Here’s a novel idea dot.com journalists, “let’s get it right!”…we’ve already established that the internet is a faster way to disseminate information but how about making sure it’s accurate as well?…
The job of a sports journalist is infinitely harder now, the days (and nights) are longer, “feeding the beast” is all consuming and then there’s creativity…But somewhere along the line we forgot that above all what we post, blog, tweet, write, air has to be correct!
Boston radio and television stations boasted their Tom Brady “exclusives” early Thursday morning…but upon further inspection, there were almost as many mistakes …the wrong occupant was identified as needing the jaws of life, for example…speculation ran rampant…the new technology is unquestionably faster but maybe we need to dial it down a notch and get the facts right…
In their defense, the media outlets were undoubtedly trying to be accurate…more than can be said for Washington Post columnist Mike Wise…Wise purposely tweeted false information to see if anyone would pick up the story and cite his “sources”…well they did and when Wise let it be known this was all an experiment, sparks flew…”you’re not going to create a Twitter social experiment to see something like that happen and see how far it can go and see what’s going to happen and not tell your editor about it and warn them ahead of time, says Joe Haggerty of CSSNE.com and Hackswithhaggs. You’re immediately going to not be taken seriously”…Kirk Minihane of WEEI.com agrees; “your name is all you have. Why would you monkey around with that. It’s just bizarre behavior, I think”
Bizarre indeed…the pitcher who throws the hardest, the golfer who hits the ball the furthest, they’re fun to watch but don’t very often get credit for being the best and certainly not the most accurate…we can do better…
18 Comments
Matt Goisman posted on September 10, 2010 at 7:47 pm
I think we have to remember that Internet-based journalism (sports or otherwise) is still in its infancy when compared with other media. ESPN.com, for instance, only launched 15 years (1995). Online content, especially Twitter, “explodes” in a way that no one fully understands yet. Example: a random news clip about an attempted rape in Alabama goes on YouTube in late July, and by late August it’s been viewed over 15 million times and a remix of it is on the Billboard Top 100. When the dust settles from this revolution in journalism, you will find a situation where online editors (a position which MUST develop for online journalistic credibility to survive) are checking content as quickly as journalists are posting it. Until then, it comes down to the individual journalist to make a commitment to fact-checking and responsibility. Our two lecturers were right that newspapers are “toast” (as Minihane said and Haggerty agreed with), but the system of checks-and-balances within the traditional newsroom must be preserved. Otherwise, online readers will stop trusting online writers, which may cause the eventual dissolution of online journalism as a paying profession. Kirk Minihane and Joe Haggerty did an excellent job portraying the life of the online sports journalist, which made them an excellent choice as first guests of the semester (since online journalism is most likely the future of ALL journalism), but they spoke about Internet journalism as it is NOW. As we move on to that world, it should be our job to help transform Internet journalism into what it should be: as responsible as it is fast.
Francis posted on September 11, 2010 at 9:05 am
I think it’s very important to understand that as journalists we must get the information right instead of trying to be first. Yes, the person who broke the story might have a few minutes in the sun, but with so many news outlets, the public tends to forget who first reported the story unless that person reported incorrect information. With new technology, journalists (escpecially .com ones) don’t have to wait until the 6:00 news or the next day’s paper for the information to reach the public, which is an advantage, but I think another advantage for them would be to always get the story right.
Molly posted on September 11, 2010 at 11:44 am
While I am in agreement with Francis, I do see both the desire and need for journalists today to be the first to break the story. With new technological advancements and the increased reliance on social media, there is definite pressure for journalists to produce the news before their competitors. Most of us can remember where we were nine years ago when the World Trade Center towers fell. Do you remember how you received information about the attacks? Did you hear the news on the radio, or watch the images on television? Most TV stations were reporting different stories, and some their own theories as to what was happening in New York City and Washington, D.C. While Twitter was not prevalent then, imagine how quickly information would have traveled if it was in existence.
To relate what I’ve said back to the main topic, I’d said while it is important for journalists to be accurate in their stories, readers ultimately look to a source that can provide them with the news at a fast rate. They look for any news, and do not always care about the accuracy of what they consume.
Adam Silvers posted on September 12, 2010 at 11:31 am
I think Matt really hit it on the head as far as where the future of online journalism is going and how it needs to be structured in order to secure its accuracy and integrity. As Matt referenced, both Joe and Kirk eluded to the fact that the future of sports news is online and that newspapers have certainly seen its glory days pass it by. Now the question becomes how do we establish such notable and trusted names like the New York Times, Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, etc… in online sports blog websites? Since the internet news sensation is still in its infancy there has to be a learning curve and an allotted time period so that readers/consumers can discover which names are really trustworthy and accurate in their news reporting and coverage. Eventually there will be a “standard” for online journalism, we are just not there yet. When we come across someone like Mike Wise though, this sets internet sports news back. Here we had a “trusted” journalist perform his own social experiment at the expense of his credibility and his employers. The only thing Wise proved is that he is not responsible enough to have a twitter account and whatever news he breaks must now be looked at with a magnifying glass
Perhaps we did all learn a lesson from Wise, just not the one he intended.
Katie posted on September 12, 2010 at 1:10 pm
It seems like a catch-22 in online journalism today about whether it’s more important to get a story out first with a couple mistakes or to invest a couple minutes in fact-checking and put out an accurate story. It shouldn’t be though–the first thing we learn as journalists is that we NEED to get all the facts straight. As Kirk said about the Mike Wise twitter hoax, your name really is all you have. If a journalist builds a reputation as an accurate reporter then turns around and “experiments” with twitter or starts skimping on facts for the sake of being first, readers are going to question that journalist’s intentions. That could mean the readers are going to potentially start looking elsewhere for news. I don’t think it’s worth sacrificing your readership, trust or credibility for something like that. Yes, people are now used to instant information, so in that regard twitter can be useful for putting out the most important bits of the story while the reporter writes a solid copy. With the Tom Brady accident, I found out about and followed the whole story on twitter. First it was “Tom Brady in an accident” from several sources. Then “Tom Brady will be going to training,” and so on throughout the day until “Van driver cited in Tom Brady accident.” The people who posted these told what they knew as they found out. Then they posted links to the complete story. It’s easier to be timely as well as accurate on twitter because there’s much less space to be wrong. Some people really are just more interested in what come out first–maybe they figure their source of choice will correct the information later and they’ll check back. But I think there’s a compromise. So what reporters can do is go on twitter or their website and say, “This story is breaking, here’s what we know now, full story to follow.” They can still break the news and be first, and their readers will know that an accurate, detailed and thoughtful story will follow–not something thrown together just to be first.
Joel posted on September 13, 2010 at 10:36 am
I like what Matt has to say about needing to transform the state of online journalism (as responsible as it is fast) as our two guests admitted that essentially they are their own editors. However, another point they made was that the online components of news networks are not making the kind of money that newspapers do/did. I don’t think we’re going to see an online editing position until online news websites starts racking in enough money to make it worthwhile. It would make no sense for a smaller news outlet to hire an extra body to serve as an online editor if they can just leave it up their journalists to run over it before it’s posted. There is also no way to force websites to do so, as regulations on the internet are almost impossible to enforce (see Online Gambling). I think the answer is in education. University journalism programs should put more emphasis on the “one man band” type of reporting, so that we are able to step out into the world and be responsible with the content that we are putting out there on our own. Also, you could even say that the system of checks and balances still exists; just now it’s up to the consumer to enforce it by not visiting or following online journalists who have shown a lack of credibility, making them irreverent.
Lia Poin posted on September 13, 2010 at 12:17 pm
I think Katie makes a good point here, one that I was going to expand on anyway. As Joe Haggerty said, and Kirk Minihane agreed, websites like Twitter are online news game-changers. Twitter allows you to disseminate news literally as it happens. However, I think there needs to be a balance and people need to be credible for what they write online and on Twitter. A good compromise would be to get the basic facts out as fast as possible on Twitter, i.e. Tom Brady involved in a car accident. You’ve broken the story right there. Then, reporters are allowed time to get the rest of the story, get the details, make sure they are accurate, and then post the entire story online. This scenario is the best of both worlds – you can be timely and you can get the general information out there first, then, without being under pressure to be the first with the story, you can also be accurate.
I think that this way of diseminating the news via Twitter is plausible and can ultimately be reliable. I think Twitter can absolutely be a game-changer for online news, but I think it has to be within limits. I firmly believe that accuracy must come first because if we aren’t accurate, we can’t be trusted, and isn’t that the whole point of why people are coming to us in the first place? To respond to Molly’s post, I think Twitter would have moved information about 9/11 infinitely faster, but would it have been right? Throughout that whole day, no one really knew what was going on, not even the news outlets. Yes, they could have posted just what had happened as it happened, but I’d be willing to bet that there would have been a lot of errors in doing so.
Minihane and Haggerty are right in saying that the Internet is a blessing because it allows for more flexibility. But everyone else on this blog is also right in saying that there needs to be a better system put in place for accuracy. The journalism program at BU teaches us that the first rule of journalism is “be accurate.” This cardinal rule survived through radio journalism, print journalism and broadcast journalism. Should we throw it away for online journalism?
Emily posted on September 13, 2010 at 12:35 pm
The Web is, in essence, still a changing medium. It is a place where you can shop, or a place to make new friends, but it is also a place where people are talking together, creating conversations, in their own voice and about what they care about, whether it be new or sports, those voices have to be reputable. Matt is right when he says that we all must invest to make the internet as responsible as it is fast. We must not forget the core value of being a journalist: credibility. Journalists are expected to collect and disseminate information based on professional integrity, which is the cornerstone of being a journalist. That should not change in the social media age, and attention to detail and accuracy should be paid, whether it be a blog, a website, Facebook or Twitter. Since, we live in a society increasingly concerned with instant gratification, text message alerts and Twitter are only going to gain in popularity. I first heard of the Tom Brady crash from a WHDH text alert. The text said “BREAKING NEWS FROM 7: Pats QB Tom Brady in 2-car accident; taken to Brigham and Women’s Hospital” Stay with 7 for updates. So far, news organizations do little more than text headlines-although, that is something that tends to be somewhat useful and engaging. It certainly does not suffice as a standalone news service, but extends audience interaction and creates a conversation, as most people are used to using their phones for all modes of communication these days. I think this is a great way to extend a news service as being first, or disseminate fast news, then time can be taken to get the story ready for readers, without any errors.
Tristan Hobbes posted on September 13, 2010 at 3:00 pm
I think this seminar represented two very important facts about the job we are all about to get ourselves into.
1. As both Joe and Kirk both said, “newspapers are toast.” So if we didn’t know it already, now we do; our futures as sports journalists will hinge on our understanding of digital media. These two speakers represented this new trend and provided real experiences as to how much nternet (.com) journalism will effect us. With Twitter, Facebook, Youtube etc. all gaining in popularity, we need to understand and be able to use all of theme effectively. The story of the Mike Wise’s Twitter hoax is a great example of what not to do but these two journalists gave us an idea of what it is actually like working in this new medium.
2. That brings me to my second point. Joe and Kirk gave our class a good idea of what the life of a sports journalist is going to be with the shift towards instant online reporting. According to Joe, “you’re not an official member until you fall asleep at your keyboard.” That is the reality of what we all want to get ourselves into. The news cycle (sports included) is now 24/7 and if you want to be successful you have to be connected non-stop. And if not, “there is a line of people to replace you.” This is probably the portion that I took the most from. You have to be persistent, you have to be committed and you have to love your job. These are all results from the push towards online journalism and it is important that we all know what lies ahead.
Jillian posted on September 13, 2010 at 7:19 pm
I believe that the shift towards online journalism and the explosion of Twitter should actually make it easier for a journalist to be both accurate and fast-breaking at the same time. Katie and Lia Poin both made comments with a similar understanding on this topic. Twitter is a perfect place to “break” news because it’s so fast and instant. You only have a set number of characters to send information, so it’s easier to send out only what you know at that moment. All a reporter has to do is share their headline (ex “Tom Brady has been in car accident) and then simply add that they are still trying to get the correct facts in order (ex “still investigating, will update when more info is available). It is then very easy to link to a fully story, once you have it with all the accurate facts. As other classmates, as well as both Joe and Kirk mentioned, online journalism has an advantage of not totally having a deadline. This allows a reporter to put together their best and most accurate story. The other advantage of writing for online is that you can constantly update, or add information as you get it. You can easily say in on online story “it has yet to be determined what exactly caused the car accident” and then go back an hour later when you have the information and add “the accident was cause when…”. For a newspaper you’d have to wait almost an entire 24 hours to correct or edit a story.
The other thing that stands out most about online journalism is something both Joe and Kirk mentioned. Writing for online gives the journalist the opportunity to be “more casual and conversational” like Kirk said, and “allows you to get more personal” like Joe said. I think that readers enjoy getting a little personality in their news these days. It goes along with being able to trust your sources. You may trust an online columnist that throws out random personal tidbits of themselves because you feel like you know them more so than a newspaper reporter who is just cut and dry with no personality. This idea also exaggerates the important fact that as a journalist “your name is all you have”. Just like the Mike Wise situation, once you lose a person’s trust it is very hard to get it back. Joe and Kirk made it very clear that although online journalism is slightly more relaxed, it’s still journalism and it’s still your career that would be on the line so you need to take it serious at all times.
This brings me to the fact that I really appreciated how honest both guys were about the way their profession impacts their personal lives. I think a lot of people try to downplay or deny how hard it can be to balance both, so their input on that was refreshing.
Jake Safane posted on September 14, 2010 at 8:35 pm
I started interning for nesn.com this fall, and I already see the flaws in the current online journalism model that Joe and Kirk talked about. At NESN, all the writers are responsible for editing each other’s work, AFTER it has been posted online. Once an article is posted, the article will sit there for an indefinite period of time before someone gets a chance to backread the story and make any necessary changes. As a result, there are often errors on the site. Plus, most stories on the website are paraphrases of other sites’ articles, and there is pressure to get the article up as soon as possible. In fact, I was told to write a story today about Reggie Bush forfeitting his Heisman and our only initial source was a Twitter post. My superiors never even advised me to check if this was true.
So instead of the newspaper model fact-checking and having a clear reporter-editor hierarchy, the guidelines barely exist in the online world. The most important thing is to get the story online, and THEN check for accuracy, which can make for some pretty lackluster journalism. Plus, since breaking news hardly matters anymore, I think Joe is right that the emphasis should switch to well-written stories.
As for Lia and Molly’s comments about Twitter being useful for breaking news, I agree that it can be a good first place to hear news, but a website doesn’t really benefit by only having people read the Tweets. If there’s no article to link to, they’ll draw less visitors to the site. And Twitter is too unreliable to use solely for breaking news, it constantly crashes from overload, so if Twitter were around on 9/11 as Molly said, no one would be able to tweet anyway.
Angus Dunk posted on September 14, 2010 at 11:18 pm
I think for a long time, as a whole the United States has sped up tremendously in all industries. You might here a geriatric somewhere say, “Everyone these days is in such a hurry.” Well there’s a lot of truth to that statement, especially with the news media, which has a strict set of guidelines for finishing and doing stories, blogs, and broadcasts. Tristan brings up a good point about what Kirk Minihane of WEEI.com with relation to print media, “Newspapers are toast.” Sheer economics have made the concept of a bi-daily paper not worth producing, or printing a morning paper and an evening paper impractical as was done in the 30’s and 40’s. The print media simply cannot keep up with the pace that online and broadcast news outlets function at because it produces daily, only one newspaper. Why should I spend money on something that comes out every 24 hours (or 12 hours if papers printed twice daily) when I can get it in 10 seconds for free? How about truth and credibility for starters? But the public doesn’t care about that as a whole anymore; it’s mainly concerned with getting gossip or tabloids than it is the hard facts.
However unethical of him, the fact remains that Mike Wise’s controversial move did shed some light on the problems of Twitter, moreover that of news dissemination. People can’t just believe what they read without looking where the news came from. Wise proved that his credentials and expert knowledge of football and the NFL right away led to media outlet publishing information without checking it first. That said though, at least the organization cited it was Wise that said Roethlisberger’s suspension would be 5 games even if it doesn’t forgive what it did.
I believe that Twitter is the perfect example of why being first can really make you last in essence in the news business, if you don’t take the time to double check your facts and sources beforehand. Twitter is problematic because people receive news and can post it faster than they can verify it. Essentially, one goes “trigger happy” with the information they are receiving and become overly anxious to share it and in a sense are so “awestricken” that they don’t take the logical and investigative steps required of a journalist. Where did this information come from? Who said this? And finally does this make sense?
The other problem with Twitter is that in many ways it’s a social networking site. It focuses on the comments and reports of an individual journalist or reporter as opposed to a broadcasting organization or a publication as a whole. It hones in on the thoughts, ideas, information, and reports of an individual and comparatively is a more professional version of facebook. Twitter and Facebook are great ways to spread information and interact with others, but they should be taken for what they are: social networking purposes, not credible news publications or sources such as the Associated Press.
Comparatively, being a journalist is similar to being a detective on a murder case. It takes a long elaborate process, which can’t be skipped, in order to solve the case. The people who hired the detective may want the murder case to be solved quickly, but the detective knows that the most important thing is that he’s accurate and get’s the person that’s actually guilty instead of finding a scapegoat.
I do agree with Molly’s point though the need for information to spread and travel quickly holds high value in the broadcasting and publication of news. Timeliness is key to keeping one’s audience updated on current affairs. As Molly points out, if Twitter had been available at the time of the 9/11 attacks, collectively both the public and media would have probably understood better the events that occurred that day. Also, specifically in sports journalism we face many time constraints. Getting the information out to the public is very key because interest in each game a team plays, for example, loses appeal of the audience quickly, so the information has to constantly be kept fresh for the public to keep wanting to come back to a news source. As Joe Haggerty of Comcast Sports Net New England says, “[You have little] personal me time.” This is a reality all journalists face because of the importance of timeliness and simultaneously having to meet the audience’s demand for news.
However, all reporters, including sports broadcasters and journalists, have to take the time to get their information right regardless of deadlines. You’re never always going to be first in getting a story out and not always last. The important thing in my opinion is to be accurate because then the public will trust that person and hopefully value or favor reliable reporting as opposed to speediness. The problem though currently is that reporters and broadcasters are giving into the whims and demands of their audiences too much and thus reporting information quickly more and more, but also information that is less and less accurate by not checking sources.
To put this in perspective, let’s say, for instance, ESPN does a 15-20 second TV segment on a Tuesday that discovers Boston Bruins defenseman Zdeno Chara has been reported to actually stand at 6’6” instead of 6’9.” ESPN also says the information was gathered in a brief interview with the Slovakian native’s former girlfriend. Let’s say the public buys this, but ESPN releases another TV segment on the subject Friday discovering an acclaimed national doctor confirmed he measured Chara to be 6’9” and Chara reported his former girlfriend actually was upset about their recent break-up. The problem here lies with the fact that ESPN was too impatient to take the time to confirm what was reported in the interview from another source and consequently got the news wrong because it broadcasted the story too hastily.
I think Francis rightly remembered that the number one job of the news media is to report the truth to the public and for that reason, accuracy always should take precedence over speed regardless of whether it gives a media outlet less fame or not. The repercussions for getting a story wrong are a lot worse, as we have seen with Mike Wise, as opposed to publishing or reporting information too slowly.
The question that faces both the public (consumers of news) and journalists (reporters and conveyors of news) is can we be patient for news in a society that is constantly becoming faster on an annual basis?
Chris posted on September 15, 2010 at 12:06 pm
A little late to get going, but we’ve got some great points. Not to rehash/double dip into what you all have already said, but I like where Joel was going with the emphasis on education over the need to be first.
There is a certain degree of common sense that encompasses our industry. But at times, the need to beat the competition to the press results in careless mistakes, fact errors, and other aberrations that, under the scrutiny of a traditional newspaper editor would likely have been avoided.
I also think this varies from situation to situation, and there’s more wiggle room depending on what you’re covering. Breaking news is breaking news–there will always be the sense of urgency to get the story, whatever it is, out before the others do. With Twitter’s emergence, that has become easier to do. You Tweet the lead of the story, and follow it up with more to come. As long as you’re the first Tweet, and as long as it’s factually correct–i.e., Tom Brady in car accident–why not try to be the first one to “break” it? By doing so, you draw readers, and you continue to update the story as you gather the pieces together. It makes sense.
Game recaps carry a certain sense of urgency as well. I covered the men’s hockey team last year as a beat reporter, and I know I was always trying to get whatever I was writing out before other media outlets did. Our website was on Blogger, so I could continually update as I went along, and if there was a small error–or a big one–all I had to do was edit and republish the post. It’s quick, it’s convenient, and we hardly ever got flack for it. If the technology is there, why not take advantage of it?
Going back to what Joel said–more emphasis NEEDS to be put on being productive on your own, especially in the world of dot-com journalism. Media outlets are trying to subsidize, and are looking for the most efficient, effective reporters to hire. If I were a hiring manager at CSNNE and I’m looking for a general assignment reporter, a beat reporter, whatever, I want someone who is self sufficient, can undertake a project by him/herself, and is always looking for more out of a project. Video, photography, audio, multimedia packages–reporters should be able to handle such undertakings not necessarily on their own, but be able to pull their own weight under certain circumstances.
For example, when Brady crashed his car last week, I should be able to send a reporter out there, maybe not with a camera crew, but with a Flip cam, a regular camera, a DRV, get something to post after the initial Tweet, after the first, second and third updates from the original story. Keep building on the story in as many dimensions as you can, as long as the story calls for. And if more and more students are coming out of college with such a palette of skills, it makes them more likely to get a job and be effective in the industry right off the bat.
Ben posted on September 15, 2010 at 4:35 pm
I think Joel hit it on the head when he mentioned the role of money in online journalism. Sports journalism is a business. Websites can only make money if people visit their site. Like it or not, people remember where they hear news first, and there are often dozens of other outlets competing for the same story you are. While everyone values accuracy, and getting the reputation of being consistently wrong is worse than consistently slow, in the online world, you are only wrong for a finite time. The ability to go back edit any article you put means the majority of people will never see/realize the flaws in your original work. You can always go back and make sure your work is accurate, but when you’re behind on a story, there is nothing you can do to change that. When you’re first to report a story, it gets publicity, it gets people on your site; not just now, but in the future.
An example would be if Buster Olney reported Red Sox have traded for a player X. Within a few hours, news sources around Boston, and probably national sources as well are saying that “Buster Olney reports the Red Sox have acquired player X.” Everyone who hears that, knows Olney reported the story, they will probably go to his website to read the specifics, and in the future will probably continue to go back to him when any rumors surface. They probably never saw, or completely forgot that maybe Olney originally reported incorrectly who the Sox had to give up to get player X. By the time they see his article/twitter, it’s been updated with correct information.
It’s the sad truth about journalism in today’s age. To me, the answer is something both Joe and Kirk seemed to predict about the future of online sports journalism. Both seemed to say they think that some sites will die and online journalism will steadily become centralized in fewer, bigger sites. I think this mean will lesser the competition and relieve some of the pressure to be first.
To me, the most important part of the discussion was not what Joe and Kirk said about online sports journalism, but what they said about the life of a sports journalist: the late nights at the stadium or in front of your keyboard, the need to take multiple jobs with different outlets, complete lack of free time and that perseverance is the most important quality of those looking to make it. This is not unique to online journalism, and it’s important for us to realize if we want to ever make it in this business.
Brad posted on September 15, 2010 at 4:40 pm
Jake touched on this point, but I think that online journalism has made breaking stories and being first less important. If one newspaper in town scoops the other, it takes a whole day for the other paper to catch up to the story. If only one TV station gets a story for the 6:00 news, the other stations can’t get something on until 11:00, but with online journalism, as soon as one outlet breaks a story, everyone else can just throw it up on their own websites. It matters to the journalists who got the story first, but does it matter to the consumers?
As a consumer on Thursday morning, I did not know nor did I care who was first with the story that Tom Brady was in a car crash, because I knew that I could go to Boston.com or turn on one of the local TV stations and find out all the relevant info (which incidentally was not much at all). Now it turns out in their rush to be first, some of the outlets were wrong. Ultimately I think that with the importance of being first diminished, accuracy will win out as a differentiator of outlets.
Many Twitter feeds of reputable journalists are so popular because they are so often correct. I suspect Mike Wise’s work will become much less popular, as will all of his work. It is amazing that he did not seem to understand what most journalists know, that the outlet is irrelevant and the same standards of journalism should be applied when working online, on television, on radio or in print.
In learning about the way in which Kirk and Joe work and the content they produce, it seems to me the biggest adaptation journalists today must make is learning to be versatile in formats so that one can be equally engaging in a 3,000-word column, a 140-character tweet or a minute-long broadcast report. There is so much more to sports journalism now than gamers and notebooks and always being ready to work in a new format is a valuable skill for a journalist today.
Laura posted on September 15, 2010 at 10:18 pm
I definitely agree with Brad in that even as a journalism student, it didn’t really matter to me which organization got the information out first about Brady, especially when I wasn’t even awake when the actual accident occurred.
I think another important factor to point out when it comes to online journalism is the opportunity for choice. When each of us were asked where we heard about the Brady mishap, there weren’t very many duplicate answers. Sports fans and journalists alike all have their own preferred sites that they check on a daily basis. In today’s world where technology allows for information to spread so rapidly, it is not surprising to see duplicate stories across the front pages of online sites and newspapers alike.
Personally, I found out on deadspin.com (who actually credited WEEI) because it was the first site I happened to check that day. Although it could have been one of the local news channels or radio stations who broke the news first the who wasn’t my main concern, but rather the what, the story itself. Not once did I question the credibility of the source I was getting the information though.
Fans and journalists have their favorite sites for a reason though, because they trust their information is going to be factual. Once that trust has been built to put out factual information at a fairly quick pace (which does not take much these days), readers won’t care if the Boston Globe had the news 15 minutes before WEEI because no matter what they’re going to WEEI’s site first. When the news will be the same everyone it becomes the style of writing and trust in what their reading is true that keeps readers coming back not when the story was posted.
Joe and Kirk both admitted that yes, it felt good to know that you got the story out first, but if it wasn’t correct then all of that goes by the wayside. That idea is even more true in the world of 24-hour news because the time frame between when stories are posted is so slim. Like we saw in the Mike Wise case, one false statement can condemn an entire career of responsible and newsworthy reporting. That case alone should demonstrate that being first does not mean being the best.
Jack Flagler posted on September 15, 2010 at 11:01 pm
I think Tristan really boiled down Kirk and Joe’s points well: We have all heard before that the digital journalism will force us to put more of an emphasis on fact-checking our own work, and that we will have to work harder and longer than the next guy to break through in this business because if we don’t want to do it there are a line of people who do.
Still, hearing this from two professionals in the field really drove home those points, especially when reporters like Mike Wise show that they still don’t have a grasp on what you can and can’t do online.
As for Twitter, I agree with Jake’s point that Twitter really isn’t a place for breaking news. Facts that are flying around immediately after a story like the Tom Brady crash breaks can often be unreliable with everyone racing to be the first one to get the story, and as Kirk said, all you have in this business is your name and reputation.
We will all encounter situations where we are rushing to “scoop” a story first, and unfortunately I think our only recourse will be to work as quickly and efficiently as possible while still making sure we verify our sources and remain credible.
Joe also mentioned that CSNNE.com had some specific guidelines for what he can and can’t put on his Twitter. While Joe didn’t go into detail about this, I don’t think Comcast would be happy if he broke a news story on his Twitter account rather than on the website that pays him.
With that said, I think Twitter can still be effective for journalists, as long as they remember it’s a form of social media – as Angus said. Journalists can get feedback from their readers in a way that really wasn’t available before, and readers have a chance to have an actual conversation with the writer. As long as it’s used for that purpose and writers like Mike Wise stop “experimenting” with it, Twitter can be a positive tool for the media instead of a dangerous one.
One more point I found interesting: While we knew that digital journalism has caused everyone to develop similar skills, Joe mentioned that the digital age has broken down barriers between journalists themselves. There is still competition among different media outlets, but he said you don’t have such a division in the media between the radio guys, the TV guys and the online guys in the press conference. His point was well-said and offered a perspective on the business that I hadn’t really thought about much before.
Seth posted on September 16, 2010 at 3:48 pm
Jack I think that’s a great point that the barriers have been broken down between media outlets themselves. At this point, no news outlet can be restricted to one platform. Especially with everyone going online from newspapers to radio to TV, all outlets and all journalists have to be able to provide information in many different ways. You can’t just be an excellent writer but have to be able to use social media to connect with your audience, take video to catch the reader’s attention and in more and more cases take pictures to supplement your story.
As Joe and Kirk said there’s constant pressure to stay at the top of your game and be able to do it all because there are 25,000 guys biting at the bit to have your job.Online journalism will push everyone coming into the field to know all platforms and be able to do more; while it will make getting jobs harder in the end, as there will be less jobs and more required skills, it will lead to better journalists and
more coverage while we wait for online advertising to catch up and realize the inevitable, “newspapers are toast.” Having Joe talk to us was great because he is such a great example of that. After starting as a print journalist he has branched out into an online blogger, tv personality and a talented tweeter. Joe and Kirk are both great examples of where the future lies for journalism: do-anything journalists who have skills in many different platforms.
Another interesting point that has been debated has been the use of Twitter and its effectiveness in the field of sports journalism. While Molly and Angus both said they thought the events that occurred on 9/11 would have been much clearer if Twitter had been around I strongly disagree. Twitter is effective in that it can quickly convey information to consumers but with the uncertainty that surrounded 9/11 I feel that the truth would have been missed among all the other rumors that spread that fateful day. Over the course of the day many reputable sources had no conclusive ideas on what occurred but with Twitter may have felt compelled to tweet one of the rumors they were following.
Twitter can only be effective if journalists and news sources realize that the same rules apply in the online world as in the world of print. Successful print publications have always built large followings based off people trusting their product and believing that the news they are receiving is accurate. Being first will always make journalists feel good and is an achievement but we have to remember as Katie said the purpose of journalism is getting right. Every journalism student at BU is assigned to read The Element of Journalism at some point in their four years. One of the biggest things Kovach and Rosensteil including in their “holy grail of journalism” is the need for journalists to focus on a journalism of verification rather than one based on speed. In the end readers and followers will always come back to the sites that are consistently tweeting and blogging stories that are accurate rather than getting it out first.