Any nominations?
Posted: February 10, 2012 Filed under: Journalism Leave a comment »Each day my email box is flooded with press releases, many from state agencies. To be honest I have little use for these releases, but today’s release from the Oklahoma Insurance Department sure got my attention. I’m already trying to come up with my nomination for the Insurance Commissioner’s Award.
Later in the day the department sent a corrected version of the release along with an apology.
The Oklahoma Insurance Department apologizes for an unauthorized draft of an email that was distributed containing offensive and unacceptable language. This email was traced to a staff person who has accepted full responsibility and is deeply apologetic. Disciplinary action is being taken.
This email was not vetted through the normal process and neither the Insurance Commissioner nor any supervisory staff was aware of the distribution.
The Oklahoma Insurance Department, again, deeply apologizes for the unacceptable language.
Is AOL Patch coming to an end? It should
Posted: February 8, 2012 Filed under: Journalism | Tags: AOL Patch, Community Journalism Leave a comment »
Media critic Jim Romensko wrote on his blog today that AOL Patch it making plans to reduce its staff size and refocus it’s writing. A Patch insider told Romensko that “AOL is committed to Patch at least though this calendar year,” but he can’t “imagine AOL will put another penny into Patch in 2012.”
There will be some in the community newspaper industry that see this as a victory for small newspapers. There are many in the community newspaper biz that feared Patch when it first launched, believing a version of Patch would someday popup in their own community. Many of these editors and publishes were too lazy to do anything about it, such as try to be aggressive in their own Web-based reporting, but if Patch dissolves, at it appears it will do so in at least some form, then these same editors and publishers will chalk it up to the fact that Web-based community journalism doesn’t work and that readers still like their printed newspapers.
In reality, the demise of Patch will be an indication that Web-based community journalism doesn’t work when its low quality and those publishers should still fear the day that a Website launches in their own town that actually knows what they are doing.
Here are 4 reasons why Patch isn’t working and why it won’t work.
1) It’s really nothing more than a news blog. Most Patch sites have one “editor” that serves as the lone reporter. I believe a one-person newsroom could work in community journalism, but there has to be a strategic use of contributors to make it work. Plus, the one-person in the newsroom has to top notch, meaning they must be a great writer, understand social media, and capable of producing multimedia stories.
2) There is no uniqueness to each Patch site. The Hazelwood, Missouri Patch site looks just like the Berkley, California Patch site. The homepage layouts are clean and well organized, but there are no distinctive features that pay tribute to a particular community. People want local journalism because its unique to their own community, but the carbon copy form of publishing that Patch uses doesn’t highlight community journalism.
3) The news coverage is hit-or-miss. You can’t read Patch and know that you are always going to get coverage from last night’s city council meeting or the score from the football game. Many Patch sites post multiple times a day, but you never know what you are going to get. The tradition that newspapers have is that they will provide coverage on the same topics each week. If you heard an explosion in town chances are the local newspaper is on it, or will at least have a story on in it in the future. Heard there was a commotion at the city council meeting? You can assume the newspaper will have a story on it. In fact, you can assume the local newspaper will have a story on the city council meeting each week, whether it was boring or exciting. That’s called consistency and Patch often failed at it.
4) No local context for regional/national stories. One thing I thought AOL could have done was provide great national coverage on an issue and then allowed local Patch editors to fill in the blanks with local research, interviews and perspective. For example, AOL’s national news team could put together a story on the BP Oil Spill and allow local Patch editors along the coast to add their own community’s voice. I think AOL tried to funnel local stories up to the national level, but they should have also focused on the other way, too: national to local.
Social media a sexy way to cover London Riots, but not to blame
Posted: February 8, 2012 Filed under: Journalism | Tags: London Riots, Social Media Leave a comment »
Week Two discussion post, Full Sail University: Social Media’s role in the London Riots
Social media was blamed for the quick spreading nature of the London Riots last year but there is evidence that not only seems to dispel that theory, but shows that social media was actually beneficial in the prosecution of rioters and the cleanup efforts that followed.
First, groups of people have always used technology in an effort to mobilize, regardless of their intentions. Riots have developed long before the invention of social media and a tweet never broke a window or overturned a car. Blaming social media was a sexy way for journalists to cover a story, and it deserved thought, but social media was not to blame for the riots. I do believe it was a tool used in its formation but the argument that shutting down social media as a way to “fight back” would not have been an appropriate response, at least not any more than shutting down the electric grid would have been.
Torin Douglas, media correspondent for the BBC, wrote last year that police were “prepared for trouble” after observing calls for violence and rioting on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. In fact, Douglas writes that police used Twitter in responding to the riots.
Social media also played a part in the cleanup effort following the riots, according to Erica Swallow. “While rioters took to the underground paths of BlackBerry Messenger to organize, the highly spreadable mediums of Twitter and Facebook have shown to be the perfect platforms for mobilizing cleanup organizers and followers in the early aftermath of the rioting,” she wrote. There was even a Twitter account created (@RiotCleanup) that gained over 50,000 followers in the first day. Swallow also writes that a Tumblr page was created called “Catch a Looter” that served as a place for observers to post photos of rioters in action in an effort to assist police.
Adi Gaskell also highlighted a study that showed social media was used for a force of good – not evil – during the London Riots.
“The study, conducted by the Joint Information Systems Committee, concluded that Twitter was not used to encourage and co-ordinate rioting and looting, but instead played a major part in the post-event cleanup,” Gaskell wrote. The study found no evidence that Twitter was used to mobilize rioters and was actually helpful in the cleanup efforts. “The findings chime with the panel at the Westminster eForum on eCrime, which unanimously agreed that a social media blackout would infringe on freedom of expression and would ignore the positive aspects of social networks,” Gaskell added.
Gill Corkindale, a former editor of the Financial Times and a London-based writer, argues that social media was partly to blame for the riots, particularly the use of BlackBerry messenger which allowed rioters to send encrypted messages that were then posted to Facebook and Twitter. However, Corkindale also points out that while social media was used as a tool in the riots, police may have failed to preemptively prepare for such an event that was years in the marking.
“The Metropolitan Police has admitted that they need to learn lessons from the way social media was used to organize the greed and criminality seen during the riots,” she writes. “But according to David Wilson, professor of criminology at Birmingham City University, it was an accident waiting to happen: ‘For years we’ve been aware of gangs and football hooligans have been using technology to get together and fight. I think the police have been quite slow to respond to this.’”
