The Role Of Curation In Journalism

from the don't-knock-it dept

Jay Rosen points us to an article out of France that takes a stab at presenting what a modern internet-era newsroom should look like. The point that I find most interesting, that helped clarify a few different ideas for me, is that it splits “journalism” into three distinct categories, all of which have a role in the newsroom:

1. Reporters — who go out and do first person reporting — creating original stories, not just reposting rewritten wire copy.
2. Columnists — who “start conversations and give stories another perspective.”
3. Curators — who “‘cover’ the news by sorting, verifying and editing live everything good existing on the web and in the media. They make link journalism, they make the news more accessible.”

Now, this is interesting in a few respects. First, many “reporters” today don’t really do what is described as reporting above. That is, they often do try to take wire copy or stories that were written elsewhere, and go through the wasted process of “re-reporting” them just to pretend it’s a new and unique story for that publication. In many ways, this is a waste of resources. What would be better is if they actually encouraged #3 above — let a “curator” handle that sort of news.

Unfortunately, for the most part, newspapers seem to look down on “curating” as if it’s some sort of lesser form of journalism, and this is a sticking point that they’re going to need to get past if they want to understand how people engage with the news today. These days, everyone is a curator of the news in some fashion: they share news, comment on it, post about it, etc. But they also look to the “pros” to add more value to it as well. But if the traditional press looks down on this function, they won’t do a particularly good job of it. It’s sometimes tough for a press who used to want itself to be “the final word” on every story to admit that others may have reported it better/faster, as well as the fact that sometimes it’s better to involve the community, rather than treating the community as riffraff waiting for the word from the god-like journalists.

If a newsroom were set up with a focus on those three roles (I would add editors as well…), with the understanding that they work together as a team to both bring the most information and community to a particular story, I doubt we’d see newspapers struggling as much as they are today.

Filed Under: curation, journalism, links, newspapers, reporting

Turns Out That People Are Actually Pretty Honest About Themselves Online

from the myth-debunked dept

Many people think that when people set up their online social networking profiles, they may be prone to… exaggerating a bit. Given that they can control what they say about themselves, many have posited that those profiles really represent an idealized version of themselves. Yet, perhaps that’s not true. Jose Luis Campanello points us to a recent study that found that people actually tend to be pretty honest in their social networking profiles. This really doesn’t seem all that surprising when you think about it. I would guess that the results might be a bit different if they looked at dating sites, rather than social networking sites. On a social networking site, you’re connecting with a lot of people you probably already really know in real life. As such, it makes little sense to present much of an idealized version of yourself, because your friends already know you — and might even call you out for being fake. Still, as the report notes, there are still some people who believe that the norm is for people to lie about themselves, when the truth is that, in such realms, people really do tend to be pretty honest. And that’s a good thing.

Filed Under: honesty, idealism, internet, online, social networking

Time To Change (Or Ditch) The USTR Special 301 Process That Pressures Other Countries To Adapt US IP Laws

from the get-rid-of-it dept

A few days ago, you may remember, I posted the comments I submitted to the USTR on the Special 301 report, where I pointed out the value of allowing countries to set their own intellectual property policy, rather than forcing everyone to follow US faith-based intellectual property policy. Traditionally, the Special 301 process was a way for industry lobbyists to get the US gov’t to put countries they didn’t like on a special “watch list,” that would lead US diplomats, who didn’t even understand the lack of factual basis for the report, to start putting pressure on other countries to change their intellectual property policies to make them more draconian (funny, isn’t it, that they only went in one direction?). Basically, lobbyists would submit the details of countries whose IP policies they didn’t like, and the USTR would basically turn around and put out a list based on what was submitted, with little effort to actually look at the situation. This year, at least, the public was able to submit comments (such as mine, linked above), but it’s unclear how much of an impact that will have.

In the meantime, EFF and Public Knowledge have teamed up to ask the USTR to change the process and, at the very least, stop taking the word of industry lobbyists as if it were gospel. They also suggested that the USTR be more flexible in allowing countries to set their own IP policy — noting, amusingly, that the US itself famously didn’t implement its “international obligations” in the Berne Treaty for decades, because the country felt differently about certain aspects of copyright law. Hell, even today we’re not in full compliance with Berne. But for some reason the USTR acts as if other countries need to fall in line with US IP policy, even as we’ve chosen to go in a different direction when we felt it was warranted.

Of course, the best thing to do isn’t to change the Special 301 process, but to ditch it entirely. It serves no reasonable purpose and has been abused by industry representatives for years. It puts a strain on US relations with other countries, and harms the ability for other countries to craft IP policy in the way that they feel will best serve culture and innovation.

Filed Under: copyright, eff, public knowledge, special 301, ustr
Companies: eff, public knowledge

School District Says It Only Turned Spy Cameras On 42 Times; FBI Now Investigating

from the you're-on-school-district-candid-camera dept

More details are coming out about the case we wrote about yesterday concerning the school district that could (and did) turn on webcams on student laptops. The district is now claiming that, yes, it had the ability to do so, and in fact did so 42 times (though, it never told students or parents it could do this). However, the district claims that it only did so to try to track down lost or stolen laptops. That doesn’t explain how this resulted in a student being reprimanded for “improper behavior in his home” though.

Either way, it looks like this is going beyond a civil case of the families suing the school district. The FBI is now investigating the case as well, to see if the district violated either wiretapping or computer-intrusion laws. Now, it’s not unheard of to have capabilities like this turned on to find lost or stolen laptops — so perhaps that is understandable. But the fact that this kid was reprimanded for stuff he did in the privacy of his home while caught on camera definitely seems questionable. No one seems willing to say if this particular laptop was ever reported “lost or stolen,” so perhaps the district’s argument is that the student had taken the laptop. But if that’s the case, you would think they would have come out and said so, rather than the vaguely worded denials put forth already.

Filed Under: privacy, schools, spying, webcams

Could Looking At London's 2012 Olympics Logo Land People In Prison?

from the pornographic-simpsons dept

Well, here’s a fun one sent in by ChurchHatesTucker. You may have heard the somewhat troubling story of the guy found guilty of child pornography for downloading images of the cartoon Simpsons performing sexual acts. It does seem a bit ridiculous to claim that naked versions of famous cartoon characters represent actual child porn, but… so sayeth the court. But, here’s the potential problem:

That is the logo for the 2012 Olympics in London. My first reaction to it was that it’s just hideous from a design standpoint, but others quickly noticed something worse. You can look at that logo and… um… see what appears to be Lisa Simpson… doing something she shouldn’t be doing. Yeah. Once you see it, it never goes away. So, as CHT notes, given that ruling of child porn for having an image of a Simpsons cartoon child performing sex acts… is looking at the 2012 Olympic logo going to be classified as viewing child porn now?

Filed Under: logo, london, olympics, simpsons

Reminder: You Don't Compete With Piracy By Being Lame, The DVD Edition

from the fbi-warning dept

It’s a point we’ve tried to make over and over again: you don’t compete with “piracy” by offering a product that’s a lot worse. And yet, so many people do. A bunch of you have sent over the following image that highlights this in the DVD world (tragically, no one seems to know who made this image — but if anyone knows, please tell us in the comments and we’ll add it to the post). It shows how an unauthorized downloaded copy of The Matrix lets you start watching it immediately. But if you purchase the legitimate DVD, it forces you to sit through multiple FBI warnings and multiple trailers for other movies, with no ability to skip past them. It’s humorous, but the point it makes is really important. When your product is less valuable (and yes, that includes being more annoying) than the unauthorized alternatives, you’re going to be hard pressed to get people to agree to pay you for your product.

Click for larger version.

Filed Under: consumer experience, dvds, piracy

Are People Resentful Of Content Creators?

from the not-that-I-can-see dept

Martin Bosworth has written up a longish post discussing what he calls “The Creative Class War.” It’s an interesting read that hits on a lot of different points, many of which I agree with, and a few I don’t agree with, but it’s worth reading anyway, if only to be horrified by the news of a novel that apparently spends a few chapters following an “intellectual-property enforcer who literally tortures and dissects copyright infringers to death.” Yikes.

There’s too much in the post to respond to each of the points — either the ones I agree with or disagree with — but there was one concept that is part of the root of the argument which I simply don’t believe is true, even though I’ve heard others say it as well. It’s the idea that the views held by many people criticizing rights holders for being overly aggressive in enforcing their rights comes from some sort of “resentment” of content creators. Bosworth notes:

There’s a long-simmering resentment of people that actually make art, and the Internet has brought it to the surface in a way we’ve never seen before.

I have to say that I just don’t see this. It’s an argument we’ve seen thrown out by various people who disagree with us at times (“you just say that because you’ve never created anything of value in your life!”) but it doesn’t ring true at all. First of all, many of us who fall on the side of often being critical of overly aggressive copyright enforcement are critical because we think that it will backfire and harm those that the law is supposed to “protect.” The point of highlighting why it’s a bad idea isn’t that we resent those who did something creative, but because we want to see them succeed and making an anti-fan, anti-consumer decision will make that more difficult. It’s not resentment at all.

Coming at the same question from the other direction, again, I have trouble seeing “resentment” as the issue at all. When we look at the success stories, the one thing that comes through loud and clear is that respecting fans results in those fans becoming incredibly loyal. They’re loyal to a fault, in fact. There’s no resentment there at all. If anything, at times, it seems to border on hero worship.

I’m not denying that there is some resentment out there of successful people. There are always some people who are resentful of others, but I just don’t see that as a driving force in the criticism of content creators who choose a path that is anti-fan.

Update: Wow. So it turns out that Martin, who wrote the post above and sent it to me on Tuesday (and promised to write more on the subject) actually passed away on Wednesday. I’m really sorry to hear that. Very tragic.

Filed Under: content, creators, fans, resentment

Instead Of Suing Each Other Over Who Can Claim 'Most Reliable' Why Not Invest In Making A More Reliable Network?

from the wasting-money dept

Ah, for the love of puffery. A few years ago, we were among those who noticed that pretty much every mobile operator in the US had commercials making some sort of claim about how they were the “best” network out there, whether it was “most reliable,” “most powerful,” or “fewest dropped calls.” The whole thing is a joke and I doubt anyone takes those sorts of claims very seriously. But soon afterwards, the lawyers got involved, and lawsuits were filed over who could claim what about their networks in commercials. Even the Better Business Bureau felt the need to weigh in.

Now, it looks like a similar battle is playing out up north. Rob Hyndman points us to the news that there are a series of lawsuits in Canada over similar claims concerning broadband internet access, with one company being upset that another company has commercials claiming to have the “fastest and most reliable” broadband offering.

Here’s an idea: rather than wasting money suing each other over these sorts of claims, why not invest some money into actually improving the network?

Filed Under: advertising, isp, lawsuits, networks, reliability