Ce texte représente un retour d’expérience sur les caractéristiques très précises du Data Journalism, ou journalisme de données. Pour commencer, la première partie de cet article s’adresse aux développeurs – mais ne partez pas, je serai doux. Vous vous en doutez peut-être déjà, il ne suffit pas de savoir coder pour faire du Data Journalism dans de bonnes conditions. Outre des techniques, certes singulières et indispensables, en visualisation de données et data-mining, le développeur qui veut se frotter aux journalistes doit avant tout recueillir des qualités humaines auxquelles son métier ne l’a pas préparé.

1. Tous les sujets sont différents, soyez curieux !

On le sait, par nature, développer nécessite d’être curieux : il faut en permanence recycler ses techniques et ses connaissances. De sujet en sujet, les journalistes ont eux aussi, à leur manière, une telle “contrainte”. De fait, il va falloir trouver une sorte d’équilibre lorsque vous allez vous intéresser à l’objet de vos applications. Il y a des objectifs capitaux lorsque on travaille sur un tel projet : rendre claire une donnée obscure, soutenir un angle car une application ne se suffit pas à elle-même et enfin, raconter une histoire avec tout ce qu’on a rassemblé.

Pour atteindre ces objectifs, ne faites pas de détour : il faut jouer le jeu à fond, ne pas faire semblant, se plonger corps et âme dans votre sujet. Si votre discours s’adapte à celui des journalistes, par continuité il s’adaptera avec celui des utilisateurs. Le meilleur moyen de parvenir à une telle adaptation et de comprendre tous les enjeux d’un sujet et offrir les réponses aux questions que vous vous êtes d’abord posées. Mettre en ordre les choses pour que le lecteur comprenne, c’est déjà en grande partie le rôle des journalistes. Soyez complémentaires. Ce n’est pas parce qu’un designer va faire un beau dessin et que vous allez faire clignoter des panneaux que le problème sera plus clair. L’utilisateur n’en sait jamais assez, si vous n’êtes pas assez didactique, votre application ne sera qu’une source d’interrogations supplémentaires.

2. Ne faites pas qu’exécuter, proposez

Oui, c’est vrai, ils adorent s’écouter parler. Mais les journalistes sont aussi des animaux très attentifs, qui savent poser les bonnes questions et construire du neuf avec vos réponses. Et comme le spécialiste de la data, c’est vous, vous allez avoir des choses à raconter. Non seulement lorsque vous aurez une idée, avant même d’en parler, vous saurez déjà s’il est possible de la réaliser, mais en plus, votre motivation n’en sera que plus grande. Les designers et les journalistes ne s’en rendront jamais compte, vous avez été mieux formés qu’eux pour répondre aux besoins de l’utilisateur.

Quand les journalistes racontent une histoire, les designers l’illustrent et l’animent. Vous avez toutes les qualités nécessaires pour faire en sorte que vos applications reprennent au mieux cette histoire. Les uns pensent narrations, vous pensez utilisation. L’enjeu de ces travaux est souvent de vulgariser un sujet (ou des données) par nature complexe(s). Vous avez toute la légitimité nécessaire pour vous imposer (souvenez vous UML, Merise, etc, tout ça c’est pas rien).

3. Préparez-vous à apprendre

Lorsque vous faites du Data Journalism, la dynamique des projets est telle que vous allez côtoyer un nombre exponentiel de technologies différentes. Il n’y a pas 1000 façons de positionner des points sur une carte, il y a cependant une quantité infinie de raconter quelque chose avec ces données. Diversifiez vos compétences et vos applications seront de plus en plus abouties et riches. Ne vous contentez pas (par exemple) de Highcharts pour faire des jolis graphiques. Cette librairie est magique mais vous limiter à seulement quelques outils dans vos manches, ce serait comme contraindre un peintre à n’utiliser que du noir et blanc. Il aura le temps de se lasser avant de lasser son public.

4. Sortez des clichés

J’ai très souvent été confronté à une situation assez clichée : journalistes et développeurs dans des pièces séparées, ces derniers étant vus comme des êtres d’un autre monde. Comment diable leur association pourrait-elle fonctionner ? Le développeur n’est pas un prestataire de service. Pour faire bonne recette, il faut créer les conditions favorables à une collaboration horizontale, briser les murs, se mélanger. C’est d’ailleurs pour cette raison qu’il est nécessaire que tous les membres d’un projet de Data Journalism signent leur travail. Ce n’est pas juste pour que Maman voie votre nom dans les crédits, c’est avant tout pour rétablir un certain niveau d’égalité, même illusoire (les développeurs sont bien meilleurs of course).

À partir de maintenant, développer dans son coin sans jamais communiquer autrement que par email, c’est fini. Ne sortir que pour manger des pizzas dans une soirée Counter Strike, c’est fini. Il faudra probablement vous reproduire avec des journalistes, aussi. Adoptez leur comportement, ils adopteront le vôtre. Ce métier hybride c’est prendre ce qu’il y a de meilleur chez les uns pour le marier avec le meilleur des autres. Ce joyeux bordel doit mettre à sa manière un peu d’ordre dans le chaos.

Après avoir assommé mes congénères à grands coups de recommandations : développeurs, avant de savoir faire, sachez être ! Entre deux insultes ce sont aussi les journalistes que j’accable… J’ai en effet plus coutume d’enseigner à des journalistes qu’à des développeurs. Dès à présent, c’est donc à eux que je m’adresse.

5. Détendez-vous, tout va bien

Journalistes réactionnaires, éditorialistes venu d’un autre âge, je les vois venir. Trop sûrs d’eux pour oser remettre en question leur profession, ils sont trop nombreux à s’offusquer devant un view source. Heureusement le débat n’est plus à mener : ça ne fait plus aucun doute, les métiers de l’information n’ont qu’un avenir incertain sur le papier, il leur faut se diversifier, conquérir de nouveaux supports et en exploiter tous les potentiels. Encore aujourd’hui j’entends dire “ce n’est pas mon métier” quand je suggère à un journaliste d’apprendre la programmation. Je comprends que l’idée puisse surprendre. Mais plutôt que d’énumérer ce qui va changer, pourquoi ne pas regarder ce qui finalement ne change pas ? Vous savez mieux que moi qu’outre informer, vous devez aussi raconter. L’information dans toutes les histoires se met en scène, c’est ce que vous savez faire le mieux. C’est ce qu’on a toujours attendu des journalistes. Avec le Data Journalism et toutes les mutations liées au Web, nous n’essayons pas de vous en demander plus, juste de le faire un peu différemment.

Le support change, oui. Les techniques s’élargissent, aussi. Jamais pourtant on ne doit vous demander d’exécuter un travail de Web Agency. Toutes ces choses que vous allez apprendre (ou avez déjà apprises), c’est uniquement pour servir l’angle, la transparence et la poésie de vos articles. Ce ne sont que des outils supplémentaires pour rendre interactif un objet autrefois inerte. Une autre façon en somme de raconter une histoire.

6. Vous serez toujours moins fort que moi

Qu’il n’y ait pas d’ambiguïté entre nous, le développeur ici, c’est moi. Vous allez maîtriser de plus en plus les technologies qui définissent mon métier, toutefois, ça ne doit pas signifier que les rôles vont s’inverser. L’idée c’est que vous soyez autonome sur des pratiques de data-mining et de gestion de projet. Personne ne veut faire de vous une créature supersonique qui collectionne les casquettes. Si nous devions quantifier la somme minimale de connaissances à assimiler, je serais tenté de dire “juste assez pour que journalistes, développeurs et designers puissent se comprendre”. La grande innovation, au fond, c’est cette équipe à trois têtes. Tous ces bons conseils un peu moralisateurs n’ont lieu d’être que si l’alchimie fonctionne entre nos disciplines.

Comme je le disais précédemment, la première partie de ce guide s’adresse aux développeurs. Si vous la lisez, vous vous rendrez compte que je ne parle pratiquement que de créer les conditions favorables à un bon travail d’équipe. J’insiste lourdement car c’est finalement ce que j’ai de meilleur à vous enseigner. Il y a bien sûr quelques outils indispensables. Le plus redoutable d’entre tous n’est cependant pas logiciel, il est humain. Soignez vos relations avec les développeurs, votre passion pour rédiger des articles, ils la partagent à leur manière dans le code et la plupart des raisons qui vous poussent à aimer l’écriture peuvent s’appliquer à la programmation.

Lorsque j’étais encore étudiant en informatique, les maths occupaient une place centrale. Une place telle qu’aujourd’hui encore, certains de mes collègues ne savent pas concevoir un algorithme sans se passer d’une équation. Je me suis toujours tenu à l’écart de ce prédicat et le Data Journalism en est l’image quasi inverse. L’informatique repose sur des calculs fondamentaux (“computer” en anglais signifie littéralement “calculateur”) toutefois je conçois plus la programmation comme une forme de littérature. Nous avons des figures de style, chaque programmeur a une empreinte qui lui est propre, nous avons une syntaxe à respecter et lorsque nous énonçons un problème ou sa solution par l’algorithmique, nous sommes confrontés à des problématiques proches de celles de la narration. Laissez-vous convaincre que nos métiers ne sont pas si différents.

7. Donnez-vous les moyens d’évoluer

Jean-Marc Manach, qui est un collègue et ami, m’a toujours beaucoup intrigué. Il me semble important de le citer dans cet article car j’ai eu la chance collaborer de nombreuses fois avec lui et c’est un symbole fort du Data Journalism. Dire que Jean-Marc est un journaliste équivaut à dire que Rocco Siffredi est un acteur : ce n’est qu’une part infime de la vérité… C’est un électron libre, un élément perturbateur qui va pousser sa discipline dans ses retranchements pour lui permettre d’évoluer. Lorsqu’un site gouvernemental dissimule brusquement des photos qui étaient publiques auparavant, Jean-Marc va fouiller dans le code HTML dudit site pour y trouver des pistes, tester des combinaisons dans l’URL et utiliser un tableur Excel pour web scrapper l’objet de son enquête. Il ne fait usage d’aucune technique compliquée, pas besoin d’avoir un diplôme en ingénierie informatique, c’est purement et simplement une démonstration de hacking. Jean-Marc est un journaliste-hackeur, il bricole, cherche en tâtonnant et ses résultats sont parfois surprenants.

Cet exemple nous dit quelque chose de très important : le journalisme de données est une discipline pour gens curieux. C’est ça, l’essence même du Data Journalism. Cette condition est indispensable à la pratique sur le terrain. C’est en allant fouiller les recoins d’Internet que vous allez le plus apprendre car c’est ainsi que vous allez vous heurter aux problématiques du métier comme le discernement des données et toute la complexité parfois pour les récupérer. On peut dire que c’est un métier de bricoleur, de Data Nerd. C’est probablement l’une de ces caractéristiques les plus importantes, la négliger serait une erreur.

~

Il ne vous reste plus qu’à vous mettre au travail. Trouvez des développeurs, trouvez des designers, trouvez des sujets, même complexes. Si vous parvenez à créer une application qui raconte une histoire et vient soutenir l’angle de votre article, alors vous pourrez vous vanter d’avoir fait du Data Journalism en bonne et due forme.

Ressources

• Envie de s’attaquer directement à la pratique et au code ? Je vous recommande l’excellent Site Du Zéro qui depuis 10 ans est une source abyssale de bons tutoriels. Comme son nom l’indique, aucun pré-requis n’est nécessaire (HTML et PHP sont de bon choix pour débuter ;).
• Trouver des jeux de données ? Rien de plus facile, le Web regorge de ressources telles que DataPublica (repository), Buzzdata (réseau social de la data) et certains tags sur Delicious sont de vraies mines d’or (comme ddj, API ou data). N’oubliez pas non plus que si les gouvernements attendent parfois certaines initiatives pour mettre leurs données en ligne, certaines sont publiques, il suffit simplement de les leur demander gentiment.

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Article publié initialement sur l’Oeil du Pirate en deux parties sous le titre Data-journalism : par où commencer ? (1) et Partie (2)

Illustration Flickr CC blprnt_van

This is what I said at South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, March 12, 2011. It went well.

Many thanks to Lisa Williams for helping with the tech and the backchannel. You can find a live blog of my presentation here. Audio will be available later. When it is, I will link to it. Here’s the official description.

There’s an old rule among sportswriters: no cheering in the press box. In fact, a few weeks ago a young journalist lost his job at Sports Illustrated for just that reason: cheering at the conclusion of a thrilling race. Sportswriters could allow themselves to cheer occasionally without it affecting their work, but they don’t. And this rule gets handed down from older to younger members of the group.

So this is a little example of the psychology, not of individual journalists, but of the profession itself. We don’t often talk this way, but we could: “No cheering in the press box” is the superego at work. It’s a psychological thing within the sportswriter’s tribe. You learn to wear the mask if you want to join the club.

Six years ago I wrote an essay called Bloggers vs. Journalists is Over. It was my most well read piece at the time. And it made the points you would expect: This distinction is eroding. This war is absurd. Get over it. Move on. There’s bigger work to be done.

But since then I’ve noticed that while the division–-bloggers as one type, journalists as another–-makes less and less sense, the conflict continues to surface. Why? Well, something must be happening under the surface that expresses itself through bloggers vs. journalists. But what is that subterranean thing? This is my real subject today.

And to preview my answer: disruptions caused by the Internet threaten to expose certain buried conflicts at the heart of modern journalism and a commercialized press. Raging at bloggers is a way to keep these demons at bay. It exports inner conflicts to figures outside the press. Also–and this is important–bloggers and journalists are each other’s ideal “other.”

In tomorrow’s New York Times Magazine, which went online Thursday, Bill Keller acts out a version of bloggers vs. journalists. He ridicules aggregators like the Huffington Post and pokes at media bloggers (including me, Clay Shirky and Jeff Jarvis) for producing derivative work that is parasitic on news producers.

The queen of aggregation is, of course, Arianna Huffington, who has discovered that if you take celebrity gossip, adorable kitten videos, posts from unpaid bloggers and news reports from other publications, array them on your Web site and add a left-wing soundtrack, millions of people will come.

Of course the Times does aggregation, too. When it reviews a book or play that’s… derivative. We could charge Keller with petty hypocrisy, but that’s not my point. This is my point: There’s something about bloggers vs. journalists that permits the display of a preferred (or idealized) self among people in the press whose work lives have been disrupted by the Internet. There’s an attraction there. Spitting at bloggers is closely related to gazing at your own reflection, and falling in love with it all over again.

This is from an editor’s column in an Australian newspaper:

The great thing about newspapers is that, love us or hate us, we’re the voice of the people. We represent the community, their views, their aspirations and their hopes. We champion North Queensland’s wins and we commiserate during our losses…

Bloggers, on the other hand, represent nothing. They whinge, carp and whine about our role in society, and yet they contribute nothing to it, other than satisfying their juvenile egos.

Editorial writers as the voice of the people? Are you quite sure, Mr. Editor? Well, compared to bloggers…. yeah, we’re sure!

And to go with this preferred or idealized self, a demonized other, the pajama-wearing, basement-dwelling blogger. Andrew Marr is the former political editor of the BBC. He says:

A lot of bloggers seem to be socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed young men sitting in their mother’s basements and ranting. They are very angry people. OK – the country is full of very angry people. Many of us are angry people at times. Some of us are angry and drunk.

But the so-called citizen journalism is the spewings and rantings of very drunk people late at night. It is fantastic at times but it is not going to replace journalism.

Now there’s a clear risk in trying to do this at South by Southwest: to many people who have been paying attention, especially the digerati, bloggers v. journalists is almost the definition of a played-out theme. Aren’t we past all that by now? I know this is what some people will be thinking because I thought that way myself. Blogging is far more accepted today. Most journalists are bloggers themselves, so the distinction is getting weirder. Many newsrooms are trying to attract bloggers into local networks. Blogging itself has been overtaken by social media, some people think.

Did you catch that word, replace? For this subject, that’s like a blinking red light. Or better yet: an icon on your desktop. Click on the icon, and all the contents of bloggers vs. journalists are displayed. Ask bloggers why they blog and they might say: because big media sucks! But they will almost never say: I AM YOUR REPLACEMENT. This fantasy of replacement comes almost exclusively from the journalist’s side, typically connected to fears for a lost business model.

Frédéric Filloux is a former editor of Liberation in Paris. His view:

Today’s problem is not one media versus another, it’s the future of journalism — it’s finding the best possible way to finance the gathering and the processing of independent, reliable, and original information…. I don’t buy into the widespread delusion that legions of bloggers, compulsive twitterers or facebookers amount to a replacement for traditional journalism.

Keep clicking on the “replace” icon and other fears surface.

This is Connie Schultz, a columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, which has had a number of run-ins with local bloggers.

As I write this, only half of the states in the U.S. now have even one full-time reporter in Washington, D.C. No amount of random blogging and gotcha videos can replace the journalism that keeps a government accountable to its people. If you’re a journalist, you already know that. If you’re the rest of America, chances are you have no idea.

Blogging cannot replace the watchdog journalism that keeps a government accountable to its people. Journalists know that, but somehow the American people don’t. Replacement-by-bloggers talk is displaced anger toward a public that doesn’t appreciate what journalists do, a public that would somehow permit the press to wither away without asking what would be lost.

Here’s John Kass, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune:

[Our] reporters work in difficult and sometimes dangerous conditions. They do not blog from mommy’s basement, cutting and pasting what others have reported, while putting it under a cute pen name on the Internet.

Instead, the Tribune’s reporters are out knocking on doors in violent neighborhoods late at night, looking for witnesses after murders. Or they stand in the morgue and talk to the families of the dead. Tribune reporters are not anonymous. They use their own names, put them at the top of their stories and are accountable for what they write.

Bloggers are anonymous creeps. Journalists put it all out there and risk their reputations. Kass isn’t instructing bloggers in what makes them suck. He’s speaking to readers of the Tribune-–and especially former subscribers–-who are safely asleep in the suburbs, while reporters investigate crimes and comfort the dead. You can almost feel his rage at the injustice of the Internet.

The Tribune, of course, is currently in bankruptcy. It’s also welcoming bloggers to the fold through it’s Chicago Now site, which is a local blogging platform. Julie DiCaro, blogger for Chicago Now, responded to John Kass this way:

Being derided by reporters at the Tribune for no apparent reason probably isn’t the best way to attract new bloggers to the Tribune’s network. And, if I’m being honest, grumbling about bloggers these days is tantamount to yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off your lawn. It makes you look really, really old.

It’s not only readers who need remedial instruction in the value-added by journalists. Advertisers, too, need to be schooled. This is from a pitch to would-be advertisers by the Los Angeles Times:

What kind of awards coverage are you looking for?

Choose one:

A.) Accurate, in depth stories reported by journalists with years of experience.

B.) Unconfirmed, incomplete rumors spread by bloggers with axes to grind.

Here, bloggers vs. journalists helps underlines the self-evident superiority of the professional model. Of course, if it were really self-evident, drawing the contrast would be unnecessary… right?

This is probably my favorite quote of the ones I’ve collected. It’s from the West Seattle Herald, in an editorial about its competitor, West Seattle blog. (Hat tip, Tracy Record.)

Professional journalists don’t waste your time.

Instead of 3000 words about a community council meeting that was “live blogged” with updates every seven minutes, wouldn’t you honestly prefer 300 words that tell you what happened and what was decided?

What I like about this one is that question, “wouldn’t you prefer?” You can hear the tone of puzzlement, the plea for reason. The old school news provider struggles to understand why anyone would choose those new goods, like live blogging, that the Internet makes possible.

So far, I have been discussing what professional journalists “get” by hanging on to bloggers vs. journalists. But bloggers get something, too. I do not want to neglect that. Listen to the teet, a 25 year-old female blogger and writer in Columbus, Ohio:

I think I have an unnatural obsession with and hatred for the editor of the Dispatch.

Everything he says makes me want the throw my computer monitor out the window. Regardless, I’ve left him on my Google Reader. I always flip to the front of the Insight section on Sundays. I secretly love the pain he causes me.

By raging at newspaper editors, bloggers manage to keep themselves on the “outside” of a system they are in fact a part of. Meaning: It’s one Internet, folks. The news system now incorporates the people formerly known as the audience. Twitter and Facebook are hugely powerful as distributors of news.

I’ve said that bloggers and journalists are each other’s ideal “other.” From the blogger’s side, the conflict with journalists helps preserve some of that ragged innocence (which is itself a kind of power) by falsely locating all the power in Big Media. Here’s another blogger in Columbus, talking about the same newspaper editor:

Note to Ben Marrison: If you want to pretend that you, as a professional journalist, are somehow better than political bloggers … because you are less biased and less lazy then you might consider actually NOT being both lazy and biased while writing online rants for the world to see.

Don’t you know that’s OUR job?

We can be lazy and biased. For we are young and irresponsible. You are supposed to be the grown-ups here. This keeps at bay a necessary thought: we all have to grow up… someday. Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one, and now, because we have the Web, anyone can own one. The press is us. Not “them.” Is this not the very force that brings 10,000 people to South by Southwest Interactive?

I have always found it fascinating that both bloggers and journalists will use the word “traditional” in referring to the model of professional journalism that is taught in boot camp J-schools and practiced at, say, the Washington Post. That tradition is about 80 to 90 years old, at most. But our experiment with a free press is 250 years old. Whole chapters of it were discarded by American journalists when they tried to make themselves more scientific and objective in order to claim elevated status.

But these discarded parts of the tradition live on in the subconscious. And with blogging they have come roaring back. I make reference to this in the tag line to my blog, PressThink. The subtitle is: “Ghost of democracy in the media machine.”

Let’s visit one of those ghosts. Lincoln Steffens was the one of the original muckrakers. He exposed corruption in the machine politics of the big cities. This is from his 1902 book, The Shame of the Cities.

I am not a scientist. I am a journalist. I did not gather with indifference all the facts and arrange them patiently for permanent preservation and laboratory analysis. I did not want to preserve, I wanted to destroy the facts. My purpose was [to] see if the shameful facts, spread out in all their shame, would not burn through our civic shamelessness and set fire to American pride. That was the journalism of it. I wanted to move and to convince.

The part that gets me is, “I did not want to preserve, I wanted to destroy the facts.” No journalist at the Washington Post would say that today. It is not permitted. It would mark the speaker as unfit for the tribe. Although the kind of journalism that Dana Priest and Bob Woodward practice is a direct descendant of Lincoln Steffens and the muckrakers, something dropped out between 1902 and 2002.

“I wanted to destroy the facts… I wanted to move and convince… ” This is what dropped out when journalism professionalized itself in the 1920s and 30s. The bloggers, in this sense, are “the return of the repressed.” They write like Lincoln Steffens.

On the surface: antagonists. Dig deeper and the bloggers look more like the ancestors of today’s journalists. They are closer to Tom Paine than Bob Woodward is. They bring back what was lost in the transformation of journalism into a profession and a business that, say, Warren Buffet could invest in.

Here’s another dispatch from the newsroom’s superego. It’s the Washington Post’s social media guidelines:

When using these networks, nothing we do must call into question the impartiality of our news judgment. We never abandon the guidelines that govern the separation of news from opinion, the importance of fact and objectivity, the appropriate use of language and tone, and other hallmarks of our brand of journalism.

If you ask journalists why they chose their profession, they give a range of answers: to see the world, something new every day, I like to write. The most common answer is some variation on: to make the world a better place, to right wrongs and stick up for the little guy. Social justice, in other words. No one ever says, “I went into journalism because I have a passion for being… objective.” Or: “Detachment, that’s my thing. I’m kind of a detached guy, so I figured this would be a good field for me.”

And yet… When they get there, people who always wanted to be journalists and make the world a better place find that the professional codes in place often prevent this. It’s hard to fight for justice when you have to master “he said, she said” stories. Voice is something you learn to take out of your work if you want to succeed in the modern newsroom. You are supposed to sacrifice and learn to report the story without attitude or bias creeping in. And then, if you succeed in disciplining yourself, you might one day get a column and earn the right to crusade for justice, to move and convince.

This is a moral hierarchy, which bloggers disrupt. They jump right to voice, which appears to mock all the years of voicelessness that mainstream journalists had suffered through.

Last year a young reporter (and blogger) named Dave Weigel had to resign from the Washington Post after someone leaked some emails of his, in which he complained about people on the political right whom he also had to cover. After he was gone, some staffers at the Post dumped on Weigel anonymously. Here is what they said:

“The sad truth is that the Washington Post, in its general desperation for page views, now hires people who came up in journalism without much adult supervision, and without the proper amount of toilet-training.”

Without the proper amount of toilet-training. Freud wouldn’t even charge to interpret a quote like that. Which shows that bloggers vs. journalists doesn’t end when a blogger is hired at a big institutional player like the Washington Post. Instead the conflict is absorbed directly into the institution.

Journalists today are under stress. The stress has five sources. Bloggers put all five right into the face of professional journalism.

One: A collapsing economic model, as print and broadcast dollars are exchanged for digital dimes.

Two: New competition (the loss of monopoly) as a disruptive technology, the Internet, does its thing.

Three: A shift in power. The tools of the modern media have been distributed to the people formerly known as the audience.

Four: A new pattern of information flow, in which “stuff” moves horizontally, peer to peer, as effectively as it moves vertically, from producer to consumer. Audience atomization overcome, I call it.

Five: The erosion of trust (which started a long time ago but accelerated after 2002) and the loss of authority.

A useful comparison would be to medical doctors: when patients can look up a drug on the Internet, research a course of treatment or connect with others who have the same condition, the authority of the doctor does not disappear. And it’s not that people don’t trust their doctors anymore. But the terms of authority have to change to allow for patients who have more information, more options, and more power to argue with their physicians.

In pro journalism, it is similar: the terms of authority have to change. The practice has to become more interactive. And this is happening under conditions of enormous stress.

The psychiatrist Robert Coles, author of The Moral Life of Children and other great works, wrote a book called The Call of Stories (which is another reason people go into journalism, to answer that call.) In the beginning of that book he reflects on his early training in psychiatry, at a mental hospital in Boston. He is told to make his rounds and classify his patients by the diseases they seem to be exhibiting, and note any changes in their condition.

After a few weeks of this, Coles is depressed. He’s doing the work, classifying and observing, but he cannot see how his patients are going to improve. So he goes to see his supervisor, a wiser and older doctor. Coles complains: I don’t get it. I am doing what they told me to do, but how are my patients going to get any better? The older doctor listens to him, and pauses. It’s as if he’s been waiting for the question. And this is what he says:

Our patients have been telling themselves a story about who they are and where they fit in the world. And for reasons we do not understand very well, their story has broken down. It no longer lets them live in the real world, so they wind up here.

Your job—your only job—is to listen to them, and then get them to see that they have to start telling themselves a better story. Or they won’t get out of here. If you can do that–any way you can do that–you are doing psychiatry. Coles got it. And this was the beginning of his career as a clinician.

I think this illuminates the situation with the professional press today. The story it has been telling itself has broken down. It no longer helps the journalist navigate the real world conditions under which journalism is done today. Somehow, journalists have to start telling themselves a better story about what they do and why it matters. And we have to help them. We interactive people.

For people in the press, bloggers vs. journalists is an elaborate way of staying the same, of refusing to change, while permitting into the picture some of the stressful changes I have mentioned. A shorter way to say this is: it’s fucking neurotic.

Thank you for your attention.

(Dedicated to James W. Carey, 1935-2006.)

>> This article was originally published on Pressthink.org

>> Photo FlickR CC by : RedJinn: Questions are not lonely without answers, Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Zip. Nada. I didn’t even know how to prepare an invoice (when are we supposed to get taught that?!)

So the last year of freelancing has been a roller-coaster of mistakes, mishaps, lost cash, wasted time, frustration. I’ve found myself tied into week long gigs at a scandalously low rate, and also lost out on good commissions because I went in too cheap.

Errors like this are part of the course – and there absolutely no way to get through your first months and years without falling victim. But hopefully these 10 lessons, which I have really taken home with me (OK, I work from home, but whatever) will stand you in good stead!

10 things I wish I knew about freelancing a year ago

.01 The first two weeks are really hard

I remember slipping wildly from pure numbness to feelings of sheer terror. I woke up every morning in a mild panic, not knowing whether any money was coming my way. Most of the days were spent at my desk – which meant entire days on my own, hardly speaking to a soul. The complete loss of structure left me feeling unbalanced and guilty (yes, guilty!) when I hadn’t been productive for an hour or so.

It was miserable – and it’s in these dark hours that your mind starts playing tricks on you, saying things like “this was a huge mistake”; “this is going to go horribly wrong!”; “If you start looking for a full time job now maybe no-one will notice you’ve messed up…”.

So: have a plan for the first fortnight. Fill it with structure, routine, fresh air, exercise, meetings and lunch dates with friends. Your first couple of weeks in a normal job usually ease you in, so why should freelancing be any different?

.02 Time management is even harder

If you’re working at home, and even worse, in your own room, then time management is a tough nut to crack. With no manager, editor or colleagues looking over your shoulder, does it really matter if you slack off for an hour this morning? Does that commission really need to be done right away?

If you get the work done, then it doesn’t matter when you do it…except: I’ve learned completing a structured day, getting all your to-do list ticked off and all the work you set for yourself done, is a really good feeling. Having to shift stuff to the next day, feeling behind and knowing you’ve wasted a whole day really blows. Even if you haven’t had any urgent work to do, as a freelancer, you feel the pangs of a wasted day even harder.

So: get a daily routine. A great quote from Mark McGuinness: “Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work.” and that’s a rule I like. Ring-fence your most productive time, and devote it solely to your primary work. Ban email, twitter and the like when you’re doing this A-flag work. I no longer answer the phone before 1pm, because mornings are my time (seriously).

Bonus tip: there’s loads of awesome time management advice in Mark McGuinness’ excellent (and free) ebook: Time Management for Creative People.

.03 General assignment freelancing is tough

If you’re going into this with no area specialism it will be tough. Although the flexibility to grab any story and work it is appealing, the highest paid freelancers are the ones with the specialisms: the contacts, the proven insider knowledge, the ability to crunch numbers etc., of a specific field.

Don’t confuse this with my ‘jack-of-all-trades’ approach to technical skills – you need a broad range of those; but they should ideally come together to enhance your offering within a specific area.

So: dig down into a niche and get a specialism. This is especially true of those leaving a general assignment reporter job (as I did) or those fresh out of a generic arts-style degree. Part-time or evening courses, weekend workshops, online courses, or even just self-teaching are affordable and practical ways to build a strong enough expertise in a specific field in a short time.

.04 Being underpaid sucks

And it happens to every single one of us. Especially after a bit of a drought. We accept a gig at a bad rate, sometimes just because we’re flattered to be asked. I’ve even done stuff for people for free before, for that reason – and let me tell you straight up: it’s a mistake. Taking low rates is bad all round. You feel resentful towards your client, unwilling to do extra hours – and you still have money worries! Meanwhile, they treat you less well (you’re cheap for a reason, right?); and it also devalues the market for other freelancers.

So: double your rates for each gig. Sounds crazy? Try it. It’s a popular adage among freelancers in a host of other disciplines. You might think you’ll get laughed out the door, but unless your potential new client chokes on their diet coke you’re probably OK. And even if they do, just come back a day or two later with “it’s lower than my standard rate, but I’m really keen to work with you so let’s do it!” Charging more is also about you taking pride in your work and wanting reward for the standards of your service: if you do charge extra, you’d better make it the best work you’ve ever done.

Bonus tip: if you’re not comfortable with a 100% increase, try a smaller increment.

.05 There is such a thing as ‘not worth it’

Money aside, some gigs just aren’t worth your time. Unfortunately, for the inexperienced freelancer, you only discover the rotten apples by taking a bite. I’ve done jobs which I thought would only take two days, which took 10; jobs which cost me as much as I got paid; and jobs which haven’t paid out for sometimes three, or even six months!

So: learn to say no. Do not accept any job without speaking to your potential client on the phone, Skype or in person first. Ask those tricky questions about expenses and when you could accept payment. In other industries, freelancers do not start work without 50% up front. If you are genuinely unsure, or not in love with the work – then say that magic word: no! Once you’ve said it, forget about it.

.06 Cold-calling does not work

In the early months I tried ringing and emailing news-desks offering my services. To no avail. I pitched lots of stories, and a few got commissioned, but mostly I got the cold-shoulder. About 90% of my work over the last year has come to me. A lot of freelancing guides say you have to do the sales pitch and ‘hit the phones’ – but doing so (in my opinion) puts you in the inferior position, as the struggling independent desperate for work. The easier, less painful and less humiliating way is to make the work come to you.

So: build a brand. The internet is your sales pitch now, and it doesn’t matter who reads it. I’ve banged on countless times before about using social media and blogs to establish your position in the market place. Put together your own portfolio website using free tools like Wordpress, Flavors or Tumblr. For a brand you’ll need a story and mission.

.07 You will need a blog

As well as a portfolio site, you have no excuse not to blog any more. We go on about blogging so much these days, you might think it’s becoming a cliche, or even just an overpopulated place. But the truth remains: a blog is still the cheapest, fastest and easiest way to establish your authenticity, your credibility & expertise within your specialism and bring in cash.

So: don’t hang around. Get a blog today. If you’re unsure where to start, my mini-series on blogging for journalists will get you on your way.

.08 Money matters

There is no regular salary and there is no-one to babysit your account for you. If you’re going to do the freelancing thing, financial expert has got to become one of your many job titles. Being afraid of money is a dangerous thing for a freelancer: being afraid to confirm a rate before agreeing to work, being afraid to invoice for expenses, even being afraid to check your balance, in case it’s bad news. It’s also really easy for all your personal and business finances to get mixed up.

So: separate your finances. One of the best bits of advice I got before starting out was to register as a sole-trader (a legal requirement in the UK) and open a separate business bank account for my freelance work. It was the first thing I did on day one. Any payments I make go into that account, and then each month I pay myself a salary into my personal accounts. This has two great functions: #1. it helps control the ebb and flow, and stops me gorging on a good month only to starve the next; #2 it keeps everything clearly separate, should Mr or Mrs Taxman decide to pay a visit.

Bonus tip: Every time you catch yourself worrying about money: stop. Just think about something else (the weather, football whatever). I’ve saved myself a dozen ulcers by diverting my mind elsewhere…and that head in the sand approach hasn’t ruined me, because I ring-fence some money time each week anyway.

.09 Admin matters too

A not insignificant time in a freelancers’ work is dedicated to admin: filing invoices, chasing late payments, paying taxes, updating websites and LinkedIn Profiles. It all matters – and none of it earns you cash, which is one of the reasons freelancers earn more than full-time counterparts. This isn’t something to let get out of control.

So: ring-fence admin time. I call mine ‘Money Monday’ and I start each week with the cheery task of checking all my accounts, opening bills, sending invoices and updating my accounts. I like to get it out of the way, but you might prefer ‘Wonga Wednesday’ or ‘Finance Friday’. Ring-fencing it makes sure it happens, and then allows you to clear it from your mind as soon as it’s done.

Bonus tip: I couldn’t run such a portfolio career without Google Calendar. It’s a great (and free) way to manage my time in a fluid way, which takes into account changing circumstances. It’s colour coding helps me instantly gauge what’s coming up.

A capture of my Google Calendar from earlier this year

.10 …and freelancing is a mug’s game

OK an odd one to end such a positive post on I know – and I am not calling every freelancer a mug!

But for all its freedoms, freelancing has its limitations. Pulling out a great days work for someone, or producing a great piece of work for them – only to have to wait weeks to get your due reward from it is tough going. As the economic clouds pull in, companies are getting worse and worse about paying up. I know people who have had to camp out in a magazine’s office to get paid.

You are no longer part of the rat-race, but you are still renting your brain out to someone else, on their terms. It can be a career of writing stories about things you’re not interested in, serving people you despise, and getting multimedia you’ve made redrafted to the bone. You can be very comfortable being a freelancer and, dare I say it, even rich. But can you make millions or change the world?

There’s got to be a better way to do it…what do you think?

Next Generation Journalist: Nick Williams from Adam Westbrook on Vimeo.

Photo Credits: Flickr CC Lisa Padilla

This article was originally published on Journalism.co.uk, and was written by Rachel McAthy.

WikiLeaks expanded its media collaborations for the release of the Iraq War Logs in order to maximise the exposure of the documents’ contents for the sources behind the leaks.

Almost 400,000 military documents were released to media outlets across the world in what WikiLeaks is claiming to be the biggest leak of military documents in history.

According to WikiLeaks, the 391,832 reports document the war and occupation in Iraq from 1 January 2004 to 31 December 2009, excluding the months of May 2004 and March 2009, “as told by soldiers in the United States Army”.

“Each is a ‘SIGACT’ or Significant Action in the war. They detail events as seen and heard by the US military troops on the ground in Iraq and are the first real glimpse into the secret history of the war that the United States government has been privy to throughout.”

Kristinn Hrafnsson, spokesman for the whistleblowing website, seen in interview in this video at the Frontline Club, said WikiLeaks worked with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism to ensure maximum coverage.

“We thought and believed that we should expand this group to include more media in this process,” he said.

“Through the Bureau of Investigative Journalism we have achieved that. This is all in line with the promise made to sources to maximise the impact of the material that they leak to WikiLeaks.

“It is unique in journalistic history, I think, to have so many media outlets working on the same material at the same time. The media outlets are not used to these kinds of projects, they are not used to cooperating on a basis such as this one. We relied pretty much on the expertise and skill that was provided by the news outlets. There were probably 40 or 50 professional journalists working on the material and with researchers and additional people there were probably up to 100 people.”

For the last three months the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, along with a group of media outlets and the Iraq Body Count agency, has had access to the documents.

Following the publication of the Afghanistan war logs by WikiLeaks in July, the organisation again partnered with the Guardian, the New York Times and Germany’s Der Spiegel, but this time also worked with the Bureau to open up the material to other outlets.

According to the Bureau’s website France’s Le Monde was also given access to the reports. The Bureau also partnered with Channel 4 Dispatches and Al Jazeera English to produce films on the content and said Sweden’s SVT were also “involved”.

Speaking in this video the Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s editor Iain Overton discusses how he became involved in working with WikiLeaks and the production of its own website dedicated to the release, iraqwarlogs.com.

“Julian [Assange] revealed to me that there was this enormous amount of data coming out. At the time it was coming out quite quickly, I think we had about four or five weeks to do it. We both agreed that it was probably useful to try and get as many broadcasters in as possible. The broadcaster and print worlds operate at a slightly different pace… but we thought let’s have a stab at this,” he says.

“This is the largest media enterprise in history in terms of mining a data source and going at the same time. It has been fraught at occasion. There have been vicious journalists trying to spin stories about this that were untrue; there have been lies in the press about this. That is one part that I have had to deal with as an editor. The other part is this insistence, and necessarily so, of editorial independence. The Bureau has been working editorially independently from WikiLeaks. We are collaborating but we are editorially independent.”

Cliquer ici pour voir la vidéo.

The Bureau has set up a dedicated website to cover stories from within the war logs, as well as making films, including a documentary for Dispatches on Channel 4 that airs tonight at 8pm and shorter reports for Al Jazeera English and Arabic.

The media partnerships appeared to hit some issues late on Friday when WikiLeaks Twitter account reported that it had to bring forward its Iraq War Logs embargo on news outlets after it was breached by Al Jazeera by 30 minutes.

“The reports detail 109,032 deaths in Iraq, comprised of 66,081 ‘civilians’; 23,984 ‘enemy’ (those labeled as insurgents); 15,196 ‘host nation’ (Iraqi government forces) and 3,771 ‘friendly’ (coalition forces),” says WikiLeaks on its website.

“The majority of the deaths (66,000, over 60 per cent) of these are civilian deaths.That is 31 civilians dying every day during the six-year period. For comparison, the ‘Afghan War Diaries’, previously released by WikiLeaks, covering the same period, detail the deaths of some 20,000 people. Iraq during the same period, was five times as lethal with equivalent population size.”

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism said it sent two letters to the Department of Defense Press Office at the Pentagon offering it a chance to respond to a series of allegations about US forces and US defence policy.

In its response the US Department of Defense says the reports do not tell “the whole story”.

“We strongly condemn the unauthorised disclosure of classified information and will not comment on these leaked documents other than to note that ’significant activities’ reports are initial, raw observations by tactical units,” it says.

“They are essentially snapshots of events, both tragic and mundane, and do not tell the whole story. That said, the period covered by these reports has been well-chronicled in news stories, books and films and the release of these field reports does not bring new understanding to Iraq’s past.

“However, it does expose secret information that could make our troops even more vulnerable to attack in the future. Just as with the leaked Afghan documents, we know our enemies will mine this information looking for insights into how we operate, cultivate sources, and react in combat situations, even the capability of our equipment. This security breach could very well get our troops and those they are fighting with killed.”

In order to protect those mentioned in the reports the Bureau said it removed all names and detailed grid references from the documents published on its site.

Photo Credits: Flickr CC Fräulein Schiller

Jay Rosen, as usual, beat me to the punch with his thoughts this morning on the Chile mine story. This is why I tweet more than I blog; sometimes you just say it and fill in the gaps later. I did a bit of mini-ranting last night, at least. Anyhow, Rosen:

A big story and a great story, but does 1300 journalists covering the Chilean miners have anything to do with reality?

I’ve been mulling this post for a few days and have wrestled with the cadence. I don’t do the curmudgeon thing very well, but this story has me feeling really, really cranky.

The Chile miners story is a wonderful news story about perserverence, ingenuity, working together, and triumph. That is what most of the world is seeing, and I know a lot of us have been hoping for a safe rescue. But this story depresses me.

In an era of closed foreign bureaus

I see a story about journalism. To know that 1300 journalists have descended on this mining town to cover a worldwide story is a little disconcerting in an era of closed foreign bureaus and budget cutbacks. Many might question that thought given the intense interest in the story; my Twitter and Facebook feeds were lit up last night as the first miner descended ascended up the 2000-foot shaft. But the public doesn’t think in terms of resources when it consumes journalism; it only has what it has in front of it.

Thirteen-hundred journalists – imagine what we could do with that. Journalism organizations are pouring resources into this as if it is the Baby Jessica 1980s and ’90s, with fatter newsrooms and no Internet. Really, does every major TV news network in the U.S. need a camera crew and reporters out there? In an era of satellite feeds and citizens on the ground who can pipe in material, does the U.S. media have to parachute in on a story like this?

A human interest story with a small impact on a large population

Foreign stories are worth covering, but let’s be honest that this is more a human interest story with a small impact on a large population than something such as the earthquake that occurred in that same country of Chile just eight months ago. The proportion of response to story impact is perhaps the best illustration of the insanity we seen in media business choices today.

The choice to shuttle all these resources to Chile does have an impact on what we cover at home. My former Mizzou colleague Lene Johansen posted a heart-wrenching story earlier this week about poverty in Philadelphia in the wake of the Great Recession. Heart-wrenching because of the details, but more so because this kind of thing isn’t on our radar everyday. Poor people don’t buy newspapers. Significant resources go to cover whatever shiny object the American consumption class will chase these days. The Chile miners story, while interesting and heart-warming, is really just the flavor of the week, another form of reality TV in the eyes of the business executives making the call of what resources to spend where.

The actual story has zero effect on people in the U.S. with real problems; it’s a wonderful distraction, which would be fine if it was distracting us from coverage of bigger problems at home. But that’s not the reality of this reality TV news story.

Chilean journalists could have covered it

Cover it, but let’s keep some perspective here.

The biggest problem here is there is not really a need to devote so many resources to this because of the wonderful advances we have made in technology. I have barely tuned in to the coverage on my TV or online. I have my Twitter feed; I knew when the first miner emerged at roughly the same time everyone else did. We have Chilean journalists – both professional and citizen – who are already embedded in that community and region who can cover it well. It’s not our story. Perhaps the biggies like the NYT should be there, but is it necessary to send anyone else? Do the news networks – cable or otherwise – really need their own camera crew and on-the-ground reporters for this?

The public sees a great story, and that’s fine. It really is. But on the media side, I see an industry chasing hits and page views by wasting valuable economic and human capital. Let’s cheer for the miners, but let’s not forget that there is suffering here at home and it should get the same, if not more, resource allocation.

Will we band together and help out the poor and downtrodden here, or is this Chile story really just a welcome break from our routine of ignoring those suffering among us? Journalism has a part to play in how we answer this question.

Update at 4:05 EDT on 10/14: Apparently the criticism is more than theoretical. Check out this news story from the NYT about how the coverage will constrain budgets for coverage of other things at the BBC. Hope those one-day page views was worth it! Thanks to Carrie Brown-Smith for the tip.

—

Post initially published on Jeremy Littau’ blog, translated into french on OWNI

Image CC Flickr purpleslog

Who’s it for?

10 New Ways to Make Money in Journalism is the first in a new series of books aimed at writers, broadcasters, students, social media types and anyone interested in finding new ways to make money in the modern world of journalism.

About the writer

Adam describes himself as a multimedia journalist, lecturer, blogger and writer. He left his full time job as a radio reporter in the North East of England to pursue a freelance career in London. We’ve also had the pleasure of working with him and can confirm he’s a thoroughly top bloke. We asked him why he feels now is the time to launch the book:

It’s never been a better time… the industry is ripe for change you can almost feel it in the air, poised, just waiting for someone to come along and make it happen. The best thing is anyone can be this change – it doesn’t matter how old or young you are and for the first time, experience not necessary!

Contents

You’ll find the book divided into ten practical sections covering content aggregation, setting up a hyperlocal site and even creating your own multimedia collaborative. The tone is both informative and inspirational, think self help meets how-to guide.

From the offset the book encourages you to remind yourself why you went into the industry

Even if you’re familiar with multimedia journalism you’re likely to find many parts of the book useful. For example, Adam has helpfully added hyperlinks to many of his case studies, turning the book into a textbook-like anytime resource. This also makes the book in our opinion more useful in its ebook form.

Highlights include the excellent “Things you can do right away” sections at the end of each chapter which offer practical first steps towards creating your new business.

What it isn’t

In contrast to more technology based books such as Mark Luckie’s The Digital Journalist’s Handbook, this book focuses more on the business and moneymaking side of modern journalism. For example the section on building smartphone apps offers some pointers but you’ll need to invest in further reading to know your objective-c from your cocoa.

Legal issues and the technicalities of starting up a new business are also not covered so be sure read up more on this before opening your first venture. We received the UK copy of the book and understand there will also be a more US focussed version.

Our verdict

10 New Ways to Make Money in Journalism is like having a friend who knows everyone, everything and loves keeping you up to date. It’s the friend that doesn’t always know about everything in detail, but knows where to point you to find out more. In essence, it’s a combination of Adam’s expertise, knowledge and contacts  and an excellent way to bring you right up to date in 2010.

10 New Ways to Make Money in Journalism goes on sale on 21st May 2010 priced at £6.50 ($9.50) for its first week and then £10. Find out more at Adam’s ebook microsite.

This article has been published on Not On The Wires

Picture CC from Flickr, Tony Case

The move has been described by Reporters Without Borders as “authoritarian”, and has appealed to European Council President Herman Van Rompuy to intervene at the EU regional government level.

Under this law, bloggers and podcasters are being subject to the same control and regulation as traditional media outlets. Indeed, the mentality behind it is so retrograde that it appeals to a law introduced in 1948, which compels newspapers to ‘rectify incorrect information’ after it has been published.

This also implies that all blogs must be linked to a particular individual, and not just that, a legal entity which can be held responsible once its content is deemed inappropriate. In other words, goodbye to anonymous posting.

Though Italy is by no means Iceland – the first country in the world to allow for complete freedom of press thanks to legal package “Icelandic Model Media Initiative“ - it is fair to say that it’s not likely to become a haven for freedom of expression anytime soon. What other countries are subject to such freedom-curbing laws? The EU Observer has reported that Ireland, Bulgaria and Romania are also facing similar ‘2.0 unfriendly’ policies.

“In January last year, Ireland passed an anti-blasphemy law under which you can be fined €20,000. When our organisation raised concerns about a journalist being jailed for blasphemy in the Yemen, they said right back to us: ‘But Ireland does the same thing,’ and to some extent they’re right.”

The long-term outcome is likely to be austere, intellectually and politically.

According to Arianna Ciccone, leading the movement against the gag law, “the web will be emasculated. The unique vitality and yes, freedom, of cyberspace will be reduced. Diversity of opinion will suffer as uncertainty, prudence and fear take the place of liberty of expression. Mainsteam media frequently dances to other tunes. At risk is the future of independent news-gathering and opinion-sharing in Italy”. .

Blogs at risk in Italy include:

• Spinoza
• Phonkmeister
• Diritto alla Rete
• Metilparaben
• Beppe Grillo’s blog
• Il Nichilista
• Macchianera

These popular websites often include content that is extremely critical of government policy in Italy, some of them may be campaigning sites that have raised awareness on many fronts, and others are authored by ‘celebrities’ like comedian and outspoken activist Beppe Grillo. Read them now, while you can.

Photos CC FlickR by Zingaro. I am a gipsy too. and Toban Black

Up until recently I thought the problem was revenue and the lack thereof; but that will solve itself organically over time.

And then I realised they’ve got another problem:  it’s one they’ll never be able to solve – and it threatens their place in the future of journalism.

They’re too big.

Sounds strange doesn’t it (after all, size is usually good for a news organisation with a big remit). The insight comes from Clay Shirky, whose blog posts are rare, but always near revolutionary. He talks about the collapse of the great empires of the past: the Mayans, the Romans. They collapsed because they got too big, too complex and couldn’t adapt to a new world.

His modern case in point: the Times paywall. He interprets Rupert Murdoch’s justification for charging online content as this:

Web users will have to pay for what they watch and use, or else we will have to stop making content in the costly and complex way we have grown accustomed to making it. And we don’t know how to do that

In other words, News International is so big, so complex, so addicted to the exuberant and wasteful systems which it consumed in the 20th century, it just can’t change. So it has to charge customers to help sustain its lifestyle.

Shirky goes on:

In a bureaucracy, it’s easier to make a process more complex than to make it simpler, and easier to create a new burden than kill an old one… Some video still has to be complex to be valuable, but the logic of the old media ecoystem, where video had to be complex simply to be video, is broken

That last point about video is important. Think how many TV production companies are addicted to $20,000 cameras, big rigs, professional lighting, large crews and plush offices in the centre of major cities. They don’t know how to do anything different, and so they charge their clients thousands upon thousands to cover their secret addiction to luxury.

Video Journalism has been around as a cheap alternative to traditional TV news gathering since the 1980s. Why do all the big news organisations still send 2 or even 3 person crews to stories? Michael Rosenblum points out dryly, ABC News’ move to VJing should have been news in the 90s.

Bad times for them. Good times for the next generation of journalists and producers.

How to survive in the future of journalism

Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Next generation journalists have a big advantage: we’re not addicted to expensive gear, offices, full time employment or bureaucracy. We know we can do things quick, cheap and simple. We can get impressive results with DSLRs, open source software, a laptop and creative commons media. We’re not ashamed to interview someone on a FlipCam, or embed our video with Youtube.

Do not underestimate the advantage that gives us in the market.

Someone who gets it is media commentator and lecturer Jeff Jarvis. Here’s what he wrote for the Guardian, when the Times paywall was announced:

…in Murdoch’s folly, I see opportunity… As a teacher of entrepreneurial journalism at the City University of New York, I see openings for my students to compete with the dying relics by starting highly targeted, ruthlessly relevant new news businesses at incredibly low cost and low risk

And that’s precisely it. Go in lean, mean and ruthless and start tearing stuff up. But know this: if your career takes you into the fold of the giants, you too will become addicted to their opium. It’s a tough drug to get over. I’ve been lucky in some ways. I’ve only ever worked for tiny, struggling commercial outlets. I thought it sucked at the time, but it meant I always had to do things cheap, and quick – and I never got hooked on the luxurious journalism of the BBC or anyone else.

But the future is bright: here’s Clay Shirky to wrap it up:

It’s easy to see the ways in which collapse to simplicity wrecks the glories of old. But there is one compensating advantage for the people who escape the old system: when the ecosystem stops rewarding complexity, it is the people who figure out how to work simply in the present, rather than the people who mastered the complexities of the past, who get to say what happens in the future

This article was initially published on Adam’s blog

Image Credit CC FlickR Okinawa Soba

On the news of state-owned channel Rai Uno the presenter announced that the Italian Prime Minister had been “absolved” in the trial that found David Mills – husband of former British cabinet minister Tessa Jowell – accused of taking a bribe from the Italian politician.

The contention grew out of the fact that Berlusconi had not been absolved, the trial had been statute barred. This was the outcome of an intense campaign to reform the justice system in Italy, which succeeded in indicting the bribed but not the briber.

The last step was to make sure that public opinion was steered in the right direction.

At that very moment Augusto Minzolini – editor of Rai Uno’s main news program – became Arianna’s target, as he was personifying what was wrong with Italian journalism and information at the time.

This is how the Facebook group “Dignity for Journalists and Respect for citizens was born. Now this very group has gathered around 15,000 signatures calling for the rectification of the news story regarding Berlusconi’s trial.

Today, July 1st, the netizens of Italy and allies of Valigia Blu – will be taking to the streets – virtual and real – to protest against a new law, known as Alfano Law or “gag law”, an anti-phone tapping bill already “greenlighted”on June 12 by the Italian Senate. The penalties for those who violate this law are severe: fines of up to € 450.000 for editors or even detention for up to one month for journalists.

It was put into place to prohibit the leaking of phone and wire-tapped conversations on criminal probes to mainstream media, as well as online media. The bill is now due to receive final approval from the lower house of parliament or Chamber of Deputies. The steering continues.

Many wiretapped conversations have led to a widespread disillusionment with the Prime Minister – known as Il Cavaliere, the Knight, due to his government-endowed title – and his apparatchiks.

The main protest – called on by the National Press Federation – will take place in Piazza Navona in Rome, but it will also flow through the channels of online activism. It will be live streamed on websites such as YouDem.tv, supported by the Democratic Party, i.e. the main opposition body. Other websites, such as Diritto di Critica, are closely following and supporting the protest.

A protest against Berlusconi in Piazza del Popolo, Rome.

Arianna doesn’t have a political background. She was previously an organiser involved with the renowned International Festival of Journalism in Perugia, and is now a key figure in this movement. Arianna took the time to explain to OWNI the reasons behind her movement’s momentum.

All citizens should revolt against a law that shackles magistrates and gags information

“All citizens should revolt against a law that shackles magistrates and gags information”, Arianna elucidates, underlining the lack of political interest attached to this type of activism. “I have been mobilised by the right to know and to freedom of press [...] In a country stained by the prime minister’s gross conflict of interest we act as watchdogs, not just for information but also public services which at this moment are in the hands of the various political parties”, she adds.

“I don’t see Valigia Blu as an organised movement. Or even as a movement in itself. It grew within social networks like Facebook. Our “Dignity and respect” group has more than 200.000 members, the fan page has 16000 fans, whereas the website in itself has no more than 2000 subscribers. We are merely committed citizens.”

Wiretapping opponents mostly argue that these leaks deprive individuals of their right to privacy: “When it comes to public figures, everything about them should be known. If there is a need to protect those who, though involved in tapped conversations, are innocent, one can resort to hearing excerpts. The civil defence and the public prosecutor can decide, along with an independent third-party judge, what material should not be published. Privacy is more often than not used as an excuse. This bill is set to protect the ruling class and the shady practices of white collar workers. Not to mention depriving magistrates of one of the main tools of investigation against organised crime”.

In the meantime a parallel current has emerged within Valigia Blu. If the bill passes their pledge is to violate it. “Arrestateci tutti“, they say.

Put us all in prison

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The interview was conducted by Adriano Farano

Pictures Credit: CC FlickR lo spacciatore di lenti

A number of things have struck me.

First of all, Federico Pignalberti writes for Agoravox Italia, a citizen journalism website founded and managed by young people. Also, he has been following the trial whilst studying in the comfort of his home. And he’s only 17.

“When I began working on this, I noticed no one was covering dell’Utri’s trial. I found this absurd” – Federico told me on the phone. “I started following the hearing on the radio. I got hold of many phone numbers. I am sent documents all the time and work on it every day”.

I passed Federico’s work over to a colleague, an expert on judicial news. Such was his reaction: “This is outstanding! I’m going to keep his articles since I couldn’t follow the trial myself“.

Indeed, I am not the only one to be impressed by Federico’s work. Aside from his age, Federico’s articles are edited and published by a group of 27/30 years-old journalists working in Paris (in the French Agoravox HQ) i.e. people that in traditional Italian newsrooms would be nothing more than interns.

We keep considering our profession a closed industry

Dear fellow journalists, are we or are we not going to face reality? We keep placing our profession in an ivory tower, conceiving it as a closed industry made in official places, just like a film. But, just like in film industry, there are people willing to live journalism as an open activity which is free for anyone — and often free from journalism schools — whereby they don’t have to ask anyone permission.

And, as you can see,the point is that they’re doing it well. If you dared attend Italy’s journalism festivals or debates (as I do whenever I get a chance) you would notice that at this time there a lots of Federicos in our country.

They don’t have to ask anyone to practice the sort of journalism that is of civic value (“How absurd that nobody is following the trial!” he said).

The issue is not that Federico should be able to find a job, after all he has found one on his own (though I suspect Agoravox is not paying him). In any case, one day he’ll find a job, and to be frank, I don’t know whether I wish him to be hired at all. The point is that you are — we are — disintermediated. The iPad will not save us. Only the highest quality in journalism will save us from the brutal competition brought by all the world’s Federicos.

So be careful, these little journalism geniuses hold the future in their hands.

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Original post : Il nostro inviato dal liceo scientifico ci fa concorrenza. Bene – Translation Adriano Farano

The teenager’s articles on AgoraVox. The french version of this post : Presse tradi, ton rival est un lycéen de dix-sept ans

Photo Credits CC Flickr: Dunechaser.