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Star Stories: How Story Weblogs are
Changing the Dynamics of Building News Properties |
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11 October 2004 |
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When hot news breaks, journalists can become stars
overnight. But when does the news itself become a star?
With an anonymous story weblog such as isbushwired.com the
emphasis in news weblogs has moved away from sophomoric
tweaks to accumulating and reporting the facts as they
unfold. It's an emerging trend in online journalism that
has far-ranging implications for both news organizations
and the institutions that rely on news sources to give them
an advantage in the marketplace. Weblogs are the primary
vehicle for this trend, but there are many other players
who stand to benefit from it - and who must consider it
carefully in developing their own content services. |
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In the U.S.
electoral process this has been the year of the weblog. Bloggers
were invited to the political conventions of both major
parties, leading to major attention for established political
blogs such as
Wonkette
and
Daily Kos. With the likes of
The New York Times Magazine focusing on this increasingly
mainstream media phenomenon this is hardly a secret. But the
latest twist in the building of news in this political season
is the emergence of the story weblog, a phenomenon that is
beginning to power a global impact on news. At some point in
the past week someone in the online world noticed that
television cameras pointed at the back of President Bush in the
first presidential debate were revealing what appeared to some
eyes as a square-like bulge in the back of his suitcoat - a
bulge that the chatterers presumed to be equipment to support
an earpiece through which Bush could receive off-stage prompts.
The chatter on weblogs was amplified by
a story running on Salon last Friday, which in turn
triggered
worldwide news coverage. Shades of
"The Star Wars Kid."
Normally this is where the fickle
news/weblog cycle begins to trail off as the next buzzy thing
appears on the horizon. But one key artifact referenced heavily
in this particular news cycle is
isbushwired.com, a weblog that was created just a week ago
by unnamed sources via Google's
Blogger
facility to track this story as it continues to emerge.
Crippled by worldwide interest the site is oftentimes
unavailable, but when it's up a story-specific conduit for all
of the latest and greatest information and links relating to
this emerging news item. It's a reasonably neutral and
objective - dare we say journalistic - presentation of the
information available, with an unmistakable point of view but sticking
largely to reporting the latest on the evolving story. In other
words, instead of a weblogger or journalist being the star or
some poor unwitting kid with nasty friends gaining worldwide
notoriety, it is the story itself that is becoming the star
through this anonymous outlet. As noted by the weblog's authors
in a recent entry: "Note to the White House press...This is
something called a story. Remember those?"
The point comes across with typical
online attitude, but it's a strong point nevertheless. In the
world of today's electronic journalism, where the latest spin
passes for the latest news, a phenomenon such as
isbushwired.com promises to offer unblinking and continuous
coverage of a story that will be as big as the audience
tracking it through browser bookmarks and XML site feeds.
Tuning in one's favorite id-driven weblogger for the latest
dish and dirt is one thing: tuning in a channel dedicated to
actual journalism on an evolving news story that will not be
interrupted by editorial priorities and "star quotient"
influences is quite another. isbushwired.com is not likely to
win a Pulitzer Prize any time soon, but it demonstrates in
crude form a pattern for editorial management of content that
can be used by independent journalists and major news outlets
alike. Here are a few key opportunities we see emerging from
this trend:
- Leaving
least-common-denominator news behind. When Bob Woodward
and Carl Bernstein broke
the Watergate story in the 1970's their dogged pursuit of
the facts had to push its way to the front pages of The
Washington Post though the editorial opinions and priorities
of their management. Today one can imagine an increasingly
frustrated reporting team with such a story resorting to an
anonymous weblog to provide an outlet for this emerging story
that the mainstream media would be forced to notice. In a
world in which individuals and institutions can draw their
own raw sources of content into their own desktop editorial
frameworks with ease, the prospect of authoritative story
weblogs creating an independent news fabric is not so far
fetched. It also may be exactly what major institutions such
as securities brokers need to get a true market advantage
again. Today's realtime news environment is defined by
institutions trying to get sub-millisecond advantages in
delivering commodity news universally; being able to have
unique and highly-tuned news story sources that
competitors may neglect altogether can make real market
opportunities out of news again.
- The threat - and opportunity - of
self-monetizing news content. It's interesting that the
anonymous scribes of isbushwired.com chose Google's Blogger
facility to publish their weblog. As recently
announced by Google webloggers using Blogger can imbed
Google's AdSense ad placement facility in their publications
and receive revenues for ad click-throughs. A journalist
following a stable of stories, each of which may have some
particular "heat" at a given moment, may be able to define a
stream of revenue through ads and/or subscriptions for
premium information to sustain objective and independent
journalism without fear of pressures from outside forces. For
independent journalists, this may evolve into a living if
their readership is broad enough. For news organizations this
may be a way in which they can leverage their existing
editorial staffs to monetize streams of news that cannot fit
into the typical, neat media boxes that they are used to
packaging.
- The opportunity for a new form of
news organization. The prospect of people willing to pay
attention to news sources with true journalistic integrity is
hard to imagine sometimes in today's highly distorted news
environment, and weblogs for all of their benefits have done
little to improve this situation thus far. But as some
weblogs begin to opt for serious journalism that pays its own
bills more frequently, it's not difficult to imagine those
weblog-based sources beginning to find prominence in outlets
such as Google News, BBC News and other news sites dedicated
or moving towards providing links to authoritative news
sources. This may prove to be the ultimate profit
motive for a Google News: rather than threaten existing news
outlets' ad revenues with ads on the search-driven news site,
a Google News or its equivalent may find itself over time
recognizing independent news sources via weblogs and take
their revenues through AdSense, leaving editorial decisions
in the hands of the webloggers and just skimming off the top
of the widest cadre of journalistic talent available. If news
no longer requires a newsroom, it's the next logical step in
organizing and profiting from news.
Time was when we'd wait for a story to
break in a major news outlet: today we now have self-breaking,
self-monetizing news stories that can live indefinitely.
Welcome to the era of story weblogs - a phenomenon that's
likely to be with us for some time to come.
-
John Blossom
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