Posts Tagged Facebook

The Ghosts of Users Past

In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes.

The cyberworld, it seems, is condemned to the same ineludible limitations. Facebook users are dying.  So are Twitterers, MySpacers, Flickrers and Tumblrers. But as social media users eventually pass on to the great unknown, what are companies to do with carefully crafted online personas and profiles? Facebook, as explained in a recent NYT article written by Jenna Wortham, occasionally suggests users “reconnect” with deceased friends and relatives who’ve created accounts. This is, for lack of gentler terms, totally creeping people out.

Yet with users over 65 converting to Facebook at a greater pace than any other age group, the issue of cyber life-after-death will surely become more pressing. According to the NYT article, Facebook’s original strategy was to simply delete profiles of anyone Read the rest of this entry »

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The New Journalism? Investigative and Digital

Paul Steiger, Wall Street Journal icon and now editor-in-chief of Pulitzer-winning news site ProPublica, discusses the changing face of journalism.

Paul Steiger has dedicated much of his life to print journalism. The sixty-eight-year-old journalist worked as managing editor of the Wall Street Journal from 1991 to 2007, a period during which the business-oriented daily was awarded 16 Pulitzer prizes. Today, he’s editor-in-chief of ProPublica, a New York based investigative reporting nonprofit operating on an annual budget of $10 million.

ProPublica produces journalistic content in true American style: comprehensive, meticulous, transparent and with the public’s interest at the forefront. Yet not on paper as tradition would have it, but rather on the Web. More precisely, on www.propublica.org, where investigative reports are published and shared with not only readers, but with other media outlets which may access them for free. Read the rest of this entry »

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Denmark and New Media

Interview with Bruno Ingemann, consultant and lecturer at the Danish School of Journalism.

How do you think journalism will change in the next 10 years?

There will definitely be more interaction with the public – we’re only beginning. Journalists have to learn how to interact with the public, not only to get more information but also to improve journalistic quality. They could, for example, ask the public to help investigate. This is already done in England where Paul Bradshaw launched the project “Help Me Investigate.” The key point here is that journalists are still in control of what content they want published. Furthermore, journalists should learn how to use social media like Facebook and Twitter for journalistic processes.

Before your career as a consultant, you were working as a managing editor for the Danish media house Nordjyske Medier, which was one of the first media houses in Europe to introduce convergence in their newsroom. Does it still serve as a role model for other media houses? Read the rest of this entry »

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Zeit and the Guardian, Two Reasons for Optimism

“Journalism 2020: Maintaining Professionalism, Regaining Credibility”

Organized by Medienhaus Wien with collaboration from the European Journalism Observatory and MAZ, the Journalism 2020 conference welcomed journalists, academics and professionals from the world of journalism and communication to discuss prospects for tomorrow’s journalism. Held in in Vienna from March 18th – 20th, Journalism 2020 opened with two key speakers: Director of Guardian News and Media, Alan Rusbridger, and Director of Zeit Online, Wolfgang Blau.

According to Rusbridger and Blau, journalism – not as a profession but as an activity performed in a professional way – will still exist in 2020, although print media may not survive. If  it does in fact live on, we can expect the format for print news to differ radically, with core business resting in the online sector. As it stands, solutions for a sustainable business model still remains to be seen. Rusbridger believes that if we wish to move ahead, we must keep journalism separate from its business model.  “It is only a crisis,” says Rusbridger. “There has never been a better moment for journalism.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Fact-checking Facebook?

Study finds vast majority of reporters and editors utilize social media outlets when researching stories.

Conducted by Cision and Don Bates of The George Washington University’s Master’s Degree Program in Strategic Public Relations, the survey examines the rapid growth of social media outlets as information sources for mainstream journalists. While aware of the need to verify information acquired from such sources, among the journalists surveyed, 89 percent frequent blogs for story research, 61 percent use Wikipedia,  65 percent admit to utilizing Facebook and LinkedIn, and 52 percent subscribe to microblogging services like Twitter.

Complete survey results available here.

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