I surveyed 203 students, across all class years and majors. The primary characteristic I’m using to group respondents is their perceived level of news consumption, and we have a fairly logical spread to pull from: 38% of students are low news consumers, 50% are moderate news consumers, and 13% are high news consumers. Part of me expected more students in a collegiate environment to consider themselves high news consumers, especially with the huge numbers of political science and economics majors at Wellesley, but enough people fall into the moderate category to make up for it.

Continuing forwards, highlighting interesting initial summaries: 92% of students consume news online, through newspaper websites, blogs. etc. A respectable 58% read print sources, 54% watch television news, and 52% consume news through their social networks. 79% receive news through word of mouth. When I asked for a primary method of news consumption, however, 65% of students cited online sources and blogs, which is huge. 16% fell to word of mouth, and only 3% responded with print sources. We already knew this (or thought we knew this) but the data wholly supports our assumption that news consumption has moved online.

Another interesting response comes from a question about people’s thoughts while reading the news – I offered the following options:

– How the story affects you personally
- How the story relates to your work
- How the story affects the world at large
- Recent conversations with peers on the subject
- How you could integrate the story into conversation
- Whether the story is in agreement with your previously held opinions
- Who else might be interested in the story

Respondents could pick more than one response, of course, but one response clearly won out above the others: how the story affects the world at large (84%). I’m pretty proud (and a little surprised) that that won out; perhaps our generation is a little less self-obsessed than everyone seems to believe. Other big hitters included personal effect (59%), recent conversations (53%), agreement with the story (54%), and who to share the news with (47%). Considering that those all point to news consumption facilitating a greater conversation with peers, it’s another pretty exciting response.

A final response that I find exciting, and perhaps my favorite: more than half of respondents believe that news “comes to them” (53%), as opposed to their having to search it out (47%). The distinction between 53 and 47 percent isn’t huge, but it’s pretty apparent that five or ten years ago, very few people would have agreed that news “comes to them.” It’s online social networking at work!

There is a lot more data, especially from a long series of situational questions about where students heard a specific story and whether they verified, shared, or explored the story further, but the analysis has yet to be done.

David Zeeck of the Poynter Institute notes that he used to conflate newspapers and news, but that now he realizes that

“News is the ultimate manifestation of a human desire to know what’s going on, to make sense of the world, to catch up on the latest. It can be a letter from home, gossip at the water cooler, or a phone call from a friend you haven’t heard from in a while. It’s a stock pick or a wanted poster. Sometimes news comes dressed as entertainment — as in movie reviews and baseball scores.

News is information I need. It’s intelligence that gives me an edge on the competition. It’s knowledge to help me prepare for the worst. It’s facts that set me straight, trends that show me where things are headed, predictions that may (or may not) come true. It’s wisdom that helps me live better.

News isn’t, strictly speaking, a newspaper. Or a television broadcast. It isn’t an Internet site or a podcast.

Those are forms. They’re just various means of conveyance.”

This discussion of news as a concept freed from its medium isn’t difficult to swallow by any means. Journalism school, however, will also teach you that the news is objective, sterile, unbiased, fair, balanced, factual, and accurate. These ideas are refuted by Howard Owens, who argues that:

“For thousands of years, news was reported in a personal fashion — via campfire or troubadour. The printing press enabled the rise of mass media and process of reporting news from one to many. The Internet enables a return to one-to-one, personal journalism. We can now report news in the same way we did when it was over a campfire —complete with nuance, context and personal insight.

Mass media needed “objective journalism” because news was reported one to many, so it had to be generic and meet the needs of a highly differentiated audience.

Today, all news is one-to-one. It can be personal, because if you or I disagree with that personal POV, we have the means to respond, question, and provide our own facts or commentary.

Modern news will win/succeed because it returns us to our roots, our DNA, our way of being — the way we most naturally like to communicate —in a personal voice.”

I do personally take issue with this definition; yes, we are more easily interested in personal news and communications – why else would Facebook be more successful than Google News? However, personal news isn’t enough to prepare us to make decisions as members of a democratic society. There are larger events, issues, and discussions in which we must take part in order to move foward in a modern and interconnected world. We need objective journalism not because it is generic, but because it offers a base from which we can analyze and understand the world around us. Furthermore, we need a way in which to expand, discuss, and share these objective stories. We can communicate nuanced and contextualized stories, but only if we have a base of facts and knowledge that we trust.

So, news is certainly the stuff of what’s important, what’s timely, what’s relevant. It will be both communal and personal, democratic and ideological. Perhaps the question to ask is not how the idea of news has changed, but how our roles as journalists and readers have changed. News will always be news, but our changing models of communication will affect how we interact with it.

I just sat in on a round-table about Social Networking at our annual Tanner Conference, and I left it still thinking about a number of issues, including questions about where people source their news from and whether they trust their sources. I passed by some copies of the Wellesley News and realized that I never read the Wellesley News, even though I’m quite interested in journalism. I never read the News because I assume that I’ll hear about anything newsworthy on Community, our online forum for general discussion, debate, and advertising spam. I’d like to talk about this issue more with people on campus, perhaps people that are in my major or that are interested in the same questions.

My first thought was to post my epiphany on Twitter, as I often do these days. But I don’t think I could fit the thought into 140 characters, and I don’t think it would elicit any discussion. I could, alternatively, post about it here (which I am doing right now, technically…) but that won’t prompt any discussion, either.

I could bring the topic up in a classroom, but I’m not studying anything in class right now that relates directly to this question of news access on campus.

I could go all old-school and just talk to someone face to face, but even that is improbable.

The one thing I could do that would probably elicit the response I’m looking for is post to Community itself to talk about Community, which is a little redundant, but it’s a conclusion I find interesting. I suppose I’m still not quite sure where I’m going with this, but at least I know this – we need a better forum for conversation about issues, and the forum needs to connect us with the audience we’re looking for. I want to talk to a specific subset of people about specific issues, but I don’t want to just send them an email, for that would be too direct. What other options are there?

First of all, Wilhelm’s focus on access to the media challenges everything I’m mulling over. He writes that low-income communities are victims of technology disenfranchisement, and he’s right.

“Perhaps the highest-order digital literacy is for citizens to be media producers, not just passive consumers, to use available outlets to voice their hopes and concerns, to be citizen-producers. For this to happen, widespread access to digital media is critical as well as the training and mentoring to cultivate young people’s talents. …Significant digital divides exist in access and training, particularly acute in high-poverty and rural communities.”

The problem of digital disenfranchisement could bring down any journalistic effort aimed at democratically bringing a larger social news conversation to the public; such a conversation’s legitimacy is brought into question when a whole segment of the population lacks access.

On the other hand, Wilhelm looks to Congress and the government to solve the problems he sees in digital divides and information. He says:

“Democratic, legitimate Digital Nations in the twenty-first century will use the potential of networked intelligence and the promise of decentralization as the primary arterials for human empowerment and liberation.”

I agree. However, he continues:

“Action is needed from the US Congress to establish a fund to address the key challenges of achieving a Digital Nation. The fund could be derived from various sources, and the strategy for how best to move legislation in support of a Digital Nation trust fund will depend on political exigencies.”

News organizations and journalists could achieve the ends Wilhelm sees achieved by the government, as long as a profit model can be found. Corporations certainly move faster than Congress, and as long as we’re viewing journalism as a democratic act central to the process of governing, it might as well also take on part of the challenges of achieving a Digital Nation. Isn’t the following something journalism could help achieve?

“In the end, a Digital Nation must be a reflection of a democratic society having harness the best technology can offer in pursuit of the well-being and edification of its people. The interactive, asynchronous, and portable attributes of the new technologies offer a compelling invitation to reform and revamp outwork institutions and organizations, creating avenues for deeper participation and accountability…. Navigating this society will require that people be motivated and empowered to invent their own futures, buoyed by a new social contract in which rampant inequalities sown by the acquisitive spirit are tempered by the tender embrace of liberty, equality, and solidarity.”

Here are some of my favorite parts:

Yet perhaps the most important factor that will ensure newspapers’ survival at least on a small-town scale involves the sheer fact that, just like a good novel, a newspaper offers a kind of intimacy. There’s a closeness involved in touching, and reading, a paper which computers never will be able to match.

For example, curling up in your favorite easy chair with the latest newspaper edition (or a good book) is a normal part of life. Curling up in a chair with a computer (even if it’s a laptop) is not practical at all.

More:

Plus, with all the great things that the digital world can accomplish, I’ve never heard of anyone placing a computer screen on the refrigerator as you can with a newspaper clipping. And computers don’t fit too well in scrapbooks, either.

Of course, a person can print out a newspaper article from a Web site, but it’s just not the same thing. There is just something more authentic about seeing a bride, a Little League team or a birth announcement on a piece of newsprint rather than a computer printout that someone might have faked for all anyone knows.

And finally:

The bottom line is that newspapers are really the only medium that be assured of reaching a mass audience with comprehensive information needed for citizens to exist in today’s society.

And just like we can expect libraries and bookstores to still be around in bad economic times, there is every reason to believe the plug won’t be pulled on newspapers, either.

First of all, I agree that newspapers aren’t going to totally die out, at least not for a long, long time. And I understand the frustration and confusion that comes with this digital revolution. But seriously? This argument is falling apart from the very beginning. I curl up with my laptop all the time. I print things out from the internet without any concern that they might be fabricated (and I hear stories about companies that fake newspaper pages for low prices, so don’t tell me that newspapers are free of misleading fakes). Oh, and did you hear about the libraries that are closing? Don’t expect all of our libraries to stay around forever, and don’t expect them to have quite as many real books as in the past.

Thinking even farther ahead, I’d like to rebuke the statement that “There’s a closeness involved in touching, and reading, a paper which computers never will be able to match.” Trust me, someday computers will match that closeness. (My computer feels like more a part of me than any other object I’ve ever owned or touched, but that’s beside the point.) One day, paper will be computerized. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that computers will always be big monitors with GUI interfaces that you hold feet away from your face and control with a mouse and keyboard. Those days will soon be over. On an even simpler level, how long do you think it will be before the door of your refrigerator is a computer screen? No need to “place a computer screen” there – it will be able to display anything you like. Lastly, since when is a problem with internet news the fact  that “computers don’t fit too well in scrapbooks”? Come on.

The bottom line is not that newspapers are the only medium reaching a mass audience. The bottom line is that you, Tom Joyce, can’t see what’s right in front of you. Start adapting now, before it’s all too much and you find yourself protesting against the Internet with your equally uninformed buddies in the streets.

But wouldn’t it be better to change the tone of that information completely? What if instead of being bombarded by insta-updates about things that don’t really matter, we could tune in to real conversations about the issues that need to be discussed? Everything I’m reading about journalism points to the responsibility journalists have to bring issues and information to the public and to help create an informed democracy. Even more, everything I’m reading about social media points to the intelligence and power of a crowd. Can’t we funnel our collective interest in the world and the internet into a more powerful and important conversation?

It also seems as if people wouldn’t be interested in a such a conversation. We are drawn to information that directly concerns us: updates from our friends or about our distinct interests. (And to celebrities, but that’s another story.) With the changes in commenting structures and social commenting/networking for news articles, however, it seems possible to build a model for greater conversations of issues with members of our social network in a way that could actually interest people.

It just seems logical and helpful to replace some of the quickfire (and useless) second-by-second updates about nothing with quickfire responses to a greater conversation, if it could hold our attention.

My first thought, considering the reading I’ve been doing recently, was that the number of journalists should have risen. With bloggers, the internet, twitter, etc- we’re all turning into journalists. More and more people are making a living (or trying to make a living) simply through broadcasting news online, especially bloggers. When I found out that the numbers had stayed static, I was surprised.

Moving on to the actual report (a BusinessWeek blog post), it became obvious to me that the economist writing the report expected a decline in journalists. We are in a recession, after all; he was encouraged by the lack of a long-term decline. (I’d like to note that the full CPS survey isn’t published, but it seems as if people were asked to identify themselves by occupation… it’s unclear if they were asked if they were actually currently EMPLOYED as journalists or not. In my opinion, these numbers include everyone who identifies as a journalist within the work force, whether they’re employed OR looking for employment, so I’m not sure what kind of effect the recession should have unless people are changing professions en masse.)

I suppose the conclusion to be made is that journalists are probably being fired, but they’re not leaving the profession- they’re moving online, perhaps. Or they’re leaving the profession (the post cheekily suggests they’re moving into PR) and new bloggers and twitterers are filling the gaps. Anyways, it’s good to know that journalism isn’t going to disappear any time soon. I’m relieved.

Campbell discusses Joseph Pulitzer’s view of journalism, taken from the early 20^th century. Pulitzer insisted that journalists must take their profession to the next level, taking an interest in “public questions, public causes, public welfare, public good… The paper I regard as a public institution.” I couldn’t help but ask myself- are these values that are missing in today’s news media? Certainly, journalists believe they are spreading information for the good of the public, but it the news media really holding up its end of the bargain as a truly public institution? Sometimes, it seems as if journalists are simply chronicling the elite of the nation, and, as Campbell writes, journalists seem “dubious of ordinary people’s competence as citizens.” As James Carey of Columbia University has agreed, “that worldview… permeates contemporary journalism and has debased, rather than enlarged, that craft.” A change must occur, both in the way journalists view their readership and the way that the readership interacts with journalism.

So, Campbell asks how journalists can better convey information, better paint a picture of our reality- this is obviously easier when journalists respect the intelligence of their readership. He writes, “How can citizens connect the troubles in their lives with the issues in the larger public sphere? How can journalists help citizen develop more capacity to use information and reason to create meaning [and] explore values?” C Wright Mills of Columbia University notes that “we journalists have a great opportunity to develop ‘the journalistic imagination’ to better connect what happens in the larger world to the troubles in people’s private lives.” With today’s technology, it’s possible that this convergence of public and private problems seems possible. A combination of personal social media and news-based social media has the power to spread news and information that is deeply linked to one’s personal life, and an aggregate feed of personal blogs could have the power to tell a news story in a deeply personal manner.

On that note, Campbell discusses Slashdot.org, a blog for “nerds” run by Rob Malda and Jeff Bates. The blog was a pioneer in aggregating news and allowing for user commenting and discussion, and is a model for all news organizations on the web. This type of personalized community is powerful, for it both allows a group of like-minded users to collectively split up the duties of sifting through news stories and allows them to collectively discuss and expand upon the news.

For those of us without a community like Slashdot, it is harder to process the information thrown at us every day. “We are drowning in information and starving for wisdom,” wrote biologist E O Wilson. He continues, “The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.” In the Internet age, this more and more true every day. Even with my familiarity and comfort with the Internet, I often feel like I’m drowning in information. Journalists must find a way to become effective synthesizers, and technology can help. There are ways to highlight a deeper story, to find patterns and meaning in the epic pile of available information.

As Campbell writes, “We need to transform our newsrooms into open cultures- open to learning from citizens, communities, our colleagues in other parts of the organization. If we don’t, we’ll never find a way to enlarge journalism, probe deeper, and initiate great arguments.” This is true on many levels, and every day it becomes more obvious that journalists and citizens need to work together with mutual respect, as they can help each other understand our world. With the way citizens now interact over the internet, journalists have no choice but to accept the help of citizens and respect the journalism that citizens are producing. The question is- where is the line between citizen and journalist? If journalists respect citizens as just fully competent and citizens begin to synthesize information for themselves (this has already happened with blogs, etc. obviously) – how do we distinguish the two roles? How does the role of a “journalist” change? Aren’t we all journalists?

Related things to note, perhaps:

Chris Anderson’s new definitions of journalism, news, media, and other related terms

New way of socially commenting on articles, linking news to your personal life and social network.

Let me just say off the bat: the piece is beautifully written, often illustrated by the kind of beautiful statements that I stop to write down. Passages like these:
“Journalism, after all, is about reality, not fantasy; there are no fairies or dreams in journalism, only the contours of nature and the dreary but familiar faces and words of our fellow beings.”
“What is initially private becomes public, and so in journalism society is born and reborn every day.”

Additionally, the piece reminded me of a conclusion I came to while studying journalism in London. Journalism is a profession most often filled with a mix of philosophical purpose and nostalgia; journalists see their duty to society as one that involves the highest honor. This is not to say that I don’t agree, but considering Adam’s piece ends with the phrase, “… journalism can be and often is one of our highest arts,” it’s easy to see what journalists think of themselves. In all seriousness, I think that’s one of the reasons I’m so drawn to the profession; a sense of purpose and drive is almost a personal requirement.

At any rate, Adam offers a brilliant look at the basics of journalism, focusing not on the effect or outcomes of news but on the composition of journalism itself. This is invaluable to me, because I want to understand the basics of what we consider “news” or “journalism” before I begin to redefine these terms for the digital age. Adam begins with, “A preliminary definition might go like this: Journalism is an invention or a form of expression used to report and comment in the public media on the events and ideas of the here and now,” and continues on quite extensively. The discussion most important to me was one of the ways that journalists give an expressive representation in words of their observations; it continues deeper into a story of how they frame their experiences and form the consciousness from which a story develops. Journalists are observers, and they paint a grammatical picture of the things they’ve experienced. The stories they present are interpretative, of course, but factual at the basic level. This godly interpretation of the role of the journalist might be taking it a bit far, but it’s certainly inspiring.

There are a few sections that also spoke to the ways that I’ve seen journalism develop on the internet. Adam writes, “I believe that journalism is a fundamentally democratic art and through it, as others have observed, a free society engages in conversation with itself.” Today, journalism is evolving into even more into a way for society to engage in conversation with itself; have we not seen the popular ideas of message boards, commenting, blogging, Twitter, etc allowing a greater level of conversation?

Furthermore, Adam remarks that “James Carey has noted that it is useful to think of the newspaper as a curriculum- to be judged, in other words, by how it follows a story day by day or month by month rather than by the character and substance of each story.” The internet, more and more, is enabling the creation of long-form stories and follow-up stories; it is creating a news media more capable of providing a curriculum of news. We no longer have to rely on short daily briefs- we can edit and compile a story that changes and grows as the events develop in real time.

On an unrelated note, I also enjoyed Adam’s criticisms of liberal arts educations; he writes:
“I have argued that reporting is defined far too narrowly to guide the development of an ambitious writer, that the liberal arts and not necessarily liberal anymore…”
“…the liberal arts are organized for the most part within disciplines rather than across disciplines, and they contribute only randomly to the student’s real education.”

This is an argument for another day, but it’s true that the liberal arts aren’t as interdisciplinary as they should be or, even, quite as liberal as they should be. I think that the extreme rise of globalization is forcing liberal arts colleges to do something about the problem, though, so I’m not too worried. Wellesley, at least, seems to have some plans for new interdisciplinary programs… at least in entrepreneurial environmental engineering. Media studies seems to have been left out, but I guess I’d be the only one interested.

Overall? Good background essay, beautiful read, and amazingly compelling considering I didn’t start reading until 10PM. Impressive. I’ll keep pushing through this book, even though it’s not entirely relevant.