agreed and said, "It's a valid concern. Someone who merely resembles the man in the picture could end up in dire straits," she said.
I think this is a concern and something that governments have to take into consideration for the future. If citizen journalists have the opportunity to seek their own justice, will that lead to going over the police's head, which ultimately leads to anarchy? Maybe that's going a little too far, but after all this talk about newspapers having to adapt to Web 2.0 culture to survive as a business, I think that maybe national governments shouldn't be left out of the conversation and should recognize their vulnerabilities because of changing technologies as well.
Monday, November 20, 2006
Multimedia journalism
Last week our class visited washingtonpost.com's newsroom in Alexandria and got some great tips from their multimedia editor Tom Kennedy on the future of news. Kennedy said, "Part of the challenge for us is figuring out mechanisms of distribution ... and the ubiquity of content." The Post.com is trying to figure out different platforms to present content so it's the most convenient for the consumer - whether they get their news on their Blackberry, cell phone, radio, Web, print, etc. He even wonders if there is a news platform that can operate in a way like YouTube, which has become such a big hit in the past year. Maybe quick news video hits, he suggests. Being innovative is the name of the game these days, and the washingtonpost.com is one of the leading innovators in the .com news business.
Kennedy pointed to some other news organizations using innovative Internet applications to reach across platforms as good examples. For instance, Atlanta 11 is using their Web site so that readers can search for newscasts according to keywords. Kennedy said, "TV is figuring out how to make value of their newscasts for the Web audience." He is looking for the technology washingtonpost.com can use to get similar results.
As of right now, washingtonpost.com is striving to use the Web as a place where readers can go for original content throughout the day. He said that the Post's site gets high amounts of user hits early in the morning, will crest again between 12 and 2 and then again between 3 and 5 and then another blip in the middle of the night when the international edition goes out. "We are always trying to surf the wave as far as fresh content," Kennedy said, as he and his team try to update the site before these "crests" throughout the day.
I think the Post's strategy is a good one and look forward to seeing how else they can advance the online news industry.
Kennedy pointed to some other news organizations using innovative Internet applications to reach across platforms as good examples. For instance, Atlanta 11 is using their Web site so that readers can search for newscasts according to keywords. Kennedy said, "TV is figuring out how to make value of their newscasts for the Web audience." He is looking for the technology washingtonpost.com can use to get similar results.
As of right now, washingtonpost.com is striving to use the Web as a place where readers can go for original content throughout the day. He said that the Post's site gets high amounts of user hits early in the morning, will crest again between 12 and 2 and then again between 3 and 5 and then another blip in the middle of the night when the international edition goes out. "We are always trying to surf the wave as far as fresh content," Kennedy said, as he and his team try to update the site before these "crests" throughout the day.
I think the Post's strategy is a good one and look forward to seeing how else they can advance the online news industry.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Al-Jazeeera hits the Web in English
Al-Jazeera, the Arab news network famous for broadcasting tapes sent in by Osama bin Laden and one of the few respected news organizations from the Arab world, is coming to the U.S. even though cable companies are trying to keep it in the Middle East.
An article in USA Today says that the Arab network is launching an English version of its network starting tomorrow and is expected to reach a deal with cable companies for news time, but in the meantime, since the cable companies aren't cooperating, Al-Jazeera is doing what any other non-mainstream media does in the U.S. - primarily operating off an English Web site for now.
I think it's interesting that Al-Jazeera is using the Web to promote its product in the U.S. when the cable companies aren't working with them. It just goes to show that in the Internet age, no one's views can be silenced or pushed out. Every one has an outlet.
I'm particularly interested in how this whole thing turns out because Al-Jazeera's U.S. bureau is only a few blocks from GW's campus and they are recruiting interns from the School of Media and Public Affairs (I got an e-mail on the listserv). I initially considered applying for the job because in my mind Al-Jazeera is a prestigious news organization and can give me insight into Middle Eastern culture, but with all the controversy, I think I'm going to hold out. But even so, I'm glad Al-Jazeera has the Web to give its version of the news. The U.S.'s supposed "marketplace of ideas" would be lacking without it. What do you think?
An article in USA Today says that the Arab network is launching an English version of its network starting tomorrow and is expected to reach a deal with cable companies for news time, but in the meantime, since the cable companies aren't cooperating, Al-Jazeera is doing what any other non-mainstream media does in the U.S. - primarily operating off an English Web site for now.
I think it's interesting that Al-Jazeera is using the Web to promote its product in the U.S. when the cable companies aren't working with them. It just goes to show that in the Internet age, no one's views can be silenced or pushed out. Every one has an outlet.
I'm particularly interested in how this whole thing turns out because Al-Jazeera's U.S. bureau is only a few blocks from GW's campus and they are recruiting interns from the School of Media and Public Affairs (I got an e-mail on the listserv). I initially considered applying for the job because in my mind Al-Jazeera is a prestigious news organization and can give me insight into Middle Eastern culture, but with all the controversy, I think I'm going to hold out. But even so, I'm glad Al-Jazeera has the Web to give its version of the news. The U.S.'s supposed "marketplace of ideas" would be lacking without it. What do you think?
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