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NBC's Nightly News has added a new journalist to its staff - but you won't see her on your TV set. Instead, Mara Schiavocampo will be reporting just for Nightly's Web site. Check out her own Web site - very innovative. She is an award-winning video journalist who shoots and edits her own stuff. Back in my day, we used to call ourselves one-man-bands. Now they are "superjournalists" and even print reporters are expected to become one!
Journalists are finding a vast amount of quotable material from social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, but are they setting themselves up for a lawsuit if they use it? Be sure to know what's legal and what could get you into trouble by listening to this podcast from the Poynter Institute.
Here are the finalists for excellence in Online Journalism, as determined by the Online News Association and USC's Annenberg School for Communication.
Marketing firm Big Research has some bad news for MSM (mainstream media). According to their 9/11/07 survey, respondents under the age of 55 were more likely to trust bloggers than the media. Overall, the faith in bloggers ranked
5.8 percent, while the media came in with 4.4 percent and members of Congress only received a 2.6 percent trustworthiness. The president got the most trust with 14 percent. Most of the respondents - 70 percent didn't trust any of them.
In addition, a new Project for Excellence in Journalism report shows almost half - 40 percent - of the top stories on user-generated sites like Reddit, Digg and Del.icio.us came from bloggers, while only 25 percent came from more traditional MSM sites.
What's happening at two stations in Detroit is a pretty good indication of where local TV execs think their audience is headed. WDIV-TV (Channel 4) has clickondetroit.com and WJBK-TV (Channel 2) can be found at myfoxdetroit .com . The two stations are going head to head on the Internet by streaming newscasts live and enticing viewers to their sites through contests, according to a story in the Detroit News.
Meantime, exactly how many users are visiting news sites on the Internet is questionable. Editor and Publisher reports that the two major tracking agencies, Nielsen/Net Ratings and comScore have mixed reviews on whether unique traffic is trending up or down. Analysts expect the 2008 presidential elections and the Olympics will drive more traffic to media Web sites.
One feature of the New York Times won't be getting any new visitors. As of today, the Times has decided to stop its fee-for-view section, Times Select. This is another indication that the media is not going to be able to stay afloat financially by charging for content on the Web. Advertisers are still the key source of revenue - and you can expect those ads to start coming to your cellphones soon. Google just announced it will sell ads on Web pages that can be viewed on cellphones.
An Internet startup based in San Diego, Veoh Networks, is betting that we will evenutally be watching TV via the Internet. And they believe small niche videos will have more of a total audience than the big popular releases. This theory goes along with the fragmentation of the audience. The question is will advertisers be attracted to these small videos? According to an article in the San Diego Union Tribune:
"The answer is now beginning to be sorted out as Internet video moves from amateur hour to prime time."
"The Web particularly threatens daily newspapers. They were among the first to post news on the Internet but their initial advantage has all but disappeared in the face of increased competition from electronic media and non-traditional providers. The Internet is also a larger threat to local news organizations than those with national reputations. " - Harvard Shorenstein Center, Creative Destruction: An Exploratory Look at News on the Internet.
The report just released by Harvard's Shorenstein Center has some dire warnings for local, smaller media organizations. While traffic to the websites of major news organizations (the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC) has increased over the last year, local media are struggling to direct their audience to their online sites.
Which type of news provider is seeing the biggest gains online? The nontraditional sites that have no "old media" counterpart: Google, Yahoo, newsvine.com, digg.com. The report concludes that local media need to take advantage of their "brand" to get more traffic to their websites. While their "product" - the news is still in public demand, they aren't featuring it prominently enough on their websites.
Does that mean Internet news consumers possibly want more substance and less exploding Mentos Mints videos on their local news sites?
Newspapers may beat broadcasters at their own game online. According to a post by my former news director (now a journalism instructor at the Univ. of Georgia), Michael Castengera, The Bivings Report found 92 of the top 100 U.S. papers offer video on their sites. Of those, 39 papers are using original video streams produced inhouse. The others use wire services or local news outlets. Michael's website is mediaconsultant.tv.
Here's a list of the top 100 Web sites you should "know and use," according to TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design Conference).
The sites are grouped into six categories: curiosity and knowledge; graphics, music and arts; e-commerce experience; searching and finding; online resources; and top interactive experience creators.
ABC News has just unveiled a perfect example of media convergence. It's a new show, hosted by Bill Weir, that reports on the story behind the Internet's most popular viral videos. The TV version of i-CAUGHT airs Tuesday nights at 10 p.m.
The Internet version is, of course, available 24/7. Weir calls this show about Internet videos a "never-ending loop of uploading, downloading and inside reporting." I'm not sure this qualifies as investigative journalism, but it is an interesting attempt by the "old" media to capitalize on the buzz being created by the new media. But do You Tube watchers really want to see the story behind their favorite videos?
