Comments on: Process Journalism and Its Twitter Enabler

By: Reporting the News: If You Ain't First, You're Last

Reporting the News: If You Ain't First, You're Last — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:05:45 +0000

[...] or tear TMZ a new one for getting it wrong). Yesterday’s events were the perfect example of process journalism in the Twitter era, as each news outlet gradually updated their stories with the most recent facts (really more first [...]

By: Penny Fletcher

Penny Fletcher — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:33:29 +0000

In my 35 years in the business, as everything from columnist to bureau editor at both newspapers and magazines, I have seen too many changes that have caused journalistic integrity to go downhill. Process journalism doesn’t differ greatly from on-spot news, and will be a good thing if it doesn’t hit the same snags as the old “if it bleeds, it leads” philosophy. In the late 1980s, I had the tone of stories changed by bureau chiefs wanting to sell with sensational headlines. In the 1990s, it was more about confusion between commentary and advertorials with hard news. If real journalists with integrity and training do the posts, we might be OK. But if untrained hands get in the mix, and believe me, they will, and the mistakes aren’t picked up and changed, the misinformation could lead to tragedy. It’s bad enough much of media isn’t respected now. Whatever we do, we must be cautious not to make that situation worse.

By: MCaputo_MPR

MCaputo_MPR — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:04:37 +0000

Interesting.. http://tinyurl.com/ll8enr . But “process journalism” gone wrong = 20 tweets from news orgs on a pol’s presser. #journalism

This comment was originally posted on Twitter

By: CT Moore

CT Moore — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:47:19 +0000

I’m not saying bloggers alone could cover for journalists. Rather, what I might be implying (but I’m not even sure) is that journalists could fulfill their role without there being newspapers in their current traditional structure.

I guess what I’m getting at is that process journalism can work if its carried out by properly trained journalists.

This comment was originally posted on Gypsy Bandito

By: Bill

Bill — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 20:52:36 +0000

Yep, you seem to have it right. Imagine, for example, how hard it would actually be to distinguish between what is a “fully baked” story versus “process journalism” in a systematic way. The very distinction is going to be subjectively determined. The key is that, indeed, people want and need dependable information and were all professional traditional journalism to disappear in a puff of smoke people would turn to those bloggers, for instance, that seem to have the most dependable information. That, in turn, would drive others to increase their resources and reliability etc. This is precisely how the world of journalism we know today developed in the first place. There are some great interviews with top journalists about the future of journalism at http://www.ourblook.com/component/option,com_sectionex/Itemid,200076/id,8/view,category/#catid69 which I have found very useful when thinking about these topics.

This comment was originally posted on Gypsy Bandito

By: Process Journalism — CT Moore Gypsy Bandito

Process Journalism — CT Moore Gypsy Bandito — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 05:17:34 +0000

[...] A lot of us are worried about the decline of the independent press. Amidst declining ad revenues, it seems like market democracies across the board are losing an asset that new media types (bloggers, podcasters, etc.) just can’t fill. After all, the new media types don’t have the time, training, or resources to dig deep into the belly of a story or attain the same standards of objectivity. The best they can do is process journalism. [...]

By: CT Moore

CT Moore — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 04:42:32 +0000

I'm not completely convinced that the NYT's stance on process journalism is all that honest with itself. I mean, there's something to be said for "fact checking" and authoritative content. After all, it's what pulls the reader/consumer in and gets them to defer to the content, but as Hunter Thompson put it: "With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms." I guess what I'm getting at is that any content that's susceptible to the "news cycle" is largely process journalism. You call the sources whose info you can track down, and then run a story based on whichever ones are actually able (or bother) to call you back with a quote before the filing deadline. And then you move on to the next lead. Really, the only stuff that really tries to avoid "process journalism" (and I'm not even saying that it always does so successfully), is books and documentaries, and those are largely not objective. But I think the influence they have despite their subjectivity speaks to how a reader/consumer gages authority: it's the work, effort, and conviction that goes into it, not the facts. After all, where the facts are letter of the law, the truth is the spirit of it.

By: jphilippelouis

jphilippelouis — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:01:35 +0000

We’ve only just begun to see power of Twitter as a platform for process & citizen journalism” http://bit.ly/11yRKn (via @jeejackson)

This comment was originally posted on Twitter

By: deejackson

deejackson — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 08:32:24 +0000

“We’ve only just begun to see power of Twitter as a platform for process & citizen journalism” http://bit.ly/11yRKn (hat tip @kiwiphil)

This comment was originally posted on Twitter

By: bernardchickey

bernardchickey — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:47:48 +0000

An interesting piece here on process journalism and using Twitter http://bit.ly/11yRKn

This comment was originally posted on Twitter