Tag Archive for Web 2.0

The accountability of online news

December 2, 2011 Media No comments

Note: I originally published this on my Tumblr, which focuses on journalism, but thought I’d post it over here, too.

A piece in the Toronto Standard today this week demands more accountability for online news. Amelia Schonbek uses CBC’s Rob Ford called 911 and used the F-bomb story (from almost two months ago) as a way to illustrate her point that online news is not accountable enough to its readers.

(F)ew have discussed a potentially more serious issue: the manner in which CBC.ca published and revised its reporting as the story developed. … The CBC’s original story was published at 5:18 a.m. on October 27. Over the course of the day, it went through several updates. By the time it was last updated, after 9 p.m. the same night, it had become a completely different piece—new information had been added, old information had disappeared, and it even had a different headline.

Schonbek is quick to point out many newspapers often do this, but she writes this is wrong because:

There was no way for anyone to revisit and assess the original content. It was made invisible.

I don’t know that I buy that. I can’t turn back the clock to compare the two stories, but I do believe the CBC stood by its story. There was no correction, no retraction. If anything, the CBC probably moved the story forward by adding Ford’s apology and denial, as well as the comments made by his brother, Doug Ford. To me, this is all good reporting and what the story has become.

It’s important to remember that with any story, the story that is posted at 5:18 a.m. is bound to change throughout the day into something different by 9 p.m.

Schonbek does propose changes to how online news is posted to make it more “transparent” to its readers:

Newspapers could, for instance, implement a tab system: at every URL, a reader would be able to click through different versions of the story in different tabs, each of which would be time-stamped. The most recent version would appear on top, but if readers wanted to reference past reporting, they could simply flick through the tabs and compare versions.

While an interesting idea, I don’t think this is at all practical. Online news consumers, for the most part, would never read all that content, they just don’t care that much.

The biggest question I have after reading this piece, and other pieces like it, is: Why do we not criticize 24 hour news stations, such as CNN, in the same way we criticize online news?

In her piece, Schonbek also references how (some) of the media killed Gabrielle Giffords back in January. Fair enough, but it wasn’t just online news that got that wrong, CNN also reported the congresswoman had been killed. CNN even said it had confirmed it “with CNN sources.” Now, whether CNN’s sources were tweets from NPR and Reuters remains to be seen, but CNN still killed the congresswoman. And then, she was brought back to life and no one demonized the news network for their misreporting.

(I’m not saying online news reports should not correct errors, or point out to readers when they change something that was wrong in their copy, but I do not believe that to be the case here. As far as I know, CBC continues to stand by their original story.)

News networks are often filled with erroneous reports throughout the day as a story develops because, well, a story is developing. If the Internet did not exist, then that CBC story would have been read on air first thing in the morning, then changed, amended and moved forward as the day went on. One would assume the story you would hear on the radio on your way into work would be nothing near what you’d hear on the way home.

Where is the demand for accountability with 24-hour news networks? Why are we demanding online news be held to a higher standard than the rest?

From Neil Strauss’ article “The Insidious Evils of ‘Like’ Culture” in The Wall Street Journal. And yes, I’m aware how ironic it is that I am sharing that article with you, but he makes some good points. So go read it, just don’t like it.

July 5, 2011 Entertainment No comments

If you happen to be reading this article online, you’ll notice that right above it, there is a button labeled “like.” Please stop reading and click on “like” right now.
Thank you. I feel much better. It’s good to be liked.
Don’t forget to comment on, tweet, blog about and StumbleUpon this article. And be sure to “+1” it if you’re on the newly launched Google+ social network. In fact, if you don’t want to read the rest of this article, at least stay on the page for a few minutes before clicking elsewhere. That way, it will appear to the site analytics as if you’ve read the whole thing.

That’s the question 23-year-old Danielle Ryan asked in a recent blog post of hers, quoting an article in the Irish Times:
It is a sad day when journalism schools need to teach basic English grammar and spelling. “When we talk about declining literary standards … what I mean is that in the context of everybody having a B in honours English, which is a high standard, there is a surprisingly high proportion who can’t spell or who don’t properly understand words…” This would seem to reveal that students are given A and B results in English papers, even with numerous spelling and grammatical mistakes. This in turn would reveal that they have been let away with handing up crappy pieces of “English” for six years prior to taking their final exams.
She also slams the “excuses” she believes she’ll get from media publications as to why such mistakes, and more, exist in copy online (and presumably in print):
No doubt if I was to engage in a discussion with the editor of a horribly edited website or newspaper she/he would try to pawn me off with stories of how these days they “don’t have time”, everything is so “immediate” and we are living in the “24 hour news cycle” where “Twitter rules” and journalists “simply don’t have time”, they just need to “keep up”.
And then she hits her message home with this:
If you have time to spell something incorrectly, you have time to spell it correctly.
Agree? Disagree?

July 4, 2011 Entertainment No comments

Why can’t journalists spell?

Jeff Jarvis on the article as luxury or byproduct and the changing paradigms of journalism in the age of the social web. (via curiositycounts)

June 3, 2011 Entertainment No comments

In a do-what-you-do-best-and-link-to-the-rest ecosystem, if someone else has written a good article (or background wiki) isn’t it often more efficient to link than to write? Isn’t it more valuable to add reporting, filling in missing facts or correcting mistakes or adding perspectives, than to rewrite what someone else has already written?

We write articles for many reasons: because the form demands it, because we want the bylines and ego gratification, because we are competitive, because we had to. Now we should write articles when necessary.

Why Ben Roethlisberger is not a rapist

February 7, 2011 Media, News commentary, Sports 7 comments

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