So Ivan Lewis has suggested that journalists who ‘break the rules’ should be struck off. A move which, as FleetStreetBlues blogs:

..by implication, that there should be some kind of register or licence for all journalists

A license might be a bit strong. What else could we consider…

Journalism Merit badge

What about a boy scout style merit badge system? They have one for Journalism. They also have them for law. I couldn’t find one for PA or shorthand.

Or maybe we could go the McDonalds star route. You could lose a star for each ‘transgression’ of regulations. Gain one for an exclusive.

But seriously, do we really need to be thinking about this at all?

Fleet street fox rounds off a good response to Ivan Lewis with this:

No-one’s needed a licence to be a journalist in the 300 years since the first paper was printed in Fleet Street. You just have to be nosy and a little bit mad, the kind of person no-one else wants in their club.

A good headline? A storm in a teacup? All of that and more.

License or badge?

O'Reilly's code of conduct badge

In 2007, Tim O’reilly suggested that we needed a blogging code of conduct. A suggestion that was roundly turned on in some quarters . His reasoning was there needed to be some way of controlling the increasing amount of poor behaviour on blogs.  Blogs that followed the code and enforced it got to be deputised in to the code and wear a badge – yep, a sheriffs badge.

In the same way that we can argue that Lewis’ suggestions amount to an attempt to license, you could also argue that would legitimise professional journalists. beyond the NUJ card. This would be legally sanctioned journalists.  Yes, state sanctioned but it would give them rights and access above all others.  Especially the simply nosey or mad or worse still, those “Local nosey parkers with mobile phones “

Given the attitude of the industry to regulation, the public and citizen journalism, be forgiven for thinking that many journalists  already consider themselves to be licensed already. I would imagine there are some who would welcome the differentiation.

I read a few interesting posts over the last few days. The first was I’m Glad We Didn’t Have Facebook or Twitter on 9/11.

That’s the real problem with attempting to make sense of 9/11 using social media: The former requires deep thought while the latter feeds on immediacy. Ten years and millions of articles after 9/11, we’re still trying to come to terms with what happened that day. We’re still sifting through the debris and our collective emotions in order to find whatever it is we lost, or to explain why things are the way they are now. I have a hard time believing 9/11 tweets or Facebook updates would have changed any of that for the better. And by now they’d be forgotten anyway, buried under 10 years of more shouting into the abyss.

The second was (a trail for) a piece in the press gazette by the Guardians Paul Lewis on the way the riots have proved the need for paid journalists

“Some people argued the digital era would see paid journalists replaced by an army of citizen reporters,” he said.

“The riots proved otherwise: people might consume news differently, but they still want it told straight, and by reporters on the ground.”

I found myself agreeing with both posts but was a little uncomfortable about that.

The 9/11 post made so much sense given the recent experience of the coverage of the riots on twitter. Not that I am, for one moment, equating the events. No, its more the position that the rumour and hearsay where dangerous, pervasive and perhaps even a distraction from more important stuff.

Perhaps Lewis’ point about the need for journalists in that is even more valid but that in itself makes me feel uncomfortable.

What next, Journalism?

I suppose I can sum up my discomfort in terms of a question. “Ok journalism,. What are you going to do next?”

If you are that important and social media needs your influence and control what are you going to do to keep your place at the table? Do we have to wait for another riot or MP’s expenses or wikipedia to prove that you are doing journalism? All great work but not a huge hit rate given the number of you out there.

Visible not critical

Of course the truth is that there are loads of journo’s doing loads of great things at every level. Really good journalism. But we don’t hear about them. At least we don’t hear about them because we are often too busy telling people why all the other stuff is not as good.

So maybe I feel uncomfortable because, whilst twitter would have had a roll to play the rumour and lack of facts would have been a nightmare. But maybe it would have been a necessary evil. Maybe it would have had to be there to fill a gap.

Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!

What’s that Andy?

It’s me banging my head against the desk…

There’s a story about the Beskpoke project on Hold the front page. I was interested in it as (full disclosure) my Uni is one of the partners in the project. Inevitably I got sucked in to the comments.

But just to put things in to context:

The project has been established to look at the issue of digital and social exclusion in the Fishwick and Callon areas of Preston.

Broadly speaking, the project has two parts. The first is for us to set up a team of community/citizen journalists who will report on the issues that are important to them and to their local community.

The second part of the project is centred on innovative design. Partner universities (Dundee, Falmouth, Newcastle, Surrey, and UCLan) will use the news stories, as well as other information gathered during the lifespan of the project, to design digital technologies that can meet the needs of the area. This collaboration between emotive, technological and functional design with hyper-local journalism is a ground-breaking exercise and, as far as we’re aware, has never been tried before.

Hold the Front page focus on the journalism aspect

The group of citizen journalists were trained as part of a project called Bespoke, a scheme that sees members of the public in Preston provided with flip cameras, mobile phones and journalism training in order to generate their own news stories.

Lots of comment but they are all of a type. One that stood out began:

Years of training, university degrees, shorthand classes ad infinitum.

And the reward? Local nosey parkers with mobile phones are netting page leads.

Given the usual anti-degree tone that pervades it was nice to see degrees get a mention.

Traffic Chaos continues:

So-called citizen journalism should not extend beyond a phone call or submission of on-the-spot footage to the nearest newsroom.

There’s really no such thing as citizen journalism outside of the egotistical “blogosphere”, populated by keyboard warriors and bigots who feel they can do a better job than anybody else at everything – especially the news.

Hmm. I think they actually mean that the term Cit-j has little or no meaning outside a limited circle of egotistical journalists. But everyone is allowed a view (except it seems local nosey-parkers!)

You wouldn’t call a citizen-MD would you?

Update: Jon Walker tweeted to suggest that the phrase MD related to managing director, not Medical doctor.

@digidickinson It's a small issue but I'm pretty sure that moaning hack meant managing directors, not doctors

July 15, 2011 10:45 am via Seesmic twhirlReplyRetweetFavorite

@jonwalker121

Jonathan Walker

My response is Doh!

Of course you can’t mention Cit-j without a hackneyed and inappropriate comparison. Hacked off duly obliges

Can’t wait for the day they introduce Citizen MDs thus clearing out an entire layer of over-paid fools and replacing them with an entire layer of fools for free.

A great comment that:

a) conflates journalism with medicine –  because they are exactly the same aren’t they.

b) insults journalists as well as the apparent cit-j’s in such a short space – nice work!

The general tone of the comments is to wonder what impact this will have on the journos at the LEP. I don’t want to play down the plight of shrinking regional newsrooms for one minute. Or belittle those who lose jobs. But to see one as a cause of the other is a leap.

Room for all

About the same time that the LEP published it’s first newspaper (1886) my great-grandad borrowed money to buy his first house. He didn’t go to the bank, he went to the butcher. The local butcher! (We have the receipt to prove it.) Would the butcher have advertised that service in the LEP? Not sure. No doubt a local nosey parker would have told him. Oh and if that butcher had sold him a dodgy steak the chance are, nearly 60 years before the NHS he wouldn’t have gone to a doctor.

That’s how my great-grandad’s community worked. It’s how communities still work. Not on definitions of professional pratcice but on people who have the means and the skills doing the jobs that need doing.

My point to hacked-off and traffic chaos would be that there is a world outside the newsroom, full of people who do and discover in different ways. They’ve done it that way before you and they will do it that way after you. You only play a role in a community if you are part of it. Please don’t contribute to an attitude that means they chose to do it without you.

And here is that sentiment in morse code…

Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!…

I saw a tweet a few days back from my good friend Paul (@digitaldocs).

If the news was a shape - what shape would it be?

May 27, 2011 1:40 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@digitaldocs

PaulEgglestone

I replied that it was either a square or ‘a messy blob’

Thinking about it later I wondered why I didn’t immediately say pyramid. My immediate thought was box. So much for thinking outside of it!

Talk about burying the lead!

In that way the web has, I felt an echo of that as I read this article on the BBC website

Seventeen lost pyramids are among the buildings identified in a new satellite survey of Egypt.

Perhaps it was the idea that new technology would unearth these monuments to an older way of life. Maybe it was the irony that these seemingly impervious icons of an older way of life would just dissapear without anyone knowing.

All that effort, all the reason for them being there in the first place, forgotten.

…in which I mangle a metaphor in search of a thought about the relationship between journo and audience.

Time was that when I was asked about the value of social media platforms like twitter for journos, amongst the reasons I would give is the capacity to build audience.

The value of the individual journalist as a brand in a networked world (in contrast to the large media org) is something I repeatedly bang on about. But the truth is that there will always be some intersection between the sole trader and the big media hubs. In fact the prevailing model seems to be that apart from a tight core of full-time staff, most big orgs will have a steady stream of freelancers in their orbit to keep their mass.

In that respect having an audience that already follow ‘brand you’ rather than ‘brand x’ is just as attractive to the big media orgs as it is your own work.

I used to liken this to the idea of being in a band.

Record companies, even venues, wouldn’t look at you without some proof that you had audience. Signing mailing list sheets, following on myspace and now twitter and Facebook are ways that bands tried to do that.

But a chat with my excellent colleagues clarecook and Robert beers and the recent blogging about guardian local got me thinking about the danger of taking that idea too far.

How long would a band have an audience if they didn’t listen to those fans? If they didn’t tell the fans where they were playing next or what they were up to?

Many journos still stick to the idea that communication with an audience should only be one way. Some will tell you it’s because of the problems with managing the flow (busy, busy people journos) whilst others will happily tell you that they have no interest in the dribbling rantings of a few nut jobs ( because anyone who uses the web other than them is a nut job).

Truth is that if the audience isn’t behind you, you have nothing.

You could argue that the best musicians do what they do regardless of what the audience wants. They are artists. I’ve got news for you. When it comes to the web you’re not an artist. You can’t create in a platform or hack away in a garret.

If you don’t nurture and talk to the audience then, in a world of pay-to-play journalism you’ve got nothing.

Increasingly the opportunities are there for those who look out in to the audience rather than those who point their sites in a singular dash for a job with the media mothership. The crowd is not just a means of getting you there. They are the measure of your success and integrity (not just other journos)

It’s a lesson that big media orgs could learn too. Stop thinking like a record company think more like a concert promoter. The days of being the big media ‘stadium acts’ are fast becoming numbered. Maybe there is room for a few headliners at the festival but the vast majority of people are here for the rest of the bill (the long tail!).

So maybe, in future, when I’m asked about the value of social media, I’ll still be talking about the value of audience. But maybe I’ll put the band metaphor to bed. Truth is the dynamics are being rewritten everyday, just like the opportunities, and they are being written on an individual level – no band required.

There of interest in @ReallyVirtual at the moment. Sohaib Athar an IT consultant in Abbottabad Lahore Pakistan. That’s right. The fella who ‘inadvertently’ live tweeted the raid on Bin Laden’s compound. I don’t need to say much more.

The way twitter responded to the event threw up some interesting areas to ponder.

• How could a journalist new to twitter build a network that would key them in to this kind of thing?
• How much the discussion on twitter must have been like a the discussion in the newsroom
• How amazing networks are.

The way the network raised Athar in to the view of more than just his own part of the twitterverse is explored in an interesting article by Steve Myers who traces back through his own network to try and get to where Athar came from.

But it’s the followup article (whose title I hijacked for the title of this one) that caught my attention. Myers writes:

When I wrote earlier this week about how quickly people around the world learned that Sohaib Athar had “live tweeted” the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound, I thought carefully before calling him a citizen journalist.

He was prompted to explore that further by an article refuting the claim that twitter has replaced CNN by Dan Mitchell.

Steve Myers of The Poynter Institute declares that Sohaib Athar, a guy who lives near bin Laden’s compound, is a “citizen journalist.” Athar, an IT consultant, wondered what the hell was going on when the helicopters arrived in Abbottabad. Because he wondered on Twitter, in real time, now he’s a “citizen journalist.”

Even Athar, who had 750 followers as of Sunday night and now has tens of thousands,knows this is ridiculous.

Indeed. Although I think Mitchell uses Athars tweet (below) a little out of context to suit his point.

I am JUST a tweeter, awake at the time of the crash. Not many twitter users in Abbottabad, these guys are more into facebook. That's all.

May 2, 2011 5:57 am via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@ReallyVirtual

Sohaib Athar

All of the articles are worth a read. Myers deconstruction of Athar’s tweets is particularly good. But there is one thing that is ignored.  It’s alluded to. But never asked. Does Athar care?

Does Athar care that he is a citizen journalist or otherwise? Is it important to him.

Pondering that one just reinforces my view that the only people who have a problem with the phrase are the people who use it most – journalists.

I did tweet Athar to ask him if he thought he was a citizen journalist. I don’t expect an answer. His twitter stream make it clear that he’s very busy with interviews.

I suppose one thing you can say for certain in that whether or not he’s a citizen journalist he’s certainly a celebrity.

Related articles

• Live-blogging the Raid on Osama bin Laden’s House (6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Osama bin Laden’s death shows impact of Twitter (reportr.net)
• Sohaib Athar: The Guy Who Live-Tweeted Osama Bin Laden’s Death (observer.com)
• “AMAZIAN OF THE WEEK! @ReallyVirtual, The Man Who Unwittingly Live-Tweeted The Raid On Osama bin Laden” and related posts (disgrasian.com)

A really, really good post from Alison Gow recalling her first ‘Death knock’.  Not something you would look back on fondly but:

Today I contributed a content strategy, with particular emphasis on what sort of feeds we should consider aggregating and the level of showbiz news a user might require. Which might explain why I’ve been reminiscing about reporting days.

As Alison points out, the knock is an inevitability for reporters.

I’ve never done it (thankfully) but it was on my mind this week as well.

I was talking to the second years about using pictures from facebook as part of a chat around communities and the content they create (social media). One student said it would be better to ask the parents for a picture they could use rather than ‘steal’ one.  Of course the reality of that is ‘you have to go and ask them’. I asked them “Which would you rather do. Take the picture off facebook or go and do a death knock?”

In the intro to her post. Alison notes:

There are a few set questions anyone applying for a job in journalism gets asked at interview – among them is a request to summarise what they would do if Newsdesk sent them out on The Knock – which usually means a death knock.

Just to be clear. ‘Avoid it by getting the details from facebook’ is probably not the answer they would want.

Image from marlambie on Flickr

Related articles by Zemanta

• Death knock blogger Chris Wheal speaks on Today programme (blogs.journalism.co.uk)
• What the PCC does to help the bereaved deal with ‘death knocks’ (guardian.co.uk)
• Bereaved journalist to outline death-knock plan to PCC (newstatesman.com)
• How to make ‘death knock’ journalism more acceptable and sensitive (guardian.co.uk)
• What happens when journalists make their death knock calls (guardian.co.uk)

Interesting stuff coming out of the AJE conference today.  A summing up of the proceeding from the morning over on their website asks Is journalism deserting the courts? A good question and the research around it looks really good especially David Holme’s examination of the ‘marked decline’ in court reporting.

Which got me thinking…and this is me playing devils advocate…

I accept that there are some outlets that do court reporting very well; it hasn’t completly disappeared. But surely it’s now a specialist part of the reporting process.

Doesn’t that mean that one of the core reasons for banging on about the ‘essential’ and defining nature of shorthand is pretty redundant?

Image credit: Shorthand image from Sizemore on flickr

Updates and after mater:

Matt Wiggins posted about his experiences studying for his shorthand exam and got some useful comments on how the new format of the exam is going down with students.

David Higgerson mentioned this post in a post about the broader subject of the NCTJ VS. Universities debate. He picked up on a post by Roy Greenslade which challenged the NCTJ’s ‘right’ to dictate what was taught on Journalism degrees. Cue a meaty comments list with the usual mix of pompous and the positive. All of which, Dave thought, missed the important people in the debate – the students.

I commented that I thought students where at the heart of the debate after all, we all need them. We need students on courses (uni or otherwise). The NCTJ have a board of directors to pay so they need the fees. And the industry need the graduates with the right skills.  But I made no apologies for raising the debate. Without a contemporary discussion of this stuff how can students make an informed decision about whats right for them.?

The good folks at CNN have posted a cut down version of the disscussion about Mobile and journalism that I blogged about a while back. Now you can see me talk bobbins as well as read it here.

It’s in two parts:

“Those ‘traditional’ consumers are joined by younger readers who prefer to find their news ‘unfiltered’ on the web. We are trying to serve both groups, and we are delighted with the enthusiasm that our new British partners bring to the effort.”

That from a press release for Futurity.org reported in journalism.co.uk.

It’s essentially a website for Universities to publish research and news about their research. Why? Because…

In an increasingly complex world, the public needs access to clear, reliable research news. Futurity does the work of gathering that news. Think of it as a snapshot of where the world is today and where it’s headed tomorrow. Discover the future

A lot of this has a familiar ring. The claims sound a lot like the reasons why journalism is so important and the role of journalists will be vital.

But it also reminds me of the some of the issues that surround much of the ‘council newspapers‘ debate. These are organizations who should be open up to a bit of ‘filtering’ especially when there is public money involved . The content they put out should be open to scrutiny and question.

Of course this risks becoming a circular argument. If journalism was doing its job and reporting science properly then they wouldn’t need to do this.

Futurity.org

But it also goes to underline what we already know but many media orgs seem to be unable to respond to; communities are using the web to tell their own stories.

In the case of Futurity.org it’s a community of interest (with all the self-interest issues that brings) but it’s just as common with hyperlocal communities of geography.

Whatever the motivation, is this the kind of thing that journalism needs to step up to?