Process Journalism: Getting it First, While Getting it Right

I couldn’t have said it better myself…”journalism is a sausage factory.  It’s messy, but at the end it’s delicious!”

Those words led off the panel, “Process Journalism: Getting it First, While Getting it Right.”

It was a discussion of the ability to break news stories using technology, using social media and using citizen journalists.  Jesus Diaz of Gizmodo, Moka Panteges of Wikimedia, Monica Guzman of seattlepi and Robert Mackey of the New York Times spoke about using all three sources to do some really good journalistic work.  It was their point that you need to use all three of these concepts to be the all-encompassing journalistic outlet.

All three aspects intertwine and every panelist had a great way of discussing how to use them for journalistic purposes.  Robert Mackey used the example of covering the recent protests in Iran.  He noted that Iran has a good amount of bloggers and citizen journalists.  When the NYT used these sources, they were very transparent and pushed the fact that the NYT was having a “conversation” about the what was on the web concerning the protests.  For Mackey it is about using the web to find clues and there are multiple clues out there to find! For example,  he found clues about the validity of protest video on youtube by looking at street signs in the video and then checking them using google maps.  He also believes that user and reader comments are extremely important.  Those comments are usually from people who are passionate about a subject and know a ton about it.  Those comments help to verify clues on the web.

For Monica Guzman, Twitter has become an incredible tool.  “It’s one voice to make up many voices. It takes many voices to make up a story,” said Guzman.  When Seattlepi covered a citywide murder story, the Twitter feed from those in the city became an incredible source of clues to the story.  The tweet is a starting point and the journalist needs to use common sense.  However, Guzman shows that citizen journalists do good work.  They want to be reliable and in this instance, citizen journalists would correct themselves if there was a mistake.  ”People have always been police scanner junkies,” said Guzman.  “Now when there’s a crime, they tweet about it.” 

Moka Panteges discussed how Wikipedia is changing the world of the “overall story.”   Wikipedia entries become a dynamic articles that expand over time.  She understands that a Wikipedia article is not original reporting, but it is a real time aggregation of the news.  The numbers for Wikipedia are astounding.  There are 365 million unique visitors a month, with 15 millions articles in over 270 languages.  That’s a ton of eyeballs looking, editing and discussing posted topics.  Wikipedia puts an event into context.  It is the nature of the wiki-beast that over time the article becomes clearer and more accurate.  It’s a technology that needs to be understood.  While it is not a source, it is a starting place of real time news gathering.

It was Jesus Diaz who really brought it all together.  As a blogger, he broke the story about Steve Jobs and his deteriorating health.  As a blogger, he got a tip, he checked his sources, he broke the story, wrote it with journalistic integrity and then…got slammed for not being a journalist.  To be honest, it did not matter;  he had the story.  Here are two great write-ups!  I highly recommend reading the original blog post. 

Orignial Blog

CNBC tries to Catch Up with the Story

Thanks to Diaz, it is a perfect example of blogging beating the journalism elite.  It is time to recognize that blogs and citizen journalism do exist and they can do a damn good job!

Overall, the panel was incredible, as actual working journalists showed incredible examples of technology, social media and citizen journalism changing the face of journalism.  I think I see a crack in the ivory tower.

Oh if you want to check out the slides and information used…. Bit.ly/processjournalism  More great stuff from Jesus Diaz in the slides!

The Inside Workings of funnyordie.com

If you had 30 million page views a month, a deal with HBO for a weekly series and plans to start making movies, one would assume you had it all figured out.  For funnyordie.com CEO Dick Glover and Creative Director Andrew Steele, they are still figuring it out.

After over a decade of writing for SNL, Steele joined funnyordie.com, because he grew bored of the traditional medium.  He believes that the internet is a viable option at this point, but people are still trying to figure out the silver bullet.

Funnyordie.com has created a platform that works.  Besides the user generated comedy video content, they have been involving celebrities in the sketches they produce.  The set up works beautifully.  Their goal is to foster a place for talent to do whatever they want to do.  It can be anything from trying something new in a risk free environment, to supporting a cause or to even changing their image.

They do everything on the cheap.  This recent video combines a tremendous amount of talent….

Presidential Reunion

Everyone got involved for FREE!  Shot it on a Sunday, it was posted on that Wednesday.  Ron Howard directed this sketch and before shooting, believed that it would cost six figures.  Instead, it was under $5,000; most of that to pay for travel for the talent.  So how do you get Chevy Chase, Dana Carvey, Jim Carrey, Dan Aykroyd and the others in one room?  You give them a reason; the purpose of this sketch was to bring to light the need for financial reform.

Glover has been smart in the business structure as well.  His creative offices are based in Los Angeles and Hollywood.  The actual technology structure is based in Palo Alto and all the advertising sales and marketing offices are in New York City and Chicago.

While the platform of funnyordie.com seems to be working, much of the other things are a tad nebulous.  Glover laughed that they can guarantee eye balls, but they cannot guarantee how viral the sketches will be.  He said that just because it has a celebrity attached does not mean instant success.  They actually create office pools to try an guess what will be a success and what may not live up to expectations.

Do not take any of that as the venture being unsuccessful.  Their model of content is somewhat counterintuitive.  A stand alone niche website is supposed to fail.  Their site is definitely succeeding with seven million unique hits a month!

Along with the website and the HBO series, they are venturing into film making.  They are currently working on a single focused film with Tim & Eric.

The panel was Q&A based and at the end Steele said something that has really been echoed in many of the other panels this year.

“We are in a creative explosion. Everyone can make a video.  The one thing that drives all of this is hard work…you can be a movie maker in a second!  Go out there and do it right now!”

Selling Sub-Culture without Selling Out

There is something amazing about listening to different people with different experiences and different expertise talk about the same thing.  It is especially amazing when the topic is as tough as the one of creating relationships between sub-cultures and the corporate world.  It all came together at the Sunday afternoon at the Selling Sub-Culture without Selling Out panel.

Publicist and people “connector,” Jeff Newelt, led a panel of smart and savvy sub-culture aficionados who discussed how corporations and those who are leaders in their sub-cultures can work together.  Panelists included artist, Molly Crabapple, founder of Urb Magazine, Raymond Roker, indie publisher and Curser founder, Richard Nash, and highly touted blogger Gala Darling.

It is important to define the term sub-culture.  According to the panel, a sub-culture is a participatory culture that is intelligent and does not care about the mainstream.  It should also be noted that sub-cultures will eventually become the mainstream and cycles of imitation are tighter and more intense than before.  According to the panelists, the idea of “selling out” seems to be dying.  It’s about making a living, but still keeping the core interests of the sub-culture within the creativity of the artist.

The panel was quick to point out that corporations should follow some rules when wanting to involve sub-cultures with their product.

1. Don’t become a culture vulture! Treat your artists or musicians well.  Toyota/Scion was a great example of a corporation working within a sub-culture to promote a product.  They helped to launch and sustain music careers of those that participated in the campaign.

2. Hire the original artist or musician; do not rip off someone’s art.  Corporations should work off of cultural DNA and not steal ideas. Nike killed their brand for skateboarding shoes by stealing an idea rather than asking to use the album cover.  It killed their campaign, because the sub-culture crushed it.

3. Corporations should hire listeners.  The listeners should research and understand the sub-culture they are wanting to involve.

4. Creative contests are EVIL! It devalues the artists’ work and it is basically crowd slave labor.  Corporations should do portfolio reviews and not ask 100,000 artists to design a logo.

5. Corporations should look to empower people of a sub-culture!  There may not be a huge monetary return in providing workshops, educational seminars or even health insurance for a year for skateboarders, but it creates loyalty in a brand.  By giving tools to a sub-culture to succeed, it is investing in creators and builders.

The leaders of sub-cultures, the artists, the musicians and the taste makers have responsibilities as well.  This is not a one way street.

1. Don’t become a Shilldibeast. Molly Crabapple said that a Shilldibeast is a greedy individual who just takes the corporate dollar no matter what!

2. Do not support a product you do not personally believe in.  This is especially important for bloggers.  The blogger should stay true to their brand.  Once people realize that their favorite blogger is being untruthful, the blogger loses credibility within that sub-culture.

3. Work with a corporation that makes sense for YOU!  The relationship should not be about a short-term gain for the sub-culture artist or blogger.  By going with a short-term gain, it creates brand erosion.  The relationship needs to be a win/win for both artist and corporation.

4. Do not lose sight of the fact that content is a way of connection.  It only works by sharing with others and engaging those people.  That engagement is what corporations are trying to tap in to.

5. Be a leader in your sub-culture! It is no longer…”if you build it, they will come.”  It is now…”if you build something AMAZING, they will come.”

While guidelines for working with corporations were discussed, Richard Nash stated that staying indie is still the way to go.  In the changing economic times, Nash believes that the indies can ride it out.  For an indie label or publisher, it is not about volume, but it’s about connecting with people.  It is time to let go of the industrial way and it is time to connect and create interactions with listeners and readers.  It is no longer the world of the shelf; it is the world of the tag.

On a personal note, it was amazing to hear people discussing issues I have been thinking about for the past year.  It was certainly fun to watch the panelists discover they were all on the same page.

Great Company Culture

 

According to Sam Decker, CMO of BazaarVoice, company culture is underlining trust. For him, good culture starts with hiring a good group of strong executives to surround you. The second most important thing is the employee hiring process. At Bazaarvoice, at least 3 executives interview each candidate to see how people fit into the company culture. If you hire right, employees can really contribute to the culture since culture doesn’t always evolve from the top down. Hire slowly, hire quickly. Jason Black, CEO of Boundless Network, compares company culture to a family system. He classifies the parents as investors. Your best friend as your co-founder (which can sometimes be a love-hate relationship). Your good friend as your management team. The kids are the employees (who according to Black, “sometimes need a spanking”. You have to make sure all these people share the same core values as you and the company do. Decker said, “It’s a process of constantly pruning to make sure everyone is holding up the core values. Make an effort to break the silos in an organization and the communication will improve. Sometimes as a leader, you have to pass on talent if it means sacrificing your culture”.

CSS3: What’s Now, What’s New and What’s Not?

David Baron of Mozilla

The title of this panel was a bit misleading in that CSS 3 doesn’t even exist yet.  Reps from Mozilla, Opera, and Microsoft appeared and showed off the new CSS features they’re working on for CSS 3.  Apple was dubiously absent yet again, even after repeated invitations.  However, to make up for it, apparently the godfather of CSS was in attendance, Mr. Hakon Wium Lie.

Sylvain Galineau of Microsoft told a great anecdote about how they use community test suites because for some reason people don’t trust them when they only use their own.  There was a lot of good natured joking around among the panelists, which was great to see from fierce rivals.

Its impossible to describe what exactly the new CSS features are without you seeing it for yourself.  Suffice it to say there are some very exciting things happening in the world of CSS.  David Baron of Mozilla posted examples of the new features here.  Molly Holzschlag, president of Opera promised to post all of the examples on her site molly.com.  The panelists also recommended taking a look at Snook.ca.

From No Budget to Low Budget

This excellent indie film related panel consisted of the following people:

• Meghan Scibona: a producer/director from Small Media Extra Large
• Jason Nunes: whom I recognized from a similar panel last year  a wrtier at Small Media Extra Large.
• Felicia Day: the creator of the web series “The Guild”
• Kevin Sullivan: producer Asia Minor Productions
• Michael Nigro: writer/director Partially Submerged

Tips to go from no budget to low/high budget?

• Nigro-There’s no paradigm on how to get money. Networking is extremely important.  There is money to be had, but you have to pound the pavement.  Know the value of a good trailer, people want to see something that pops, they don’t want to listen, they want to see.
• Day-work begets work.  People were willing to donate to her sho via a pay pal link, and eventually got approached by people who were willing to pay her to do the show
• Nunes-We have day jobs that make us money, but we do passion projects on the side.  This is the reality of indie filmmaking,
• Day-You need sound people.  Get a boom and someone who knows how to use it.

More tips on how to go from no budget to low budget?

• Sullivan-Get someone who knows how to frame a camera
• Nigro-Figure out what your weakest point is and find someone to fill that
• Nunes-be willing to let go and allow people to be part of the process, can be scary for auteurs
• Day-Kill the auteur, everyone’s contribution is important.

What’s a waste of money?

• Sullivan-Not planning, money will go flying out of your pocket.
• Nunes-If you’re not willing to put up with working in a different style.
• Day-Makeup artists. A dolly-no one knows how to set it up, no one knows how to do the shots.

Do you guys write for what you have?

• Nunes-If i’m actually gonna produce something you have to take into account what you have.  Add that into your writing process.
• Sullivan-write the best story you wanna write and try to go find it.

Felicia Day, how did you get your show sponsored by Microsoft?

• Day-Its like building a community, tell people about show, soft sell, think as an audience member.

When do you turn down money?

• Nunes-Listen to your gut.
• Nigro-When you’re making a low budget film your goal is to make your next film.
• Nunes-You can do you’re passionate about

Define low budget

• Sullivan-At my day job-under 2 million, personal-half mill.  Its all relative, $4,000 goes a lot farther in Austin than in LA or NYC.
• Nigro-Anything outside the studio system is low budget.
• Day-Web video is very low budget, its all about what story you want to tell.

On the new media landscape

• Day-Studios aren’t making money on Hulu.  We’re in a weird transition phase, buts its also a very interesting time.  The ad dollars haven’t caught up yet.  Web video is growing because people want more control over their products.
• Nunes-The old way of media production doesn’t work anymore.
• Scibona-People approach me and say they’re creating just for the web
• Day-I’m inventing as I go along, experiment, tell the best story.
• Nunes-The internet now is like early tv was.

Marketing your film

• Nigro-A huge mistake people make is not putting marketing into the budget, and film festivals, etc.
• Scibona-Think of your film as a jar of spaghetti sauce
• Nunes-Think of hooks that can become marketing stratagies

On lighting

• Nigro-I shot a feature in black once.
• Sullivan-If you can’t afford real lights, go to home depot.  Do whatever you can to add to your story.
• Day-the gaffer is always my best friend on my shoots.

CUNY J-School at SXSWi Trade Show

Stephen Dougherty

I ran into Stephen Dougherty, a Director of Admissions and Student affairs from the CUNY graduate program in journalism, at the SXSWi trade show.  He mentioned that a colleauge of his had recently visited Texas State and was impressed with the program’s adoption of New Media.

CUNY was recently in the spotlight when New York magazine published an article titled Columbia J-School’s Existential Crisis.  The New York Times just announced that they will be partnering with CUNY students on a project called “The Local,” which is a “hyperlocal blog experiment.”  There was a lot of uproar over the article because Times was allegedly snubbing the more illustrious Columbia j-school.

Dougherty told me that while they are happy to be receiving the attention, but there were certain inaccuracies in the article.  Columbia was actually involved in the project.  Dougherty said that CUNY’s program is only 5 years old, so its a little easier for them to adapt to the changing media landscape

Ben Brown: Internet Rockstar

I spoke with Ben Brown of XOXCO on Thursday afternoon about his upcoming panel:  What Do I Do With Myself, Now That the Economy Has Collapsed?  The panel with take place on Sunday in room 9 at 3:30.  Visit XOXCO.com to play Ben’s video game Click to Swim and save that poor polar bear from drowning.