Comments on: Does Social Media Have an Impact on Today’s Journalism? You Tell Me.

By: pat

pat — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 03:23:02 +0000

Tamar, this post could have been about Johhny Carson, David Lettermen, or Jay Leno.
You know, the places where most people got their “news”.
Later this post could have been about The Daily Show, or The Colbert report. You know, the places where most people got their “news”.
Now it is about Digg and blogs and social. You know the places where most people get their “news”.

By: Kim (cre8pc)

Kim (cre8pc) — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 17:45:17 +0000

Can’t be true journalism, at least the kind I like, where there are trained reporters getting facts, not rumor and hype. What SM does is pack in a marketing element to stories, because of course, we love to be entertained and intellectually, mainstream interests fall into the Paris Hilton realm.

It’s just not journalism to me. Voyerism, yes. Not journalism.

By: Webomatica

Webomatica — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 18:32:24 +0000

Well let me add by saying I recently opened up a copy of Entertainment Week(ly?) for the first time in a long while and there was a two page spread on “celebrity blogs”.

A recent picture of the explosion that happened in NYC struck me because it contained a line of witnesses all taking photographs of the event with their cellphones… which I’m sure some of those photographs made their way to social media sites.

It is to the point where I read folks suggesting that one solution to newspaper’s woes is to turn into local blog networks.

So yeah, social media has totally impacted the mainstream. Whether or not the idea of quality and truthful journalistic values can be maintained is another issue…

By: Tamar Weinberg

Tamar Weinberg — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 22:04:41 +0000

Kim: The time has come where your journalism professor is left with little choice.

Readers are turning to blogs and social media sites because they are faster than traditional outlets.

There is an increasing dependence on blogs and not so much on traditional news sites. I think that journalists took note of that. They are also heavily swayed by what the community votes on as a high-profile story, and in their writings, they’ll put more emphasis on these stories.

The fact vs. fiction challenge is an interesting one, however. I think that this very fact still distinguishes traditional journalists from bloggers, whereas traditional journalists are still obligated to perform due diligence. Bloggers are not bound by the same ethics.

By: Kim Krause Berg

Kim Krause Berg — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 21:31:34 +0000

I have trouble understanding how the dumbing down of Journalism is a good thing. Reminds me of the movie, Idiocracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy), where stupid people bred even more stupid people and finally humans were unable to sustain themselves.

Straight news reporting journalism used to be forbidden to include opinion. If the rules are changing, how can we sift through fact from fantasy?

My Journalism professor told me one day that I had to make a choice between “creative” writing and true journalism. The two could never be married. I rebelled and did things my way anyway. I wonder what they teach in colleges today?

By: Tamar Weinberg

Tamar Weinberg — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 21:20:55 +0000

Very true, Lee. Now they don’t have to be ashamed.

By: Lee Odden

Lee Odden — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 21:17:06 +0000

Journalists using social media for story tips and ideas is nothing new. It’s just now becoming common enough that they’re admitting their sources.

By: Digidave

Digidave — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 20:12:02 +0000

Yup. A few thoughts that I've had since I started digging in 2005. A Columbia Journalism Review article I wrote about it: Digg This and on my personal blog Social News Sites -- an Act of Journalism?. Fact is - social news sites aren't going away -- and they change the manner in which information is exchanged online -- it speeds the process up just that much more. Journalists are already dragging their legs trying to catch up.

By: Tamar Weinberg

Tamar Weinberg — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 15:44:08 +0000

Good points, Kim.

I think that bias is becoming more and more part of traditional marketing — essentially, we’re seeing an evolution of traditional marketing because of the influence of social media. It may be fantasy, but it’s also very real to so many people.

At the same time, it’s interesting to see what stories get promoted to the front page: that’s what these democratic sites think of as news. I think journalists are taking the hint. They are responding to our stories with their own, which brings us to these sites. This is an extremely powerful thing.

I don’t think that this evolution is going to be changing anytime soon. I think that more newspapers and magazines will be more influenced by social media as time goes by. “Traditional” print newspapers, as we know them, are no longer.

By: Kim Krause Berg

Kim Krause Berg — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 15:30:08 +0000

I blogged, with some emotion, against Google because of the news reporting hoopla generated about that woman who felt her privacy was violated and was shot down fast as a paranoid, uninformed human of little value to this planet.

So now, in addition to not reading STAR, US Weekly, and all the other so called journalist-based options available to me about so called stories with “facts”, I now count social media as another source for fantasy land.

“News” comes from countless sources and avenues, with blogs being a new resource. Social Media is not the new age of unbiased, objective reporting and worse, what is now considered a “story” would never have seen the light of day in a traditional print newspaper or news magazine.