Results matching “us citizens jou 1”

The Netherlands has the greatest amount of online social network members relative to its site, reports the European Journalism Centre. 49% of the country's citizens are affiliated to social networks.

Poynter.org says that journalists must be skeptical when it comes to politics and have the ability to detect political propaganda, especially in light of the current presidential elections in the US.

Guidelines for doing so have been taken from extracts of a pamphlet published more than 70 years ago by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis.

Russians are increasingly praising the work of journalists in the country, as a VCIOM (Russia Public Opinion Research Center) study has shown.

Over half of the citizens who responded felt positive about towards Russian media, and its journalists in particular. Only 32% responded negatively.

The VSIOM research analyzed which organizations Russians trust the most, the survey showed that Russians trust the military, the justice system and political parties. After journalists, the military is the most honored entity, with 49% of respondents demonstrating a positive viewpoint and only 31% a negative one.

The study was conducted by interviewing 1,600 inhabitants in 153 different places from 46 different regions.

Source: gipp.ru

China has surged past the US as the country with the most Internet users, according to Gipp.ru

Today, around 253 million Chinese citizens access the Web on a regular basis. In the US, the amount adds up to 218 million users.

However, the figures do not point towards a digitalisation of the country, since only 19% of the 1.3 billion Chinese inhabitants use the Internet, reported Gipp.ru.

The part of the total population that has regular Web access is higher in countries like Russia (21%), South Korea (71%), the US (72%) and Iceland (85%).

Source: Gipp.ru

PBS.org blogger Dan Schultz published an article on the ways to distinguish online journalists from online citizens and the roles that each one plays in a media system such as a newspaper site.

According to the article, the system should:

-Recognize quantity
-Recognize accuracy
-Recognize quality
-Recognize wisdom
-Recognize roles

Active and responsive users with clear judgement and insightful and valid contributions may be further categorized as corresponding to journalists or citizens, depending on what role the system associate him or her with.

"There are a few risks you need to keep in mind: make sure the system isn't overcomplicated, make sure the rewards don't get in the way of journalistic ideals, and make sure users can't ever get unfairly powerful," Schultz said.

Schultz pointed out that even if a site may not care about classification, weighing a user's history could make the site "more intelligent" "more responsive" and "more rewarding".

Newspaper sites could use these tips to help understand what users' participation benefits them and possibly study the ways in which interaction may be improved.  

Source: PBS.org

See also:

US: The Hartford Courant's thoughtful citizen journalism venture

The blogosphere's interactive, communal spirit is shaking the foundations of print journalism, but traditional journalists should embrace the change, says Roy Greenslade. News, he says, is no longer "one-way traffic".

"We [print journalists] conceived it [news]. We gathered it. We published it and broadcast it," he writes. "Blogging turns that model on its head. It allows people to question the information we provide. It allows them to produce their own information. It offers them a space to air their own views."

Greenslade says he is no longer certain that his own model of the future newsroom - a core of "professional journalists" overseeing a fringe group of bloggers - is viable. The news organization, he says, is vulnerable.

"...More fundamentally, I wonder whether a news organization is as perfect a model as we might think...It is entirely conceivable that the digital revolution may, in the fullness of time, sweep the media mogul aside," he writes.

Not that this is anything to be afraid of. Greenslade is ebullient when talking about the liberating potential of the blogosphere.

"The joy of the digital revolution is that it is bloodless, and democracy is at its heart," Greenslade writes. "It is the lack of unity that makes blogging so vibrant, so critical and also so self-critical."

For traditionalists who still cling to the old model - journalists as providers, citizens as recipients - and fear relinquishing this power to bloggers, Greenslade has some advice: let go.

"There is no us and them," he writes.

Click here for more on the converging media.

Source: The Guardian (Greenslade) through Journerdism

Leonard Tow, 80, philanthropist and former newspaper executive (CEO of Citizens Communications and Century Communications), donated five million dollars to the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and three million to the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School of Journalism for research and development (R &D) and "innovation efforts" to study the future of print and online newspapers, PaidContent.org reports.

CUNY's Tow Center for Journalistic Innovation will be the "R & D center for business models and developing new ventures", PaidContent.org wrote. "The center would bring in venture capitalists s to fund the best ideas", according to Stephen Shepard, reported PaidContent.org via New York Times. Meanwhile, Columbia will be focused "on training journalism students in digital media", according to PaidContent.org.

Source: PaidContent.org

Werner Eggert, Editor in Chief of Tide in Germany, spoke about the advantages of citizen journalism and how to train the 'untrainables' at the 15th World Editors Forum.


 Eggert said that there are many benefits that come with citizen journalism.

• It is mostly free
• Citizen journalists see trends that professional reporters don't see
• Producers/contributors are amateurs and love their topic
  
• It is a way to reach a new audience

But of course there are also disadvantages of citizen journalism.

• They are not professional and not trained
  
• They go on holiday and don't tell you when they will come back or if they come back, which makes it very difficult to plan a program.
• They are obsessed with their area of interest and have problems with producing balanced stories.
• They overestimate their capacity
• It's not really journalism

Eggert and Tides solution is to train the citizens in how to handle professional equipment, how to manage their products, maintain ethical standards, deadlines etc. One problem is that producers often don't want to be trained and often think the content is more important than the quality. Tide therefore decided to set up their own academy for citizen journalists with extremely short courses (mostly they are only four hours). The courses are very basic and focus on practical examples. At the Tide academy they always use professional equipment, Eggert believs that this way the citizen journalists will perform more professional. His impression is that after the course professional quality matters more for the participants.

The courses costs 45 euro or 100 euro depending on the length. From January to May 2008 Tide produced 33 courses with 194 participants and the citizens are now producing 1,5 hours of new video programs per day. According to Eggert citizen journalism is little investment with huge returns.

Writer, broadcaster and visiting Senior Fellow at the Department of Political, International and Policy Studies at the UK's University of Surrey, Kenan Malik, discussed whether freedom of speech should be restricted or not in today's pluralistic society at the Press Freedom Round Table at the 15th World Editors Forum.

In a pluralistic society, people are more likely to be offended by things that are expressed. This raises the question of whether the freedom of speech should be restricted to protect the feelings and beliefs of others, or unrestrained -- so that everyone truly is free to air their opinion.

Kenan Malik believes that in a pluralistic society freedom of speech should rule in today's pluralistic society. He brought up the example of the publication of Salman Rushdie's  Satanic Verses, 20 years ago. Back then a lot of people defended and supported Rushdie's right to express and publish anything he wanted. But now, after 9/11 and the controversy following the Mohammed-caricatures, people are saying that religious beliefs should be respected because they are so deeply felt.

Malik argues that all beliefs -- not only religous, but also atheistic beliefs should be respected and so on. And in the end no one would be able to say anything. We should instead respect freedom of speech. Censorship doesn't protected small minority groups and powerless citizens, Malik argues, but rather increases the power of those who have the power to censor.

The Washington Times unveiled Tuesday a preview of its revamped website, tailored to facilitate user interaction and allow readers a more personalized experience. The renovation marks the Times' switch from a "newspaper enterprise to a full media company offering news 24/7," said the Times' press release.

Most prominent among the new features is the News Cube, a design that enables readers to flip through articles in two ways: vertically, through general topics (Business, Sports - traditional news sections), or horizontally, through news themes adapted to specific interests (family issues, video games, the military). These news themes will include all stories written by the Washington Times since 1999.

The Times will also introduce a question forum and social networking communities monitored by citizens "who function as the bloggers-in-chief and moderators," said the release.

The prototype launched today will enable the paper to get feedback from readers before the print edition is relaunched on June 2, along with an e-edition of the print newspaper.

Source: Business Wire, press release

Two magazines, published by 8020 Publishing and based on an experimental user-generated model, are drawing the attention of traditional newspaper editors.

Everywhere, a travel magazine, and JPG, a photo journal, rely on citizens to create their content, greatly reducing the price of production, while managing to maintain a standard of high quality.

The magazines receive thousands of submissions online, which are then voted on by readers for publication. A small editorial team makes the final decision.

"Even in this Twittering digital age in which tens of millions of self-publishers have created their own blogs, there is still enough of a thrill in being published in a bound print publication," reported the San Francisco Chronicle.

"After doing this for a bit, I'm still not seeing what professional travel writers do that our people aren't doing better," Everywhere Editor in Chief Todd Lappin says.

"Think about it. There's only one of them going to a place and there's potentially hundreds of our people already there."

Some editors have expressed reluctance to embrace a model dependent upon citizens - such a system would seem to cheapen the value of professional journalists. Sree Sreenivasan, in charge of new media program at Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism, recognizes the value of user-generated content, but also warns against community-based 'editorial' choices:

"'Create-your-own news sites' lose some of the serendipity of journalism. You're losing the stories that you might not see if there wasn't an editor looking out for them," Sreenivasan says.

The publishers of Everywhere and JPG are considering similar magazines for car fans and food connoisseurs.

It remains to be seen whether this user-generated model can be successfully and viably applied to news and newspapers. Initiatives at the Hartford Courant, or CNN's iReport platform, which now draws 10,000 user submissions per month, point in the right direction.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle through I Want Media

In Monday's Guardian Reader's Editor Siobhain Butterworth ponders a universal standard for evaluating citizens' requests for retracting their comments in published stories, noting the difficulty of creating such a measurement - especially in the digital age.

At the Guardian, "We usually resist requests for deletions of names and quotes that don't identify significant errors."

"Should users who ask for their comments to be removed from blogs be treated differently to people who request the deletion of their names and quotes from articles, or the removal of their letters?" Butterworth writes.

Butterworth mentions other factors involved in the evaluation process, such as timeliness and sensitivity. In the latter case, a rape victim's wish for anonymity is a suitable request. However, Butterworth questions whether "letter writers who in youth, anger or enthusiasm managed to get their missives published in the Guardian, but now wish they hadn't" are suitable requests to the former.

"If you gave a quote to the paper or had a letter published several years ago you may not have given a moment's thought to your digital footprint, but even before the advent of search engines people needed to think carefully about what they put on the record.

"The difference is that in the pre-digital age a letter to a newspaper or quote in an article, from someone who was not in the public eye, was less likely to resurface."

Butterworth's musings are not prescriptive but rather cautionary, warning users to be mindful of their "digital footprints." For the editors left to sift through user retraction requests, the directions are less clear.

How can editors deal with the delicacy of such requests without compromising the integrity of their newspapers? Butterworth doesn't say.

Source: The Guardian

The US Society of Professional Journalists - "an old-media organization" in the words of the Chicago Tribune - has chosen embrace the trend towards citizen journalism by organizing workshops to teach citizens about ethical and responsible journalism.

Until now, "Some major initiatives in this country have failed on both business and news-gathering levels," commented the Tribune.

Others, such as Talking Points Memo and the Huffington Post, have strived.

In any case, the trend towards "citizen journalism" is here to stay and the SPJ has decided to conduct seminars around the country to teach the basics of journalism to "those who are, perhaps, more citizen than journalist," reported the Tribune.

For the first session, about a week ago, there were relatively few respondents. About 25 people signed up, at $25 a day for seminars on ethics, and about two thirds of them showed up.

"There are quite a few bloggers, particularly in larger cities, who do work on a par with any journalist," said Clint Brewer, the SPJ's president and editor of Nashville's alternative City Paper. "We're trying to sort of hang our shingle out in their world with this first step and let them know we welcome them as well."

For Geoff Dougherty, who left the Tribune two years ago and founded the Chi-Town Daily News (see their own news process involving citizens) and taught the reporting seminar Saturday, the SPJ's involvement is a positive sign for the industry.

"It's great that they're interested in kind of extending the professional standards that have been in effect for newspaper journalists to a completely new population," he said.

Source: Chicago Tribune - Technolo-j

A labor union of the Agence France Presse organized a protest May 21 outside the AFP's Paris office, calling for participation from "all members of other media organizations and all other citizens who support freedom on the press."

The protest comes in reponse to government attacks on AFP's neutrality in early May, which then provoked accusations of governmental pressure intended to shape AFP's coverage (see a full description of the controversy).

Source: NouvelObs (in French) through IFRA Executive News Service

The "local focus" mantra that has spread to so many U.S. and U.K. newspapers is also alive and well at Latin American newspapers, albeit with a different game plan for success.

In the view of Editor & Publisher's Mark Fitzgerald, who attended a recent seminar for senior editors of leading Latin American dailies, the reasons for going hyperlocal are essentially the same across the board: to combat the pressures of the internet.

In the U.S., local news is seen as "the one franchise that differentiates newspapers from any other media pretenders." In this conception, in order to survive the digital era, newspapers can create multi-media hyperlocal ventures, tying together a social networking model with what they do best, print, to encourage "constant refreshment of the web site."    

The American local model, however, does not whole-heartedly encourage a two-way dialogue between residents and newspaper. Dialogue is important, yes, but not in the same way as in Latin America. There, it is the foundation of what makes local news successful; newspapers view "their local efforts as ways to imitate the Web's interactivity and its encouragement of self-expression."

"People want to narrate their stories," El Tiempo Editor in Chief Ernesto Cortes Fierro said. "People want to resolve their own problems. It is two-way content, and in a way it is a mutual rediscovery of the newspaper and the citizens."

Readers are an integral part of the Latin American local news model; efforts have ranged from including neighbor hood residents on the board (El Tiempo) to equipping citizen journalists with cameras to get footage during protests against President Hugo Chavez (Venezuelan daily El Nacional).

Source: Editor & Publisher