Can anybody be a journalist?

Who can be called a journalist? The answer isn’t so easy, but so important in a world where everything goes so fast and information has a great impact on human activities.

Today, almost anybody in the world has a smartphone and an access to the web. Anybody can post a picture, a text or a video and give a sort of information to the world. How? With the new media: Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia or YouTube. Information is so easy and so quickly widespread trough the planet. “Great evolution”, will say the ones. “Disinformation” will respond the others.

Will the professional journalists disappear?
Picture: macalester.edu

The raise of citizen journalism: the new world’s voice

People don’t want to stay silent. For many centuries, journalists have been people’s voices. They found, collected and verified the information and always searched for the truth. But with the Internet’s democratization, people don’t want to wait that the journalists let them speak. They prefer to raise their voice directly and explain or show something to the whole world.

With the advent of Internet 2.0, new media technologies, for example social networking and media-sharing websites, gave citizens the opportunity to give information. Those citizen journalists often report breaking news faster than “normal” journalists. We can cite the events of Arab Spring, which were a lot report by anonymous citizens in the heart of the revolution. Another example of this quick report and exchange of information is the “Occupy Wall Street” movement which debuted on September 17th 2011.

Syrian activists send information with their computer.
Picture: bbc.co.uk

A really actual example is Syrian crisis. The country is closed and inhospitable for the journalists. But Syrian people who live the war post videos and testimonies on YouTube, social media or blogs. They claim their story and give a reality that many journalists just can’t report. It benefits to the citizens in the world, to realize what’s happening there!

Chris Shaw, the editorial director of ITN, a Britannic production society, said to The Guardian that social networks were opening up “whole new vistas for documentary filmmakers. You can make the most amazing films using content from social networks, sometimes with the permission and sometimes without the permission of the people who shot them.”

This reality takes all its sense with the Syrian crisis. “There are places like Syria where journalists haven’t been able to go and […] there is an extraordinary resource on social networks for current affairs, even though we have to take extraordinary caution to verify what we use”, said Chris Shaw.

Let’s see a short funny video, but with interesting points of reflection. “No no, I’m the journalist!”:

Let people participate

What we can observe today, is that many classical media websites give people the possibility to react and deepen the information. You can let comments in the website’s blog for example. Professional journalists are not alone anymore, because readers give a feedback and let them know what they think about the article and more globally about the topic.

Other media are based on the concept that citizens can contribute to the news by giving information or sharing links, but with the control and the work of professional journalists behind. This is the case of Digital Journal or Rue89 in France for example. But is it citizen journalism? I don’t think so. We can call this hybrid journalism, because citizens and professional journalists work together.

But some websites or blogs are entirely “citizen made”. You, I, anybody can add an article and participate to information’s transmission. But these platforms ask the contributors to share valuable and verified information, and grant themselves the right to remove an inappropriate content. For example, we can mention the Quebec’s website centpapiers or the better known Wikinews.

American information’s channel CNN launched in 2008 its new participative site: CNN iReport. This website is only based on citizens content. They can post a story, picture, commentary or video and create the news. What is interesting with this concept is that CNN’s journalists sometimes select a subject and diffuse it on the classic channels. With this system, citizens can really be a part of the media agenda setting.

Citizens, yes! Citizen journalists, no!

So where is the difference between a citizen and a professional journalist? Well, let’s go back to the very base of journalism: giving information. Information isn’t just a concept; it’s the reality, the truth, what’s really happening. Yes, journalism is “making information” and transmitting this information to the people; a full-time job!

Here are some answer people gave to the question “Who should be called a journalist?” on ijnet (international journalist’s network):

If we set aside the fact that professional journalists work for a media and are paid for this, we must consider that journalists respond to some exigencies and rules. They have to verify the sources, analyze them, explain the events, replace them in their context and be as objective as possible. And the journalists must respect deontological rules. Do the citizen journalists respect those exigencies? Because they must, instead we just can’t call them journalists.

Another point is that a professional journalist isn’t in the commentary when he writes an article. When a citizen journalist writes, we often observe committed comments. Professional journalist informs, when online citizen testifies to what he sees, ears or notices.

But today, citizens contribution is a wealth for journalists. An inexhaustible source of ideas and materials than can be used. And it forces journalists to do their job: treat information and not only transmit it as it is. Citizens make their citizen’s job, when they transmit something important and newsworthy to the journalists.

You’re a citizen, a journalist, or maybe a citizen journalist: what do you think? Leave you comments!

Tutorial: the use of social networks (Twitter and Facebook) as a journalist

Both Twitter and Facebook cannot be ignored any more when talking about the World Wide Web. Thus are they surely to be considered when using the amazing internet tool as a journalist. Let’s now have a look at how to get the best of it!

Guillaume Laurent

The social networks, by the number of subscribers they gather, are a rich source of information, as well as an amazing showcase. Therefore, it can be used by journalists in a number of ways: to always be aware of what is going on and interesting people, to try to get people to give their opinion about a subject, to get some feedbacks about an article, or to extend one’s readership and number of followers. In the interest of being more accurate, I’ll focus here only on the use of Twitter and Facebook Here are the few tips you will need to be an efficient social network journalist!

Three things to know when using social networks as a source

1-      Verification must without contest be your main concern when using social networks as a source. If social networks can often be much quicker than traditional Medias to provide a story, they cannot be trusted, and the journalist must look around to see if other users or legitimate sources providers can confirm the story.

2-      You have to develop your own trusted network within social Medias. Getting the wider choice among a group of users you now are trustworthy is a powerful asset for a journalist using social networks.

3-      You must be systematic when using social Medias as a source. By doing the same ritual times and times again, you will gain a more accurate judgment about what is said on social networks, and thereafter win a lot in efficiency.

Social Medias as a source for journalists – Oriella PR Networks

Three things to know when using social networks to gather opinions

1-      Think about your personal experience on social networks. In which circumstances would you give your opinion? Which kind of question would you actually answer and which kind you wouldn’t? It will give you a valuable clue to guess how to manage your audience and get the best of it.

2-      Before looking after opinions, you have to decide if you want to get a number based statistic answer or rather a few interesting witnesses. You will get more answers with a question that can be answered only by “yes” or “no”, but an open question will often give you more information to deal with.

3-      Create a debate. To give their opinion about a specific subject, people must feel concerned, disturbed, annoyed or enthusiasm. Therefore you should give a direction to your question, give something of yourself to push your followers to react. .

Three things to know when using social networks to get some feedbacks about one’s articles

1-      Getting a lot of feedbacks can be dangerous for your website. If you want to advertise using social networks you will have to be ready to assume de consequences. I mean managing properly de comments posted on your page or website. Otherwise, spamming or provocative answers will quickly suffocate the debate.

2-      Before advertising on social networks, you must be aware that everything you will post, included answers to readers, comments or random posts, will be considered as a part of your work and evaluated and criticize in this sense. There for having separates account for your private life and your job can be very useful.

3-      Post pictures and videos to get attention. Even if your work is mainly based on writing, you will have to use pictures and videos. It will surely get you more feedback, and images are what modern internet journalism is all about.

Three things to know when using social networks to extend one’s readership

1-      “Tweet your beat”, the advice was given by Lauren Invik, from the social medias specialized website marshable.com. If you want to get some authority on social networks and bring in something more than the millions of other users, you have to be a specialist. That means tweeting or publishing on Facebook only when you know exactly what you are talking about. Giving your opinion on random subjects is not a plan for a good social networks journalist.

2-       Being a specialist also includes being among the first to get the news about your favorite subject. Therefore is it necessary to give to your audience more than your own stories. Using in a wise way the retweet or share opportunity will help you a lot while trying to please your followers and make your account attractive.

3-      Link as much as possible your publications. The hashtag and the “@” button are crucial not only to reach a wider public, but also to show your sources and make your information safe and valuable. Websites like tagboard.com are based on the use of the “@” and de hashtag and often used by people to look for news about a specific subject.

So, fellow journalists, have you already been using successfully social Medias in your work? Would you add some advices to the previous shortlist? This article is meant to be updated and enhanced by your contribution!

To become a perfect social Media journalist: more advices with this Youtube vidéo from BeatBlogging.Org

More on the subject with this France 2 TV show about Twitter brodcasted in 2010

The role of Online Journalism for the 20 Minutes and how it uses Facebook and Twitter.

As the German version of the website www.20mn.ch  became a reference and became one of the most consulted and well-known websites in Switzerland, I wanted to know whether the same would occur  in the French part of the country. The aim of this article is thus to analyse the French version of the news website and to explain how the journalists use social media (Facebook and Twitter) to promote articles.

20 Minutes Online is an information platform. It is probably one of the most effective, efficient and powerful portals of news in Switzerland. It covers three parts of Switzerland according to the languages (20 Minuten for German, 20 Minuti for Italian and 20 Minutes for French). In this article, I will focus only on the French version, which was created on the 8th of March 2006.

The success of 20 Minutes Online is mostly due to the speed with which news is added. There were 1’035’000 articles written for the sole month of February ; this illustrates how the website is constantly increasing. Each section possess a Facebook and/or a Twitter account on which it shares almost instantaneously posts with the link to the relevant article. All the posts are linked to the website www.20min.ch/ro. Is the activity of sharing news on social medias a good way to reach a wide range of readers and redirect them to the initial platform 20 Minutes ?

The opinion of the expert

Mathieu Coutaz is the « head » of the site. He explains that only most relevant news is posted on Twitter and Facebook ; it represents between 5% and 10% of the overall production. Some sections are more active than others on social media : « News, Sports and People are the rubrics which post the most. The reason is that we are first a news website and therefore we are making a lot of news articles », confirms Mathieu Coutaz. Of course, the idea to share content on social media brings new readers. « Sharing news is for the 20 Minutes both appreciated and practical. 4% of our traffic comes from Facebook and less than 0,1% from Twitter. Google remains the most important marketing online tool », concludes the person in charge of the website.

Analysis

By observing the different Facebook and Twitter accouts,  it’s easy to determine that the news item is the most active. Being an online webiste which brings news means to be the first to tell a story or relate an event.

On Facebook, 9 sections possess an account (News, Cinema, Football, Hockey, Sports, Festivals & Music, Insolite, Hitech and People). Twitter is a little bit less popular with only 7 items (Buzz, HiTech, Music, News, People, Sports, Gamezone).

To poursuive , each section manages its own page on the social media. Hereunder are two examples coming from the People page and Online page :

The organisation of the Facebook and Twitter accounts permit people to react or to share posts.

Survey

I questioned 30 people about their consumption of the news from the 20 Minutes via Facebook or Twitter. For this survey I used Facebook in order to distribue the survey’s link.

The results show that people who live in Romandie are not fond of information. 45% admit they don’t follow the news, 21% say they follw information on Facebook only and 21 % on Twitter. Only 14% admit they follow news on both social media. To conclude, people are not yet used to follow news on the Internet, but nowadays a lot of website become more and more active on social media to promote, share and comment on news.

Conclusion

Regarding the « semestrial report » of Tamedia dated June 2012, the website 20Minutes Online is the number one with 3’673 thousand unique clients per month. How long will it keep this so conveted first place ? Are newspapers online associated with social media the future of Journalism ? Nowadays all newspapers have an Online version. They publish first little articles on the web and the next day on the print version. Newsweek was the latest example. This american magazine-newspaper will publish its last printed version on the 31th December 2012 and after will exist only in digital format. For sure, social media will play an important role in sharing and recommending news and articles.

By Alizée Liechti

Sex on Facebook

Escorting agencies, escort girls, call girls; Facebook and Twitter have become the ideal place for the sex industry to make business. Just type “escort girls” in the search engine of Facebook and you are going to find countless categories, groups, applications, people, and pages related to escort services. Try the same operation on Twitter and a same constant stream of tweets proposer’s appointments, places and dates will pop up on your browser.

Is it that important for escorting agencies to be present on the internet? “Yes, it is necessary, although we have a strong presence on the web“, Adalaïs replies, ex-escort and director of “Platinum Escorting” in Geneva. The agency was founded in 1999 and has been working in Switzerland and internationally since.

Official Facebook page of “Platinum Escorts”

The Facebook page of this agency is new and is still under construction. What sort of benefits can Escorting find on Facebook? “The social network can be developed easily while keeping the user masked, thus confidentiality”. Adalaïs says.

There are many groups and profiles pages like Platinum Escorts. All are seeking to use the exceptional range of users offered by Facebook. How standing out? One way would be to offer a “serious” service. A variable that make sense: “it is very important because the page is the image of the agency.”   Adalaïs informs. As an example, take the notion of “group“ on Facebook.

This is a group that display some girls who offer their services and locations.

When we click on “about“, the page is very poor. We find only the picture of some girls and others who are quite anonymous. We cannot find out real information.

Facebook, group “Escorts Girls”, about. Because I get no answers about the usage of these images. I personaly masqued the faces.

It seems clear that on this group, girls are directly visible and show their profiles.

In “files” we find a short description:

Facebook, group “Escorts Girls”, file page.

“Elegance, charm, beauty, sensuality, culture, etiquette and discretion, our escorts accompanies you for various occasions, whether for a relaxing time, a dinner, or any other applications as desired.” 
This group is actually a link to a French website. We do not know if this is an official page. Are all women escort girls in this group? Is it a problem if we would come to see the girls’ faces like here in “Escorts Girls” group?

On “Escorts Girls” everyone see the faces girls. Because I get no answers about the usage of these images. I personaly masqued the faces.

Adalaïs is attentive to this delicate situation: “Internet (especially Facebook and Twitter) does not stop in Switzerland or at a specific location, but it can be accessed from anywhere. Their friends, family, the employer, or some people could use their profiles to do bad things”. In his agency we will never see faces on a webpage.

“Platinum Escorts” website, girls are anonymous.

“Platinum Escorts” on Facebook, girls are anonymous.

Is it to say that girls of Platinum Escorting do not have Facebook profiles? “Our employees have private pages on Facebook. To my knowledge, few young women have their professional pages on Facebook and Twitter, but this is just a plus, because they are primary working with the agency and with special escorting platforms“.

A lot has been said about Facebook, but Twitter is also a popular platform. Again, if you type “Escort Girls” in the search engine you come across countless tweets.  There is a continuous flow of information, very often more than four tweets per hour.

“World escort 411” a very active escort network.

Escorting Platinum is planning to move there too. Why? To Adalaïs : “The benefits are the same as for Facebook, but with a twist: the live.” In other words, Twitter provides a platform that links to the website of the company that offers the opportunity to give information fresh and direct to potential customers.

The future for escorting on social networks has many facets. This article deals only with the aspect of “agency”, but many other forms exist. For example self-promotion (dangerous in terms of images), especially for women doing it for a short period of time. But other phenomenon, more curious, have been recently coming up, such as  paying five dollars to be friends with someone on Facebook. A kind of  2.0 escorting. Young women proposing to be friends for money.

A (virtual) girlfriend ? It’s possible for 5$.

Sometimes the contract stipulates that she will post messages on the wall of his client. The ultimate goal is to show an exciting social life as traditional escorting.

Jason Huther

 

Why this theme?

 Before the success of Facebook and Twitter, prostitution on the Internet was not under the spotlight. We always forgot this part of the economy and it is still true for social networks. In the case of social Networking it’s the same.

We talk a lot about the influence of social media in everyday life and in the economy, about enterprises that are created on social media, about the opportunities that are generated by the companies which see it as a form of future. Escorting agencies are part of these companies. Escort girls are among those who benefit from these opportunities.

It seemed to me interesting to talk about this particular business. Nowadays it has become a common thing for students to practice this activity. This is also why I wanted to talk about this subject. How those women take ownership of these networks? Are they sensitive to their dangers? Has it become necessary to be present on these networks to practice this profession?

 I tried to get answers from girls working in “Escorts Girls”, but I have not been able to obtain them. As my article is built up only on information I can get through social media, I did not search further. It was frustrating, but it shows one of the limits of the use of Facebook when trying to do real investigative journalism.

 Thanks for reading.

 

New Journalism: Online Journalism

How we can defined the online journalisme?

When we speak of Online-journalism we find ourselves faced with a complex problem of definition: are we talking about of a new journalism, with features, players, rules, processes and new ethical charts? Or it is just a new tool for traditional media, which use these tools as distribution channel? Even more, it is a professional journalism, citizen journalism, or a mixture of both? 

We conducted a survey of Online- French media.

Initially the traditional media only translated their information online. Then they realized that their audience was not happy to be just a consumer of information and wanted to be positioned as citizen entitled to participate actively in the creation of public opinion, in order to assert the fundamental right to the freedom of speech. 

The major advantages of the Internet: responsiveness and citizen participation

Internet is thus converted to a carrier that provides information, follows the news, and most importantly it provides responsiveness and citizen participation.  That is why traditional media on the internet such as Le Monde, TSR, RSR include on their website a space for comments, blogs, and are linked to social network such as Facebook, Twitter, RSS.  In that way, they can respond quickly by providing scalable information, which are constantly enriched. 

Can we talk of citizen participation in the new online media? Listen to the conference of the founder of exciting online journal Medipart, Edwy Plenel.  Another good reference can be  the following interview of the journalists Gille Klein and Alain Joannès

Some journalists from traditional media have realized that this new technology has its place in the economic market of the media, labour, and creativity. Thus was born the Online Journalism. A citizen journalism and/or professional using this technology as main support for the dissemination of information and opinions. Since the beginning, professional journalism online has had hard time to be recognized as qualified journalism. But there are some examples

The Online-TV: Quality, thematic information and participation

There are different formulas in the creation of online TV: On the one hand, those made by professionals and found in traditional television channels, and the Internet. On the other hand, those broadcasted only on the WEB. Most of online TV are thematic and have a public target: @rrêt sur images: critical issues on the media, Terretv, reportages on environment, carrefourstv, reportages and news on multiculturalism, universciencetv, scientific, WEB TV Geneva, the news from Geneva, Télé Libre.fr, a citizen media: independent and participatory created by professionals and amateurs. Here WEB TV program: you will find the program of WEBTV by theme. www.programme-webtv.com

The Free TV is funded primarily by contributions from citizens. This is not the only media on the Internet that is financed primarily on citizen input. In fact this formula is largely found in any media disseminated primarily or solely on the Internet. This contribution is also seen as a commitment of citizens to freedom of speech, independence and support to quality journalism. In other words, you people, you defend the freedom of speech on the Internet, so you have to contribute financially too…

Online – Press: More and more

The website J’aime l’info is just a platform for donations for the online press, to appeal to citizens to participate with their economic contribution to the development of quality digital press. It is a database to find the major online newspapers. The platform is managed by the Union of the independent press information online (le Syndicat de la presse indépendante d’information en ligne)(Spiil).

The French press is the media which has more developed their concept of Online Media. Numerous newspapers, magazines, weekly have been created; information channels by young journalists such as zoomdici.fr, magazines for specific thematic such as equality between men and women www.egalite-infos.fr, independent newspapers such as Rue89 or Médiapart, a news digital, independent and participatory.

The Online – Radio:

Find professional digital radio is a challenge. Most traditional radio stations are broadcasted on the air and on website. The radio broadcasted only on the Web are created and developed by amateurs who find in this medium a mixture of information and entertainment accessible and manageable. Radionomy is a platform collecting francophone web radios, and allows you to create your own for free, but only as an amateur radio.
Radio Euro District: The exception makes the rule. Web radio, which transcends borders and provides news content and quality entertainment in two languages: French and German. This radio is managed by a journalist with over 20 years experiences.

The difficult use of the freedom of choice:

We see an evolution of the media; they allow citizens and professional journalists to create their own media on the Internet. But it is difficult to choose among the different media, to know whether or not their content is reliable, if their realization is professional, or if they are credible sources. Finally, consumers have several choices, but what to choose? What can be trusted? This is the new challenge.

Do you know any web-quality media? Do you participate in an Online-media? Young journalists, do you be a journalist-Online. Tell us your experience!!

                                                                                                                                     Violeta Ferrer

How journalists use social media: Between marketing and democratic purpose

Before web 2.0, journalists had the monopole of the information. The public needed their micro or camera to exist in the public sphere. Nowadays, people don’t need media anymore because social media are building a free public sphere in which everybody is able to diffuse information and express opinion freely. Social medias became major competitor for traditional media because they undertaking their role. In addition to that traditional media has to face mistruth crises. They are often accused to be too close from the economic interest and too far from the public interest.

To face these serious challenges media had two choices. The first one was to consider social media and citizen journalist as enemies. The second one was to consider social media as a tool and citizen journalist as an ally. Most of the media had considered the second solution as the more appropriate.

There is an increasing use of the social Medias by journalist

Journalist use social media to:

1. Find information and new stories.
2. Improve their management content by publishing information in social media. The use of podcasting or linking appears to be a relevant marketing tool.
3. To interact with the audience and get feedback about their work.
4. Feed-back and public opinion are used to adapt the media content to the public demand.
   

   1. Find information
   

According to a study realised by Oriella PR Networkbetween March and April 2011, social Media are considered more and more  like a relevant tools by journalist to collect informationand find new subject of interest.

This study is realised in 15 countries across North and South America and Europe and repeated every year since 2008.

It shows that almost 50% of the 500 interviewed journalists are using twitter to sourcing story and 35% of them are using Facebook for the same purpose. 30% of them are gathering stories from blog post they know and 40% with blogger they do not know.

According to a study made by the Arketi agency, there is an increased use of social media by traditional media. However, the reference to official channel is still the major method to search for information. Journalists are mostly referring to PR agency, public relations contacts and industry sources.

The numbers found by both study are quite similar when it’s concern social media use. However there is some differences when it comes to the numbers concerning the use of traditional source.  But the point is that both studies show that traditional sources remain the most use information source. Despite the increasing use of social media by journalist.

Source: http://www.arketi.com

The use of Facebook’s profile to get information

Using Facebook profiles to get pictures and some information about people that are accused of crime become a wide spread practice in the journalist field. Facebook profiles allow journalist to find information about the personality of the accused person. If the profile is public there is much more information available.

An article published by BBC uk about the double attact commited by the sadly famous Andres Breivik in Norway is a good example to illustrate this way of collecting information.

 

 

 

 

Those pictures coming from Andres Breivik’s Facebook profile were used by a large amount of medias all around the word.

 

 

 

 

This extract of a BBC.uk article shows how personal information published on Facebook account can be useful to draw the Andres Breivik’s personality profile.

 

Facebook and private life protection

This kind of journalistic practice revel questions about privacy and image rights. Swiss’ legislationstats that image right is an absolute right. It means that no one has the right to publish a picture without the contentment of the pictured person. This law contains however an exception. If there is a public interest the picture can be published.  This law is ambiguous  because it’s difficult to draw the border of the public interest.

Twitter use to find information

Twitter is a good tool for journalists to get information rapidly. During relevant trial, political election or parliamentary reunions, a large amount of tweets are twitted. Journalist can sat behind their computer and following what’s happening minutes by minutes. Another advantage is that journalists can following many twitter account at the same time. So they can have access to divergent perceptions of the event.

Example of the election to the federal council 2011: The 14 of December RSR info posted almost 300 tweets about the election

2. Publish information

Facebook and twitter appear to be interesting management content tools. They can draw more traffic and permit to touch a wider audience. All the Swiss Radio and television (RST) shows have a twitter account and some of them have a twitter account. Those accounts are mostly used to post teasing for the next broadcast. Journalist also posts link and podcast to able the public to listen, watch or read what he has missed.

To be “friends” with the audiance is a useful marketing tool for journalist.  They are more likely to touch the audience because nowadays people are more on Facebook than behind the TV or the radio post.

Journalists can also use Facebook account to appeal witnesses for contribution to forum or interview.

The example of the shows On en parle of the RSR which use a Facebook account to optimised it content and ask for public contribution.

3. Get Feedback and interact with the audience 

The RTS stats that one of the objective of shows’ Facebook account is to allows the public to interact and have a dialogue with journalist.

On the whole, there is little interaction between journalists and public. Journalists rarely participate to debate. Some of them never answer to the public, other answer only at the practical request such as: “when journalist XY will come back in the show?” or “I don’t receive the newsletter anymore”.  Most of them answer to critics and bad feed-back.

There is some journalist like Darius Rochebin that act friendly with the audience. He answers sometime to comment, tell jokes and even put pictures of his little daughter.

4. Adapt content to the demand

Facebook accounts are useful to get feedback. Those feedbacks helps journalist to adapt their content to the public audience.

They can use critics to correct the mistake in their content.

They can know witch kind of subject the audience  :

                                 or

 

 

They can make survey to get public opinion or advice.

All those information help them to be closer from the public demand and answer to it in a proper way.

What’s your opinion about that?

Do you think that the use of social media has an impact on the objectivity of the information?

Should the journalists interact more with the audience and express their opinion on Facebook or keep a distance with the audience?

If you have any other comments there are welcome!