"But, you're talking about people who are still grappling with email..."

...was one line that stuck in my head after a BBC blogging "think tank" session at Broadcasting House on the 30th October. I was invited along by my friend Robin Hamman to talk about how a blog is (kinda) like a living breathing thing and how social media - in it's broadest facebook, twitter, flickr, youtube, dopplr, linkedin sense - functions in a dramatically differently way from traditional top down media.

I used a very short presentation, and some nifty graphical webbiness, to illustrate this difference. Once that was done, my one sole argument was that there was all this "stuff" going on independently of professional, established media outlets and the challenge isn't really to become "a part" of what's going on, to become a part of that conversation - as a journalist wouldn't become "a part" of a story he or she is reporting - but more a question of how and when to filter and process social media to enhance a particular story.

Access to people using and creating social media is not the problem, receiving and responding to it is. I argued, I think, that the key challenge is for journalists to learn the skills needed to access this information, to receive it automatically via RSS, to filter it, to process and verify the nuggets that deserve a wider audience in a way that enhances and informs a particular news story.

At present the basic skills to do this are not that difficult to learn technically, although they are a little clunky and they get increasingly clunky the deeper you go. However, the real problem is journalistic culture - how long does it take to immerse yourself in blog culture - for want of a better word - to come out with a real understanding of how the sphere works and how to interact with it? And how many journalists are that keen, or have enough time, to really get to grips with it?

There are a tonne of pseudowank arguments about how journalists should be doing a million different things in the name of "the story" these days. The journalist has enough to do - and for what the British press pay, that's arguably already too much to do. Anyway... the social media space, the internet, is so vast, so multi-faceted, are we not already at a point where it is impossible for a single journalist to be expected to do a regular reporting job, to access and filter all the hip social media stuff and get a coherent job done? Maybe the geeky journos could handle it, but certainly not Joe Journalist at the Hicksville Gazette who's still struggling with email.

The internet is not getting smaller which means that it's only gonna get harder and harder for journalists to filter and process this stuff. Until such time as journalists and editors have the tools to efficiently and nonclunkily filter the social web, I think we might have arrived at a point where a new editorial level needs to be created - effectively a social media editorial filter - and yes, I do realise that sounds like total pants, but what the...

Talking to a group of journalists in London, I heard a couple of interesting stories about how some bloggers had been hired on a freelance basis to do this very job - filter social media stuff for journalists. And if you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Many bloggers are experts in navigating social media and are definitely more adept at finding the most important stuff than pretty much any journalist.

Whether there's the will and/or the cash to go this route, or whether there's already some startup designing idiotproof social media filtering tools for journalists which will make any new editorial layer obsolete before it is created I have no idea. But, it's a thought, innit.

Comments

[Neil Baker]

I still don't think I know anyone over 35 and outside of the media/tech world who even knows what a blog is, certainly none who would track blogs with an RSS reader. Naturally, once you leave the 18-35 age bracket you're irrelevant anyway.

I like your point about journalists not "joining in" the story, and what you say about the mismatch between what some evangelists think they ought to do and what they get paid to do. Assimilating and tracking all the stuff out there is difficult, but then it always has been. Pre-internet, you wouldn't walk into a library and try to assimilate every book on a topic before writing about it, or listen to what every source has to say. You do what you can with the time you've got. One thing that makes journalism differenent from social media is that we work to a deadline!

[Graham]

But Neil, how many of those same people know what facebook is etc? It's all part of the same bag now.

The way I see it these days is like this - and let's use with the tried and tested pub analogy to keep things simple.

The internet is a pub. The journalists are outside on a fag break. Every now and then they hear someone shouting or screaming inside the pub. They go in, ask what's happening, take some notes and nip back outside for another fag break. On the second fag break, they are joined by their editors who cherrypick the journalist's notes before heading back to the newsroom to add cherries as deemed necessary - with a nice fat link back to the man in the pub.

The journalists don't really hang out in the pub, but they're in and out on a regular basis.

Business as usual then really... That make sense?

[Martin Belam]

>> I still don't think I know anyone over 35 and outside of the media/tech world who even knows what a blog is

They probably don't know what a 'key grip' is either, but they still like their television to be well made and entertaining. It isn't about getting everyone to blog, it is about working out that mass-publishing on the internet is shaking up the way journalism works.

And anecdotal, obviously, but my 64 year old dad is a local elected official and keeps a blog now to supplement his regular leaflet runs. It is cheaper for him than printing a leaflet every week.

[Neil Baker]

> "And anecdotal, obviously, but my 64 year old dad is a local elected official and keeps a blog now to supplement his regular leaflet runs. It is cheaper for him than printing a leaflet every week."

And I forgot my Dad - he wants to start "one of those blogs" so he can be "an activist" and criticise the body that runs the national park where he lives, Dartmoor.

I agree with you on the Pub, Graham. That's exactly how I see it. There's a new place for us to get ideas, sources, perspectives, leads, and we need to know how to access it, and if there's some automated way of keeping track of it (like RSS readers, Google news alerts etc) we should know about them and be using them.

My point - although it's a gut emotional response, really – is that I can't stand the stupid technological determinism of Web 2.0 evangelists: i.e. the assumption that because technology has the potential to change something, that change will necessarily occur. Nope, it's people that make changes - although they often use technology to do it. I think this may be what you call "pseudowank", which is a much better term. Can I suggest you start a blog under that title?

Oh, the other thing that annoys me (while I'm ranting) is that the debate about "journalism, social media, people-who-used-to-be-the-audience blah, blah, blah" is so skewed towards the evangelists. This is a small bubble, and there are a lot of people outside it - in academia, for example - who have very interesting things to say about media, democracy, information rights, etc who are just ignored - probably because they are writing deeply researched books about it, rather than spewing out blogs or polishing their TED powerpoints.

Anyway, I'm cluttering your blog now.

[Graham]

There's nothing there I disagree with Neil.

I've grown increasingly disillusioned with this whole web2.0 nonsense and I agree that the evangelists that existed pre-hype and continue to exist post-hype are predominantly self-serving.

Here's where I am; I do not think every journalist should blog. I think those that are interested should read some blogs and engage with some blogs first. Then, maybe they start a blog, maybe they don't - it really doesn't matter. The journalist's job has not changed one tiny little bit - thank gawd.

The only thing that has changed is that there is some more information available and access to it is a wee bit tricky if you're not sure what you're doin. Beyond that, all the porous news, web2.0 wankery is utter, utter bollocks.

FWIW - probably not much, but I've been having these same conversations with someone whose very well known in this area, and partly responsible for a lot if it, and this person is coming to pretty much the same conclusions as me.

Not to say I'm doin' and Andrew Keenia, but I do think the time is more than ripe for a return to base values. Yes, all this social stuff is happening. No, it does not change journalism. Journalism is doing fine thank you very much. A few new tools might need to be learnt, bu that's nothing an intense afternoon with the a media trainer - like me - couldn't sort out.

[ourman]

Neil:

"I still don't think I know anyone over 35 and outside of the media/tech world who even knows what a blog is, certainly none who would track blogs with an RSS reader."

I suggest you get some more enlightened friends.

I know plenty of older bloggers, mostly not working in media/tech areas - many of which use RSS.

My own link to media is tenuous (and has nothing to do with my blogging interest) - I'm 36, I use an RSS reader. If you want to go further then yes I have Twitter/Facebook/Delicious accounts.

I would suggest that the only reason you think that only media and techy people have blogs is because these are the only ones you read.

If you're saying that blogs are too heavily weighted to people writing only about blogs, blogging and web2.0 then I would agree whole heartedly. It's not the media you use it's the message.

I'm guessing when the first printing press was developed they didn't use it to produce a book on printing presses.

Elsewhere, you say:

"Nope, it's people that make changes - although they often use technology to do it."

No shit, Sherlock.

[Neil Baker]

> "No shit, Sherlock."

Very enlightened comment

[Garry Ray]

Interesting topic but not as new as one might think.

I was an editor/writer/manager/techguy in trade publishing for 10+ years; started and ran the 100th FidoNet BBS in 1986 (mainly for use by our journos); got them hooked-up to Usenet in 1987/88; and got another well-known pub off the ground in 1992 with "true" Internet connectivity (pre-Mosaic/Netscape, thus using Pine for email and tin for Usenet).

First off, the blog phenomenon is not new if you consider that Usenet and even the old BBS world functioned pretty much the same way as today's blogs. I could make some distinctions between today's generic blog and older Usenet/BBS "forums" or "conferences" or "groups", but I think those distinctions are ultimately trivial. The main point with all of these is that non-journos can create and access content, interact with the author/owner and with other users, and provide quasi-journo material including news, reviews, photos, opinion, etc. That's today's blog, and yesterday's Usenet (Google Groups is merely hyper-Usenet with a prettier face).

So Graham, I'm not sure the pub analogy is the best but the points you make are correct. In my observation journos have *always* used net-media as adjuncts and sometimes sources for their standard reporting. Even in 1986, reporters used those media to pose questions to the daily "forum" (BBS) and "newsgroup" (Usenet) users, to contact users who seemed authoritative, and - less effectively - to find interesting news leads. In turn, newsgroup and BBS readers posted news articles, references, reviews, and pretty much the same thing that we see in blogs today (less the nicer fonts, graphics, and layouts).

There's plenty more to say on the topic, but I'll simply note - and I think accurately - that we've been here before. Blogs are different from yesterday's forums primarily because the blog-enabling technology is so much easier to implement and maintain. Even the least technical of Internet users can get a blog up and running in 30 minutes. Posting new materials might take seconds (plus the writing, of course). Blogging tools are richer, easier, and more ubiquitous.

The questions from publishers of course are the same now as in 1992, as are the answers I was happy to provide. "How much can we make from this?" (Not much, it's a competitive issue). "Should our reporters have their own blogs?" (Not really, unless they also get space in op-ed). "Should we hire people to sift through all these blogs." (Sure, so long as they understand the larger editorial mission). "Should we buy content from promising bloggers?" (Not necessarily, although you can love them as your best sources).

Plus ce change, plus ce meme chose.

Yes, a cliche. But the right one.