It refers to writing a story/blog post quickly and publishing it onto our website for our thousands of readers to consume. If we have pieces of a bigger story, we publish what we have and update as the day goes on. When it's all said and done (I guess I should say, written and done), stories are connected through hyperlinks and a reader that hasn't been following the story all day can click back and follow the coverage.
It's a process that allows us to get the first scoop (hopefully) and lure readers in (hopefully) to find out what happened. Here's a recent example:
•Post 1: "Standish-Sterling principal injured after car drove into Pinconning deli" This is the initial report I put together after talking with the school district's superintendent, the owner of the deli and the local police department.
•Post 2: Rotary Club president on Pinconning crash: 'It sounded like a huge explosion, like a bomb going off' This post went up about 40 minutes later. It features a couple eye-witnesses to give the story some depth and perspective.
•Post 3: Standish-Sterling principal released from hospital after Pinconning deli crash. This post came in a few hours after Post 2. It's a simple follow up to let everyone know that this guy is ok.
AND....
•Post 4: Standish-Sterling Principal Roger Fritz describes Pinconning deli crash. This is our day two story. It's the guy actually talking about the incident, which by the way was quite the freak accident.
So there you have it — one story, four posts. It's pretty detailed and the posts are quick reads. Some like it, other complain that we don't have the whole story after reading, say Post 1.
It's a new era of journalism. I read a recent story from the Columbia Journalism Review titled "The Hamster Wheel: Why running as fast as we can is getting us nowhere". The piece is quite interesting. It provides statistics such as, "Newsrooms have shrunk by 25 percent in three years," and quotes from respected journalists that say, "The scoop has never had more significance to our professional users, for whom a few minutes, or even seconds, are a crucial advantage who value has increased exponentially." (That last quote is Robert Thomson, managing editor of the Wall Street Journal.)
The article's thesis touches on the battle of quantity versus quality and newsworthiness in today's world of online journalism. Today's journalists that work for a web-first product, myself included, need to be as accurate and thorough as possible, but also fast. And first. Because if you ain't first, you're last. The better we get at it, the more web traffic we draw. Our incentive is web traffic and that means turning pieces around quickly. The posts we write, for the most part, aren't huge, investigative pieces, although we are always working on bigger projects on the side.
The writer called this journalism a hamster wheel. He doesn't call this journalism speed, he calls it motion for motion's sake. I'm still trying to figure out if I agree with that notion. I've never worked for a seven-day print product, but I've always worked for a daily. Journalists that work for papers that still print seven days a week (we print three days a week) think we're closer to "the end of journalism," when really, I believe we are ahead of the curve. It's simple fact that majority of people consume their news from the Internet, be it from their office computer, home laptop or from their smartphone while on the go. So why not give your readers lots of content? If they can consume it quickly, we should be able to produce it quickly.
Don't confuse online journalism for fast food. And don't consume fast food quickly, that's dangerous.
I'm not sure what my friends, the people of my generation, feel about today's news. I assume most of them read more news online than in a print newspaper or on television. Some of the work that I'm most proud of was turned around quite quickly before any other media picked it up. That makes me feel good. But on the opposite side of the coin, I also love some of the work that I took a lot of time on.
Examples:
- (Est. time to prepare about 25 minutes) A followup story about the governor's suggestion to lengthen the school year
- (Est. time to prepare about 15 minutes) This garnered 92 comments - which is a lot for a news story (Detroit Lions stories get hundreds of comments) It's a quick blog post about a study from the Mackinac Center on Michigan's teacher salaries.
- (Est. time to prepare about 3 days) A package of stories and videos on school consolidation that ran in conjunction with a statewide newspaper study on the same topic.
This turned out to be quite a long blog post (This would never fly on MLive because it's way too long) but I am curious to hear what you think about new journalism. Quick and punchy or longer and more analysis? Is there a balanced required? Weigh in by leaving a comment.
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