Harnessing the journalistic power of social media and networks

[Andrew Haeg]

Some news on the social media and journalism front: The BBC is telling its reporters to embrace social media, or leave. It's the latest sign that social media are becoming primary means for journalists to gather information.

BBC World Service Director Peter Horrocks explains how social media (read: all new forms of communication, including texting) can lead to strong reportage:

"Classic examples are situations where it is hard to report from. In northern Nigeria, for example, we are using mobile phones which we provided to villages. In each village there is one person who is known as 'the keeper of the mobile'. This was a way we learnt about a government confrontation with a village about land rights. We looked into that story, and used BBC journalistic rigours to covered that story. Here we simply use social media applying what always has made the BBC World Service strong: holding governments accountable using this news technique. The 'how' is changing, and not so much the 'what'."

That's an inspiring example, but doesn't necessarily point to a wholesale change in journalistic practice (social media was mentioned only once in BBC's 2009 editorial guidelines, according to The Guardian).

For smart networked journalism to spread, journalists need to completely rethink their default use of novel communications tools and social networks as either a new distribution channels or as a more efficient way to find sources and get quotes.

This is like using Niagara Falls to fill a jug of water. In a recent Harvard Business Review blog post, John Hagel III and John Seely Brown suggest we reconsider traditional networking practices--advice that's relevant for journalists struggling to come to terms with the explosion in networking and information-sharing technology.

“In the classical networking approach, the game is about presenting yourself in the most favorable light possible while flattering the other person into giving you their contact information. This approach quickly degenerates into a manipulative exchange where the real identities of both parties rapidly recede into the background, replaced by carefully staged presentations of an artificial self. These staged interactions rarely build trust. In fact, they usually have the opposite effect, putting both parties on guard and reinforcing wariness and very selective disclosure.”

Put another way, stop schmoozing and start listening. The corollary for journalists: Stop source-hunting and start discovering.

To this point, here are a few recent examples of Facebook posts by news organization seeking sources for stories:

“Looking to interview people in the greater DC/MD/VA area who have switched from a national bank to a local community bank. If this applies to you and you'd like to share your story, please tell us about it in the comments. Thanks!”

“Looking to interview a married couple in which the wife has more education and a higher income than her husband. If you are both willing to talk about how it affects the dynamics of your marriage, please tell us a bit about yourself. Ideally, we are seeking couples ages 30-44.”

These are the sort of garden variety journalistic queries that, prior to social media, were often passed around newsrooms (including ours) with a solicitation that usually begins: "Do you know someone who ...?"

The subtext: We already know what the story is and only need help fleshing it out.

The pressure to produce forces journalists to quickly narrow their objectives. But if we can resist for a moment the drumbeat of looming deadlines and admit that we don't know what the story is, then we're closer to harnessing the true potential of networks and social media: to answer questions and satisfy curiosity.

If you approach social media to explore and discover, you will naturally seek out experiences that enable substantive, quality exchanges and active listening. You will likely find that your initial question missed a more salient point, or that there was a more interesting story that you didn't even think to consider.

Much as I use and value Twitter and Facebook for journalism, there's a great deal of room for more and better tools and experiences that enable knowledge-sharing. As Hagel and Seely Brown put it, "In this world, it is not who you know, but what you learn from, and with, who you know." New tools and a shift in our approach to networking will open up vast and largely untapped reservoirs of tacit knowledge and information--helping us understand how things really work.

Here’s a recent example that might help highlight the difference. To mark the return of thousands of National Guard soldiers, the MPR newsroom planned a series on the challenges of reintegration, and assigned reporters to formulate story pitches. The idea generation and pitch process tends to be a solitary exercise: lone reporter hunts for leads and info, sketches out a story idea, pitches it to the editor and seeks approval. The reporter gathers enough information to gauge the viability and feasibility of the story -- but the bulk of the reporting begins after the editor accepts the pitch.

The hitch is that, once the pitch has been accepted, the reporting process can easily become an exercise in source-finding and quote harvesting. This can and often does yield good journalism. But it might not get at underlying and possibly critical issues, or build lasting trust with sources.

In this particular case, our Public Insight team was activated from the outset to seek insights from sources in the Public Insight Network and beyond to address the question: What happens when our troops come home?

Within a few days, we heard from several people who work with veterans in rural areas. They told our Public Insight analyst that the VA had stopped contracting with rural service providers, opting instead to centralize care at their facilities, forcing rural veterans to drive further to get care they might be reluctant to seek out in the first place. That led to this story from MPR News reporter Tom Robertson about the challenge vets face getting care in rural areas.

We could have uncovered that story by a more traditional approach to networking and reporting. But we may not have. What’s clear is that, because we were genuinely open, networking online became an act of exploration and learning, not of searching and finding. It’s a subtle but profound difference.

[Andrew Haeg]

Thanks for the comment Donica. One of my conversion moments came during a golf tournament, of all things. I was amazed by the scene: Hundreds of journalists cranking out largely undifferentiated content using the same media packets and feeding from a stream of predictable quotes delivered in the brightly lit interview room. At first, I thought golf reporters a uniquely coddled bunch. And what did it matter anyway if they were delivering commodity content when the societal stakes were so low? But then I realized that journalism writ large was operating in one huge media tent, feeding off press releases, Lexis-Nexis, quotes and details spoonfed by handlers. Journalists are too busy cranking out tweets, blog posts, podcasts, and their stories, to notice or care that they're losing the trust and attention of the public. We need to make a strong argument that, as you say, revenue and attention are falling for these very reasons. So, how do we make that case? How do we prove the point?

[Andrew Haeg]

See a similar thread develop here at Donica Mensing's new and very promising Networked Journalism Education blog.

[Donica Mensing]

Great question that I keep thinking about too. For some goods, it's much easier to weigh good and bad: I buy products that don't fall apart, work well, look good, make me happy, make others happy. With journalism, it's not so easy to define quality or recognize it.

We haven't done much in the academy to deeply understand what journalism does for a community. If we could draw a line between the kind of journalism you watched during that golf tournament and dysfunctional government, failing communities and pathetic political discourse, we'd have a case. Journalism isn't responsible for these ills, of course, but I believe it lets them happen and could be a much stronger force for revitalization -- but only if practiced in the way you're describing.

Another part of the answer may be to analyze carefully what you and others are doing. If we discover that there are on-the-ground implications of practicing journalism differently, then making that evidence available would be another important contribution.

There must be other ways, too...

[Donica Mensing]

Andrew,
Thanks for this post. Your points about a need for dissatisfaction with current journalistic practices and a well articulated vision of the future is critical for j-schools to think about too. As Michael Schudson noted recently at USC, after admiring the best of journalism, "...most of the 40,000 or so journalists writing for daily newspapers most of the time are producing work that is routine and, more often than one would like, trivial." If we accept the premise that attention and revenue are falling as much for these reasons as for economic, we'll be motivated to think about changes. To the extent that j-schools can explore, study and teach the kind of networking you're describing, we'll be much better contributors to the 'quasi-utopia' Schudson describes (http://annenberg.usc.edu/News%20and%20Events/News/100210Schudson/Sc...)

[Tina Louise]

Fascinating article about a subject I grow more immersed in; as the way I gather information morphs with social media.

It 'feels' like news has more dimensions and I am finding it easier to define who I trust to bring it to me. There are a lot of choices and over the past few years, I have refined and filtered the voices I listen to. I deliberately also check-in with opposing views so I can be sure I have the broadest picture possible.

Instead of receiving a pre-digested news item with bias/leaning added - I now scoot about the blogs and tweets of those who ARE the news to fill in the blanks and answer the questions I have.

How journalists embrace this - is surely of consequence to their careers?

I always valued and trusted Channel 4 News for approaching news stories in a more [human] way (not sure how else to describe it?)... and as I now watch the news team embrace Twitter, realise that my trust is well placed. I can read their views as people, not just as journalists.

Will watch with fascination.

Namaste,
Tina Louise
@tinalouiseUK

[Andrew Haeg]

Good point Charlie. From experience, a highly open and collaborative approach to journalism is more likely to yield revelatory, surprising journalism than the more traditional, closed approach. The challenge, as you say, is getting even eager early social media/networking adopters comfortable with rethinking their pre-ordained approach to journalism.

Perhaps the best route is to find people who've had that conversion experience (I think you and I count among them), distill out what the triggers to change were, and communicate those in an inspiring way with practical tips.

Here's a useful formula for change that I think we could apply to journalism:

D x V x F > R

D = Dissatisfaction with how things are now;
V = Vision of what is possible;
F = First, concrete steps that can be taken towards the vision.
If the product of these three factors is greater than
R = Resistance

I don't think there's sufficient dissatisfaction among journalism professionals with the way things are currently done, nor has an inspiring vision of the future been clearly articulated. I think we'd do well to focus on both of these to build the basis for making change.

[Charlie Beckett]

Andrew,
This is an interesting point and it is where conventional journalism is most challenged by the networking effect.
If we are really to share the framing of a news agenda or the narrative of a particular issue then we really are opening up journalism.
There are real dangers in this of a 'pull' or 'demand' consumer-orientated journalism. Most people want to have things shown to them, revealed to them, to be surprised - as well as to have their ideas and experience attended to.
But I think a much bigger danger is that even enthusiastic network journalists won't seize even limited opportunities.
I spoke recently to an interactivity advisor on a very new media progressive paper in the UK. The problem was not that the newsdesk wasn't online or that it didn't use online and networked technigues. The problem was more about a refusal to consider an alternative to their own pre-ordained, highly journalistic news agenda. So stories were often examined for their internal, process detail rather than their impact on the public, or for possible alternative perspectives.
In other words, we are allowing the public to interact, but with the same old stuff.