New Practices in the News Industry

May 4, 2011 By Aminda

The newspaper industry knows innovation – it has had to transform itself over the past two decades to adapt to the internet age. Now, in the age of smart phone technology and even faster communication, journalists are again figuring out how to embrace change and use it for good.

Co-creation of content

A report posted by the International Symposium on Online Journalism, found that while media organizations have under invested in R&D and not expressed much interest in open innovation, organizations who have opened their API’s, such as the Guardian and New York Times, found several benefits. These include the speeding up of product development, new revenue streams and access to hard-to-reach user groups.

“When news organizations embrace the flow of ideas inbound to the organization as well as outbound from the company, they are actually implementing one of the main principles of open innovation in their product development strategy”, states the report.

Help from some friends

The crux of a journalist’s job can be finding that critical, informative source who will provide the exclusive, most interesting content. Guardian journalist Paul Lewis shares the pros and cons of tapping into the crowd for sources. On one hand, social media outlets such as Twitter have quickly connected him with some strategic sources. On the other hand, he worries that journalists and news organizations are now more vulnerable to deliberately provided misinformation and propaganda than ever before.

A Christian Science Monitor article ponders the impact of “citizen journalists”, empowered by technology anyone to be both reporter and publisher.  While more information is better than less, more information does not necessarily equate to more understanding.

The article sums up the challenge with a quote from Irina Bokova, head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Bokova applauds the explosion of citizen journalism, which she said has had a powerful influence on the democracy movements sweeping the world. But professional journalism is still needed, she noted, to systematically and carefully develop facts and root out corruption. “I don’t believe,” she said, “that by some miracle citizen journalism will replace professional journalism.”



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