Ruhl Lecture: "Participatory Media: Challenges to the Conventions of Journalism"

Here is initial coverage of the Ruhl Lecture at the University of Oregon today. I'll provide more comment and analysis later.

The Internet has opened up possibilities for journalism that several years ago traditional, mainstream journalists never would have considered possible. Citizens are taking the helm and producing news about their communities that doesn’t necessarily conform to what traditional media calls news. The difference is citizen journalism is produced by the “experts” in a community that care about that community.

“Participatory Media: Challenges and Conventions of Journalism” was the topic of Executive Director of J-Lab Jan Schaffer’s lecture at the 32nd annual Ruhl Lecture, presented in conjunction with the Payne Awards Thursday.

J-Lab supports innovations that help citizens participate in public life, and Schaffer drew examples from grant and award winners of J-Lab’s projects to illustrate the effects citizen journalism has had on its communities. She suggested that mainstream media, endangered as it seems to be, should embrace these sorts of Web sites.

“We don’t see many partnerships between mainstream and citizen media,” Schaffer said. “I believe we can figure this out if we just pay attention.”

Schaffer said J-Lab has found community news sites to be responsible, even if creators draw questions about what journalists consider ethical.

“We find (creators) to be literate and passionate about their towns and yearning for a sense of place in their communities,” she said. Several community news sites have become so credible that contributors or creators have been asked to run for public office, something definitely against journalistic ethical creed. Schaffer said citizen journalists have their own set of ethical criteria, and it may be time for mainstream media to rethink what it finds to be ethical as well.

While community sites may report on a meeting where there was consensus, traditional media might think there is no story if there is no controversy, in which case, mainstream media could be seen as instigating or perpetuating controversy in their communities.

“Readers are not keeping score. They don’t really care the about the score day-to day,” she said. “They just want their leaders to address and solve problems.”

Roseburg’s The News-Review Editor Vicki Menard found Schaffer’s comments about hyperlocal sites covering their own communities interesting because Roseburg is surrounded by several small, outlying towns.

“I wonder if that could happen in our area,” she said. Thinking in terms of traditional journalists, it was hard for her to believe citizen sites are run by volunteers. “Citizen just means you really just want to do this for free?”

The talk inspired Menard to consider ways to enhance The News-Review’s newly revamped Web site to provide what Schaffer described as the umbrella mainstream media should offer to their communities.

University School of Journalism and Communication Dean Tim Gleason opened the lecture by saying it is an exciting time be involved in the news and quoted a speech given at the University of Kentucky in April.

John Carroll, former editor of the Lexington Herald-Leader, told University of Kentucky students, “There will be journalism in the future. And the journalism of the future will have tools unlike any imagined by earlier generations.”

Admitting the inevitable

 A recent survey of newspaper editors found that most think newspapers will be free in the future. It seems logical considering that most breaking news is already free, and many people catch their headlines online, which is essentially free - except the initial investment of resources to access the Internet.

While newspapers in the print edition still come at a nominal cost, many people that I've talked to say, "Why would I pay for the paper when I can read it online for free?" And those papers that aren't producing interesting online content, or have Web sites that appear amateur, are certainly not earning themselves readers using online content. And think of how far a story online can travel and compare that to how much exposure it gets in a newspaper with 20,000 circulation.

While many online news consumers want their news as quickly as possible, that does not excuse journalists from fulfilling their primary function of being watchdogs for the public. It is discouraging to see that many editors responded they thought the quality of journalism will decline due to the emphasis on speed. Certainly both aspects of journalism can work together in this changing news environment. I believe that advances in information dissemination will lead to greater news-gathering abilities in less time. This is the perfect union of speed and investigation.

See Yahoo! news story here.

Jumping on the bandwagon

It seems like journalists are always the last to get with the times. An example is a trend article in the February/March issue of American Journalism Review that discusses journalists joining Facebook.com, a social networking site (for those of you who are really, really behind the times).

When I joined the Emerald in fall of 2006, one of the first pieces of advice I was given was to join Facebook because it is an invaluable tool for the college journalist. People use it to find others who are interested in the same things, they post phone numbers (many of them cell phones) and they RVSP to events, so it's easy to talk to them for a preview. Facebook is a way to judge sentiments on campus, to find and follow trends and locate people associated with newsmakers you don't know.

It makes me wonder, reading these articles, if that's the way it will be when I graduate. Will I always be on the heels of the innovators? College journalists seem to be on the cutting edge, and I firmly believe that I have attended one of the best journalism schools in the nation. But thinking back to when I was shopping for a university, I was sold by the campus publication as much as I was the school itself.

So college is almost over and I will soon learn the ways of the professionals. I hope that I can also stay on top of new things. Won't that make me even more valuable to my profession? It is stressed so much in classes that it is important to leave school with as many sets of skills as possible, to make oneself more appealing to potential employers. It's said journalists are increasingly asked to do more than just report, they must take photos and understand a little html and be videographers who can edit sound and bloggers as well. Sometimes you hear you don't have to do all those things, just a few.

While this is reiterated in class like a broken record, what is also said is that our instructors can't predict what is happening to our business. Newspapers are laying off employees left and right and the need to figure out how to make money using the Internet is constantly looming. Another article in AJR demonstrates the feeling resounds throughout the industry. It is an uneasiness about what lies ahead.

So how is one to stay on top of trends and be the most diverse employee they can when no one knows what to expect in our industry?