Monthly Archive for September, 2009
Today I had the feeling, that instead of reporting about the digital media scene for the Guardian, I report about Google. Well I am not afraid of Google, at least not yet. But I swear, this is not on purpose. I am forced by the pure fact, that the company releases a lot of interesting stuff at the moment. Apart from Google Wave, there was the Data Liberation Front news today, which I actually think is quite an issue, especially since we all communicate our present on social networks. Storing it by sharing. And when the present becomes your past and you want to export it somewhere else or even just have a look at it, you get into some real problems. Flickr doesn’t really want you to mass-export pictures for example. Same with facebook status updates for example, like my older ones were gone for a while. Bad thing, because indeed they were kind of an abstract reminder, what was going on at that time.
Besides the plan to make their data exportable, there was Fast Flip. Now I know that for sympathetic classical internet inhabitants, the so called nerds, it might be suspect. They never like it, when things become visual. But personally I like a lot. It is Google Lab’s experiment on how to display news more visually – and as Oliver Rickman, the UK spokesperson for Google told me today, Google plans offering publishers to embed the Google Flip technology within their sites later on. Which is quite interesting as well, especially when you think of all the other stuff, that Google develops around news. Like the, uh, paid content andmicropayment project checkout. And Google Wave coming in fall, which might be perfect for collaborated reporting.
News and Journalism, that’s for sure, will play an important part for the company Google in the future. And if you ask me, vice versa Google might become for the news industry, what iTunes became for the music industry.
The original plan of reporting was totally different of course. Well, we all know whether news nor texts are well behaved beings. But when I started at the Guardian a couple of weeks ago, I planned to do a deeper research on collaborated news. I am still thinking a lot about it, because I have the diffuse feeling, it needs a new approach. Just a little twist, maybe more real-time web than collaboration, I don’t know jet. Anyway, if an interesting project, essay or thought comes by, please start to get into a discussion with me. Or just let me know. I am looking for stuff like HelpMeInvestigate, Michael Massing’s must-read essay The News About the Internet or Brian Solis TechChrunch research Can the Statusphere save Journalism. And like everybody else I need a reminder to pull me out of my daily routine from time to time.
Democracy needs journalism. The production of journalism has to be more valued, so we all should pay for it. But why are we so sure of both? And do these arguments really match? Let’s have a look.
One.
When broadsheet journalism gets insecure about the role it plays nowadays, it always rubs one argument in: That it is really important for democracy. Well. Of course it is important, that governments are controlled. That is out of the question. But the truth is, there might be other ways than broadsheet journalism. How we controlled power was historically always changing. There is no patent – and we journalists better be aware of that. So even though a lot of us don’t want to get into this, they better should. Not only for their own sake, but for the sake of democracy.
Two.
The second bad mistake is – this comes as no surprise out of my keyboard – the paid content debate. Actually when I escaped from Germany to GB I hoped to leave the paid-content-debate behind, but I didn’t. Unfortunately. Last weekend for example, Rupert Murdoch’s son James gave a totally not paid for public speech, which even made it kind of a nation wide issue. For free.
To understand what is really going on, one has to be aware that the Murdoch empire just announced to shut down his freely distributed newspaper. Last time the old newspaper buddies tried to charge for content, because they thought: If people pay for news at a kiosk, they will do it online, too. The new debate for paid content now evolves again out of a print experience. Producing a free paper is to expensive. Let’s built up some walls around our online-content as well. But applying the logic of the old media to the new doesn’t work.
Three
Now I don’t believe that there won’t be money in the newsbusiness in the near future, but it might not be that obvious where it is. Indeed it might take some time to find the revenue spot – remember Google? Exactly. So applying the logic of the old media to the new media won’t work. New Media have their own logic. I am proud of them.
Anyway, the wise online editor-in-chief of the Guardian, Emily Bell, wrote a very skilful response to Murdoch’s desperate dumb remarks. And in doing so, she brings up a very interesting topic:
is [it] desirable to have news available only to those who will pay directly for it?
Since quality journalism is always a bit too proud of playing an important role within democracy, this is an important question indeed. What role do news play within democracy nowadays exactly? Are news in the near future only for rich people? For sure they are not about a general enlightenment anymore. So how did the role shift? How do politics of issue work? Will they leave journalism behind? Even though I just started my new job and journalism is nowadays as much about managing the news as researching and writing them, so I am too busy to connect myself to a new interface and update the cyborg in me these days, I think we should all think about that more. So if someone comes by a good essay, text or thought, please post it.
PS: This post here is part of my new exercise “better post something short than nothing at all, dear”. Didn’t work out to well, I have to admit, but it is sort of a start.
