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Are there rules in social media?
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by Victoria Revay | May 4, 2007 at 10:36 am
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Michelle Nicolosi is the assistant editor at Seattle P-I and we're discussing rules and behaviours in social media.
Real names:
- How do you ensure someone signs up with their real name?
- Newsvine says no need, Killfile broke VT shooting and he's top person on site..he'e legit and no real name
- Newsvine monitors flags and bases good members on this
- Suggestion: Don't edit comments
- Chris Pirillo has an issue with reporters' objectivity, after I commented that you can mark things opinion so everyone knows what you're doing
- Do we need to clarify who is writing a story? Journalist or readers or bloggers? Nicolosi says P-I needs to make a seperation.
- Question? What's the point of having a print version of a print article on a blog?
- Print person is terrified to make the online transition because she doesn't now how you verify comments...comments are scary!
Jordan's take:
We're making this up as we go, so your work as a citizen journalist is not only in doing the reporting itself, but in laying the groundwork for those to come... no pressure though!
A NEW TOWN HALL
Michelle Nicolosi, assistant managing editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
She's thinking more in terms of bulletin boards and user feedback from content that is centrally generated. The discussion began with her asking a question: "Should online content maintain the same quality and tone as traditional media?" Victoria Revay and I looked at each other and laughed. The two are not the same! You can have high quality user-generated reporting, but the tone will, by definition, be different online.
Many see user-gen content as a necessary evil at best, an affront at worst. Nicolosi is still speaking in terms of comments: trolling, flame wars, etc.
MN makes a good point about vetting, in terms of getting users' names.
Acountability: is it tied to real-name ID? I don't think so. I think that pseudonymity also carries with it a cachet: contributors build their own brand based on the quality of their input.
These guys are coming at this issue from a standpoint of not trusting their users... I got no love for trolls, but I, like my colleagues, prefer to believe you our contributors' honest desire to contribute good work, as most of them (i.e. you) do.
Our work is vital to the future of democracy: we have to colonize new tech in the name of personal freedom and the ability to express oneself.
Nicolosi likes to keep 'em separated: the P-I reporters and the user/contributors don't interact in the same forum.
Victoria is notifying the room that there is indeed a space for opinion in news: commentary, op-ed pieces. Nicolosi is saying that there's no room for opinion in reporting, but some other guy in the back is saying that reporters will often frame their questions to get the answers they want, and the very act of selective coverage conveys opinion or meta-opinion. I'm reminded of MSM coverage of the run-up to the invasion if Iraq.
[Whilst they're arguing about this stuff, Jordan's on NP promoting a story and linking it to additonal covereage...] Someone is pointing out that readers are smarter than we give them credit for. Nicolosi is adhering to a model of media hierarchy.
What is NowPublic?
NowPublic lets people work together to cover news events around the world.
Crowd Power
Jordan Yerman
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (4)
at 12:21 on May 4th, 2007
Victoria Revay, you've convinced me you've done the work - it's authentic. I also think that you've been fair and thorough. I didn't get the sense that you were hiding your biases, or passing off other's work as your own. Or worse -- getting paid by those you cover -- so it's transparent and independent. I also think you deserve praise for being an eyewitness, and for your investigative efforts. Good stuff.
at 00:03 on May 5th, 2007
I would be interested to read VR's and JY's interpretation of the discussion at V P-I as it applies to Now Public and therefore revealling more of NP's stance on these issues.
at 01:27 on May 5th, 2007
Hi Jordan, <?xml:namespace prefix = o />
Thanks for the great report on today's event. Wanted to add a few thoughts on your take.
I did frame the discussion mostly around forums and story comments because that seems to be what most people are getting into and are interested in. But we're doing much more than that at seattlepi.com, and are planning into do even more in the near future. For starters, we have a great collection of blogs written by readers at the seattlepi.com at http://blog.seattlepi.com/, and you'll find that they are played side by side with our staff blogs on our front page and on our inside pages.
You correctly state that I do think that staff should stay off the reader comment threads and the forums, because those are the spaces where we're inviting readers to give us their feedback. Writers do respond to readers who comment on their blogs, and in many other places we do put staff and reader content side by side.
Take a look at seattlepi.com and scroll all the way down the page to the spot where we promote blogs -- reader and staff are together. Go -- just as an example -- to http://seattlepi.com/parenting/. Staff stories and blogs and reader blogs are given equal billing. Same goes on our sports page http://seattlepi.com/sports/ -- our reader Huskies blog is promoted with our staff sports blogs. We also dedicate a prominent space on our front page to photography submitted by our readers to myseattlepix.com. And when it snows or disaster strikes, we give our staff and reader photo galleries equal billing.
I'm with Dan Gillmor -- it's a no brainer that people who don't happen to be on a newspaper staff or part of a mainstream media organization have quality writing and photography to offer.
While we are now only doing story feedback, reader photos, reader blogs, letters and forums, we will soon be moving into asking readers a way to contribute stories, reviews, columns, to send us videos and create other content. We're in the market for a couple of good TV reviewers right now, and a religion writer, and someone to post reports on what goes on in each of Seattle's neighborhoods. We already have local writers in place in many Seattle neighborhoods -- and you can see on our hyperlocal neighborhood pages that their content is integrated with our staff content.
I personally don't think we're "adhering to a model of media hierarchy" when it comes to our use of social media, though, of course, that is a matter of opinion. What does everyone else think? Is the PI old school? What can we do to get better? I would love to hear your ideas. I’ll follow this thread for your thoughts, or you can write to me at michellenicolosi at seattlepi.com
Thanks again for coming to the conference, and for your work reporting today's events.
Michelle
www.nicolosi.org
PS: re tone and quality, i thought that was a good point on your part. I'm sure some expert survey writer somewhere is muttering that these user-generated surveys are crap, and this kind of work really ought to be left to the pros. :)
at 09:28 on May 5th, 2007
Michelle,
Thanks for weighing in, and thanks for hosting us yesterday. Seattle is a beautiful city with excellent microbrews and many, many enthusiastic journalists, both on and off the newspapers' payrolls. One thing that I did not elucidate in any of my postings, as I'm just realizing now, is how genuinely passionate your (and the Times') staff is. I got to talk to a bunch of people who do not actually see the blogophere as the enemy, but as everything from the undiscovered country to an untapped group of allies.
-j-
at 07:58 on May 5th, 2007
Great report Victoria & Jordan!
Michelle, your industry will lose if mainstream news media staff "do not" interact on comments sections. The public wants, is demanding, that news media take personal responsibility for their actions. I am no longer willing to let a reporter hide behind an editor who hides behind a publisher. If your name is on the byline I hold you accountable and could care less that an editor usurped your power. Either get in the game full on, or get out of our way.
Mainstream news media does not have a choice. I want reporters to answer my questions regarding how information was gathered, how it was edited, and how it ties into other stories and monetary agendas of the publication. Anemic "letters to the editor" under the publication's control are a joke.
Checkbook journalism and necessary illusion are fading fast.
If you keep front line people (reporters) sequestered we will write our opinion on their opinion in our own forums, and I guarantee you will not like what "we the public" report.
The real power regarding citizen journalism and crowdsourcing lies in advocacy. Record label executives made the same mistake by fighting MP3 technology. They at first thought it would go away. Then they thought they could control it.
You have to learn to play with us. It's not the other way around. Welcome to our world.
Maurice Cardinal
Editor OlyBLOG.com