The article as luxury or byproduct

The accepted wisdom of journalism and its schools was that storytelling was our real job, our high calling, our real art. Ain’t necessarily so. The accepted wisdom of blogging has been that now any of us can do everything: report and write, producing text and audio and video and graphics and packaging and distributing it all. But I also see specialization returning with some people reporting, others packaging. Can we agree to a new accepted wisdom: that the most precious resource in news is reporting and so maximizing the acquisition of facts and answers is what we need?

So what is an article? An article can be a byproduct of the process. When digital comes first and print last, then the article is something you need to put together to fill the paper; it’s not the goal of the entire process. The process is the goal of the process: keeping the public constantly informed.

An article can be a luxury. When a story is complex and has been growing and changing, it is a great service to tie that into a cogent and concise narrative. But is that always necessary? Is it always the best way to inform? Can we always afford the time it takes to produce articles? Is writing articles the best use of scarce reporting resources?

via buzzmachine.com

A kind of follow up to the previous post.

Storyful & The Human Algorithm

Journalists the world over are struggling to cope with a social and mobile tsunami of ‘user generated content’, to use an increasingly inadequate phrase. Twitter and YouTube will overwhelm news organisations who can’t master their potential.

A common mistake for those seeking to cope with this profound disruption is to confuse technology with innovation. Algorithms, apps and search tools help make data useful but they can’t replace the value judgements at the core of journalism.

Genuine innovation requires a fundamental shift in how journalists think about their role in a changed world. To begin with, they need to get used to being ‘curators’; sorting news from the noise on the social web using smart new tools and good old fashioned reporting skills.

I find it helps to think of curation as three central questions:

* Discovery: How do we find valuable social media content?
* Verification: How do we make sure we can trust it?
* Delivery: How do we turn that content into stories for a changed audience?

via blog.storyful.com

Storyful uses the power of social networks to create an authentic, cooperative and socially useful journalism.