Mark on Media

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

STILL TRAVELLING

In Sarasota, Florida, now. Still holidaying but occasionally dipping into the online world to see what's happening. A few new posts at the links blog, new photos at Flick'r and the musings below. If I don't get online again before the end of the week, Happy New Year to all.
11:53:43 AM LINK TO THIS POST

FLIPPING THE PROCESS

It's not just a matter of the internet making everyone a potential journalist. According to a quote in the NY Times, it is changing the process of journalism.

Bob Calo, an associate professor at the graduate school of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, said that there had been something of a reversal in the news-gathering process. "If you think back, news gatherers would get the story and then commission a photographer to go and get the pictures," he said. "Now we have flipped it around to where reporters are chasing the pictures, trying to create some context for what viewers are seeing."

The amateurs lead, the professionals flow in behind. We need the professionals, but more and more it seems as though the ability of the media to "control the story" or "set the agenda" is being blown up by the ubiquity of connection and the electronics so many people are carrying.

The implications for journalism are huge and humbling. It suggests a new kind of journalist, who is not concerned with The Story or The Scoop, but with getting to the scene, aggregating everything is flowing in the information stream and providing context and understanding. The stars will be those who can add clarity to what I am seeing, who can bring order to the information river.

UPDATE: Rereading that in post-holiday mode, it's not quite what I meant to say. Journalists have always been the ones who go where the news is happening to provide context and understanding. What's changed is we're all now in the same information flow, able to access much of what's happening from witnesses, "citizen journalists," governments, NGOs and other primary sources. New journalism means not replicating what's already being done, but adding to it.
11:47:24 AM LINK TO THIS POST