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Ethics Discussion: Is it News, Journalism, or Traffic Drivers … The Social Trap

The debate is heated and has been heated for years…how does the social space play inside the journalistic space. This morning the above status updated came across my newsfeed inside Facebook. So here is the story or “news” that was reported via WYFF.com:

“Deputies say a security officer inside the store noticed Ariail trying to leave the store without paying for items. Some of the items included a youth cup, Pokémon cards, a box of hair color and two bottles of wart remover.”

I immediately began to question why is this “news” and why this story warrants this report on Facebook? Gigaom.com posted an article surrounding this issue “So can we stop talking about bloggers vs. journalists now?” In this article they look about HuffingtonPost.com, who just received a Pulitzer Prize, they look at how this “social outlet” created it’s broad reach.

“Did the Huffington Post leverage its web speed and broad reach, including traffic-driving features such as slideshows of swimsuit models and aggregated posts based on stories written by other media outlets, to build the foundation that allowed it to add those traditional journalistic elements? Of course it did, just as many newspapers have. In fact, the history of newspapering — and particularly pioneers like William Randolph Hearst — reads a lot like the rise of the Huffington Post and Buzzfeed and other entities, except with paper instead of bits.”

So is the Facebook status update from WYFF.com “news” or even “journalism”? Or is just content provided to merely drive traffic? And does this have a place in the journalistic space?

So back to my original thought…when I first noticed the status update, I was honestly sad for the woman. I immediately assumed she was a mother who was probably trying to find a toy for her child and another few items, and did not have the funds to pay for the items. I had many questions, areas where I would want to research to find more answers.

1) Is she a mother?
2) Does she have a job?
3) What was her prior arrest?
4) What makes stealing Pokemon cards so compelling?
5) Is she a product of the social/economic time where it is hard to find a job w/o good skills?
6) What are the petty theft rates in South Carolina in the past few years given the recent unemployment rates?
7) What is the larger story?

These questions led me to wonder why WYFF.com feels compelled to update Facebook with something that I feel makes a marginal case as “news” or even “journalism”?

So Let’s define our terms:

1) News:
– Newly received or noteworthy information, esp. about recent or important events.
– A broadcast or published report of news.

2) Journalism
-The activity or profession of writing for newspapers or magazines or of broadcasting news on radio or television.
-The product of such activity.

Ok, based on these definitions from Definitions.com, maybe it can be considered news…but journalism? Let’s see what the University of Missouri’s Journalism School defines as journalism. I found Walter William’s Journalistic Creed:

“I believe that the journalism which succeeds best—and best deserves success—fears God and honors Man; is stoutly independent, unmoved by pride of opinion or greed of power,constructive, tolerant but never careless, self-controlled, patient, always respectful of its readers but always unafraid, is quickly indignant at injustice; is unswayed by the appeal of privilege or the clamor of the mob; seeks to give every man a chance and, as far as law and honest wage and recognition of human brotherhood can make it so, an equal chance; is profoundly patriotic while sincerely promoting international good will and cementing world-comradeship; is a journalism of humanity, of and for today’s world.”

This definition led me to a a conversation between Reynolds Journalism Institute Fellow Mike Fancher and students at the Missouri School of Journalism who tackle this question…they are trying to define the meaning of journalism:

“The concept of “conversation” may be perceived as part of accessibility. You’re no longer “looking down” upon your reader, or your audience, or citizens. You’re collaborating with them in the news process.”

Let’s go back to the Facebook status update, as of 6:30pm on 4/19/12, there were 44 comments. This status update created a conversation between WYFF.com and the “audience.”

MediaBistro.com shares this information:

“According to recent data, newspapers have just a single percentage point lead on social media as a source of reportage, with Facebook (59.5 percent), Twitter (19.9 percent) and YouTube (12.7 percent) leading the charge. Since 2009, traffic to news sites from social media channels has increased dramatically, and some 57 percent of adults who consume news via a digital device predominately use Facebook and Twitter.

Of course, journalism isn’t actually going away – it’s simply the medium that is changing. While social media empowers all of us to be the source, and to break the story, there will always be a high demand for quality reporting. But the way in which we digest that information is rapidly changing – and in this writer’s opinion, very much for the better.”

So are the lines between “old” and “new” media beginning to blur and converge more and more everyday? Social outlets like blogs are playing a huge role in how news outlets are engaging audiences, with more editorialized content.

“And while the Huffington Post has been getting more and more newspaper-like, entities such as the New York Times have been getting more blog-like: the relaunch of the medical section of the paper’s website, called Well, is just the latest in a series of similar relaunches that have turned sections of the NYT into blog-style portals.”

So is this status update news? Based on the definition above…Yes. Is this status update journalism? Some say yes and some say no. I say, where are the journalists at WYFF.com? Why are they not taking this simple status update, one that is being used as traffic drivers for content exploration, and take part in a little “investigative journalism.” Why not dig deeper into this story and use this content driver to a bigger story, the real heart of this story?

Or…should we just accept it at face value. It is not news, not journalism, and media outlets will always integrate content like this to generate clicks, driving traffic to the news they are covering. This type of sensationalized content is at the heart of the social metric of major news outlets. Because clicks leads to ad revenues.

So…let’s just accept in the journalistic space, there is a business side to the purest approach of reporting the news.
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Links and referenced articles used in this post:

Wikipedia for Journalism: Definition of Journalism

Walter William’s Journalistic Creed: Reynolds Journalism Institute

Reynolds Journalism Institute: “So you call yourself a journalist.” What does that mean?

MediaBistro.com: “How Social Media Is Replacing Traditional Journalism As A News Source”

Gigaom.com: “So can we stop talking about bloggers vs. journalists now?”

WYFF.com: “Report: Woman tries to steal Pokemon cards, wart remover”

Japan Tsunami Remembered … the Social Documentary Continues

This past Sunday, March 11th marked the one year anniversary of the Tsunami in Japan. One year ago, we all watched it unfold online, on television, via radio…where ever we could get information. It was a disaster of international reach.

A colleague of mine from my television day told me a story as I was asking for help trying to find some unique video tapes. He told me this video tape was rare because of the Tsunami. The video tape was made in Japan by Sony and stored in a warehouse that was under water after the Tsunami . But the story only begins here…the engineers and staff from Sony had climbed to safety on the top floor only to notice another building off in the distance had school children on the roof, waiting to be rescued.

So those Sony engineers and staff built a boat. There was a huge boat on display downstairs of the Sony building…so they worked to transform that boat into a usable form of rescue. They eventually put it in the water and made their way over to the school to try to rescue the children. This story was passed around by executives during last year’s NAB conference.

Each day we are telling stories. Each day we hear new ones. Each day we read articles like this from Mashable using a timeline to document the events from a past event, specifically the Japan Tsunami.  We are human and we like to share, recount, and re-live a time from “our” past. So how about the technology, the social technology that now surrounds us to document these events.

We still remember January 28, 1986…the day the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in front of our eyes. I remember watching from my 6th grade classroom as we watched the first school teacher go to space. It was just a few days ago, March 9th to be exact, that Huffington Post reported the finding of a new Super 8 film of an amateur recording of the explosion.

The article talks about how many people stored away old film from their past, and as they begin to go through their belongings…they find artifacts of national importance right in their drawers, closets, and attics.

These artifacts are so very precious, so rare, so valuable that even the Huffington Post finds the need to purchase the rights to this newly uncovered Super 8 film.  Compare this event to the Tsunami where we have thousands of user generated accounts of this day. Tweets, pictures, video, blog posts, Wiki entries…all of which unfold along with the main stream media’s reporting.

We no longer are having to rely on the individual to “just so happen” to find that Super 8 film, we now just do a Google search and the social documentary of our present day events unfolds right infront of us. We are writing the social documentary…and it is more that just recounting the day. It is sharing our thoughts, feelings, and expressions upon every update and upload.

How many of you saved stuff/articles from 9/11? I know I did…I purchased the NewYork Times and USA Today from Sept. 12, 2001. I saved every digital image I could find during those days so I could share them with my children one day. Sarah recorded the whole day of reporting from NBC News on VHS tape. All of this is locked away in safety deposit boxes.

Outlets like Facebook and Twitter bring the social documentary to the forefront. They interweave social memories using media in a time line fashion. No wonder Facebook has moved to the timeline interface, because we want to remember. Hashtags allows us to aggregate topics based on two variables: the particular hashtag and time.

We are creating the social documentary and it is unfolding right in front of us.

To listen to the “truth” … whose truth?



Storytelling is probably the oldest craft alive: the ability to tell stories so others can see a point-of-view and repeat for others to enjoy. Journalism is one facet of storytelling, being able to provide an objective: an un-biased point-of-view of “news” for others to consume.

I have been closely watching the incidents, like the rest of the free world, in Tucson, AZ that began with the shooting of many innocent American’s on January 8th. This story has been the epicenter of local, regional, and national topics from gun control, free-speech, political transparency, and even defining what it means to be American.

As Sarah and I were having lunch, she asked me…”Why do you think so much focus has been on Gabrielle Gifford’s story and not as much on those who have been wounded and died, including the little girl” Well, it is my belief that the story of Congresswoman Gifford is the true pinnacle of this whole incident. As stated by the surgeon’s, this is a case of miracles.

From HuffingtonPost.com article on Friday, January 14, 2010:

It was the first time Giffords had opened her eye since the shooting. Kelly told Giffords to give him a thumbs-up if she could hear him. Instead, she slowly raised her left arm.

“The doctor said this is amazing what she’s doing right now and beyond our greatest hopes,” Gillibrand said.

“It felt like we were watching a miracle,” Wasserman Schultz said. “The strength that you could see flowing out of her, it was like she was trying to will her eyes open.”

On ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Thursday, Gillibrand added, “Everything that we love about Gabby was all there at that moment.”

Kelly told the president and first lady about the development as they drove from the hospital to the University of Arizona’s McKale Center, where Obama would speak at a memorial service. Kelly gave the president permission to tell the crowd about his wife’s progress.

“Gabby opened her eyes,” Obama told the cheering crowd. “So I can tell you: She knows we are here, she knows we love her, and she knows that we are rooting for her through what is undoubtedly going to be a difficult journey.”

This miracle has broken down so many conventions and pre-dispositions, bridging gaps of communities and bringing together an American story right before our eyes.

Yet, there are so many stories that are untold, those left for us to understand. We are still trying to understand why a young man would use a gun to shoot so many a point blank range. In some of the pictures, he looks like just another person, another American, someone that could be buying groceries in the next aisle. We are trying to understand why, understand his fundamental Truth that made him make the decisions he made that day.

We are also trying to understand a small church in Topeka, Kansas and their motives for protesting during funeral services of those who perished during this event. Life Magazine did a photoessay of this group, and if you look at their faces and remove the picket signs…they look like you and I. Who are they and what are their truths? What provides them the voice to shout so loudly that it is necessary to bring another opposing view-point to this volatile discussion. I do not have the answers…but I have some thoughts.

Dr. Johnny McKinney of Boulevard Baptist Church has been guiding us through a discussion and examination of the Book of Genesis, a interesting text with many points-of-view. So literalist look at this text as the true faith based creation, and others look at it as a metaphor for how to live a good christian life. We all have a point-of-view. During the discussion, he told a story of the holocaust and the trial of the architect of the holocaust in the 1960’s.

Dr. McKinney tells us that during the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, as one of the holocaust survivors walked in to testify, that person collapsed upon seeing Eichmann for the first time. He did not collapse because he was so mad or overwhelmed with emotion from the events of the holocaust, or even what they had to go through in the concentration camps; but that Adolf Eichmann looked just like you and I. He looked “human.” This man thought the Jews were an evil group of people, and wanted to separate them from the rest of the human race.

So here is my question, why are we trying to protest the evil ones? Who are the evil ones? Did Jared Laughner see Gabrielle Gifford as evil? Does Westboro Baptist Church see those who they are protesting as evil? What is their poinit-of-view and what drives them to passionately advocate for their message. Or maybe they are driven by fear as well, not willing to take part in mutual discourse. Maybe their message is a one-way avenue to impose their truth. I am in search to understand and see their point-of-view, not to accept…but to understand. To take part in mutual discourse, open conversation, one of understanding.

As I was sitting and listening to Dr. McKinney speaking, I wrote the following. It was in response to this past week and the words of his talk this morning.

To understand ones truth does not mean you accept ones truth.

Examining and exploring another truth is a path to understanding, to see and hear another point of view.

Our truth is our reference point, our ethos. It is the foundation that makes cry, scream, laugh…our lens.

When we listen to other truths….it sometime takes out of our comfort zone both intellectually and emotionally.

When we begin to understand another truth, we put away our emotions and allow our logic step ahead and process anothers’ point-of-view.

We can dissect another’s truth and allow our emotions to express our acceptance or rejection.

We choose to not hear another point of view or truth because of fear of the unknown. Fear of what we are not certain how our logic will interpret and how our emotions can to take control.

Fear sometime drives the resistance to understand and listen to truth.

Our truth is powerful.

As storytellers, it is important to seek and understand the other point-of-view. It does not mean we must agree, but to seek and understand is the path to quality discourse that bridges gaps. As humans…quality discourse leads to healthy conversations.

Why do I write about something this political and personal on this blog, because our stories are stories of truths. We tell stories from many different points-of-view. They are full of messages and ideologies that shape the way audiences perceive a message and form the truths that shape their lives, and the lives they influence. We must be cognizant of our messages…and understand the opposing point-of-view and the people it will influence. Mutual discourse is a beautiful thing.

Do you have thoughts? I invite you to let me know! I am open for thoughts and discussion.