The dangers of citizen journalism

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2311248/Sala-Barhoum-track-star-teenager-denies-involvement-Boston-Marathon-bombing-picture-widely-circulated.html

An article showing what the dangers can be when real people take news reporting into their own hands.  This man was incorrectly identified as a possible suspect of the Boston Bombings by users on social media websites.

New rules about press regulation

Two articles about the possible new rules regarding the regulation of the press.  Lots of debate about whether they will be able to regulate internet websites as well.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2295067/Oh-shambles-Party-leaders-hail-deal-Press-fears-grow-threat-free-speech.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2295658/Press-regulation-Internet-targeted-MPs-time-chilling-threat-free-speech.html

The Guardian - how it is adapting to new technologies

Watching the revolution

If you’re following OCR’s AS Media Studies course this year, then you will have the option of writing about newspapers in Section B of the exam (Unit G322: Key Media Concepts). This article looks at the exam’s requirements and presents a case study of the online version of The Guardian. As the newspaper industry is changing rapidly, this should provide a starting point for your own research, so that you can develop an individual case study to wow your examiner.

There’s no need to reproduce the specification here, but it’s worth highlighting some key points. You only get 45 minutes to answer a question that is general enough to cover not just newspapers but five other media areas. Your answer can’t be vague though – you are expected to write about a ‘specific online version of a national/local newspaper’ and be prepared to discuss production, distribution, marketing and exchange, and audience consumption (including your own experiences). The context for your case study is ‘the contemporary newspaper market in the UK and the ways in which technology is helping to make newspapers more efficient and competitive despite dwindling audiences.’

That phrase ‘dwindling audiences’ may make newspapers sound like yesterday’s Media Studies, but what is happening in the industry reflects a global revolution in the way information is gathered, processed, then sold by media institutions to audiences all over the world.

When Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of advertising agency WPP says:

I don’t think newspapers will die because they are the best way, or one of the best ways along with TV, of reaching large sections of the population

it’s clear that newspapers are not going to disappear overnight. However, WPP’s ‘pre-tax profits plunged 47% to £179m in the first six months of 2009’, so advertisers are facing tough times as well2. Whether our newspapers can adapt to the changing media landscape remains to be seen; but there’s certainly never been a better time to watch the newspaper industry…

Ownership and profits

We might expect newspapers to disappear following the growth of the internet. As so much information can be found for free, it begs the question: Why would anyone pay for a newspaper nowadays? The Guardian’s most celebrated editor, C. P. Scott, provided one possible answer3:

Comment is free, but facts are sacred… The voice of opponents no less than that of friends has a right to be heard.

He was writing in 1921, celebrating the centenary of The Guardian and affirming its values as an independent newspaper.

Let’s take a closer look at The Guardian. In 2009, it is celebrating 50 years since it changed its name from The Manchester Guardian to become The Guardian, and 10 years since The Guardian Unlimited network of websites was launched4. It is the only UK national newspaper wholly owned by a trust, which means that there are no shareholders to satisfy, and profits are reinvested to secure the newspaper’s future.

Does The Guardian make a profit then? In short, no, but it’s more complicated than that. The Scott Trust owns a multimedia business, Guardian Media Group PLC (GMG PLC), whose ‘portfolio includes national, regional and local newspapers, radio stations, magazines, a raft of websites and B2B media5.’ Guardian News and Media (which publishes the Observer and Guardian, and produces The Guardian Unlimited website) is just one part of Guardian Media Group PLC, and it reported a loss of £36.8m for 2008/09. GMG PLC as a whole reported a loss before taxation of £89.8m. But the bigger picture is important – last year the group enjoyed a profit of over £300m, and each year the figures are complicated by deals involving joint ventures, restructuring, and links with subsidiary companies. If reading a company’s annual report sounds off-putting, at least download and skim through GMG’s 2009 report – it’s surprisingly colourful, readable, and will give plenty of ideas for further research.6

The Guardian might not have survived in its current form were it not for the fact that The Scott Trust draws profits from other titles such as Auto Trader, which it partly owns through the Trader Media Group. To be fair, the Trust was set up to ensure the survival of the newspaper by carefully investing its profits and that is exactly what it has done. So the editorial freedom continues even though the ‘profitability’ of the newspaper might be questioned. As the chair of GMG, Amelia Fawcett, puts it:

While not immune to difficult market conditions, Guardian Media Group is able to place long-term security before short-term profit.7

Whilst the printed Guardian might not be ‘profitable’ by itself, Guardian Unlimited made a profit of £1m in 2006, its first year ‘in the black’ since it was launched in 1999 and after £20m of investment.8

It is important to recognise that The Guardian’s status as a globally respected source of news is partly due to its history of independent ownership. But history aside, how important is the printed newspaper today, in relation to its online version? A closer look at production might help us to answer that question.

The production process

The Guardian’s headquarters is in the brand new Kings Place building in Kings Cross, London. Kings Place is also home to two orchestras including the London Sinfonietta, as well as housing a concert hall and two art galleries. But music aficionados will not be disturbed by the thunder of nearby printing presses, as The Guardian Print Centre is seven miles away, in Stratford. For a short but fascinating look inside the print centre, check out YouTube. Incidentally, recent redundancies at the print centre made headlines as industrial action was narrowly averted, showing us that the downturn in the newspaper industry is having a serious effect upon The Guardian.
Kings Place has been home to The Guardian since December 2008, and such a recent move means that The Guardian now has an office space ideally suited to the new media environment.

Editor Alan Rusbridger, writing at the time of the move, gave an insight into the changes it had brought:

Print and digital operations are largely integrated, where previously they were physically separate.

He also pointed out that as well as regular desks with computers ‘there are seven state-of-the-art recording studios and 24 editing desks.’ The Guardian is an online provider of news for a global audience and their new headquarters reflect a new convergence of technology as stories are written simultaneously for print and the website. Podcasts and video reports are also produced for broadcast, and live feed coverage of key events is now common. The way the agenda is set is changing too: morning news conferences can be attended via video-conferencing for Guardian employees not physically present at Kings Place.

Innovation and integration

In terms of innovation, The Guardian has been groundbreaking in many respects. It was the first UK national newspaper to use blogging software, the first to produce podcasts, and, perhaps more radically, the first British newspaper to produce web-first stories (i.e. on the web before being seen in print). It has a reputation for enthusiastically adopting new technologies, which was played upon in its 2009 April Fool article:

Consolidating its position at the cutting edge of new media technology, the Guardian today announces that it will become the first newspaper in the world to be published exclusively via Twitter, the sensationally popular social networking service that has transformed online communication.

As production of The Guardian website and print versions is seamlessly integrated, it becomes difficult to establish where production of one ends and the other begins. And given the wealth of extra content on the website, it is now hard not to see the website as being of primary importance and the print version as a brand-strengthening advert for online services.

The impact of the recession

Finding up-to-date figures for the total number of journalists and editors employed by The Guardian is difficult, though a recent report suggested that this year the editorial staff at Guardian News and Media is shrinking from around 850 to 800 through redundancies. One fear consistently voiced by commentators on the newspaper industry is that the quality of journalism will suffer as production costs are cut and reader-generated content becomes more popular. The rise of citizen journalism has been well documented elsewhere (see page 56), but we can’t ignore their impact on The Guardian and the ambivalent relationship which must now exist between professional journalists and accidental eyewitness reporters. A key story one might explore in this respect is The Guardian’s campaigning investigative coverage of 2009’s G20 protests in London and the death of Ian Tomlinson.

The quality of news produced by Guardian journalists has been examined in Nick Davies’ Flat Earth News. He employed specialist researchers from Cardiff University to analyse stories printed in The Guardian and three other national dailies during two one-week periods. The result? A staggering

60% of these quality-print stories consisted wholly or mainly of wire copy and/or PR material.

In other words, press releases or unchecked stories from agency journalists were forming the bulk of the domestic ‘news’ in print. Of the four papers analysed, The Guardian had the lowest percentage, but it was still more than 50%.9 Davies refers to this ‘copy and paste’ reporting style as churnalism. Is there any wonder that many readers would trust Joe or Joanna Public’s account of an event, over a ‘report’ filed by an overworked and underpaid ‘churnalist’? By the way, there are no hard feelings at The Guardian over Davies’ analysis – The Guardian news desk helped with the research, and Davies continues to be employed as a journalist by The Guardian.

Distribution

How is The Guardian’s news ‘distributed’? The printed version, once it has been printed at one of the two Guardian Print Centres (London and Manchester) is delivered to UK wholesalers by TNT Newsfast/Network Logistics. The Guardian is also printed internationally, in some countries using OCE’s DNN service. For example:
under the current deal The Guardian is able to print 600 copies per day in Sydney and have the copies on sale down under before their readers in Europe have even woken up.

Digital newspaper printing‚ the missing link:
http://www.inpublishing.co.uk/kb/articles/digital_newspaper_printing_the_missing_link.aspx

The website is ‘distributed’ via the internet, of course, but the content of The Guardian’s website is not only found by visiting
www.guardian.co.uk through a web browser. RSS feeds, email headlines and mobile phone services all allow Guardian readers to stay up to date. And recently a major new feature has been added, as The Guardian has released its ‘Open Platform’, a set of software developer tools which was launched with a content API (Application Programming Interface). What this means is that web developers can integrate Guardian content seamlessly into their clients’ websites, whilst The Guardian controls the adverts which are associated with the free content it provides. As Guardian director of digital content Emily Bell puts it, this will allow Guardian content to be ‘woven into the fabric of the internet’.

Marketing and exchange

We have already seen how software is being used to market The Guardian’s content through APIs, and the ways the printed newspaper acts as an advert for online services. But The Guardian also uses other traditional media to advertise its newspaper and website, including some innovative TV adverts. In common with other national newspapers, it also offers discounted subscription schemes and often runs promotions to give the newspaper away to university students as a way of encouraging a lifelong Guardian habit.

Free copies are a great incentive, and cutting across issues of distribution, exchange and audience consumption, is the issue of ‘bulks’. These are large orders of heavily discounted copies of the printed paper, typically sold to airlines and hotels to be given away to their customers. This year has seen The Guardian break with another tradition in this respect, as it announced it would become the first national quality daily to scrap distribution of all its bulks. MediaWeek reported that Guardian News and Media claimed the move would ‘increase transparency across the newspaper industry’ – the implication being that its rivals inflate their circulation figures through the use of bulk orders. We might wonder whether the move to scrap bulks was linked with the industrial action and redundancies at The Guardian Print Centre; though as the MediaWeek article pointed out, bulks represent a much smaller percentage of total circulation for The Guardian than for many of its rivals.

Identifying the precise point of ‘exchange’ between publisher and reader is interesting in the case of newspapers as they run parallel online and printed content. An online reader might have seen a headline on the website encouraging them to buy the print edition, or have been encouraged to go online by an advert seen in the print version. And with subscription models to consider, how might exchange be usefully understood? For example, an online reader might be sent email content or be paying for access to subscription-only content, even when they neglect to check their emails or use the site. Of course, buying a printed newspaper doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll read it either, so any discussion of ‘exchange’ must be complicated as we distinguish between the physical product and its content. The transaction between publisher and consumer, of this product and its content is further complicated when we look again at the issue of APIs and their role in distributing content through other media. Clearly, we cannot explore this fully in this article!

Audience consumption

At the time of writing, based on June’s circulation figures, The Guardian website is the second most popular UK newspaper website after Mail Online. An online readership battle seems to be hotting up, with the top three (Telegraph, Guardian, Mail) boasting 27, 28 and 29 million unique users respectively. If we average this out over a month that’s nearly a million users per day for each of the top three newspaper sites. The Guardian newspaper sells around 330,000 copies per day, so as a very rough guide it has three online users for every newspaper purchase.
This picture is complicated further, however, as the number of copies sold doesn’t necessarily equal the number of readers: many people share their copy of a printed newspaper so the readership and/or circulation figures can only ever be a rough guide. They are vital to the industry of course, because a newspaper which reaches a larger audience can charge more for its advertising space, and newspapers make more money from advertising than anything else. The cover price in most cases will not cover the cost of production.

Patterns and trends

If you’ve used free online survey websites such as www.surveymonkey.com, you’ll know how easy it is to gather questionnaire results for a coursework project without the hassle of distributing wads of photocopies. Try conducting a survey of the newspaper reading habits in your Media Studies class this term so you’ll be able to compare your own experience of newspapers with those of other AS students. Are there any trends or patterns? Any surprises? How do your survey results reflect the national picture of newspaper readership? Remember that the mark scheme explicitly rewards discussion of your own experience. This section is the ideal place to put in some well-researched data to back up your case study of The Guardian.

Conclusions

In researching this case study I’ve found that a lot has happened in the newspaper industry during the past year, so by the time your exam comes around (or heaven forbid, a resit!) there may well have been other changes to cover in your research. For example, by the time you read this article, The Guardian may well be the most popular UK news website once more, so it’s worth checking out the statistics available online. However, rest assured that examiners are aware it takes time to develop case study materials, so as long as you use clear examples and identify sources where possible, you’ll be credited with having learned your material, even if it’s not bang up-to-date.

We’ve seen that The Guardian is at the cutting edge of technology in the newspaper industry, which helps to explain why it is one of the world’s most popular news websites. However, we’ve only scratched the surface here in terms of how it is using sophisticated software to market its content globally, especially in the USA. We’ve also seen that the not-for-profit Guardian is not immune to the current unprecedented pressures on the newspaper industry and that, like its competitors, it is facing very tough times.

Impact of digital media on news and journalism

The Rise and Rise of the Independent Journalist

Independence is well known in many professions, but one development that few people could have predicted is the rise of the independent journalist. Thirty years ago a journalist on the hunt for a story would have been armed with only a notepad, a pen and strict instructions from their editor. Fast forward to today and as a result of the digital revolution, a journalist can be armed with pretty much any journalistic tool and now, due to the convergence of TV, radio, print and magazine journalism, could write stories not for just one platform, but in effect, all of them.

Newsflare is a company specialising in user-generated content and is a big step up in helping citizen journalism to get published. It launched in April 2012 and creates a platform for local videos to get to local audiences.

News organisations can also post ‘assignments’ to the website in terms of what video they’re looking for, and do pay for the correct quality of video, whether it is shot by a journalist or just a member of the public with a good camera. Some TV packages can make £40 and even rough footage can be paid for, such as the Olympic torch passing through your town. It is possible for independent journalists to make a living out of websites such as these.

Bevan Thomas, co-founder of Newsflare, says there are fewer barriers in this day and age for independent ideas, and explains how he started his own business in Newsflare.

I think inspiration strikes when you think about solutions to everyday problems you face. Getting out and talking to as many people as possible also helps when thinking of your business idea. It’ll help make clear the different industries and perspectives and how people’s views to your idea might differ. Some of the meetings I thought nothing of actually helped the most.

Bevan also offers advice for anyone looking to get noticed, for example a journalist looking to freelance.

Get used to pitching your ideas, the elevator pitch in one or two sentences and the ten-minute pitch. Both should hook the audience in. It might help if you talk to people like investors; people invest in people so if you come across well and have a great team behind you, the opportunities are open-ended.

Start to build up your network of people now; it’s hard getting out of the work experience or job application pile. Also start blogging, if you’re willing to write for free, when you do get a job writing and you get paid to do the same thing you were doing for free, you’re set.

With companies such as Newsflare leading the way, opportunities for independent journalists seem to be at an all time high.

The Internet

The internet is a key tool in the independent journalist’s belt, but why is it so important? In 2010, two billion people were using the internet, twice the number using it back in 2005. The internet has become the new social haven, where news is uploaded instantly, cutting out the time restraints of a daily newspaper or an evening news bulletin. Most people in search of news now head straight to the internet, and social networking websites such as Facebook or Twitter. The way audiences look for news is changing, so it only seems right that the way journalist’s report news, and the methods they use, are changing too. Thirty years ago the idea of a freelance or independent journalist seemed unmanageable – where would they look for stories without an editor to guide them? How would they find their news stories to follow up? And most importantly, where would they publish their stories? The internet has helped fight all these constraints, and the independent journalists have come out fighting.

In 1999, Brian Appleyard memorably described the internet as a ‘fabulous monster’ in the New Statesman (October 1999).

The arrival of this ‘fabulous monster’ as, has told us as much about the world of journalism and how it reacts to change, as it has about the change itself.

Citizen Journalism

With the subject of the internet also comes the arrival of citizen journalism. This is the theory that anyone anywhere in the world can write, upload, share and publish stories, and could be leading the way to a future of independent journalism. User-generated content is videos, pictures, and recordings which have been made by the public, showing another form of independent journalism. In this digital age, it has evolved to content such as YouTube videos, Flickr images, Amazon or Yelp reviews, blog posts or news stories, and ranging to videos and podcasts from scenes of incidents themselves. Any person at the scene of a story, event or in general can create their own video, audio, images or story and upload this to the internet, or send to any TV station, radio station, local or national newspaper for their website section. Therefore, any member of the public with a media device such as a mobile phone with a camera, recording and internet capabilities could, at the scene of incidents, become independent journalists themselves.

A useful example of a rise in independent journalism is the 2005 London bombings, which prompted a substantial amount of citizen journalism to be put onto the net. Journalists were initially sceptical about the attacks and believed they were false, and when they eventually realised the truth they were not allowed onto the scene due to security reasons. Ordinary civilians caught up in the bombings on their way to work took pictures and recorded videos at the scene. This prompted TV and radio stations to use this user-generated content more than ever before.

Blogging

Blogging is another important tool for the independent journalist. Unless they are working for a large-scale news corporation with its own website or newspaper, a journalist would need somewhere else to showcase their work. Say hello to the blog, essentially a journalist’s own news platform. Starting as an online journal back in the 1990s where people shared opinions and thoughts, in 2012 it has evolved into a vital tool for major publishing businesses. For example, blogging website The Huffington Post was sold recently for over 300 billion dollars. With four out of five internet users visiting social networking sites and blogs, blogging has become the new interactive diary.

When BBC correspondent Stuart Hughes visited Iraq back in 2003 to report in the field, he wanted a way to keep in touch with his audience. So he started an online diary which became incredibly popular. CNN reporter Kevin Sites also created a blog on the front lines of war, with images, comments, blog posts and different views of people at the scene. Although neither journalist was independent, these online methods of reporting show the impact that blogs can have on audiences, and independent journalists can essentially have free rein – avoiding the normal pressures of time and cost in a newsroom.

Technology and Apps

Mobile phone apps are instrumental for a journalist looking to work independently. For example, if you own a smartphone such as an iPhone, you can take photographs to enhance your news story, edit these for sharper pictures, record and edit audio interviews and video, write a news article and upload all this to the internet from your device. Kitting out a journalist has never been easier, or cheaper. Journalism.co.uk research estimates that you can buy software to do all this for less than £20. It also recommends apps such as Camera+, a tool that improves the quality of your pictures, and Pro HDR, which helps you take a better photo. iSaidWhat?! allows you to alter audio recordings, write a script to go alongside them, trim and arrange audio clips and share these clips via email, over a wireless network or by USB. PCM recorder gives you broadcast quality sound, which is vital for important interviews. Apps SoundCloud and Audioboo are well known as important ways to trim, edit and share audio. For filming video, FilmiC Pro is a video-editing app with manual controls including white balance, an audio meter and GPS tagging. 1st Video is expensive at £6.99 but essentially gives you a ‘video-editing suite in your pocket’. Bambuser is a popular app used by citizen journalists for live streaming video and Vyclone gives you a multi-angled video. Byword is a favourite for writing articles, CoverItLive helps when it comes to live blogging and Evernote is suggested for keeping notes. Lastly, when keeping up to date with the latest news, Reeder allows you to create news feed folders from key news sites and share news updates via social networking.

Independent journalism has never been easier, with a huge helping hand from the internet and advances in digital technology. While the main aim of news reporting will always remain consistent – to create and publish a newsworthy story to the public – exactly who reports it is becoming less significant. Breaking news stories reach Twitter within seconds, and it’s not always the large media companies that are first in line.

Newsflare’s Bevan Thomas concludes:

If you find something you love doing, you’ll never really work a day in your life. Independent journalism is as healthy as it’s ever been. Today there are many outlets for journalists to publish work and even if you can’t convince someone to publish your idea, you can now publish it yourself.

Tara Cox is a 3rd year undergraduate in multimedia journalism at Bournemouth University.

This article was first published in MediaMagazine 43, February 2013: the ‘Independence’ issue

Negative Representation of LGBT

So we all know that unfortunately people who are lesbians / gay / bisexual / transexual are often represented in a negative way in the media.  This article is a perfect example.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2251347/Nathan-Uptons-wrong-body--hes-wrong-job.html

The article is about a male primary school teacher who is transitioning to live as a woman.  The journalist suggests the following things in his article:

* This event is unbelievable.  Evidence =  "One parent said: ‘I saw what I thought was Mr Upton dressed as a woman in town one weekend, but I decided I had imagined it.’

Oh no, you hadn’t."

* Children will be confused and disturbed by this transition.  Evidence: "But has anyone stopped for a moment to think of the devastating effect all this is having on those who really matter? Children as young as seven aren’t equipped to compute this kind of information."

* Children will need to be "protected" from people like this.  Evidence: "It should be protecting pupils from some of the more, er, challenging realities of adult life, not forcing them down their throats"

* Children will be 'forced" to deal with this against their will.  Evidence: Why should they be forced to deal with the news that a male teacher they have always known as Mr Upton will henceforth be a woman called Miss Meadows"

* Children should not have to treat this teacher in a respectful manner.  Evidence: The head teacher denies that pupils will be punished for referring to the teacher as Mr Upton but added ominously that they would be ‘expected to behave properly around her.’

As if this wasn't enough, the online article has TWO articles on the same page which is highly unusual and often only done if the two stories are linked in someway.  In this case, the first main article is about this teacher, the second article is about paedophile Jimmy Saville.  This design choice intrinsically links the two stories and suggests that these two men are similar!!!

A very negative representation and something to consider for the exam.  Are there any positive representations of LGBT people that you know of in the news?