Field Notes Inside an Integrated Communications Agency

I love the flood on information that is sent my way on a regular bases.  I'm always checking Google Reader to see what new headlines or blog articles pop up.  I'm still getting subscriptions that come to my email - though I should just take 10 minutes and finally unsubscribe to these.  And of course there is the constant sharing of information on Facebook and other social sites from peers and friends. It's a wonderful thing really, but is it sometimes too much?

I'm a list person. I have to finish my time sheets every day. And because of this personality trait, I have to scroll through and read EVERY headline in my news feed. I feel guilty if I don’t.

Anyone else on information overload?

Do you really need a degree to report the news? According to the past week's coverage of the protest rallies in Iran...not really. For the past week and for the first time ever, CNN, The New York Times, BBC and other big news corporations have been reporting based on the updates of Twitterers and other social media users. Some broadcasters have deemed this phenomenon the "Twitter Revolution;" but personally, I'm seeing it as the "Social Media is Taking Your Job- Revolution."

This past week has been a week of unrest in Iran, following the presidential re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. With claims and accusations of election fraud, Iran's Supreme Leader ordered a halt to the protests and a ban on international media coverage. This ban led to international news networks depending on civilian eyewitness reports received through social media sites.

Because of the rapidness of status updates and tweets, many are relying on social media sites for news. However, the fact that some of the most influential news giants are turning to Twitter to find out the news is ground-breaking.

But what are the downfalls of this increasing dependency on social media for information? People are depending on social media sites for news increasingly, every day; yet these same people are taking the chance of being misled. This past semester, there was a shooting at my university. The shooting happened on a Sunday at around 12:30 am; however, in a public relations disaster, school officials did not notify students until hours later. The local news station did not broadcast the story until the next afternoon and still had little information to share with viewers. Their mistake.

Students and parents were enraged. The only way people could find out what was going on was through reading random status updates on Facebook. By the time the school sent out the "emergency" alert, everyone and their mama already knew the information...

Sort of.

One downfall to depending on social networking sites for breaking news is the authenticity of what is being reported. Because of Facebook, I was under the impression that the shooter was on a rampage around the campus, hiding in bushes and wreaking havoc on random dorms for hours. Locked in my room, my friends and I stayed on Facebook until the university's "emergency" alert finally went out. (Much) later, we found out that the incident was not as severe as we had thought.

Reporting credible information is the chance that reporters are taking by depending on social media. Because Iranian authorities wouldn't allow international journalists to report on the violent rallies, CNN depended on "iReports" all day. Almost all of CNN's staff was monitoring Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flikr, Blogger and other sites that were being used by Iranians to share the events with the world. While this allowed for thorough coverage of the events, the CNN news team was unable to authenticate its findings. With reports of hackings and deliberately misleading reports on social networking sites, no news network was able to confirm statements from twitterers.

So, what does this mean for Journalism, as we know it? The same way that CNN gained viewers by becoming the nation's first 24-hour news network, the Internet is taking over, and now social media is taking over. People want to know what's going on and they want they want the information quickly. But can 140-character tweets on social networking sites compete with relatively fast, detailed articles published online?

Well...I'm not even sure if it's a competition anymore. Social media is taking over, so I guess the real question could be: is your job next?

When it relaunched with a new design, CNN.com was generally praised for readability and clarity. Some designers held it as an example that news-oriented sites didn't need to be an patchwork quilt of information buckets.

So I checked back in on the site, mainly for some inspiration around how they manage to serve content to a diverse range of audiences--with equally diverse interests and reading styles.

But this time, what struck me wasn't the design. It was the headlines. I never thought that writers from TheOnion.com got promoted up to CNN, but that is evidently the case. I mean, check these headlines:

I like my morning newspapers.  And I mean the original – the ones I can hold in my hands, get ink stains on my finger and read at the breakfast table with my morning cup of coffee.    I pay attention to where stories are placed on the page, how large the headline type is and what sidebar stories accompany them.  So I have been intrigued and interested in learning more about why so many of my younger colleagues and friends get their news online.  What are they missing by not picking the paper up out of the driveway each morning?  What am I missing by not getting my morning news from my desktop?

Each morning, by habit, I quickly scan the front page, the local and state sections, the obituaries and the editorial pages before I settle on which stories will claim my initial attention and the majority of my limited time.  My impression is that online readers may be more disciplined than I am about reading one “section” of the paper before going on to the next “page.”  

In my reading, I’m sometimes drawn to stories on a page – because of pictures or key words - that I’m not sure would catch my attention the way stories appear in the online version.  So my theory is that I’m getting a few extra “tidbits” that either enlighten and inform me or at the very least serve as interesting conversational items for a later time.   

But when I talk to folks who read the paper online, they remind me how easy it is if you’re reading a story and want more information to navigate away from that page and get more in-depth analysis or a different take on the same story reported in several different publications.

As my husband will attest, I also love to share the stories I’m reading with him, by pulling out quotes or sections to read aloud or engage in my own analysis of the stories I’m readying – interrupting his reading of the Wall Street Journal just long enough for him to lose his complete train of thought – but that’s another story.

But I’m still exploring the pros and cons of the way news is being delivered.  While I still love my “hands-on” experience with the morning paper, I’m open to the new on-line experience as well.  I don’t want to miss anything, so I find myself checking out the on-line version of the morning newspaper several times through the day for updates and new stories.

For folks like me I think there is not only room for both, but a need for both.  I don’t want to give up my morning routine but I also want to have the most current information.  How we get our news, how it impacts our lives, how it influences the decisions we make, how it affects politics and economics and so many other things is all a part of the mix for me as I continue to explore.  

Charles McGrath, in his Feb 17 New York Times article, points out that while National Public Radio's listenership is growing, PBS television, he believes, has seen it's best days, and may perhaps be no longer relevant or necessary.

I couldn't disagree more.

We now live in a climate where local printed newspapers are in sharp decline, and where the cynical irony in Fox News Channel's name and slogan goes unchallenged. Even my parent's nightly network news broadcasts have devolved into 15 minutes of entertainment interspersed between 15 minutes of drug company commercials. In this climate where journalistic integrity and high standards are the exception rather than the rule, it seems to me that shows like the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, NC Now, and Frontline are now more important than ever - certainly not less.

Despite years of siege by politicians who seem to prefer the tractibility and journalistic abdication prevalent on Britney-obsessed cable news outlets - and make no mistake, their issue with PBS is the news - PBS television remains one of the only places to get trustworthy news on television.

As McGrath points out in his article (the title is sharper than the content of the piece itself), the answer to whatever woes PBS television may be facing is more public funding, not less. It seems miraculous to me that PBS can, on pennies, continue to do what Big Corporate Media seems unable to do with all it's billions of dollars. In truth, perhaps the absence of billions is the secret of PBS' success. But while we wait for more public funding for PBS television, that miracle has an earthly foundation.