The Evolving Newsroom

Richard MacManus's review of Alltop on ReadWriteWeb this week caught my eye for two reasons - the site seems worthy of exploration and he took a swipe at mainstream media's portrayal of blogs.

Alltop is a simple-to-use site designed to make reading stories and blogs from across the web easier for people who've yet to get to grips with RSS feeds.

I've been wondering for a while how people who don't spend much time online can get a taste of all the good stuff out there.

I spent months meandering along link trails trying things out until I found a few sites I liked enough to stick with. It took a while to set up the paraphernalia too - RSS feeds, readers, bookmarks etc.

Not everyone has time to meander and Alltop looks like a good middle ground - somewhere web part-timers can dip their toe in and find new voices to read.

Alltop "imports the stories of the top news websites and blogs for any given topic and displays the headlines of the five most recent stories". There are roughly 40 topics including News, Culture, Living, and Geekery.

Richard gives the content a thumbs-up: "The... selection on Alltop is smart and savvy - these are quality blogs." I haven't looked too closely yet but can't see any reason to disagree.

Richard goes on to wonder whether blogs mixed in with news stories will appeal to web part-timers and lays some blame for scepticism about blogs at mainstream media's door:

"While some people recognise that blogs are as much a part of the news ecosystem
as mainstream media these days, many others still see blogging as a way to let
the world know what you had for breakfast.

"So a service like Alltop is unlikely to change the latter attitude, which is
unfortunately the most common one (not helped by mainstream media, which often
portrays blogs as superficial social networking sites)."

His comment hurts a bit but it's not entirely short of the mark.

A lot of news websites are getting better at serving up their own blogs and figuring out where blogs fit into the news smorgasbord. But reporters and columnists are often miles behind.

Especially risible is the tendency to characterise all blogs as the preserve of talentless writers with dull lives. The blogosphere I live in is a vibrant place brimming with well-articulated insight - often superior to that carried by newspapers on their comment and features pages.

The problem, I think, is that many reporters don't spend enough time online, don't take it seriously, wouldn't know an RSS feed from a keyword and consequently make themselves and their news organisations look out of touch.

Three cheers, then, for Wintec, AUT, Whitireia and other journalism schools in New Zealand which recognise the need for digital training and are starting to do something about it. More about their various intiatives later. Here's hoping the recognition catches on in newsrooms too.

Following on from looking at Twitter as a news delivery mechanism, I've been reading Paul Bradshaw's thoughts on using it as a communication tool in newsrooms.

He suggests signing up editors and reporters to Twitter accounts with mobile access and having them follow one another. That way they can give and take direction, file updates on where they are and what they're working on, and ask each other for tips, contacts, information.

This is not an entirely new idea. The topline instant message systems built into older print and radio CMSs have long given reporters a way to talk to each other instantly, directly and succinctly.

Twitter's different only in that it's web-based and mobile so you can take it with you wherever you go (give or take a few connectivity black spots). And it's group-based so you can have as few or as many people in your network as you want.

Obvious drawbacks raised by one commenter were that some people would see it as 'being watched' and resent having to participate; others would file updates only to look busy.

Fair point. It can sometimes be better to introduce tools rather than impose them - ie make a range of tools available and see which ones stick. That way there's more ownership and less friction: 'design for how people really are.' Early adopters have a way of catching others up in their enthusiasm and once enough people find the tool useful it will gain traction and can then become officially adopted.

Another current drawback is that you can't have multiple Twitter profiles on a single email account, so if a journalist wanted to keep work and private life separate they'd have to have two Twitter identities using different email accounts, which is a real faff.

The final hazard would be the IT department getting wind of it: they'd probably put it on the banned list.

Perhaps an in-house version might be better for newsroom communication, with Twitter best used as a tool for individual journalists to tell people what they're working on and ask for ideas and help not just from colleagues but their Twitter buddies and the blogosphere as well.

A few big names got caught out not long ago using quotes from a Facebook profile purported to belong to Benazir Bhutto's son. The profile was a fake, although it turns out her son did have a profile but clearly one which reporters didn't stumble upon.

Subsequently, AFP has banned its reporters using either Facebook or Wikipedia as 'sole sources' and requiring additional, trusted, sources to be used corroboratively.

That should have gone without saying. Reporters should never use a single source. Even trustworthy sources are worth checking. After all, sometimes it's the discrepancy in view between trusted sources that turns out to be the story.

There's no reason reporters can't use Facebook, Bebo and Wikipedia as starting points for ideas, trends, information, sentiment and sources of potential interviewees. But they should double-check any information they come across on wikis and social networking sites. This is not rocket science. It's standard journalistic practice. Get on the phone, and check your biographical dictionaries, electoral rolls and so on.

The best way to prevent being duped is to know your beat - no change there. If you understand what your sources are talking about, you quickly get a sense when something's not quite right.

I know reporters don't always have the luxury of knowing their beat. I know you can often be thrown into story after story with little lead-in time, no specialist knowledge and a looming deadline. The answer then is to use common sense, check your sources, and talk to your editor.

That means, of course, that editors need to understand social networks. If they don't, they will be incapable of properly weighing the importance of stories and unable to direct reporters. I'll be honest, I've seen a few cringeworthy stories in recent times which showed loud and clear that the newsdesk didn't understand them.

I'll get off my soapbox now and finish with a few tips. I blogged recently about Telegraph Communities Editor Shane Richmond's ideas on how to minimise the chance of getting tripped up by fakes. (I gather the Telegraph did get tripped up by the Bhutto profile but I'm confident it wasn't Shane doing the reporting). You can read them here.

And Jennifer Woodard Maderazo, associate editor of PBS's Mediashift blog, writes a great set of guidelines on how she uses Twitter, Facebook and YouTube in her researching and writing, along with the pitfalls to watch out for. It's a worthwhile read.

Here's a Facebook group for reporters. It was set up by Ryan Sholin, an energetic blogger whose posts hit the nail on the head again and again. He recently posted five simple things you can do to modernise your newsroom. Check him out.

Shane Richmond, Communities Editor at the Telegraph, brings a few notes of common sense and caution to his advice on how reporters can use Facebook. His first point is 'be suspicious' and he gives good tips on things to help you spot fake entries, blogs etc. He also includes sensitivity and awareness of privacy and confidentiality.

This is a great example of a reporter getting with the digital programme. Her website is spot on - a blog, information about her, links to her work, her CV, several ways to contact her and engage in conversation.

She is a newsroom recruiter's dream - not only a journalist but a blogger with a science background who started 'teaching herself HTML at age 10'. Now that's a skill set.

Robin Hamman, a BBC journalist and blogger, posts about using Twitter as a way to get your finger on the pulse of a breaking news story.

You can search Twitter for key words, such as Bhutto, to see what people are saying about the story. Not only will you get a sense of what sentiment is around, but also in some cases first-hand accounts of events and plenty of links to news stories around the world.

Robin recommends using a tool from David Sterry called Tweet Scan. It's simple, but effective. Just type in a keyword and hit Search. If you register you can also subscribe to keywords so you get updates via email or RSS.

Beat Blogging is an experiment under way in the US that does pretty much what it says on the tin - a dozen or so reporters are using blogs and social networks to develop their beat. The Beat Bloggers' progress is being documented for the rest of us to follow.

It's a collaborative effort involving 13 news organisations plus NewsAssignment.net, Jay Rosen's site dedicated to exploring the potential of open source reporting and crowdsourcing. (Other NewsAssignment.net projects include Assignment Zero with Wired magazine, which recently wound down, and Off The Bus with Huffington Post.)

Reporters' blogs are often an extension of their published stories - points or paragraphs that had to be cut by the subs - or a place to publish stories or odds and ends that never made the paper.

This is different. This is a conscious effort to use the blog as a way of furthering stories, to bring social networks into reporting and facilitate public conversations with readers and experts around issues in the reporter's beat.

The participants are varied and they're going about the project in quite different ways. Some want total openness with the more people participating the merrier. Others want a private but robust community of contacts and experts. Some are using Google Groups as a starting point, others are looking at Blogger, Facebook and Ning.

Kent Fisher, for example, who is an education reporter with the Dallas Morning News, is setting up a blog as a means to broadcast to his contacts and his main goal is to get more stories and better reporting.

Brad Wolverton of the Higher Education Chronicle is using Google Groups as a starting point and wants to encourage lots of conversation about his beat. A rival reporter already wants to join, and he raises the interesting question of where a blogbeat reporter draws the line - does he protect his scoops or prioritise an open, public conversation online?

Eric Berger of the Houston Chronicle is setting up a blog with nine sub-blogs, all on specific science subjects and each led by two scientists and a motivated lay person. He wanted to give the scientists a direct voice, and aims to link from his blog to the sub-blogs as they become relevant to the day's news agenda.

They're several weeks into this now and already there's plenty to read on http://www.beatblogging.org/blog/. Great place to drop in from time to time and get ideas.