HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Social journalism is a media model consisting of a hybrid of professional
journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree of accuracy. The word, a noun, applies to the journ ...
, contributor and reader content. The format relies on community involvement, audience engagement, social newsgathering and verification, data and analytics, and relationship-building. Social journalism takes place on some open publishing platforms, like
Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...
and WordPress.com, but can also involve professional journalists, who created and/or screen the content. CNN's now-defunct iReport was an example of a social journalism collaboration between professionals and citizens; other examples include Forbes.com, infoStraight.com, Medium,
BuzzFeed BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet mass media, media, news and entertainment company with a focus on digital media. Based in New York City, BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John Seward Johnson III, John S. Johnson III to ...
, Soapbox and Gawker. The model, which in some instances has generated monthly audiences in the tens of millions, has been discussed as one way for professional journalism to thrive despite a marked decline in the audience for traditional journalism.


Publishers as platforms

Writing in Re/code, Jonathan Glick, CEO of Sulia, said the model of publishers as platforms (which he calls a "platisher") is "on the rise". Glick cites as examples Medium (from Twitter co-founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone),
Vox Media Vox Media, Inc. is an American mass media company founded in Washington, D.C. with operational headquarters in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The company was established in November 2011 by CEO Jim Bankoff and Trei Brundrett to encompass ''S ...
, Sulia, Skift,
First Look Media First Look Media is an American nonprofit media organization founded by Pierre Omidyar in October 2013 as a venue for "original, independent journalism". The project was started as a collaboration with Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, and La ...
(backed by eBay founder
Pierre Omidyar Pierre Morad Omidyar (born Parviz Morad Omidyar, June 21, 1967) is a French-born Iranian-American billionaire and the grandson of General Mahmud Mir-Djalali. A technology entrepreneur, software engineer, and philanthropist, he is the foun ...
) and BuzzFeed. On March 12, 2014, Mark Little, the CEO of Storyful, now a division of News Corp., proposed "10 Principles that Power Social Journalism," including "UGC (
user-generated content User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), emerged from the rise of web services which allow a system's User (computing), users to create Content (media), content, such as images, videos, audio, text, testi ...
) is governed by the same legal and ethical code as any other content" and "The currency of social journalism is authenticity not authority. We are not experts in every subject."


The new rules

On April 1, 2014, in a column in GigaOM entitled "Social journalism and open platforms are the new normal — now we have to make them work" Mathew Ingram asked "How can media entities take advantage of this phenomenon without losing their way in the process?" and proceeded to review suggested rules for social journalism proposed by former FastCompany.com president Ed Sussman, an early adopter of the model. Ingram summarized these suggestions, including clear labeling types of contributors (e.g. staff, guest contributor, reader contribution); establishing guidelines, such as conflict of interest rules, that posters must consent to before posting; providing wiki-like tools for social improvements to content; elevating the best content with curators and algorithms; deleting weak or problematic content via curators or algorithms. Social journalism was attacked by media critic Michael Wolff in ''
USA Today ''USA Today'' (often stylized in all caps) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth in 1980 and launched on September 14, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headq ...
'' as the "Forbes vanity model letting ‘contributors’ write whatever they want under your brand (‘as I wrote in Forbes …’) and not having to pay them anything — ultimately, of course, devaluing your authority." In a March 20, 2014
op-ed An op-ed, short for "opposite the editorial page," is a type of written prose commonly found in newspapers, magazines, and online publications. They usually represent a writer's strong and focused opinion on an issue of relevance to a targeted a ...
for ''
The New York Observer ''The New York Observer'' was a weekly newspaper established in 1987. In 2016, it ceased print publication and became the online-only newspaper ''Observer''. The media site focuses on culture, real estate, media, politics and the entertainment ...
'', Sussman argued that social journalism does not devalue the authority of brands and that the success of Forbes.com in attracting a wide audience with its 1,000+ bloggers proved that the model could be successful for traditional media companies. Following revelations that some Forbes.com contributors used their columns to allegedly participate in a "pump and dump" scheme to promote, then sell stocks, he followed up with "The New Rules of Social Journalism: A Proposal" in Pando Daily, on March 29, 2014.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Social Journalism * Citizen media Technology in society