Writing on the Wall

I came across a survey entitled “Key Findings From the 2009 Middleberg / SNCR Survey of Media in the Wired World” today courtesy of Esprit Blog. The survey was a web-based questionnaire distributed to 341 journalists from around the world, and mostly focused on their perceptions of ‘the internet.’ Obviously ‘the internet’ is a big term; the survey mostly focused on multimedia content and social networking distribution.

Read the full survey here.

Here’s some quick background info I pulled from the PDF on who was actually surveyed.

More than 30 percent stated their role as editor (including “online editor”); 38 percent were reporters (including freelance reporters); others were producers and publishers. Nearly half of all respondents, 49 percent, work within newspaper or magazine organizations; more than 20 percent work for online media-only organizations; and 13 percent work for broadcasters (i.e., radio and television).

Now let’s get down to the fun stuff! Here are the main points the survey dug out:

Nearly 70 percent of journalists are using social networking sites

48 percent are using Twitter or other microblogging sites and tools, a 25% increase since 2008

66 percent are using blogs

48 percent are using online video

25 percent are using podcasts

More than 90 percent of journalists agree that new media and communications tools and technologies are enhancing journalism to some extent

Nearly 80 percent of respondents agreed that new media and communications  technologies allow them to report with greater accuracy

80 percent of journalists believe that bloggers have become important opinion shapers in the 21st century and many are increasingly incorporating citizen-generated media into their reporting.

I put together this quick chart to give some context to the numbers. It compares the results of the survey (conducted in 2009) with the best data I could gather off Google for related American consumption. Most of the ‘public’ column is data collected in 2008.

The numbers mostly speak for themselves, and aren’t too surprising. Journalists are well aware of the trends that can (and are) dictating the future of their business. Journalists are largely becoming involved with digital technologies as both consumers and producers.

I would have liked to see the ‘podcast/video/blog’ question broken down a little bit more. What percentage of journalists actually produce content? I was surprised that the podcasting statistics were so low… I wonder what that says about the medium? I’ve recently gotten into podcasting and while I’m about as amateur as it comes, I have a lot of fun doing it and I can see the viability in the platform.

[powerpress]

This podcast is a preview for a project I’m working on.

(The quality in this ‘cast isn’t “all there,” I recorded it late at night in my closet without a filter)

I won third place for investigative journalism from the Illinois Collegiate Press Association last week for an article about greenwashing. I’m revisiting the project to turn it into a full digital journalism package. I’m looking to incorporate video, photo galleries and link narration.

I’m fired up. I think this will be a fun little distraction for me and a nice attempt at an independent journalism package.

Please, if you know anything about greenwashing or environment-based advertising, or know somebody that does, get in touch with me.

I’m definitely open to any ideas or suggestions.

If you think this is a cool idea, whether the story concept or the journalism concept, feel free to float a link around to your friends, I’d appreciate it.

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Good morning good afternoon and good evening, ladies and gentlemen! I’m Brandon bringing you the first “official” Walldo dot net podcast. I want to give you a quick preview of a project I am working on that I’m pretty excited about. It’s an investigative journalism package experiment. First, let me give you a little backstory.

About a year and a half ago I wrote an investigative article on “greenwashing” – basically deceptive advertising revolving around the premise of ‘environmental friendliness’. It was the final piece I wrote for my ‘newswriting’ class and I was pretty critical of it, as I usually am with the things I write.

We ran it in the school paper in December of 2008 and I pretty much forgot about it until this past fall, when we submitted it to the Illinois College Press Association’s annual awards for journalism.

Fast forward to last week, and the piece ended up winning third place for investigative journalism. I was shocked, but not surprised.

One thing I originally wanted to do with the piece was make it more than just a print article, I wanted it to be a multimedia project. That never really got off the ground, but the recent attention my article got has re-sparked the concept in my head.

So right now I’m sitting on a 2,000 word article, the basic foundation of the package. It’s not just going to be a wall of text, though. I am going to supplement it with link journalism – if I reference a quote or fact, I am going to try and link it to a source wherever and whenever possible. I’m going to include a list of related links and “further readings” on the topic. The idea is to build almost a miniature network within this package.

Beyond that, we start to delve into the “multimedia” aspect. Photo galleries and images are obviously a big part of the multimedia package and I intend to have those. There are a couple themes in the article that lend themselves especially well to photo galleries, and I’m excited to piece those together. I thought about doing an audio slideshow, but I don’t think running commentary would fit in well with the themes.

I have a bunch of short youtube videos that supplement the written word. Instead of just throwing a bunch of embeds into the article I think I’m going to have a go at editing them all together into its own little informative package. I’m toying with the idea of creating a podcast on the topic, a quick 5-10 minute podcast that summarizes the major points and incorporates sound bytes.

The project is still several weeks away from completion. The article is written, I’m just doing some basic revisions and clarifying some concepts. I’m about 40% done with supplementing it with links. I have a metric TON of images to sort through (its a big internet out there). The podcast and video are all theoretical at this point.

That about wraps it up. I’m excited about this project. Please, if you know anything about greenwashing or environment-based advertising, or know somebody that does, get in touch with me.

I’m definitely open to any ideas or suggestions.

If you think this is a cool idea, whether the story concept or the journalism concept, feel free to float a link around to your friends, I’d appreciate it. Thanks for listening in.

Here are the links that got me through the day. Have any to share?

Cluttered Inbox -  My old Flyer associate goes over the hassles of keeping your inbox clean.

The Nirvana Figure Skater is the Best Figure Skater -  Nirvana figure skating. ’nuff said.

Adobe Flash v. HTML5 -   I really, really, really hate Flash.

ABC to reduce size of news division by up to 25% -  ABC is downsizing its newsroom and shifting to the “one-mand band” model of having folks both shoot and edit their packages.

YouTube Drops IE6 Support on March 13th -  One more rusty blade in the back of Internet Explorer 6. The sooner it dies, the better.

Post Your Favorite Arrested Development Quote -  My favorite is “all of them.”

I try to make it a habit to find at least one worthwhile Twitter feed and/or blog. A while back, I stumbled upon this neat little thought:

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I stumbled across this tweet and got to thinking about non-profits.

Read the linked blog here

I won’t be exploring that particular question right now, as it is what I found at the poster’s homepage that really sparked my interest. Savethenews.org is a group dedicated to, “exploring the intersection between the future of journalism, public policy, and citizen action.”

Journalism is in crisis. Hell yes it is. If it isn’t the dwindling job market, it’s the overall drop in quality and the merging of ‘entertainment’ and ‘news’.

Democracy depends on quality reporting. Absolutely. We are the forth estate! Without us, there IS no democracy!

And then I wiggled my nose in disgust as a smug grin grew on my face. We need policy solutions. It was even accompanied by a nice image of the capital building. The government? No thank you. Back in April, John Kerry was holding hearings on journalism and one of the suggestions floating around at the time was a bailout for media. Excuse me, bailouts are for corporate bigwigs that wore gold-plated underwear and used diamond cream, not us hard-working blue collar journalist stiffs.

I didn’t take the Senator’s discussion seriously, as I have always held the belief that the best possible thing for journalism is a complete and total collapse of the industry. It is only through complete destruction of corporate overlords can a true industry, built around truth and decency, be born. In short, screw shareholders.

Enough of my self-important rambling. In the interest of giving them a fair shot, I clicked around a bit more on Save The News, and I saw something that caught my eye.

“We need to explore how the federal government can best support the future of investigative journalism, beat reporting and quality news in America. This is not about newspapers, it is about newsrooms. It is not about protecting old institutions, it is about serving local communities.”

Federal government? Bad. Newsrooms? Good. Serving communities? Good. What an interesting pair of sentences. I could already feel an odd tingling as my firmly-held beliefs about what should happen to journalism began to, if not shift, at least question themselves.

I kept on reading. I’ll spare you the details (or encourage you to find them out for yourself) but here are some things that caught my eye:

• Encouraging the establishment of nonprofit and low-profit news organizations
• R&D Fund for Journalism innovation
• Provide adversarial perspectives
• The government has always subsidized media and continues to shape media through public policy, though not always in ways that benefit the public interest.

There. They straight up address the concerns so many have about government getting involved. Naturally, they have a tough job of justifying government investment in newsrooms. And, can ya believe it? They do a decent job. They point out the existence of NPR and PBS, whose communities continue to grow. The explore the possibilities government investing in fellowships and education programs for future journalists.

One of their bits that excited me most was the concept of a government-funded Journalism Experimentation program. One of the most exciting bits about modern journalism (and part of what keeps me so engaged, day in and day out) is the fact that we don’t know what it is going to look like in 5 or 10 years. Twitter has revolutionized the way we receive and process news. Even if you don’t like the service, you can’t deny it has had a major impact on the relationship between news makers and news digesters. A steady flow of money working towards developing new, meaningful forms of journalism has me downright tingly on the inside.

There are a lot of intriguing concepts discussed on that website. I don’t necessarily agree with all of them, but it is great to see real dialogue about real ideas happening.