Cape Town: Users become producers of news

Taking advantage of online interactivity is a way to capture reader interest and create an exciting news environment, according to Dave Panos.  Panos is CEO of Pluck Corp., a company that helps news media take advantage of the power of what he calls “social media”.

Pluck designs strategies that increases overall reader engagement in news websites. These strategies include capitalising on bloggers, who produce “high-quality content”, increasing user participation and creating opportunities for conversation between producers and readers of content. This can add a richness and depth to news websites. The diverse range of content and conversation created can also give news websites an originality that distinguishes them from competitors.

Said Panos. “We are making [public] conversations the centre of content; creating a sense of vitality and debate.  Journalists want to spark the debate, why would they not want to host it? We are placing tools into user’s hands on the users and we are producing real revenue at the Washington Post.”

Richard Sambrook, Director of BBC Global News, identified several aspects of user-generated content and “citizen journalism” that are core to the UK broadcaster; integration of the audience and public opinion into the news, breaking news on the web and network journalism where the public are a source of expertise and insight.

“There is nothing new here. We have always taken contributions for the public [on radio]: it is simply new technology and editorial principles we have been using for decades. We can no longer just be gatekeepers, people aren’t interested in just being consumers,” said Sambrook.

The popularity of blogging presents traditional media with opportunities and pitfalls, according to the co-founder of blog portal Global Voices Online, Rebecca MacKinnon. While bloggers are in a prime position to post breaking news, there are concerns about accuracy, sourcing, professional values and plagiarism, usually under editorial control.

Global Voices is an international platform that hosts bloggers from around of the world and is based on the idea that there is a need for media justice. It is trying to provide coherence to the diverse range – and quality – of bloggers globally. Their web editors in regions across the world continuously scan blogs for news, updates, debates, and other content that might be of interest to readers. The moderation function of the editors filters out irrelevant and obviously inaccurate blog content.

MacKinnon displayed a number of unique and original blogs. From updates on coups, to debates on the quality of journalism in Kenya, to the daily musings of a Muslim man in Bahrain, Global Voices provides readers access to a range of voices that traditional media neglects. Mackinnon argued that the potential of blogs to provide first-hand accounts of news from people who have an understanding of complex political situations, is revolutionary.

Mahmood an information architect, began blogging because he was frustrated by way his own government and international media was covering Bahrain. A Kenyan pundit in her own country is part of a social network in that country holds its government to account on media issues on the same platform.

According to MacKinnon, traditional media can use the power of blog content to create a “new media ecosystem”. Pointing to the paranoia of editors about “user-generated content”, she said that “the world is not flat, and the internet will not make it flat automatically”.

By Judy Lelliott, Wits University Journalism