Building the news community

Building the news community

Media literacy, civic engagementand journalism as a conversation

The limits of media literacy

• How would you define it?


• Understanding how to separate reliable from unreliable information



• Understanding the difference between important and trivial



• Understanding the difference between important and trivial

• Understanding the difference betweenfact and opinion


• But what is the larger context? How can we convince our audience that these skills matter?

Civic literacy supplies the context

• How would you define it?


• Understanding the importance of local issues



• Understanding the importance of national and world issues



• Understanding the importance of national and world issues

• Understanding how local and global issues are interrelated


• When people show an interest in civic life, they engage with the news

The role of the “former audience”

• In New Haven, Batavia and elsewhere, inviting readers to the table



• Professional journalism and reader comments working together



• Professional journalism and reader comments working together

• If you don’t tend the garden, the weeds will soon sprout up

The price of free speech

• The Register put comments up automatically and depended on the crowd to report offensive ones


• The Register put comments up automatically and depended on the crowd to report offensive ones– “these shootings save the taxpayers millions … not only in

welfare costs but in section 8, food stamps, health care. it is time to consider sterilization …”



• African-Americans felt alienated from the Register and cited racist comments as a prime reason



• African-Americans felt alienated from the Register and cited racist comments as a prime reason

• A new editor, Matt DeRienzo, ordered that all comments be screened before being posted

A better approach

• Paul Bass’ warning to his audience: “Yes we do censor reader comments. We’ll continue to.”

A better approach


• Anonymity is allowed, but racist, sexist and personally insulting comments are not posted

A better approach


• Anonymity is allowed, but racist, sexist and personally insulting comments are not posted

• A civil conversation that often adds to the story and that fosters civic engagement — a virtuous circle

Crowdsourced reporting

• Residents post on SeeClickFix to complain about an ugly building



• The Independentsees complaintsand covers the story



• The Independentsees complaintsand covers the story

• Another 24 comments are posted at the Independent

Why journalism matters

• New Haven man seriously injuredin possible assault



• Reddit poster falsely claims it was “justicefor Treyvon” [sic]



• Reddit poster falsely claims it was “justicefor Treyvon” [sic]

• Similar to Reddit rumors about marathon bombing suspect

The Indy’s moment of crisis

• Nasty mayoral campaign and its aftermath broke system



• A crude comment about Mayor DeStefano (right) was accidentally posted



• A crude comment about Mayor DeStefano (right) was accidentally posted

• Comments were shut down, later reopened with new rules

Anonymity versus real names

• Howard Owens requires registration and real names at his community news site in western New York



• “It starts with basic news ethics: Readers have a right to know who is saying what.”



• “It starts with basic news ethics: Readers have a right to know who is saying what.”

• But Paul Bass believes he would lose police officers, teachers and other community stakeholders

Dan Gillmor

“If I could design a comment system, I would put all anonymous comments at the thread’s end, and give the site owner an easy way to move good comments higher. I’d also give users a way to make anonymous comments invisible.”

danah boyd

“The people who most heavily rely on pseudonyms in online spaces are those who are most marginalized by systems of power. ‘Real names’ policies aren’t empowering; they’re an authoritarian assertion of power over vulnerable people.”

What would you do?

Would you allow anonymous comments or require real names?

Comments are so 2005

• Facebook fosters civil dialogue in a familiar, real-names space



• Twitter allows reporters to promote work and engage with users



• Twitter allows reporters to promote work and engage with users

• Have traditional news-site comments outlived their usefulness?

Permissions

• (cc) 2013 by Dan Kennedy. You are free to use this presentation under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution/Noncommercial/Share Alike 3.0 license, which is online at http://bit.ly/2oyXPN

• If I have used your copyrighted work inadvertently, please contact me at [email protected]

Dan KennedySchool of Journalism

College of Arts, Media and DesignNortheastern University

Boston

2013

Building the news community

News & Politics

Transcript of Building the news community