It's always interesting to get the opinion of the older journalists on future of the profession. Some try to dodge the question with the skills they have learnt from years of experience in the media industry, others, however, embrace it and candidly talk about it. Bryan Dobson most definitely falls into the latter.
He spoke to a small group of student journalists about his time in the industry and where he sees the profession going in the next few years. "The job we do as journalists still needs that professional approach. I see the new technology as people doing the same thing they’ve done for years... trying to make sense of the world for people," he said.
He also raised an interesting point, the internet is a vast place that makes little sense if viewed as a whole. He said that in television: "Our promise is that if you watch us for an hour here we will offer you info that will engage you in some way". He offered this in opposition to the tangled mess that news on the internet can become.
He was not arguing against the internet but saying that there would be a role for journalists to gather the most important news for a certain market. "I actually believe that there will still be an appetite for that kind of service whether it’s through new technology or not," he said.
Bebo was Ireland's first foray into the world of social networking on a truly global scale. The announcement by AOL that it's decided to cut its losses comes as no surprise though. The site has been haemorrhaging users in the last few years and never really secured a proper hold in the UK market.
Bebo will probably come to be seen as a development stage of social networking sites. One of the main reasons for its demise was probably the fact that it was not as instant as its main rival facebook. Disseminating news was laborious in that if you wanted to let you friends know something you either had to leave them a message on their page or message all friends. The latter option was usually seen as an annoyance to the receiver and is akin to the group messages recevied by most users on facebook now.
Bebo's framework was one of the first tries at social networking and facilitated that very well. Where Bebo failed was it did not see news dissemination becoming an important part social networking and even when it arrived Bebo failed to change accordingly.
To some it inspires fear, to others it is the very future of journalism. It it of course citizen journalism. For the web 2.0 community and more modern journalists it cannot come quickly enough. But, for the old guard of journalism, and even for many journalism students it is the stuff of nightmares. If anyone can gather the news then what is the journalists role.
Even though citizen journalism is still in its infancy, it is becoming more and more clear that citizen journalism cannot complete a full scale takeover of the status quo. Trained journalists will be required to process the information gathered and verify, insofar as is possible, the information supplied.
Mark Little spoke some weeks ago in DCU about enabling citizen journalism with reporter packs consisting of basic video recording equipment, a laptop, dongle and some other bits and pieces. He is at the very heart of using social media as a platform for citizen journalism. He spoke of using qualified journalists as gatekeepers, deciding what does and does not get published.
I think that there are two extremes in this arguement and the fundamentalism of either one feeds off the other's. It is very easy to speak in superlatives, but more difficult to rationally assess what the situation is what's likely to happen.
It is my opinion that the transition to journalism fully incorporating citizen journalism will not be as painful as people predict. Furthermore, I think it is incomprehensible that any new publishing platform will wholesale replace its predecessor. It has not yet happened in the history of the media.
Denis
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online editions
The march to paying for newspapers online content, in some form, continues. The Independent News & Media group have started charging for online content on their local papers.
From now on only the opening paragraph of a story will be visible and the visitors to the site will have to purchase a subscription to view the rest of the article or log in to their existing subscription account.
The fee for a year-long subscription is just under €50, while the charge to view a single story is €0.50.
The charges have come into effect for all 13 of INM's local newspapers. It is the groups first foray into the world of charging for online content and may be the precursor for INM's national title, the Irish Independent, charging for content on their website.
The
Irish Times and the
Irish Examiner don't use hyperlinks in articles and the
Irish Independent links very rarely and only internally. Does this represent a failure on behalf of the newspaper industry to fully inform with their readership? Surely they should link to supplementary information which would give a more rounded understanding of the situation to visitors to their site.
I think the problem here is that the papers feel as if they are already providing too much content for little or no revenue online. This could be seen as extra work which they are not willing to do. It is also probably a contributory factor that the received wisdom is not to link to other websites for fear that your readers won't come back.
I'm not sure that not linking to other information is failing the readership. I think that it is incredibly easy to do a quick google search if the reader feels they need some extra information. I'm sure linking will become a bigger part of news website in general but I would be cautious as to just how much linking is included in each article.
It could
act as a
distraction from the
original story which would
defeat the
purpose.
