Is Blogging Journalism?

This weekend I had the opportunity to speak on a panel of bloggers and journalists to debate the topic "Is blogging journalism". The discussion was at the Society of Professional Journalists Region 9 Conference on the University of Utah Campus.  It was a heated discussion moderated by Ben Winslow from Fox 13 News and featured: Eric Ethington from Prideinutah.com and myself vs. Jim Fisher, associate professor of journalism at the University of Utah and Don Meyers, reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune.

Right out of the gate, the journalists went on the offense to call out bloggers for not being real journalists.  The reasons, according to Don, were simple:  We do not have ethics nor standards.  But when Eric and I explained the ethics and standards we had imposed on ourselves, the journalists began to twist their own words to explain because we do not have editors we are not real journalists.   When we offered to have editors edit our work, they began to twist their words again.  Finally they said some bloggers could be journalists; however when the crowd jumped on this new revelation the quickly returned to the fact we didn't have ethics and we are lacking a publisher.

In the end it appeared because we had not journalists because we have not paid our dues as starving reporters with mean editors throwing ashtrays at our head.  The audience was clearly on our side and it was fun to be involved in such a healthy debate.  But the journalists will need to realize that blogging and traditional reporting will continue to merge until a hybrid model exists.  The old ways of becoming a journalists are changing and blogs have helped make that happen.  In my opinion, true blogging can be and is journalism.

I am reminded of this famous quote from an internal Western Union memo from 1876:

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." 

Traditional Journalists need to remember these words as blogging continues to advance. Western Union could have been the phone company but refused to adapt or move with the future.

In reality about half of what I do is journalism.  A lot of it is distribution of information and editorial writing.  But many times this blog has broken news or reported information for the people of South Ogden.  Either way I enjoy what I do and have appreciated all of your support.

Thanks to Ben Winslow for the invite, I had lots of fun.

See more from the USU blog and SPJ 9 blog (photos).

Comments welcome.

Photo from the UtahSPJ.com Website
Left to Right - Eric Ethington, Me, Don Meyers, Jim Fisher

Social Media, News and the Machine Gun Fire #Herrimanfire

Last night a crazy thing happened.  Utah experienced a major news event, the Machine Gun Fire aka the Herriman Fire.  The reasons and causes of the fire can easily be read in every newspaper today.  But another story (and their are many) in this tragedy is the part Social Media played and how one news station dominated with it's coverage.

I started tuning into the coverage around 9 pm.  I caught a few minutes of Fox 13 news, a station I do not normally watch. They were discussing the Herriman fire and the fact a few hundred homes were being evacuated.  As usually I jumped on twitter to see if anything else was being discussed.  I noticed Ben Winslow (@benwinslow) was tweeting live updates about the fire and so were many concerned residents of Salt Lake City.  They were united under the hash tag #herrimanfire.  

For those who are new to twitter or do not understand how it works, here is a short explanation:  Twitter is a short messaging system.  Essentially you have a list of followers, then you post a short message (140 characters or less).  Your message is viewable to your list of followers.  Kind of like sending a short text message to 20 or 30 friends all at once, but not having to type in all of their phone numbers. In addition, non-followers can do a search and find your messages as well.  Sometimes, during major events, we end our messages with a hash tag starting with a #.  An example of this is #contest.  I could do a search just for #contest and get everyone who is tweeting about a contest of some sort in the world.  This keeps certain topics all in one place and easy to find in a search.

Hundreds, if not more of us were all communicating and sharing information about the fire all under the hash tag #herrimanfire.  In many occasions information was being tweeted faster than the news could report it.  Herriman City wisely created a twitter account (@bereadyherriman) and used it as way to communicate to everyone.  Quickly photos, videos and stories were passed on and shared with all.  Fox News (@fox13now) collected all of this and became the leading source of information for Herriman Residents.  Why was Fox on top! Well for a few reasons:

1. So many people turned to the Internet, the Herriman City website was overwhelmed and practically crashed. Cell phones were jammed; so TV and the Internet is where people got their news. 
2. People eventually turned to twitter for info and also Fox News and Ben Winslow because they were the only ones reporting (Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune did show up later). 
3. KSL 5, Channel 2 and 4 all decided this was a non-story.  They showed the nightly newscast at 10:00 then moved on to sports and forgot about the story all together.  Their reporters (who are now tweeting and reporting) were no where to be found.  In fact News Editor for KSL 5, Graydon Johns, even attacked one twitter user by calling him a loser (see here) when KSL was questioned on their worthless reporting of the story. (Note: He apologized later)

My contributions to the evening were limited, but my tweets and re-tweets were connected to my Facebook page.  When this happened, tons of my friends in the SLC/Herriman area began responding and giving me even more info, which I was able to pass a long.  In no way did I play a major role in this; but it was fascinating to see live news and hundreds of people come together to contribute to this news.  

Fox News really became the "beacon of light" many people were looking for last night and I was amazed at how twitter really helped. Fox took advantage of the situation and was able to do amazing things. One example is when the Herriman City's website crashed, twitter users were quick to redistribute the evacuation map and Fox was able to post it online.  The amazing use of  photos, videos and stories was in real time and mind blowing.  When Channel 2 finally asked twitter users for info at 5:45 am, they were too late. Fox had been doing this for nearly 8 hours, they stopped tweeting shortly after that.

What does this all mean.  It means news is still evolving and the way it is reported is too.  News agencies and cities can learn from this experience by what Fox News did last night. Consumers want news in real time but they also want to be part of the story.  Most people on twitter felt a kinship with Ben Winslow and felt like they were helping him and Fox report.  

The saddest part for me was when Congressman Jason Chaffetz and Rep. Carl Wimmer showed up.  They began tweeting they were going to take charge and make sure everything was under control.  I bet they were just in the way and costing us money.  Herriman City, the fireman and their teams did a fine job last night and were the real heroes of this fire.

For the rest of us, news in Utah was amazing last night and Fox 13 was at the top.  They are my new, news station of choice. And to the rest of the news agencies, all I can say is - #fail.

Comments welcome.

UPDATE: Holly on the Hill (@hollyonthehill) has a nice post on this same issue. She is a better writer than me: http://hollyonthehill.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/twitte-and-emergency-response/

Is the Standard Examiner failing?

Over the past few days I have had two experiences with the Standard Examiner that have made me incredibly worried.  These events happened right in Northern Utah and should have been shining moments for the Standard Examiner, but instead it became the "Standard Re-Examiner" because of it's failure to report the news before everyone else.

On Tuesday at 12:50 pm, teachers at Dee Elementary reported seeing a young man shooting a gun on top of his roof.  By 2:30 pm, KSL and the Salt Lake Tribune both had articles posted on their websites. News agencies were tweeting live updates and giving us links to their stories. While reading the breaking news as it unfolded, I noticed absent from the excitement was our very own Standard Examiner, who's offices are only a five minutes away.  Their website had nothing about the story and nothing on twitter.  Finally at 3:40 pm they had a story posted, a whole hour after everyone else.  After some prodding, Mark Shenefelt. Standard Examiner's Online General Manager and board member, tweeted about the incident at 4:09 pm.  By 6:15 pm KSL had a full story plus photos posted online.

A couple of us online junkies began to ask questions to the Standard as to how such an event could take place in Ogden, only blocks from your main office, and then be completely scooped by all the other news agencies.  They replied that they are in a transition period and are hoping to get things back up and running soon.

Through some research, apparently their twitter person went on maternity leave and is now working in a different area, leaving their Police Beat reporter to do some early am tweeting.  But that doesn't explain the inability to get a story filed and up on the website quickly.  This was serious breaking news and we all had to learn about from the Salt Lake papers.

The Standard assured me things were moving and were going to change.  Then last night a lady is arrested for the murder of her two children in Layton.  I found out about this breaking news from Ben Winslow, FOX 13 and the Tribune posting tweets around 10 pm.  I then checked out the KSL and the Tribune website to learn more about the story.  Unfortunately the Standard Examiner didn't have an article posted until after midnight buried under a couple of links.  Way after my bedtime. The Standard's tweets went out around 6:45 am and 7 am, well after the story had been tweeted and reported by the rest of Utah.  Once again, out worked by the competition.

Say what you may about the Standard Examiner, but they our paper!  I want them to survive and we need to have a paper in Northern Utah to balance out the news from Salt Lake.  But they will need to be more on the ball; they will need to work harder than ever to keep us.  If all of the other news agencies are willing to report LIVE news about what happens in our own backyard, the Standard will need to do the same.

Here are couple humble suggestions from an outside reader:

1. Please make the website readable.  Yes, it is a huge update from your last website, but it still loads slow (I am on a T1 line) and the color choice and font size are hard to read.  Breaking News doesn't even make it to the front page and often the stories can be two or three days old (or longer) in the picture viewer.
2. Tweet!  Say what you may about twitter and the overkill convergence ideas of Deseret News and KSL.  But Tweet!  I loved it when Carlos Mayorga worked at the paper, he would do his best to keep us up to date on stories.  Ben Winslow with Fox News does this now, he does an amazing job.
3. Report around the clock, not just 9 to 5.  I have already given you examples of this.

The Standard Examiner is doing some great things. But if we can't even report what is going on in our own town before the other news agencies, then I am worried the Standard is on it's way out.  I hope this is not the case and I am over-exaggerating the seriousness of this.  But please, Standard Examiner do better.