Message from Michael - July 22 - Cronkite and Journalism

Message From Michael                                 

                                                                                                                        July 22, 2009                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

 

      WALTER CRONKITE AND THE ‘NEW’ JOURNALISM – A SPECIAL REPORT

 

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      It was ‘at the time’ an unusual story to air on a national newscast.  A story about a funeral service for a pheasant.  Maybe equally unusual ‘at the time’ was the fact that the story was being done by a lowly local news reporter and not a national correspondent.  ‘At the time’ Walter Cronkite was the anchor of the CBS Evening News and Watergate was still a current event and not a historic event.  I was the ‘lowly local reporter’ and the pheasant story got more attention than my investigation of the mayor, reporting on police brutality or even my undercover reporting on conditions at the county jail in which I purposely got myself arrested.  Well, now, it’s three decades later.  Steve Hartmann regularly does such feature stories, and local reporters and even local ‘citizen journalists’ report for national news.  So, appropriately, and coincidentally, after the death of the dean of broadcast journalism this issue of MfM looks at some – just some, not by any means, all -- of the journalism in the new media world.

      For example, what would he, or, more accurately, the journalists of that time, think of the fact that a Cronkite successor would be ‘teaching’ journalism skills on a website whose top rated video is about virgin sex.  YouTube has created a “reporters center” with people like Katie Couric, Bob Woodward, and Adrianna Huffington explaining how to do interviews (in Couric’s case), or the importance of investigative reporting.  When I checked it out, the reporters center site had just under 3,600 subscribers and 156,000 ‘channel views.’  For perspective, the favorite video of the day (when I checked it out) about virgin sex video and titled Harry Potter Sex Scene, had more than 643,000 ‘channel views.’  But before you discount the effort, related website CitizenTube.com had nearly 6.7 MILLION channel views, a subscriber base of nearly 35,000 and was carrying citizen video of the protest in Iran.  Of course, Michael Jackson videos were in the multi-millions when it came to views.  As a side note and portent of things to come, Qik, which allows you to share video from your phone online, has partnered with Brightcove,  ‘the world’s number one online video platform’ to let customers publish and distribute video across websites, social networks and video portals in what is being called “a new workflow for citizen journalism.’  One of the more recent and highly publicized ‘citizen journalism’ sites, AllVoices.com, which claims to meld ‘traditional’ journalism with ‘citizen journalism’ on a global scale, argues that the journalism of Cronkite no longer exists.

      Do a search for the phrase “citizen journalism” and you get more than 4 Million responses from Google, more than 5 Million responses from Bing and an incredible 36 Million from Yahoo.  It includes such sites as cjreport.com, run by two students, one at Syracuse University and one at Brussels University and the Institute for Citizen Journalism founded by ‘journalists and citizen activists’ in Vancouver; or thisisdiversity.com which brings together people “of all backgrounds to gather and be heard.’  And, of course, faithful readers of MfM (okay, let’s be honest – anybody who keeps up with the media) knows about the use of Twitter by citizens and journalists.  One of the leading centers for ‘citizen journalism’ efforts is the Knight Citizen News Network which lists more than 800 ‘citizen media sites.’  Website SourceWatch which is a project of the Center for Media and Democracy has a diverse list of more than 100 such sites from around the world, including one in Belarus and another in the Middle East.  There are numerous training sites for would-be citizen reporters.  Aside from the Knight center, the International Center for Journalists (ijnet.org) provides a ten-step interactive training module; The University of Missouri has a project exploring “the citizen journalism phenomenon” and professor Jay Rosen of New York University has an interesting way to look at it on his popular website pressthink, talking about “the people formerly known as the audience.” 

By the way, note the difference in wording which is part of the debate – citizen journalists versus citizen media.  Many mainstream, traditional journalists object to the phrase ‘citizen journalist.’  Just out of curiosity and because I am obsessive compulsive about some things, I did a search, using the phrase ‘citizen media.’  Interestingly, the responses from all three sites were many times higher for citizen media than for citizen journalism.  Google came back with 196 Million responses (versus 4 Million); Bing with 30 Million (versus 5M) and Yahoo with an astounding 316 Million (versus 196M).  What does that say?  I don’t know; what do you think?   Leading the responses on all three search engines was the Center for Citizen Media (citmedia.org) which is partnered with the Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School.  As a side note, I would be remiss in this discussion of citizen media if I didn’t mention CNN’s iReports which were the source of much of the networks’ coverage in Iran.   

      Then there are the public funding or foundation efforts to ‘save’ journalism.  The public editor for the New York Times, Clark Hoyt, noted in his latest column that even the prestigious Times is taking advantage of such approaches to get stories done by others.  He talks about two of the best known sites – Spot.us and propublica.org.  People donate money to journalism projects advocated by freelance journalists and citizens.  It can be an investigation into the San Francisco transit police on Spot.us; Or even more ambitious, a nationwide check system on Propublica.org into how stimulus dollars are being spent on road, bridge and construction projects around the country.  It says something about Propublica.org, which subtitles itself ‘journalism in the public interest’ that the Georgia Department of Transportation even joined in on this one.

      Then there are the critics of journalism, and that is a large and diverse group, including to an extent, Cronkite himself.  One of the leaders in this group is freepress.net founded by media scholar Robert W. McChesney and which subtitles its webpage with “reform media; transform democracy.”  It claims to have a membership of half a million activists with the goal of ‘reforming’ media and acting as a counterweight to “big media companies.’  It maintains two other sites – savetheinternet.org and savethepress.org.  On what you might call the flip side of that is the Media Research Center (mrc.org) which subtitles itself as “America’s Media Watchdog” aimed at fighting ‘liberal bias.’  Again, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism or, for that matter, The Poynter Institute which, by the way, held a “big ideas” conference on projects that are ‘good for journalism and good for business.”    

      FINALLY:  I thought this was a good way to end this initial, brief report on journalism:  In an interview with contributing editor P.J. Bednarski of TVNewsday former CBS News president Andrew Heyward makes the point that local stations (and for that matter, I would argue – local news in general) have to rethink their “value proposition” and get away from what he calls ‘ritual reporting’ and move more toward enterprise reporting.  He argues local news’ “value proposition” (a term he obviously likes) has been eroded by the fact that there are so many sources of news.  So, he argues, “a local station needs to redefine its relationship with its community and become part of – pretentious word, forgive me – an ‘ecosystem’ of news and information in the community, which is of true value to the people who live there.  They need an integrated broadcast and digital strategy, including online and mobile, and must figure out a way to partner with other local journalists and become the place that people can go to for content.”         

 

      SOCIAL NETWORKING FOLLOW UP:  Some left over business from last week’s MfM:  China has the second LARGEST number of unique visitors to social networking sites (84.5 Million), behind the U.S. (128.5 Million).  You may recall in last week’s MfM, we talked about a comScore report that showed Russian social networking site users are the MOST ENGAGED in terms of time spent online and number of pages viewed, but that we couldn’t find figures for China or India.  Of course, right after I sent out that report, the good folks at comScore sent me all the numbers.  I have to admit I was surprised by how quickly they replied.  (Thank you, Jamie Gavin).  In any case, China visitors ‘only’ spend 2 ½ hours (158 Minutes) and ‘only’ visit 430 pages a month which is way below Russia’s 6 ½ hours and 13-hundred pages.  India, meanwhile, has 19.8 Million social networking visitors, putting it in 8^th place among users, but they spend even less time (135 minutes) and visit fewer pages (363).  Less than half of the Chinese Internet audience (42%) visit social networking sites compared to more than half for India (58%) and Russia (59%) and more than three quarters (77%) for the U.S.

      FOOTNOTE/ DISCLAIMER:  As I said at the start, this is just some of the issues being debated.  And it is only a brief beginning.  More to come in future MfM’s.  By the way, when Cronkite introduced my report, he mis-pronounced my name even though three fact checkers had called me to ask how to pronounce it.  Then again, one of the newspapers I worked with actually mis-spelled my name in a by-line on the front page.      

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Message From Michael - Social Media - July 13, 2009

Message From Michael                                 

                                                                                                                        July 13, 2009

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

    SOCIAL MEDIA – A SPECIAL EDITION

       BAROMETERS AND COCKTAIN PARTIES

      THE COLD WAR

      COPYCAT MEDIA

      GOLD MINING

      THE GLOBAL PERIOD

 

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      SOCIAL MEDIA REPORT OVERVIEW:  There has been such an enormous amount of focus on social networking, social media, social whatever, that it was time to do a special MfM on the concept.  This is not the final definitive report.  To prove that, I will give you the bottom-line line at the start of the report, instead of the end.  The bottom-line is that despite the hoopla there is no business model associated with social media.  After reading innumerable articles and reports, it comes down to – nobody has figured out how to commercialize it or monetize it.  That is not to discount social networking, by any means.  It is an important method for connecting to people, or if you’re in business, getting the pulse or mood of people.  And that is its true value.     

      BAROMETERS AND COCKTAIL PARTIES:  According to the Consumer Internet Barometer produced for the business-oriented Conference Board, the percentage of “the online community” using social networks has jumped from a quarter (27%) to nearly a half (43%) in only the last year.  The increase is even more dramatic amongst the AARP crowd (those over 55), tripling from six percent a year ago to 19% now.  A different report, by Participatory Marketing Network, “a trade association promoting social networking” (so, yes, there may be bias) says the numbers are even more dramatic among the 18 to 24 crowd with every one of them (or at least 99%) having at least one or more active profiles on social networking sites.  Going back to the Consumer Internet Barometer report, it cites several conference board members who make the point that social networks have become… “an integral part of our personal and professional lives… (and) transformed the way individuals connect and communicate with one another.”  An analysis by the conference board and Marketing Vox says SocNets (the now fashionable shorthand for referring to social networks) are ‘not viable commercial platforms” for the simple reason that people see them as a way to interact but not as a means of conducting e-commerce.  Consumers do not see them as places to shop for product or services or a place to be ‘marketed to.’  The Participatory Marketing Network even says the same things, noting that such sites, especially Twitter, are “for friends, not Brands.”  Despite that, the conference board report argues that social networks are still critical to marketing efforts because they’re important communication tools and because businesses should be listening to those on-line conversations to ‘harness the power of influencers to co-create their marketing strategies.’  Marketing firm Bazaarvoice makes a similar point.  Company founder Brett Hurt argues that social networks are like a big cocktail party with everybody enjoying each other’s company, “but nobody shops at a cocktail party.”  He argues though that the smart companies will turn their Brand sites into social networking ‘cocktail parties’ in which people can turn to friends and colleagues for advice.

      HALF EMPTY: Just to provide balance, a poll earlier this year by Harris Interactive made the point that half of Americans (51%) do not use social networking sites Twitter, MySpace or Facebook.  It also notes that while just under half (48%) of U.S. adults have either a MySpace or Facebook account, only one in six (16%) update their page at least once a day.  Only five percent of Americans say they use Twitter and even among the younger demographic (18 to 34), that percentage only increases to eight percent.   

      CELEBRITY WATCHING:  Despite all the hoopla (I just wanted to use that word again), Twitter followers are not necessarily twitter-pated about celebrities.  The PMN report says four out of five active Twitter users (85%) use it to follow friends.  Similarly, the CIB report says nearly half (42%) of those surveyed said the main reasons for ‘tweeting’ are to connect with friends.  Another third say they use it to interact with family.  That’s not to say they Twitter users aren’t celebrity watching.  The PMN report says more than half (54%) track celebrities using Twitter while the CIB report says a third (30%) use it connect with celebrities.  The CIB report says Twitter users are also “likely to interact with TV shows, employers, co-workers, companies/ brands and TV anchors/ journalists.”

      THE COLD WAR:  Russia versus the U.S., and the winner is… Russia.  According to a study by digital measurement service comScore, Russia has the “most engaged social networking audience” with the average social networking visitor in Russia spending 6.6 hours and viewing 1,307 pages each month.  That compares to the U.S., which comes in 9^th in the ranking of 40 countries with the average visitor spending 4.2 hours and viewing 477 pages each month.  The average visitor world-wide spends 3.7 hours and visits 525 pages. (I could not find a mention of China or India.)  According to the report, two-thirds (65%) of all Internet users world wide visited a social networking site at least once during the month.  Brazil came in second worldwide, averaging 6.3 hours and 1,220 pages.  Facebook and MySpace reach less than two percent and one percent respectively of the total online population in Russia.  The giant killer in social networking in Russia is Vkontakte.ru which has nearly half (45%) of the online population. The comScore report put the unique visitors at 14.3 Million, but a counter at the site put the visitor number at more than 37 Million.   A report by Global Comm Class out of Georgetown University says that while the Russian social networking sites are huge, they are also hugely ‘insular.’  More than 70% of all Internet usage in Russia comes from the area right around Moscow.
          
If you’re interested, there is an English language Beta version of Vkontakte, if you want to keep up with things in Russia.  And if you’re really curious (and know some Russian), President Dmitry Medvedev has his own Vlog which has proven, according to Wired, something of a hit.  Even though I don’t understand Russia, it was interesting to visit.  You can access it at:  http://community.livejournal.com/blog_medvedev.  The Georgetown University report notes that Google has failed to make inroads into Russia, despite (I didn’t know this) Google co-founder Sergeiy Brin’s Russian background.  To prove that I’m easily amused, I found it particularly funny that Twitter-like micro-blogging has failed to take off in Russia because the long Russian alphabet makes it difficult to fit ‘meaningful dialogue’ into 140 characters. 

      COPYCAT MEDIA.  Both Russia and China tend to copy the American social networking sites and search sites.  And the native sites out-perform their American invaders despite a concerted effort by Facebook and Google in particular to gain a toe-hold.   Again, according to the Global Comm Class report, the leading search engine in Russia (Yandex) and the leading search engine in China (Baidu) trounce Google. Website cnreviews.com, which focuses on China and Asian affairs, says Google is doing ‘okay’ in China with a 30% share, but, whatever this means, “it is too late for Facebook.”  The website cites several examples of the copycat approach.  There are at least four Chinese versions of YouTube – Youku, Tudou, Ku6, 56; the same for Facebook – Xiaonei, Hainei, Xiaoyou; even Twitter – Fanfou, Jiwai, Digu; and Linkedin – Wealink, Tianji, Linklist.  The big social networking site in China –kaixin001.com – has ‘skyrocketed’ to more than 30 Million registered users in less than a year.      

      GOLD MINING:  It seems that social media is like gold mining in California.  What the heck am I talking about?  Well, you probably remember the old apocryphal observation that the people who made money in the gold rush were not the miners, but the businesses that sold the tools to the miners.  In the same vein, it seems that since no-one can quite figure out how to monetize social media, the next best thing is to offer conferences or seminars or webinars on social networking.  I have seen so many I’m not sure I can keep count:  WebProNews, WOMMA (Word Of Mouth Marketing Association), MarketingProfs, AdAge, along with another half dozen that I haven’t even heard of.   

      THE GLOBAL PERIOD:  I’m not sure what this says about social networking, but the latest social networking concept is called the Global Period Project, in which millions of women around the world are trying to synchronize their periods.  The two websites about it cite a concept called “The McClintock Effect” or “The Dormitory Effect” in which women who connect emotionally or share a physical space for a period of time tend to menstruate simultaneously.  The organizers of the Global Period Project say they want to make that connection through the Internet.  As they candidly admit, “it’s just an experiment with no practical application” but they say an experiment which could develop into something much bigger.

      NETWORKING NEWS FLOW:  It made the news everywhere, so it’s not worth repeating here, but the death of Michael Jackson also spurred an especially high usage rate amongst social networks.  In any case, an interesting idea that didn’t make the previous MfM about Michael Jackson, but which is worth thinking about.  Consumer adviser Regina Lewis with AOL defined a cycle or sequence in social networking news which goes like this:  first, people ‘clamor for the news’, then, second, they want to share it; followed by number three, when they react to it; and, finally, they create ‘tributes’ about the event.

      DISCLAIMER:  I am on four social networking sites – Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin and Plaxo.  But I don’t visit them nearly as often as most people, even though you would think someone doing a weekly report on media would.    

      SUBSCRIPTIONS:  If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “unsubscribe-MM” in the subject line. Also, back issues of MfM are available at the website, media-consultant.blogspot.com.  You can reach me directly at Michael@MediaConsultant.tv.