Tag: media

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Okay, So Maybe Facebook Commenting Isn’t The Answer For Internet Civility.

All Things D brings word today that Facebook will soon be loaning its commenting system to major media players. For those who believe that commentating systems that use real names — and therefore add some sort of accountability and transparency to the commenting process — are more likely to limit trolls, this seems like a big announcement.

But what I noticed was the note at the bottom of the article: People.com is already using Facebook Comments, says All Things D. So I clicked over there, tabbed over to news and clicked on the first article on the page. Here’s what I found in the comments:

So maybe we need to hold back praise on Facebook Comments for a little while longer. Or at least end this theory that people aren’t afraid to say nasty things even if their names are attached.

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The Three Stages of a News Start-Up.

I’ve been spending my week down in St. Petersburg, Fla., at the Poynter Institute. The theme of the week: entrepreneurial journalism. And after seeing case study after case study about successful journalism start-ups, I’m starting to see three common areas of overlap during the initial start-up process.

Those areas are:

Conceptualization –> Validation –> Realization

To break it down a bit further: the ends are the easy parts. Conceptualization: Man gets idea for business. Realization: Man makes business legitimate.

It’s the middle part — validation — that’s tricky. That’s the part where I’m hearing stories about what Seth Godin called ‘the Dip.’ It’s the part where a start-up is still trying to decide if their business is feasible, and it’s where they’re going through a massive period of self-doubt about the business’ chances for success.

But there are a few sources of validation that can convince a start-up to keep pushing forward. The three that seem to be on repeater:

Validation (or approval) from:
-The audience
-Investors (foundations/angels/VCs/donors)
-Other media (buzz about company/product)

It seems to be — and this is obviously a ‘duh!’ moment, but — that the companies that make it from concept –> reality get enough validation to convince them that it’s worth pushing through the Dip. It’s one thing to believe in your own idea. It’s another to hear from outsiders that the idea is one worth believing in.

Because without that validation, it’s almost impossible for a start-up to go from concept to reality.

(photo at top from South Park’s Underwear Gnomes episode.)

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What Reuters America Means for Stry.

The big news out today is that Reuters is going after the AP. Their new service, called Reuters America, intends to produce “Tier 2 domestic US news” with “one-person bureau chiefs,” with news “tailored to the needs of the US consumer media domestic audience.”

Which means they’re sending one-man bands into under-served markets and selling the news to American news organizations at prices that the AP can’t match.

In brief, it sounds a lot like my plans for Stry.

But here’s a key difference: Reuters America will still answer to breaking news. Per one of their job openings:

The one-person bureau chiefs for the service will be experienced correspondents… [responsible for] chasing down US domestic spot news on tight deadlines (15-30 minutes to match breaking news for Web sites with brief Urgents)

This is where Reuters misses the point.

There is an inefficiency in the news ecosystem, because wire services answer to breaking news. These wire services are easily distracted — time can’t be spent reporting on key issues in communities because a police scanner is lighting up. Great reporting requires focus.

And then there’s one other truth: with the growth of the web and social media, breaking news isn’t hurting, even as news organizations shrink.

So a modern news agency needs to take breaking news out of the equation. That’s the difference with Stry. By removing that obstacle, Stry will let our reporters focus on the stories that are of most importance to communities. Our model will allow us to deliver meaningful news to consumers. The best stories know no news cycles, and we are not going to rush our stories or the news gathering process.

I think Reuters America is doing a smart thing: they’re trying to disrupt the business model that’s taken them this far.

Their only failure is that they haven’t gone far enough.

photo courtesy of Christopher Woo

[ois skin=”Tools for Reporters”]

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The Next Time Someone Asks You If Journalism Is Worth Paying For, Say This.

Funny how some things are cyclical. Again, I’m hearing reporters question whether or not there’s money to be made in journalism. And again, I’m wondering why reporters feel the need to undermine themselves. Why not just come up with an explanation for why your job is essential to our democracy? Why not say something like this?

Journalists are a lot like teachers. In any other society, they’d be highly paid and highly trained. They’d be the best we’ve got, because they’re the ones educating us and keep us informed.

But we don’t live in one of those societies right now. In America, teachers aren’t highly paid, and journalists wish they had the kind of financial security that teachers have. We live in a society that places less value on information, because it’s too easily accessible. The truth can be fudged. The facts can be altered. This is the first democratic society that doesn’t see legitimate, verified information as important to its existence.

Don’t believe me? Turn on cable news for a minute. That’s all you’ll need.

Right now, Wikileaks is releasing thousands of pages of information about what the United States government is doing. But even the news organizations reporting about it can’t get simple details right, and others news organizations are spending time openly attacking transparency. The stories will be easily available, but they won’t be read. (Except, maybe, for the one about the wild wedding in Russia. It’s very TMZ.)

Our society is supposed to be built on being highly informed. We’ve got apps that tell us where to save $.03 on gasoline, but we don’t have nearly the same instinct to seek out truth. How can we live in an interconnected world that sees facts as irrelevant?

So the question is: Do you want to live in a society that does value truth? Because good reporting is just like everything else in our society: if you value it, you’re going to have to pay for it.

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Lessons From My (Attempted) Week Without Twitter.


I took the week off from Twitter last week. Not with any real purpose in mind, really. I just didn’t want to tweet, and I thought that maybe, it’d open up some free time for me to read the paper or be productive.

But it didn’t.

I kept checking Twitter — habitually. I keep reading stories on the Internet — habitually. And when I sat down for breakfast, I did so with my laptop in tow.

And habit isn’t really the right word here. It’s ritual now. I have a routine for checking news, and something like last week’s spontaneous break isn’t going to change that.

For proof, see this. And this. And this.

Which is where I started thinking about how we can apply this information to newsrooms.

What news organizations need to do is create stories that demand attention. So much of our media is just noise in the background: TVs on mute, tweets ignored.

It’s why, in the launch of Stry, we put this line in our mission statement: “We’re a news organization that’s not easily distracted.” We’re focused on building a team of reporters who’ll focus on the important issues, not the headlines, and we hope it shows in our stories.

And the lesson for publishers: invest in well-reported, original content. Your readers/viewers/listeners can tell the difference.

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Introducing The Roadside Journalism Assistance Network.

There is a fad coming. The buzz inside journalism circles is that great reporting needs to be supported by multiple revenue streams. Walmart won’t support the Beijing bureau anymore, and a paywall might not either. Something else needs to fill in the funding gaps.

Smaller news organizations are looking for their extra sources of revenue, too. Some are encouraged by a chain of joint hyperlocal sites/coffee shops launched[1. And recently closed] in Germany. But I’ve got another idea.

See, I’ve been spending a lot of time at Starbucks lately. That’s what freelance reporters tend to do: find a coffee shop and park themselves there. But my friends and family seem to know this too.

And they’ve been taking advantage of it.

Now that they know I’m around — “and since you’re only typing, Dan,” they’ll say — they’ve made me their go-to emergency contact. This past week, I’ve been the guy they call when their car needs a jump start, or when their cover letter needs a last-minute edit, or when they’re hoping for a ride to the thing in the place that’s only half an hour away, and, Sorry, Dan, but it’ll be during rush hour.

So I’ve been running these errands free of charge. But I think there’s a larger network of coffee shop-based reporters just like me, and I think it’s time we cash in.

With RoJAN.

That’s the Roadside Journalism Assistance Network, as I’ve taken to calling it. Here’s how it’ll work. We’re going to build a network of reporters across the country. When they arrive at their nearby coffee shop, they’ll log into our system. They’ll pop up as “live” on our national map of available reporters. Then, thanks to our handy mobile app, anyone looking for immediate assistance can check to see where the nearest RoJAN reporter is based and contact him/her.

Meanwhile, our reporters will be waiting. They’ll respond to any call — Need a tow? Need an edit? Need a fantasy football dispute settled? — and then they’ll accept payment.[2. Via Square, of course.] Unlike AAA, which costs hundreds of dollars each year, RoJAN will make its money by being speedy, efficient, multi-talented and price-effective.

In other words: it’ll be cheap, it’ll be quick, and its employees will be more versatile than a Swiss Army knife. RoJAN: the roadside emergency service for any problem.

And here’s the best part: once the reporter has finished serving the client, that familiar seat at the Starbucks will be waiting.

Fellow reporters: your alternate source of funding has arrived.

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When Your Newspaper Wishes You ‘Good Morning.’

I’ve been spending most of my time this week looking at the front pages of newspapers. It’s a strange thing, almost, to see so many dailies still printing. Two years ago, after the Rocky Mountain News closed, the prediction was that dozens of daily papers would be gone by now.

But they’re not.

Still, having now sorted through hundreds of front pages lately, I’ve seen an unusual thing happening out in a few small papers out in California, including the Lodi News-Sentinel. Here’s what their front page looked like yesterday.

But let’s zoom in a bit closer, to the bottom left corner of the page:

It’s quirky, yes. But why stop with a little blurb? Why not blow this out into a weekly feature: Readers’ Lives, with profiles of their businesses and families?

What I’m really saying is: Why does a news outlet have to limit itself to quirky stuff like this in order to cultivate the best stories from its community?

I’ve said it before: engage everywhere.

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Five Things to Rethink the Newsroom: An Introduction.

“It seems to take a very unique combination of technology, talent, business and marketing and luck to make significant change in our industry. It hasn’t happened that often.”

That’s Steve Jobs in a 1994 interview with Rolling Stone. He’s talking about personal computing, but he might as well be discussing the state of journalism in 2010.

We’re at an incredibly exciting and incredibly dangerous time for journalism. The field that’s considered the ‘rough draft’ of history could soon be history — if it doesn’t start reshaping itself for the future. But where should innovation start?

Over the next week, I’ll be writing about five ideas that I’d implement if I was in charge of a traditional newsroom. You may not agree with all of them, and that’s okay.

But all journalists can agree on one thing: now is the time to do what great reporters do best: Question everything.

We can start by asking some tough questions of ourselves.

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Hello, Stry.

They said it couldn’t be done.[1. They = my parents, siblings, relatives, friends and others who generally care about my sanity.] They said it shouldn’t be done, really. They said I would have to be an idiot to quit my paying job in San Antonio, move to Biloxi, Miss., and start my own news bureau. They said that I should find a more enjoyable way to blow my savings.

I did it anyway.

This week, the pilot project for this news bureau finally launched. It’s called Stry — pronounce it with an ‘O’ right in the middle, please — and it’s ready for your consumption at http://stry.us.

The brief pitch:

Like most good ideas, this one was born on a cocktail napkin. ¶¶ What if, we asked, we could create a new type of news organization? One that covered the issues that affect our lives. One that didn’t care about the headlines or news of the day. ¶¶ A news organization that wasn’t easily distracted. ¶¶ So that’s what we created: Stry, a band of reporters in pursuit of storytelling. We travel the country for months at a time, and when we find an issue worth talking about, we dig into it. We won’t stop digging until we’ve covered the story as thoroughly as we can. ¶¶ The stuff you’ll see on Stry isn’t like the stuff you see elsewhere, because we only do the types of stories that require patience and time. We hope it shows. ¶¶ We know that what we’re doing is different, and we’re okay with that. We’re Stry, a place that’s topical, not typical. ¶¶Welcome.

Yes, right now, I’m essentially doing this for free. But it’s been challenging and exciting and different than anything I’ve ever done. And a truth I’ve learned this week: I’m finding that I’m more productive and more satisfied with what I’m doing now than I ever was when I was gainfully employed.

Turns out that I had to quit my job in order to enjoy work.

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