The Evolving Newsroom

I got a bit of a reality check at the GIMD journalism conference I attended recently, in several ways.

The conference was held in Bali and its scope included ethics, minorities and reporting in conflict zones. I spoke, briefly, about how the internet is profoundly changing the delivery of news, how people find and keep up to date with news, who gathers news and how.

Among other things, I touched on how much information is available online, how we can download Google Earth for free, check out Wikipedia (and contribute to it), ask questions of Yahoo Answers and Google, get news alerts from Twitter, blogs, Facebook, RSS feeds and email, how free blogs and cheap mobile phones seriously lower the entry barrier to publishing. And how news companies, faced with declining audiences, have little option but to jump into this new reality.

I acknowledged how poor infrastructure and censored internet access limit this explosion of new communication pathways in many countries. But I was grateful to have a few more home truths illuminated for me.

For a start, an Eastern European journalist made a point of taking me aside and saying, in essence: 'You know, all those RSS feeds are fine, but they're not much use if you only speak, say, Slovenian. In my country I can count on two hands the number of RSS feeds in my language that are worth subscribing to.'

I can't help but think that an explosion of output from individuals in such countries will only be a matter of time - as the price of entry falls (cheap desktop computers and mobile phones) and connectivity increases with the spread of broadband infrastructure. But it's a fair point.

As I've mentioned before, it was sobering to hear people talk about having their lives threatened, of having sources imprisoned for talking to them, and learning that 172 journalists and media staff died in the course of their work last year, according to the International Federation of Journalists.

It was maddening to hear a journalist joke about how his company had created a blog without his knowing and published his columns on it - given this was a conference that dealt with ethics it struck me as of considerable concern if it were true and in poor taste if it were a stretched truth, which I suspect it was. (I am in the camp who see a ghost-written blog as a pointless fraud and a blog that simply republishes a newspaper column as, well, simply pointless.)

On the upside I heard about a family under house arrest who used a smuggled mobile phone and Twitter to keep in touch with the outside world. And I met someone who works with a group that excels at hiding internet connections from snooping oppressors.

I learned that in parts of rural China the availability of cheap mobile phones with cheap data plans is combining with growing use of wi-max to bring connectivity to communities who might otherwise have waited their lifetime for hard-wired infrastructure to reach them.

I read while I was in Bali about an environmental protest in Chengdu, the capital of China's Sichuan province, that had been organised through blogs, websites and text messages. The protesters 'walked peacefully' through the city to 'criticise the building of an ethylene plant and oil refinery in Pengzhou, a few minutes' drive outside the city.'

The earthquake now dominating news headlines struck Sichuan a few days later.

Today I read about an initiative started on Facebook in Egypt (where only 8pc of the population have internet access), which its young organisers had hoped would launch a passive protest but which waned as group members lost interest, confidence or heart. Later, some told of seizures and beatings received because of their involvement.

It's an uneven world.

Martin Hirst raises some interesting thoughts on how reporters in NZ are plundering Bebo, Facebook and other social network profile pages for quotes and pictures. He talks about the coverage of murdered economics student Sophie Elliott.

"I just wanted here to draw attention to the ways in which Facebook, Bebo etc are now being used extensively as a "source" for reporters. Usually in the context of horrible murders, like the one discussed in the SST article. In the print edition the frontpage splash is illustrated with photos taken from Sophie Elliott's Facebook page, including a photo of her with her alleged killer.

"I wonder did the SST get anyone's permission, presumably Sophie's family, to use this pic, or any pic of her from Facebook? Or is the assumption that because Facebook is 'public', no permission is required, stuff can just be ripped from there without regard to privacy or copyright issues.

"And what about potential contempt of court. A photo of the alleged killer - can this influence potential jurors?"

He goes on to say:

"What about the invasion of privacy? Oh, there is none. Bebo is like a public park. If you stand in the park and have a conversation, and a reporter overhears it, would you expect it to be in the next day's paper?"

I don't know that such coverage is 'extensive' but certainly some journalists seem to see social networks as targets for 'easy' reporting. There are a lot of ethical and privacy issues here, which I'd like to return to another time. But two quick points now: one, lazy reporting does no one any favours; two, every user of social networks needs to set aside 10 minutes to adjust their privacy settings.

The message seems to be getting out that people, especially kids, need to be safety-conscious online. It would help if newspapers would run useful tips and links whenever they run scare stories. That said, I haven't got any links together to include with this post, but I'll try to do so soon. In the meantime, here are a few suggestions from me...

• go to the Privacy tab in whatever network you're using and answer the questions about who you want to be able to see what. If in doubt, choose to have your details visible only to your friends. For example, my Facebook friends can see my profile, groups, friends, pictures, contact details etc; non-friends can only poke me, request my friendship or send me a message, they can't see my profile or my friends.
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• Don't post anything you don't want your boss/father/grandmother/spouse to see. (They're logged on too and if they're one of your friends - or your profile is entirely public - they can see what you got up to over the weekend).
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• Expect potential employers/extended family members/old flames/old school buddies (or enemies) to search for you and check out your profile. Protect your profile or don't post anything you don't want them to see.
  
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• Don't publish your mobile phone number unless you're prepared to change it somewhere down the line if someone gets creepy on you.
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• Don't publish your home phone number or street address.
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• Don't publish your birth date (you have to provide it when you sign up but you can request that it doesn't appear on your profile). This is one less detail lying around for fraudsters.
  
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• Job done. Now hang out with your friends and have fun.

I'd be glad to hear other thoughts on how to keep safe online. You can leave a comment here or email me at juliestarr@offshoreeditorial.com.