Mr Web 2.0 on a new form of news breaking

August 30th, 2007 • Internet, Journalism, Media
Tags: blogging, Journalism, newspapers

Or is it so new? Tim O’Reilly (the chap credited with coining the term ‘Web 2.0′) tells of his admiration for one blogger’s handling of a breaking news story…Journalism is Burning Or How Breaking News is Broken: “It wasn’t the subject of Scott’s story that stood out; it was the way he was telling it on his LaughingSquid blog. He reported the story by updating the blog over time. The practice is not unusual for bloggers. Revising or appending an update after the main or original story is fairly common. However, as this particular story grew and grew, Scott decided to keep adding more and more updates to the same blog post instead of creating new and separate posts each day.”He’s right, of course, but I work with an editor who does this every day, and has been for the last two years minimum.Her particular tipple is Formula 1, and I’ve always admired the way she pieces together race coverage as it happens - you can watch the jigsaw assemble as you hit the refresh button.An hour after the race is over, and you have a wonderful, completed picture. I’m not quite sure where I’m headed here: perhaps it’s to say that while O’Reilly’s praise is well placed, I’m unsure where the ground is being broken.

A journalist’s guide to crowdsourcing

July 31st, 2007 • Journalism, Social
Tags: Journalism, Social

A useful take from Robert Niles at Online Journalism Review on established media using the power of crowds to supplement news stories.

In a true crowdsourced project, information is not verified manually by a reporter between submission and publication. Which inspired concern from many traditional reporters.

A well-designed crowdsourcing project, like a well-edited newsroom, can discourage bogus submissions while minimizing their influence if accepted. Here are my suggestions to avoid bogus data in a crowdsourced project:

* Request the reader submit personal identification along with the report. On “Accident Watch,” readers must be registered with the site, which requires e-mail verification, in order to submit a report. The earthquake project requires a zip code and requests a reader’s name, phone, e-mail and street address. Asking readers to identify themselves sends the message that you take this project seriously and that you wish them to do the same. Obviously bogus ID allows you to flag bogus records for deletion with ease.
* If your project publishes individual reports, provide other readers with an opportunity to dispute or verify each individual report. The empowers your readers to help clean your data for you.
* Even if you are publishing data only in aggregate, be aggressive about encouraging readers who dispute that data to add their report to the database, as more data should help move the mean toward the true value.

A journalist’s guide to crowdsourcing