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Social media puts fortress journalism under siege

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In a recent report by Peter Horrocks, Director of BBC World Service, it is clear that as society becomes more networked, the fortress mentality of the mainstream media is increasingly under siege by social media, but they are adapting. There’s a lesson for us all in this.

For so long now, Web 2.0 has been working in the background to subtly but unwittingly undermine mainstream media, especially in America where, for example, RSS is understood and used far more readily than in most other nations. In this, the role of the “fortress journalism” is being steadily eroded as the nature of RSS feeds allow you to choose the BBC for video news, the New York Times for international news, the Guardian for ecological reports and ESPN for sports — so storming the gates of the fortress has been around for some time, but it is only now that publishers are seriously looking at new dissemination models in a more integrated and enlightened manner.

The main problem for the newspaper industry is that journalists have been very slow to recognise the changes that have been happening under their noses, and whilst the major players have all installed news feeds on their websites, they still continue with the assumption that their news product provides a complete set of information for their readers.

However, in the world of Web 2.0, the choices available for a total news information set is beginning to change journalists’ collective mindset: as Jeff Jarvis, Professor of Interactive Journalism at the City University of New York, described it: “Cover what you do best. Link to the rest.”

Social media websites now have millions of users using Web 2.0 platforms such as Facebook and Twitter and, with the immediacy of Twitter alerts, this is now what news consumers are tuning in to.

In a recent article by the Economist, Twitter 1, CNN 0 on the protests in Iran, 10.5 million American TV viewers turned to CNN, but instead of protests many of them saw a repeat of Larry King interviewing “burly motorcycle-builders”. The article went on to illustrate a typical post: “Iran went to hell. Media went to bed”.

This realisation is already transforming the face of journalism, which means building public participation in generating user content and making a paradigm shift from being a “manufacturing industry” to becoming a “service industry”.

But this too has its drawbacks as, without moderation, blog commenting can often descend into a low common denominator that is sometimes determined by tasteless or asinine comments. In one such instance, a group of aboriginal leaders from Canada requested that hate charges be laid against CBC because of some poorly-moderated user comments which escaped into the public domain.

However, it is all too easy to sit back and mock the fortress mentality as outdated but these organisations have always protected good journalism and have also sheltered and given legal protection to journalists from the likes of powerful businessmen and politicians.

So, simply replacing fortresses is not how it is being thought through. As modern society becomes ever more highly networked, the fortress is opening up and is lowering the drawbridge to allow the public inside its walls.

The BBC’s Peter Horrocks states in a recent 92-page document, The Future of Journalism (www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/future_of_journalism.pdf): “Reducing effort in any journalistic section is anathema to the old fortress mindset. Even more disturbingly, it might also mean co-operating explicitly. If the BBC is best in news video and the Telegraph best in text sports reports, why shouldn’t they syndicate that content to each other and save effort?”

Tags: social media, twitter, Web 2.0