Does YouTube help or harm journalists?

After reviewing the different readings this week about YouTube and citizen journalism, I think YouTube can be a valuable tool if used properly. Media companies can create their own YouTube channel and post videos that highlight popular news stories, or can even spread a not-so-popular TV video that can become a viral hit online.

I think YouTube can best benefit the aspiring journalist -- someone who hasn't made it to the big leagues yet but is actively pursuing that as a career. A video story done by an aspiring journalist and YouTube user can become an overnight sensation and spread valuable information across the state, country, or even the world depending on the news story. YouTube also provides a channel for these hopeful journalist professionals to upload and store their previous work. If you create a channel under your own name, it can act as a virtual portfolio showing off your journalistic talent and even your technical skills.

YouTube also created a Citizen News channel where they feature news pieces done by citizen journalists in an effort to promote strong journalism talent. In addition, they created a Pulitzer Contest to encourage aspiring journalists post their work on YouTube.

YouTube is certainly not perfect and some questions came up during the presidential campaign, specifically during the CNN-YouTube presidential debate. If used properly and carefully, YouTube can be a great asset for journalists and the media they work for.

Evaluating the benefits of social networking for journalists

There are now hundreds of social networking sites and platforms on the Internet today. While only a handful attract the masses, there are plenty designated for various niche audiences. Journalists today have numerous sites at their disposal including the popular LinkedIn and Facebook as well as those created specifically for journalists like Wired Journalists and Poynter.

Whereas journalists can use LinkedIn and Facebook to find sources and expand their networks, journalist-specific networks are used to improve their skills and have a place to ask questions and get responses from others in their field without having to go to someone at their office.

For example, Poynter offers original content -- news and tips regarding journalism. On top of that, the network hosts a career board, training sessions and forums where you can discuss ethics, multimedia, journalism education, writing, visual journalism, and much more. This website gives journalists a place to go to advance their knowledge about the industry in a variety of ways whether it's an online webinar, participating in a discussion on their message board or reading an article or blog post about a piece of relevant news.

Wired Journalists uses the Ning social networking platform, offering a Groups section where members can join groups on topics like Wordpress, Social Bookmarking, Video, Visual Editing, Photography, Blogging, etc. The members who join each group can then discuss issues and ask questions related to the group theme/topic. Whereas Poynter offers news, Wired Journalists is more of a peer-to-peer network where the members provide all the content in forms of providing tips, discussing important issues, sharing ideas and articles, as well as asking and answering questions.

Joining these networks is not an either/or situation for journalists -- you don't have to join just LinkedIn and Poynter or only Facebook. The great thing is that the individual reporter can select which network(s) are best for him or her based on their personal preferences.

Analyzing two different blogs on the same topic

After my Feb. 2-6 readings, I needed to compare and contrast two different blogs on the same issue. The first blog is to be one for a print publication while the other is just an independent blog on the same topic matter. After viewing The State of Blogging at America's 100 Largest Newspapers, I elected a USA Today technology blog called Technology Live.

Over the past week, the USA Today blog had over five posts on video games, a couple posts mentioning the whole Facebook issue surrounding privacy and rights in its term of use, etc. In its many posts, there a lot of links to other websites. I anticipated seeing links to other publications or reputable sources. Instead, I found a lot of links to respective Wikipedia pages on the topics of discussion. You did see a few interviews with people in the field that you would expect from a blog associated with an established print publication.

Engadget is an independent blog that provides daily coverage about gadgets and consumer technology. This blog does focus more on a review of the latest technologies and gadgets in comparison to Technology Live. Its posts are much shorter in nature with less linking to other sites. In fact, about half of their links are just to old blog posts or blog post categories for Engadget instead of outside websites. Almost each post has a picture to go along with the text and the posts are definitely more opinionated in nature.

Personally, I think I'd prefer reading Engadget because of it's more engaging and personable tone. However, Technology Live would be viewed as more reliable in my mind and it does provide you with a lot of links to outside websites even if they aren't the most respected sources. Their posts could be viewed as a good research starter as you try to collect information about a specific technology, product, or issue.

Readings in Review

I had done my independent study reading from a couple weeks ago, but didn't have a chance to comment in a blog post until this weekend. While I was not required to discuss last week's readings, a few things stuck out and I wanted to make sure I noted those things in a more visible and permanent setting.

One of readings looked at Ron Sylvester, who is a court reporter for the Wichita Eagle, and how he effectively harnessed Twitter. He would tweet live from the trial with updates from the jury selection to the proceedings.

“We started this in jury selection because jury selection is one of the most boring parts of a trial,” he said about starting conservatively. “We actually started getting some response.” ...

“By the end of the trial we were getting a lot of reaction from readers,” he said. “People said they were sitting at work, refreshing the page over and over again to keep up with the trial.”

What made his tweeting so effective was not that people just followed him on Twitter, but that the paper promoted his tweeting on their website and embedded them into their website so people did not have to leave their current page to see his comments. His Twitter feed is also embedded in his blog, What the Judge Ate for Breakfast. In addition, Ron's tweets can be added to any RSS reader allowing feed users to follow his work without having a Twitter account of their own.

Many journalists are still in a trial and error mode when it comes to their usage of Twitter. How much should a reporter or paper tweet? Do they just promote their articles? Do they interact with followers? Orlando Sentinel's senior editor/online news John Cutter uses Twitter for important breaking news.

"If we think, wow, this is something I'd want to know right now -- the death of someone famous, a major road closure, charges in a significant ongoing case, something big from a major local company like Disney -- then we would Twitter it, as well as send other alerts," Cutter said.

A Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter Mónica Guzmán wrote a blog post in which she included tips from many fellow journalists and other social media users on topics ranging from case studies, resources, other journalists to follow, and suggested guidelines. All of the tips were collected via tweets.

Can Twitter be a real news platform?

After reading the post entitled "Can Twitter be a real news platform?" on TwiTip, I wanted to offer up my own thoughts based on previous readings, past personal experiences, and what I've noticed in regards to news coverage of Twitter and big news events.

President-elect Barack Obama became known for how his campaign used social media and other digital means to reach and mobilize Americans. Twitter had a #election so that you could see any tweets tagged by #election in real-time allowing twitterers to read immediate reactio to presidential debates and other campaign announcements. The New York Times wrote an article called "Campaign reporting in under 140 taps" that addressed how news reporting is changing the ways journalists disseminate information. We no longer have to wait for a journalist to type up his/her article and submit it to their editor and then wait for it to be printed or published online. Now in just a few seconds, journalists can make quick announcements or even link to recently uploaded articles or blog posts.

During the Mumbai attacks, we saw twitterers spring to action to spread news and important information like the need to donate blood in areas surrounding the attacks. While not all of the tweets were accurate in nature, these tweets helped describe the scene and what was going on before we could read articles online or for some of us even see live video feed of Mumbai. The New York Times and CNN took notice and wrote how Twitter was a news platform and helped connect people wanting information about the attacks from around the world.

Do I believe that Twitter will be one of THE top news platforms that people turn to? Perhaps in the time of a crisis, but when it comes to in-depth coverage Twitter is not where people will turn to. When people want to see what is happening, they will likely turn on the TV. Twitter is just an avenue or news platform when people can't access the TV or need information so immediate that an online newspaper won't have that information up on the website just yet.

While Twitter has yet to truly catch on with the mass population, it has become quite the popular tool among journalists and PR practitioners. These PR professionals have already created blog posts with lists of journalists on Twitter to make it even easier for others to find these journalists. From BusinessWeek to the New York Times, there are plenty of journalists to uncover on Twitter and they aren't just your techy group of these publications either. I was surprised to see BusinessWeek actually advertise their twittering journalists on their own website encouraging readers to submit their own story ideas to their publication. These journalists will promote their own stories or other articles in their publication, but they sometimes will ask for tips on a topic or share their interests and activities. While you wouldn't want to pitch to a reporter via Twitter, a PR practitioner can follow a journalist on Twitter and be able to better cater a pitch to the individual.

The move to new media and we media

We are quickly seeing the media worlds changing as technologies are created allowing people to access information in ways previously unheard of. We typically think of the media as radio, print, and broadcast journalism. While each of these mediums came about at a different time with different technologies, today they seem to be the foundation of the media.

With the invention and increasing popularity of the Internet, those three mediums are no longer becoming the go to media when a crisis or big news event occurs. Instead, people will turn to the Internet to obtain and gather information but to also disseminate information in the form of pictures, video, audio, and text. Blogs, wikis, message boards, Facebook, MySpace, Digg, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more engage users in different ways than the traditional media does and for this reason, it's called the new media or social media or even the we media.

A paper called "We Media" released by The Media Center reported that the attacks on September 11th "generated the most traffic to traditional news sites in the history of the Web" and helped to initiate this do-it-yourself journalism or citizen journalism. The paper came up with a definition to describe participatory journalism in an effort to refer to the online communications of social and collaborative media.

Participatory journalism: The act of a citizen, or group of citizens, playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information. The intent of this participation is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires.

One person quoted in the paper suggested that journalists are no longer the go-to person when it comes to informing the public. Rather journalists are the forum leader or mediator. They are someone who engages the public instead of simply lecturing to the masses.

Another interesting research statistic I found in the paper was that 84% of Internet users (90 million Americans) "have participated in online groups" and 26% of users have even used the Internet as a catalyst to further develop their ties to the community. With this information in mind, new media becomes a powerful tool that journalists, marketers, and PR professionals can use to reach their target audience and even influence a segment of the population.

Bruno Giussani in the journal article entitled "A New Media Tells Different Stories" says that the Internet has made it so the journalist is no longer above the reader. Both sets of individuals are now on the same plane in terms of communication.

This is forgetting that the electronic environment flattens out all forms of hierarchy and allows the same power of communication to each and everyone. The journalist's role as an expert, as the one most entitled to formulate information is declining. One of the most remarkable aspects of the interactive digital environment is the progressive vanishing of the lines dividing the producer and the consumer of information. On the Internet, everyone is at once a potential writer and journalist, editor and reader, seller, and buyer. The users are your best teachers, listen to them, someone said, and how right he was.

Instead of the newspaper simply being a product that people purchase and then read, the newspaper can now become a place. A place where people can go online to read, learn, and engage in a community where people share their opinions and reactions to the articles and the issues discussed from within these articles.