In my preparation for the Networked Journalism Summit tomorrow, I came across a thoughtful post by Jeff Jarvis who asks,
"So if news is conversation, then the question is, how do we teach the conversation?"
It’s a good question, and one I’m often faced with myself as I try to help BBC Journalists, Producers and Programme Makers understand and engage with social media.
Jarvis’ response is a lengthy, wide-ranging post and I’ve quoted a good chunk of it below but if you’ve got the time to read the whole thing, I suggest you do.
"How does the role of the journalist change? Journalists must now
augment their traditional and valued roles of reporter, watchdog,
questioner, vetter, investigator, editor. In the conversation, they
need to take on new roles, as moderator, enabler, organizer, talent
scout, even journalistic evangelist and educator.
The reality of technology and media today is that everyone can
create. The reality of business and journalism is that we must find new
ways to collaborate; as our institutions shrink, our strategic
challenge in news is to produce less and gather more – and thus we need
to encourage others to produce more so we can gather it. And our
challenge as educators is to improve the journalism that all these
people, professional and amateur, do.
Journalists can no longer see themselves merely as the protectors
and beneficiaries of their institutions’ reputations. They need to see
themselves as members of larger, looser, more open networks of
collaborators. They must contribute value to those networks to gain
value themselves.
Of course, journalists should retain – and propagate – the ethics,
standards, and practices of journalism that our schools have taught
during our lifetimes. But at the same time, they should understand the
new ethics of these new networks, which I’ve learned online: the ethic
of the link (which says, ‘don’t take my word for it, go see for
yourself’), the ethic of permanence (which says that knowledge grows on
knowledge, via the link), the ethic of the correction (which is only
more immediate in new media), and the ethic of transparency."
I’ve recently been working on a strategy piece that will be used to help inform the BBC Board of Directors of the opportunities, and dangers, of participating (or not) in social media.
As part of this, I’ve been to see Television Execs, Newspapermen, Technology Company Bosses and Social Media Gurus. They’ve all said approximately the same thing – these days, they hire people who don’t just understand but who *live* social media to do the back office stuff that Jarvis talks about: finding, moderating, discussing, and linking. The existing content people, that is journalists, producers, reporters, presenters and editors, learn through watching.
But there’s no substitute to actually participating and I, like Jarvis, am often surprised to find, when giving talks at universities, that the students don’t actually use this stuff. Which is a shame – they’re really missing a trick.