Guardian Open Journalism – I’ll huff and I’ll puff…
Well the Guardian have caused a little ruckus with their three little pigs advert, haven’t they?
I’m obviously a fan. As a Guardian reader, it epitomises exactly why the news outlet appeals to me. As a journalist, it shows how I plan and hope I’ll be working as a journalist throughout my career.
The newspaper is moving beyond a newspaper. Journalists are finding they can give the whole picture better. Over a year the readership grows – a little in print, vastly in digital.
News has become increasingly social. Facebook’s quest to become a platform for everything we do online has seen the likes of the Guardian and the Independent embed themselves onto the site. I’m still uneasy about this – I mean, how many times have you seen five-year-old stories circulating on the website because friends have clicked on them? Regardless, it’s a hint of how integral social media is becoming to journalism.
If stories are shared and commented on, you have an instant gauge of the kind of mark they’ve made. But what news outlets are doing now is using this interactivity to generate new content and figure out where the stories go next, or, as the Guardian puts it, give “the whole picture”.
The digital revolution has long been seen as the death of print. Not everyone’s so keen on it. There are a couple of dissenting voices even in our newsroom, full of fledgling hacks who stereotypically understand how all this new media mumbo-jumbo works.
But, if you ask me, even if print doesn’t survive the decline in circulation figures, there’s a clear way forward online. There’s no point seeing print and online completely separate anymore, because the same core journalistic techniques are used in both outputs. Print won’t ever really go away.
Unfortunately, this isn’t exactly the only challenge facing print these days. Print is in the dock and the murkier practices of the tabloids are being laid out for the whole world to see.
What I hope, and perhaps I’m being a tad too optimistic, is this concept of open news will actually help to improve the public’s trust in print journalists and newspapers.
The concept of an open newsroom is something which can only really be explored on the web. It encourages active communication between a media outlet and its consumers, breaking down the barriers between the two groups almost completely. WalesOnline are giving it a go on their website – it’ll be interesting to see how it turns out for them.
For now, I look forward to seeing what The Guardian offers its readers next. Oh, and in the name of open news… what do you guys reckon?
