The Ever-Changing World of News..

Last Thursday, we had guest speaker Bruce Koon of KQED Radio and Knight Ridder Digital lead us in a discussion about the transformative changes within the news business.

Before getting into the lecture, he surprised me by informing the class that he did read these blogs of ours, which honestly sparked a few butterflies in my stomach. I wonder who else reads this besides my classmates, Professor Lehrman, & Koon...

Anyway, Koon introduced the idea of the news business being in a constant state of "transformation" driven by technological changes. It's continually changing - from radio broadcasts to podcasts, print newspapers to blogs, television to the multimedia digital world. And with those technological advances come shifts in the behavior of both the journalist and the audience.

One of the most interesting tidbits that Koon brought up was that anyone can be a journalist. Basically if you release some sort of information to an audience, you can be considered a journalist. The everyday person could break stories just as quickly - or maybe even quicker now - than the professional news journalist. That's one of the reasons why many news sites have turned to featurettes like Twitter or RSS feeds - because the everyday person can release and receive news information immediately.

Another question that Koon brought up was how the news media can partner up with their audience since, according to Koon, "what we call the 'audience' is now the 'participant.'" So in other words, nowadays, the audience members want to be more directly involved with the news, whether that means releasing news themselves or voicing their opinions on the given topic.

Because of this, newer business models have formed to experiment with newer media technology. Sites like EveryBlock.com involve crowd sourcing, which places a task in the hands of the public, giving them the responsibility to gather data and report their findings back to the leader. Hyperlocal news is becoming more popular within smaller cities outside of the larger, metropolitan ones. It gives these smaller areas, like Half Moon Bay and the Bay's coastal region, more focus on local news relevant to their particular community and also gives them a voice that larger cities would tend to look over.

Citizen journalism is also popular with major newssites like CNN's iReport or BBC's Have Your Say. These allow the audience to submit their own news articles, photos, videos, etc. to the newssites, fulfilling their desire to more actively partcipate in sharing news with the rest of the world.

NewsTrust: Hunting for Quality News Articles Online

A few weeks ago, a guest speaker named Kaizar Campwala came to our class to talk about NewsTrust.net, a website dedicated to promoting good journalism online.

Thank goodness.

The site is still in its beta stage, but it already looks promising to me. It allows for a new type of "citizen journalism" where members can submit articles under a variety of topics ranging from foreign policy to social networking. Members can then rate an article on a one to five-point scale system based on ideals such as whether the story is informative, fair, well-cited, accurate, etc.

From this, the site also promotes news literacy, providing members with tools for evaluating journalism online. Readers can therefore view the most quality articles - those that received the top-rated reviews - and can also compare and contrast news stories about the same topic but from different sources.

I actually found myself spending more time on NewsTrust than I originally thought I would. I created a profile and revealed some information about myself in order to increase the impact my ratings would have. I found several articles on foreign policy, the given topic for our class that week, read them and rated them. This definitely allowed me to use critical thinking skills in regards to evaluating news online. I also included brief commentary to support my numbers.

Overall, I think NewsTrust is a great website with lots of promise for the future. The makers of this site still need to figure out a way to actually draw an audience to their site. When Campwala presented his slideshow about the company, he had one slide dedicated to what their ideal goal looks like. One example is to partner up with search engines so they can include a small tag at the end of each article showing its current rating based on the 5-point scale.

Hopefully NewsTrust will continue to grow and be able to achieve their goals soon.

A Night at the Oscars

Last night was Hollywood's biggest night as actors in buttoned-up tuxedos and actresses in flashy evening gowns were surrounded by large statues of the famous faceless gold man. After heavy anticipation following the emergence of this year's biggest pictures, the Academy Awards came and went like a breeze Sunday night.

Here is an evaluation of the night's festivities coming from the websites that I've been following this quarter. This analysis is of Monday morning's coverage, the day after the broadcast of the ceremony.

The San Jose Mercury News has on its homepage the main section dedicated to the awards show. Its current headline reads "Winners, losers from Oscars red carpet" below a bird's eye view picture of a large crowd surrounding actresses who are gathering to take pictures on the red carpet. Below the headline are several links pointing to specific articles and multimedia aspects of the show. For example, to get readers more involved, there is a poll to see how viewers rate Hugh Jackman's hosting of the show. There are albums full of photographs of Hollywood's stars, as well as a complete list of winners. If you click on the main headline, it takes you to that article, which is actually more about the fashion of the red carpet than the winners and losers themselves. However, on the right side, there is a column of related links about the Oscars that cover more aspects of the night, such as "the stuff you didn't see on television" or insiders' news on specific celebrities.

Coverage on the Academy Awards in The New York Times moved down on its homepage, but it's still there hidden under the main headlines and pictures. Clicking on it actually takes you to a whole blog dedicated to awards season, The Carpetbagger, reported by David Carr. Carr writes most of the feature articles on this blog and also points readers in the direction of other Times' articles about the show. There are various slideshows about red carpet fashion, Oscar winners, moments within the ceremony itself, and from Best Picture winner Slumdog Millionaire. There are videos from Carr reporting on the street before the broadcast of the show where he is asking people who or what movie should win. Pictures, audio slideshows, and information about Best Picture nominees also have their own section. Pretty complete coverage, I'd say.

HYPHEN, a blog whose intended audience is the Asian-American population, concentrates primarily on Slumdog Millionaire. One entry, written before the Oscars, talks about how a couple of the film's child actors will be airlifted from their "slums" in India to the Oscars in America. This seems like an honor, but what will happen to them after the awards ceremony? They will appear among the glitz and glamour of Hollywood only to be taken back to their slums the day after. The second entry concerning the Oscars is a recap of the night. It mentions Slumdog Millionaire's success after winning eight awards. It also shows the limited presence of Asian-Americans in the show and the hopes for more Asian-American faces in the future.

Under Jack & Jill Politics, there is only one entry featuring the Oscars. It features the two black actresses nominated in this year's awards show, but it also has loads of Oscar history embedded within it. There is a list of all black nominees in the history of the awards show, as well as videos of acceptance speeches from winners like Hattie McDaniel, who won Best Supporting Actress for Gone With the Wind in 1939, and Jennifer Hudson, Best Supporting Actress for Dreamgirls in 2006.

The main Oscar-related headline in Think Progress, a liberal news blog, is of Dustin Lance Black's win for Best Screenplay for Milk. The entry has an edited version of his acceptance speech, including his lines about LGBT equal rights and marriage, followed by a video of the speech itself. I'm wondering, though, why Think Progress didn't include Sean Penn's acceptance speech as Best Actor. It was as equally compelling as Black's also included a few words about gay marriage and equal rights.

Pajamas Media, a conservative news blog, seemed to have more criticism about the overall feel of the night rather than specific right-wing issues. Yes, there is one particularly angry entry that ends with a paragraph of criticism about Sean Penn's acceptance speech, but the entry's main focus is the anti-American nature of today's Hollywood movies in general. As I mentioned before, the other Oscar entries in this blog revolved around the show itself. One entry is how to liven up the broadcast and another includes an insider's viewpoint from the red carpet.

So out of all the websites I've analyzed, the New York Times definitely has the most compelling coverage of the Oscars. It has the multimedia aspect to it with photos, slideshows, videos, and audio commentary. It has various articles from different people on different subjects, so it's not limited to reporting just the facts but also insiders' perspectives on the event. It's also the most organized with the awards show blog by Carr, so it's easy to navigate around the site.

Is Obama's "Screw Up" Being Blown Up?

For the past few days, news media outlets have been on blast concerning Obama's admission that he "screwed up" after giving a supporting nomination to Tom Daschle as his secretary of health and human services. Daschle, who has already withdrawn, had a series of tax errors, from improper reporting to evading payment. Obama quickly admitted that he was wrong in backing Daschle (plus treasure secretary Timothy Geithner and now-withdrawn chief performance officer Nancy Killefer), since it gave the hypocritical message to the public that these powerful politicians are treated differently than the average American person.

Obama had conducted interviews with major television networks including ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, and NBC, to which he expressed similar messages: that he "screwed up" and takes full responsibility for his mistakes.

How did the different websites I'm currently following handle this issue?

In the New York Times, the story made the front page of the print edition and homepage of the web edition on Feb. 4, entitled "Daschle Ends Bid for Post; Obama Concedes Mistake." On the website, a video showing Obama's admission on the different television stations is embedded within the text. This video is also on the NYT homepage. Under the article's related links, it shows the full text of Obama's statement concerning Daschle's withdrawal, as well as other articles about Daschle's tax issues. Another article, "The Pros and Cons of Admitting a Presidential Error," compares Obama's decision to admit his mistakes with the resistance of confession from former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

In the San Jose Mercury News, there are a couple links to articles under the Politics section, one from AP and another from the Washington Post. They are both straightforward articles. Off to the side are several pictures of Daschle dated from December and January.

In Pajamas Media, a conservative news blog, Obama's admission is translated negatively into Obama's screw up and is constantly referred to multiple times throughout the posts on the site. For example, there is a link to "A Short History of Failed Presidential Cabinet Appointees," which asks if Obama will match President Tyler's record of four withdrawn or rejected nominees, obviously a mockery of Obama's current situation.

In Think Progress, a progressive news blog, a video clip from MSNBC's Countdown is posted that compares Obama's honesty with Bush never admitting to his mistakes.

By looking at these sites, it shows the obvious: News sites will offer straight-up news - the facts, the detail, the background, the plain information that every reader wants to know. Blog sites will take the news and spin it to cater to their side of the story. Conservative blogs such as Pajamas Media will spin the story negatively, which would feed their other stories criticizing Obama's presidency. Progressive blogs such as Think Progress would only take this story and use it positively: that Obama is a courageous and honest man for admitting his mistakes in comparison to Bush, who never admitted his.

Beat Blogging and its Influence on Inclusion

Last week, I attended a lecture by Katherine Fong, Deputy Managing Editor of the Mercury News. Sponsored by the Women of Color Network, the question on hand was if innovations such as beat blogging and citizen journalism help improve inclusion.

A few items need to be defined first. "Beat blogging" refers to a new type of digital journalism where journalists covering a specific beat can use social networking to improve their reporting by gaining access to more resources coming from their readers. "Citizen journalism" is a type of collective reporting with user-generated content, open for the public to contribute, collaborate, and publish. It makes useful the comments section, where users can report from their point of view and can submit personal blogs/photos/videos.

In Fong's lecture, she spoke about the work that goes on with the Merc in regards to experimenting with social networking and its focus on getting more readers involved. She said that the mission statement of the paper is to change along with the development of the changing demographic, so it is vital that they get the people's opinions so that they can appeal to a wider audience.

The Merc was included in a beat blogging experiment along with 12 other media companies such as ESPN.com, Wired.com, and MTVNews. Green Tech Beat is the product of Matt Nauman's efforts to get the Merc geared up towards collective reporting. It's goal is to include everyone by letting them submit their own photos, tips, and comments on anything newsworthy about green technology, especially since it's coming from the Silicon Valley. However, one question they had to face in regards to this type of journalism is how to get the uninterested interested in learning about green technology.

It was hard for Nauman and the Merc to really delve deep into their beat blogging experiment because of all the lay-offs in these tough economic times. Most of the young reporters who have grown up around the Internet and technology were laid off, making it harder for the blog to appeal to the younger generation. Also, the layoffs caused Nauman to refocus more on his primary stories within the Business section rather than this side project, so updates weren't as frequent as they could have been. All in all, Fong is proud of their work with the blog, but she knows that it could be so much better.

This is not to say that they are disappointed in their efforts. If the economy was stable and if young reporters were able to keep their jobs, who knows where this blog would be! They do have numerous positives after all. This blog proved that it is much easier for people to get involved with the Merc because of all the different interactions. The Merc is able to gain suggestions and feedback right away from its users, which makes it easier to figure out which sections to improve upon. It also gives them more resources since users can post their own content.

So with this example to learn from, I believe beat blogging does have a shining future with digital journalism. Swapping information is quick and easy, and collaboration is key.

Welcome!

Hey everyone! Welcome to my blog!

I'm starting this up as a project for a Digital Journalism class at Santa Clara University, where we are instructed to make a blog about analysis and critique in the online news media. Every time I update this, I will focus on a specific puzzling issue regarding certain news (or "news") articles that I may come across online. Then I can provide a list of links and resources that will direct you to more information so you can form your own opinion and raise any concerns about the issue at hand. I hope you find my critique of the day interesting as well as insightful.

Before I give you a little more information about the purpose of this blog, let me tell you a little about myself first. My name is Maxine, and I am a senior at Santa Clara University, double majoring in both Communication (with an emphasis in Journalism) and Dance. I have a deep passion for the arts, specifically performing arts, and I am very interested in the advocacy for arts education programs, especially for children. My interest in Journalism actually stemmed from the realization in my Intro to Journalism class that I really am an informer. I get excited when I learn something new and feel the need to tell everyone I know. This is especially in the case of pertinent social justice issues, such as learning from my immersion experiences in El Salvador and visiting my parents' homeland in the Philippines. I believe that everyone - as inferior as higher-ups deem them to be - should have a voice, and through words (and art!), that can be accomplished.

So that is my background - a little glimpse into some of the topics that I would be interested in covering throughout this quarter.

Now, here are a few criteria for my news evaluation. I will be looking for the following:

• Accuracy, backed up with reliable evidence and links to other sources
• Frequently-updated sections
• Objectivity
• Clear focus
• Pictures and/or videos to enhance the message
• Timely and relevant headlines, especially on the front page
  
  

Hopefully from this you can get a sense of what I'm trying to accomplish with this project. Enjoy, and don't hesitate to comment!

<3 maxx