Well, thank you all for having me... feel free to chat with me on the Twitterz: @webjournalist. Also, if you like to talk about Web journalism, join #wjchat every Wednesday at 5PM PST (wjchat.webjournalist.org) on Twitter and if you consider yourself a Web journalist, make sure you join the Online News Association. We have local meet ups often and our annual conference is coming in two weeks! (journalists.org) Also, USC Annenberg is an amazging j-school... come learn the craft with us. Fight on! ;)
There are studies that say the Web is making is dumber or that Twitter is ruined our language. The truth is, we’re evolving... and our language is evolving too. It always has and it always will.
WikiLeaks: Great irony there - information being shoveled into the electronic drop-off by anonymous sources, then shunted to readers for crowdsourced analysis. Long way from Deep Throat.
Sure, my thoughts on Wikileaks: I don't think leaks, or Wikileaks, "threatens the Web" ... nor do I think they threaten journalism. I think Wikileaks is a source of information... and like with any source I deal with in journalism, they may or may not have an agenda. Leaks are a core part of journalism. They are also called news tips ... and they become sources. It's just a part of the new news ecosystem ... I would say, though, they exist because news orgs have pulled back on their watch-dogness, which is unfortunate... but it is a clear side effect from cutting staff and being risk averse ... being more loyal to the bottomline.
Robert's approach sounds like the Derek Jeter approach. Try to do something every day to help the team win, and at the end of the year your figures (and the team's revenue and your pay) will be fine. Great chat, Robert.
@Nicole @Mary @smkinoshita @awilliams Are there any known studies on the use of facebook and twitter as the caustion of verbiage and/or vocabulary devolution?
@jwallace Here's what I mean when I say "responsibly." Facebook, like any good business, is interested in making money. Good for them. News orgs need to be too... but as a journalist, my loyalty is not to the bottomline, but to the community I am trying to inform. My loyalty is to you... because, personally, I think if I am loyal to you, you'll probably influence the bottomline in a positive way anyway. But, again, I joined journalism because I believe in informing the public... having an informed democratic society. I care about funding journalism... I'm active in it. But I'm not in journalism for the money. I might be poor, but I like sleeping well at night... I like knowing I made the world a better place, even if it's in a tiny way.
@Nicole "Me either, Kim, and Facebook isn't doing its userbase a favor by trying to cram too many "features" into its functionless platform." - those are fighting words!!
@Mary With AR, it certainly uses multimedia -- the best of all the different crafts of audio, video, text, photography, interactivity... but it also factors in your local, in real time. Information at specific locations. Experiences and contexts where you need them. It's young, but the tech, I think, is going mainstream rather quickly.
@Kim I agree, Facebook -- as well as Google and others -- can/should be big players in journalism. They thrive on quality content to engage with its users. Quality content is something journalists do every day. We need them, they need us... and we're going to be better off influencing each other. Of course, it needs to be done responsibly.
@Awilliams -- I've done some digging into Facebook and while I wouldn't use it as a main platform for information, it CAN be a good wide-audience communication tool. There's some messy algorithms behind it though so I wouldn't count on it until it happens.
@Paul The future tech I'm currently excited -- nerding out about, to be accurate -- is Augmented Reality. AR means different things to different people, but I'm interested in what I call Terminator vision. Through your mobile device, harnessing the camera, the GPS and the vast information on the Web... new ways of sharing information, experiences and stories. Really cool stuff.
@jwallace -- If someone says to him "Hey, your story is totally wrong, X is Y" and it turns out that really is true and his source was wrong, so he writes a follow up that says "I'm sorry, X is Y, you're right. I double-checked" and so forth, then that's journalism.
@Mary Twitter is great, and, professionally, is my platform of choice. That said, if Facebook were a country it would be the THIRD largest on the globe. Nearly everyone is on Facebook... so I think both of these are important. And the strategies employed on each are different. And, then... there is Google+. Still young, but emerging and quite powerful. G Hangouts alone can really affect journalism and community engagement.
@Webjournalist -- Well, according to the article I read, they're not. "Intel doesn't identify its freelance contributors, but the Free Press philosophy is similar to Cisco's Network. A few years ago, a story about the lack of innovation in recent tablet products would have been ludicrous coming from a company that does business with so many of those vendors, but the free-for-all of online visibility demands different rules."
@smkinoshita "Well, the guy wasn't getting much play in the paper and the LA Kings needed to tell its own stories." - is this a good instance of blogger vs journalist?
@smkinoshita That is an interesting trend, corporations hiring journalists. It's actually a logical one... The LA Kings hired the Los Angeles Times' hockey reporter... why? Well, the guy wasn't getting much play in the paper and the LA Kings needed to tell its own stories. Now, my *hope* is that corporations tell hard, honest stories that is transparent... they don't block, censor to dictate what the journalist is doing. A controlled message is usually by the Marketing/Public Relations department. I thin it could be an effective way to for businesses -- for- and non-profit -- or any organization to effectively tell its own stories.
I just realized I didn't register myself as "Robert Hernandez" ... Online I go by "webjournalist" mainly because there are so many Robert Hernandezes that chances are that username is taken! :)
@Robert (webjournalist) What do you think of corporations hiring journalists? "Another BusinessWeek veteran, Steve Hamm, now anchors the corporate Smarter Planet blog for IBM. Contributors to Barnes & Noble's Review site include successful authors, illustrators, and even Pulitzer prize-winning columnist Michael Dirda. The corporate blogosphere is dotted with dozens of veteran journalists, and their numbers are growing."
@Paul In short, yes. Social media, the Internet, technology in general has given voice to the voiceless that journalism hasn't fully done before. You don't need to wait for the New York Times to tell your story... you can tell it yourself. And, that story may be a revolution. NPR's Andy Carvin / @acarvin has done an incredible job exploring this new type of social journalism.
@Webjournalist: in the race between technology and journalism, do you think journalism wil suffer greatly due to having to play cathc up with the fast pace technological changes?
@Kim You are right, there isn't a journalism problem, it's a revenue problem. And if we can't find ways to fund journalism, the quality and the needed watch-dogness a news organization brings will/is being threaten. So, we need the innovation we've seen in storytelling to influence the business model... to upgrade how we treat ads and other revenue generating content.
@Webjoiurnalist: what do u make of th impacts of technology aided journalism with regards to the middle east spring? Is that the trend we should be expecting across the world?
@Hounhosp -- remember, before hand a journalist was called that because the person was hired by a business that declared them a journalist, because the only way a journalist would be heard was through the media company's scale advantage.
I just saw a "connect worpress.com and you could win an iPad2" email from a site I enjoy visiting... who ever thought of that marketing iniative for them TODAY needs a time out. But then again, people are known to buy wooden ipad's at gas stations for $180..
@Mary The three other ponts/rules I tell journos: Social Media does not replace over the phone or in-person interviews. You still need to go out and engage with the community in real life. Second, in Social media we have to balance being a citizen, a journalist and a brand. And that's a new thing for us. Lastly, be open... we can't afford to be dogmatic about anything. Embrace technology, but don't get blinded by it calling it the savior.
@hounhosp -- Journalism is more than just a title. It's a set of skills with a particular mindset. One can be a good journalist if one has the skills (trained or self-taught), the mindset, and the storytelling. One can be a bad journalist if those skills are present but lacking.
@Paul I think J-Schools are in a real unique place to embrace, experiment and advance journalism through technology. Some schools are better than others -- Annenberg *obviously* is one of the best. The fact that I got hired, a vet Web journalist, is a sign that things are changing in J-School.
Thanks, Robert. Q: Although a need for real journalism may always be with us, aren't there signs that the money to pay for it just isn't there any more?
Thanks for having me! Jeez, I'm horrible at promotion! Things to know: #wjchat us a weekly Web journalism chat held every Wednesday at 5PM PST. Please join us! Also, Sept 22 in Boston will be the Online News Association's Annual conference. I hope to see some of you there!
@hounhosp -- his main focus is City Hall. Goes to lots of meetings, and he will broadcast the meeting to his blog. Has gotten many a dirty look for it.
@hounhosp -- We have a blogger journalist right here in London. He does on-the-spot video reporting with write-up. He might not be a great journalist since he's self taught but he's been mistaken for a professional a few times.
@Jwallace -- I disagree. I think deal services like Groupon will be here for the long run and will be blended into part of normal advertising, but they still have a lot of evolution ahead of them.
@Hounhosp -- is it? There are many unqualified people holding positions they have no business holding. A journalism is a combination of skills, ethics and as Robert Hernadez has said storytelling.
@Robert Herandez -- I work in marketing and I want to MURDER those kinds of marketers. They trash our reputation. I got into marketing to kill that kind of ad nonsense.
A journalist isn't perfect, but the journalist CARES. So when a journalist makes a mistake, it hurts the person. When hobbyists makes a mistake, they don't care so much.
The key matter in my mind is the amount the person cares about the story. A journalist CARES -- checks and respects sources, makes sure the story is sound, wants it to be professional and presetnable.
@Hounhosp -- Sorry, but you're incorrect. A blogger MAY be a journalist. Being a blogger doesn't automatically make someone a journalist and it doesn't automatically exclude from being a journalist.
"I'd love to know what Robert thinks we can do about the spread of misinformation and incorrect news reports on the Web." - do we need an 'easy' button for that?
How has the turning of journalism into a two way street for communication (comments on articles, emails, etc) impacting the profession. It seems now writers are expected to respond to commentators in real time now
how about: how has the widescale availablity of smartphones changing the nature of true journalism? To put it anotherway, if anyone with a camera and the internet can break the story, how is a professional to differentiate themselves?
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
Expert Integrated Systems: Changing the Experience & Economics of IT In this e-book, we take an in-depth look at these expert integrated systems -- what they are, how they work, and how they have the potential to help CIOs achieve dramatic savings while restoring IT's role as business innovator. READ THIS eBOOK
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M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
