Recent Guest Blog Posts on User-Generated Content and Journalism
Recently, I wrote two guest blog posts for Journalism 2.0, Mark Briggs’ project that explores the future of news journalism.
In the first, The Catch with User-Generated Content, I discuss the pitfall that many web sites make when they foray into UGC:
But there’s a catch: the important lesson from Cheezburger’s success with user-generated content is that while content costs less, it is not free. That is, even though we do not pay our users for the content they contribute, there is still a cost associated with acquiring and managing that content. Why? Because only a fraction of the content submitted to us is of high enough quality to be used.
As a result, we incur significant expense to sift and filter and sort through the submissions to find the best. Specifically, we employ a four-stage review process — two phases leverage the user community to help us filter content and two phases of review are done by moderators employed by our company.
In the second post, What can journalism learn from I Can Has Cheezburger?, I talk about how the introduction of UGC is shifting the role of a news reporter:
There is still value for news reporters and organizations to be “source leaders.” I am one who believes that there is an important role for the professional news reporter in our society. But it is clear to me that user-generated content or crowd-sourced information is a valuable addition to news journalism because it can yield more and better information, and often faster.
However, as I’ve illustrated, that information comes with a cost which is finding ways to separate the signal from the noise. The task news reporting has shifted toward filtering. My view is that winners in the Internet era of news journalism will be the people and companies who, like Cheezburger, ReadWriteWeb and Amazon, develop systematic ways of filtering the flood of user-generated content and sources down to those with the best content. The result will be higher quality news and information, that is more relevant and on target with the audience, at a lower cost.
Good point on the cost aspects of seperating the signal from the noise. UGC isn’t really “free”.
On another note, we need the traditional reporter simply because they do the tough work that UGC contributors generally don’t.
Generally, it is the old-fashioned reporter who investigates corruption in Washington, who covers the war in Iraq, who risks his/her life in Afghanisthan, who investigates child abuse in Rwanda etc.
Of course, there are exceptions – I’ve written about the “twitter revolution” in Moldova, Iran -
However, for the most part, it does seem like we need reporters to do the really tough work.
Ram
27 Jul 09 at 9:41 am
I once heard Bill Keller of The New York Times say, “bloggers don’t have a Baghdad bureau”. In once sense, as your point is making, he’s right. In another, as you also make regarding “Twitter revolution[s]“, he’s wrong…there are “micro-bureaus” everywhere.
Generally though, I agree with you. My agreement comes more from this point: the key to good news reporting comes from relationships and it takes time (years, entire careers!) for news reporters to cultivate them.
scottporad
27 Jul 09 at 9:49 am