Here’s what I want from news orgs

By Julie Starr | Published: May 29, 2010

A conversation this week got my brain fizzing again about news. (Nice to fizz rather than funk).

The conversation ranged through what is perceived to be wrong with the news business, what’s right about it, what impact it’s having on society, what journalism graduates need to know, who journalists need to be. The usual stuff.

I noted that too often when we have conversations about the future of news we go round in circles talking about a need for ‘more investigative journalism’, ‘more analysis’, to ‘save democracy’ and figure out ‘how to make this thing make money’. We tend to come out with a long but vague list of complaints and wishes but nothing concrete.

I don’t necessarily have an answer to that problem.

But as a thought exercise I decided to make myself write down the things that I most often find myself complaining about or wishing for when it comes to news orgs. An effort to be more specific in my grumbling, if you will.

So this is what my wishlist looks like at the moment.

I want:

To see the source of statistics used in news stories and graphics, their currency, and be assured that the author has read the footnotes and interpreted the data fairly/accurately.

To see the source of information and quotes, and where that source fits into the political/commercial landscape. Not just the direct quotes used in story, but also where background info came from and how many people were approached and how many did and didn’t reply – ie did you talk to two people for this story or 10 and who were they. (I’m really tired of beat-ups.) Maybe you could post your audio notes/transcripts too, if they’re not off the record.

To see the source of video, audio and text interview clips – were they provided by a news agency and interwoven with local voiceover? Were they provided by a PR company, lobby group, freelance?

Journalists to use sources who are respected by their peers, as opposed to readily available but not necessarily well regarded.

To hear from a wider range of sources. Not just the go-to person for each industry/lobby group. Not just the most available guy. To hear from ethnic and alt and small business communities on everyday issues, not just ethnic and alt and small business issues, for example, (at least sometimes).

Context. If a story has been written about a speech, I want to hear the speech (or at least the quoted soundbite in context) and read the speech notes. I want to check I agree with the reporter that that’s the most interesting bit, or that that’s what the speaker meant (I often don’t agree). Also background information to help me understand the story (and please link to the most useful information you can find on the web, not just a lame page you wrote yourself once and never looked at again).

Journalists who are well-read and have travelled and are genuinely interested in the world around them.

Journalists who are numerate.

To see profiles of journalists – education, what they specialize in, where they’ve travelled, the last four books they read, the blogs/news sites they regularly visit. (Not just their job title and a list of their awards.)

Specialists who know a particular industry and can explain the gist and jargon and read between the lines of reports and statements.

Less news. 85% of daily news is not only useless to me but an irritating distraction. Not the same 85% for everybody, however. Help me get the news I’m interested in and bypass the stuff that irritates the crap out of me (RSS feeds are not enough).

Horizontal news. News that runs because it’s noteworthy/useful even if the hook has passed or there isn’t a convenient hook for it. Information that’s as useful 1,5 or 25 years later as it was the day it was posted (which means, incidentally, that it has to have contextual text and metadata with it, not just a video on a page by itself with no headline or summary or dateline).

To be able to report typos and errors easily, and receive a polite response.

To be able to contact the journalist and/or directly post about errors I’ve noticed or suggest further avenues of enquiry, and receive a polite response.

To be able to participate in a conversation about a news topic that isn’t overrun with lols, insults and pointless statements that take the conversation no further.

To be able to contribute to and use factfiles, timelines and knowledge bases.

To see the newsroom diary – upcoming events that will be the source of news eg select committee hearings, court decisions, council meetings, bill readings, politicans’ official trips. Rather than springing us with ‘hey this is news’ after the event, tell us what’s coming up and ask what we want to know about it. (Don’t make it a boring list buried on a back page.)

To see the newsroom contact book – not the hard-won private phone numbers but the reference websites and organisations you use for statistics, authoritative information, trends etc for NZ and the world. You could be such a good source of information for me, if only you’d share.

Share and enjoy:

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http://finoreilly.wordpress.com fin

Not much to disagree with on that list, but two questions:

:: that volume of information in that many linked layers, added to a story the way we work today, would make the filter failures we currently suffer an order of magnitude worse. Whither the editor? Crowd-sourced? Algorithmic?

:: I know you’ve deliberately ignored it for the purposes of the thought experiment, but there’s really no getting away from it – who pays, how much and how?
http://evolvingnewsroom.co.nz Julie Starr

Hi Finbarr, very nice to see you.

Take your point about the volume and layers and unwieldiness of extra information. Some of it’s simple, though, I think, and already done although not always routinely – embed/append notes/video/audio or source material in story or Related Links; link out to your sources; use source tagging (ie use metadata to help motivated readers out); be contactable; open up a bit. Some of it’s paying curators, I guess. Re: knowledge bases, maybe it’s more about contributing to existing resources than creating your own.

Each a conversation in itself. (Happy to set up a writeboard somewhere and talk through one issue at a time with you)

Thanks for recognising that I deliberately left out the part about who pays – and that this is one day’s wishlist and not a shopping list nor meant to offend. The answer to who pays is: I don’t know. And I don’t know anyone who knows. And if I restrict myself to only talking about the things that are eating my brain when I have an answer for them, I don’t talk at all. And after a while that gets boring and my brain explodes.
http://www.voxy.co.nz Matt Harman

Nice list. A lot of the points seem to boil down to being about to find out where information came from and who’s packaging it together.

Certainly a sentiment I can relate to – but it makes me wonder if what we’re really starting to see is a desire to disintermediate the traditional packagers of news, or at least, evolve the ‘interfaces’ of journalism.

I still like the idea of journalists filtering and packaging content for me, but it clearly comes with a trade off – I have to make the choice to substitute the journalists judgement for my own (unless I also interrogate the source material they used, as you’ve suggested).

In some cases journalists are clearly going to make different filtering and packaging choices that I would make – and perhaps that’s a compromise that’s less necessary in an environment where primary source content is increasingly publicly accessible.

Doesn’t apply for all types of news of course – and it’s not like always going back to primary sources is really a viable option in terms of the time required to do it.

I wonder though, if the increased availability of primary sources does give us an opportunity to redesign the interfaces we use to present news to the public. ie: do public databases and the connected nature of the Internet give us an opportunity to move beyond narrative text?
http://blog.mikeriversdale.co.nz Mike Riversdale

Top list Julie – thanks for sharing.

You know this would make a great Wiki (page) that we could use to contribute to? :-)

Having said that my only (concrete) addition is I would love news to be delivered to me how I want specifically having a distributed model. So, if I’m on Facebook (it does happen) and I want to read the latest on the oil crisis then having it surfaced there would be excellent. If I’m on a YouTube watching an oil related video having other news items surfaced there would be cool. I know, sharing etc etc but removing the “you come to us” for the news and having the news appear where I am.

Maybe a bit futuristic actually.
http://evolvingnewsroom.co.nz Julie Starr

Hi Matt,

Agree with your points about journalists still being useful as filterers and packagers of news, although I would like to be able to shop around for and ‘follow’ news editors whose judgement I like. I think I would be fairly well informed by reading a selection of the material linked to by people I follow on Twitter etc who are smart and well-read. No one of them on their own would cut it but collectively they would be a great news editor. That comes back to interface, I guess – how do you aggregate and filter multiple feeds and display/deliver them conveniently?

Agree too that we wouldn’t always have time to look at source material, but it would be great to have it there when we want it – and I think would boost trust and accountability.

I think you’re so right that we’re starting to look at evolving the interfaces of journalism. Absolutely agree that the increased availability of primary sources presents an opportunity to redesign interfaces and timelines for ‘news’.
http://evolvingnewsroom.co.nz Julie Starr

Hi Mike,

You’re probably right about that wiki page idea. Hmm. Let me think about finding the time….

I think you are right about news being served up (and recommended) wherever you happen to be. Not futuristic at all. Very ‘now’ kind of thinking in my view:)
http://www.voxy.co.nz Matt Harman

Hi Julie – Following various news editors/influencers on services like Twitter does seem to work to some extent (i’ve spent a fair amount of time experimenting with that), though it does place a heavy filtering burden on the news consumer.

The amount of time we all have to spend trying to separate signal from noise doesn’t really seem to scale in an environment where the amount of information we all have access to is increasing exponentially.

It’s that ‘filter failure’ issue that Clay Shirky is always talking about. Which I suspect is why the next wave of media evolution will primarily be about building technology to give us better filters.

Course there’s both an upstream and a downstream component to the filtering problem. While consumer focused technical solutions like feed readers are potentially a good ambulance at the bottom of the cliff — retooling journalists so they can more quickly and accurately separate signal and noise, verify information and add context, would be an outstanding time saving for us all. And, as a bonus, it would perhaps help ensure the viability of those media organisations.

It’s astounding just how low tech many of the newsrooms around the country are — and inspiring what a bit of technical investment could potentially do for them.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/ian-douglas Ian Douglas

The ‘who pays’ question needs a further question: how much would it cost. Paying curators to manually do it all would be labour-intensive and therefore expensive, but if your diary is generated out of the newsroom planning tools, your phone records your conversations and automatically uploads them to your CMS, your browser collates your research documents and your taxonomy includes people as well as subject matter, a lot of the wishes above can be free, as long as the reporters open up to living a slightly more public life.

Some of the others – numerate journalists and polite responses to typo reports – might be more difficult.
http://evolvingnewsroom.co.nz Julie Starr

I’m also astounded by how low-tech newsrooms in NZ are too. You’re right that more technology – and willingness to experiment with it – would go a long way, and that filters are where it’s at.

I like the way you describe a feed reader as an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. I like RSS and know that it’s an essential building block but feeds are pipes and it sometimes feels like I’m in a sitting room with the plumbing exposed and too many taps and switches to operate. It works, but it’s ugly.
http://evolvingnewsroom.co.nz Julie Starr

:)

You are so right about the ‘who pays’ question needing to be further defined by the ‘how much would it cost’ question. Agree curators are expensive, although I dare say you want humans in a few key spots to keep things ticking along in context. I LOVE the way you talk about automated generation of diary, smart phone wired to your CMS, clever browser and people added to your taxonomy. (I almost feel an EPG diagram coming on:)

‘As long as reporters open up to living a slightly more public life’ is a key point. Many are, I think. Many more are still reluctant or don’t yet see the point. Open = such a little word and such a big concept.
http://www.powerlinebc.net MIke Chisholm

Hi
Wonderful list. Great ideas. But you have got to be kidding?
-Publishing the source of information and quotes
-Speeches: “I want to check I agree with the reporter that that’s the most interesting bit, or that that’s what the speaker meant I often don’t agree”
-beat reporters (journalists who know a particular area well)
-well traveled journalists
-News that runs because it’s noteworthy/useful even if the hook has passed or there isn’t a convenient hook for it.

I could go on – but my point is that the news business is just that – a business. It’s unfortunate, but ratings rule and often the lowest common denominator generates the widest viewership (like weather stories). There are only a few Washington Posts, and 1000′s of smaller operations. Producing a product everyday in these operations takes a lot of work, and very, very few news outlets pay well. So, you simply don’t get the kind of robo-journalist you’re describing. You get assigned, you get your ass out the door and if you work hard, you get something on the air or in print by deadline. You get home, feed the kids, collapse into bed, do it again the next day, and the next…. I know. I did it for 20 years and did my best to be a professional journalist – maintaining standards, being fair and honest, informed, attributing quotes, stats, etc. The grind wears you down, and the 24/7 demand for online news plus an audience that has much easier access to your content creates even more demands for a reporter. There’s precious little time or reward for all this extra work. This is not what they teach in journalism school.Technology may be making some aspects of the job easier, but in other areas, it’s driving solid journalists out of newsrooms and into corporate communications.
Mike.
Vancouver, BC.
http://evolvingnewsroom.co.nz/the-tyranny-of-the-%e2%80%98daily-10-per-cent%e2%80%99 The tyranny of the ‘daily 10 per cent’ | The Evolving Newsroom

[...] Every day the news sites and blogs and radio and TV bulletins and papers and podcasts would brim with excellently interesting and considered stories (and, to humour me, news orgs would do all the things on my wishlist). [...]
http://evolvingnewsroom.co.nz Julie Starr

Hi Mike,

Sure it’s an idealistic list – that’s why I called it a wishlist and why I don’t expect to see it happen all in one place any time soon. But these are all things that I’ve thought about while using news sites in recent times (and that others have talked to me about). Some of them are relatively easily done (doesn’t take much to link to an online report, and not that big a deal to top and tail the video/audio you have of a press conference to show readers what the talking head said.) As for well-travelled and wll-read journalists, well why not? Shouldn’t they be a little worldly?

I hear your pain about the grind of 24/7 news and extra deadlines and demanding news eidtors who make it increasingly difficult to maintain standards when they’re really just focused on getting more people to buy the paper tomorrow. But I can’t see any way of turning back the clock and turning off the internet, so we have to look ahead. Like it or not. Don’t buy that that’s the reason journos are heading into comms jobs – they’ve been doing that as long as I’ve been in the business. They go for the money and/or because they get bored or disillusioned with news.