Inadequate Journalism Needs WikiLeaks

After the release of 250,000 diplomatic documents on Nov. 28 and the commotion generated in the media by WikiLeaks, Julian Assange has exposed the need to improve journalism.

James Moore, writer for the Huffington Post, explained in his article the reason why he denies the fact that Assanges' "leaks" and "incorrectness" generated the governmental outrage seen throughout the media.

"There is a very simple reason WikiLeaks has sent a furious storm of outrage across the globe: the public is uninformed because of inadequate journalism," Moore said.

By inadequate journalism, Moore refers to the lack of details on government news reports, the lack of objectivity in the newsroom and the lack of coverage on international matters; all contributing to the delay of information for people who often ask themselves "how did such messes end up being such messes?".

"If journalism were functioning at appropriate levels, there would have been stories that contained information leaked in the cables now published around the globe," Moore said.

Moore argues that journalism will soon become even more endangered, thus, he believes WikiLeaks has the potential to become the source of information capable of inquiring upon secret government endeavors and challenging government pressure.

This is certainly an important moment for journalism as many oppose WikiLeaks' actions, while others strongly support its objectives.

If WikiLeaks had not been created and all the leaked documents and videos had been given directly to news organizations, it would be interesting to know how many of them would actually accept or reject to publish such controversial documents.

As a mere opinion, I really don't think the New York Times, the Guardian, or any other well-known news organization would like to face the same issues Wikileaks is facing.

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News Corp. Brings A 'Daily' To The iPad

Looking beyond today's journalism and preparing for the future, Rupert Murdoch, News Corp. CEO, will launch a new digital newspaper exclusively for the iPad and other tablets next year.

As reported by the New York Times, Rupert Murdoch is teaming up with Apple to bring "The Daily", a one-of-a-kind digital newspaper designed exclusively for the iPad and similar tablet devices, to the App store in early 2011 for $0.99 per week or about $4.25 per month.

Focusing on national coverage and culture, the Daily is expected to provide original content and deliver an outstanding multimedia experience as the iPad is known for.

"With an investment of $30 million and a staff of around 100 journalists, the Daily will be a 'newspaper' with rich video and photography built especially for the iPad," said David Carr, media columnist for the New York Times.

Although the content will include political topics of importance, editors want the Daily to be a fun read including pop-culture, sports, and editorials. the Daily's staff is composed of distinguished contributors of the mainstream media like Richard Johnson, "the New York Post's king of gossip", and Sasha Frere-Jones, pop-music critic of The New Yorker, among others.

the Daily will not have a website or a print edition, thus, it will be only available for download through the iPad and other still unannounced tablets.

The creation of the Daily is based from Murdoch's belief that "within a few years, tablet devices will be like cell phones or laptops - every member of the family will have one."

Murdoch is taking a chance with the iPad as a way to increase revenue towards the publication of news in difficult times for newspapers during a growing momentum of online news. As Carr puts it, "the Daily will be a newspaper, an ancient motif on a modern device."

As the Daily comes to a beta-mode test sometime in December, I can already foresee important changes for journalism in the year 2011. Perhaps, if the Daily turns out to be profitable, we might see the rise of a new trend and a benchmark for news publications to come in the future.

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Growing Scrutiny of For-profit Colleges

The New York Times released an investigation on Nov. 9 reporting alleged fraudulent and deceptive practices in for-profit institutions.

Specifically, Tamar Lewin, reporter for the New York Times, took Kaplan University as one example for the growing scrutiny in for-profit higher-education schools.

According to Lewin, "investigators from the Government Accountability Office found deception or fraud at 15 for-profit colleges, including two Kaplan campuses."

To support her argument, Lewin highlights two undercover videos of Kaplan recruiters in Florida and California making dishonest statements and using deceptive practices to get students to enroll.

Lewin also reports interviews with current and former Kaplan employees who reveal that "this is the regular mind-set of Kaplan recruiters: Do whatever it takes to get the sale, to keep your job.”

Furthermore, other worrisome aspects of for-profit institutions is their source of revenue and the ultimate benefit of such education. Considering that students' financial aid mostly comes from federal government, Lewin explains that Congress has taken action into the matter:

"Kaplan and other for-profit education companies have come under
investigation from Congress, amid growing concerns that the industry leaves too many students mired in debt and with credentials that provide little help in finding jobs."

Apparently, only few students are able to pay their student-loan debt, money from the federal government which is also the main source of revenue for schools like Kaplan, the University of Phoenix and other for-profit institutions.

While it is true that for-profit colleges offer an alternative choice to traditional colleges by the use of accessible schedules and online classes, the New York Times has added a reason to held for-profit institutions questionable.

Although some think of Lewin's article as an attack to for-profit colleges, I believe awareness is the driving force behind the article. The reality is that these things happen and people should be informed with the facts.

(The complete four-page article can be found at the New York Times)

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Elections Show Potential of Social Media

Midterm elections on Nov. 02 may have set a benchmark for the future synthesis of politics and innovation within news organizations.

Being an important day in U.S. politics, major news organizations tried to report their election-coverage by means of up-to-the-minute technology. The Washington Post and the New York Times were among the noticeable contributors to the new wave of social media in political news.

On election day, the Washington Post became the first news organization to buy a Twitter-promoted trend, #Election, in order to promote its election coverage and incite people to share their thoughts with all Twitter users following the trend.

According to Katharine Zales, head of digital news products at the Washington Post,"the reason we did it was not so much for the traffic. It was more to be front and center in the conversation." By doing so, the Washington Post tried to deliever real-time, multimedia, and personally engaging political discussion.

By purchasing a promoted trend on Twitter, the Post took a serious approach of social media as a medium by which news are transmitted nowadays.

In a similar way, the New York Times used social media in the form of a Twitter traffic map that showed candidates' tweets, retweets from the public and tweets directed at the candidates.

The Times also hosted its first live-streaming web coverage from its newsroom trying to make their election-coverage feel much closer to their audiences, just like TV.

It seems like news organizations today have acknowledged that new digital journalism requires a new a new approach to their audiences; hence, most of them see public engagement as an essential structure of their business.

By using flashy web aplications, live-streaming video and Twitter to cover the elections, news agencies have demonstrated the importance of innovation in making political news more engaging, immediate and widely available throught different platforms.

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Google Donates $5 Million in Support of Digital Journalism

In an effort to spur innovation in digital journalism, Google announced on Oct. 26 a $5 million donation to help news publishers in the digital age.

Acknowledging the importance of reliable journalism for everyone, Google will donate $5 million worth of grants to non-profit journalism organizations to help foster new ideas to support digital journalism, reach bigger audiences and make online news more engaging through innovation.

"We hope these grants will help new ideas blossom and encourage experimentation. We look forward to working with the journalism community to help digital news move forward," said Nikesh Arora, president of global sales operations and business development at Google.

Google has granted $2 million to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, host of the annual Knight News Challenge, a program that funds innovative ideas to develop journalism tools and platforms.

Alberto Ibargüen, president of the Knight Foundation, talks about Google's donation to support its innovation efforts. 10/26/2010

The recipients of the remaining $3 million will be announced early next year. So far, Google aims to give the money to international journalism organizations with the same desire to boost the flow of reliable news.

I find it very valuable that such an influential and important company as Google sees the importance of journalism and, even more important, supports it.

Hopefully, this initiative will be followed by even more donations not only from Google, but from other profitable companies that acknowledge the need for innovation within news organizations and the enhancement of digital journalism.

Video Source: Knight Foundation - Vimeo Channel

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Facebook Goes Down and People Freak Out

For two-and-a-half hours, many of the 550 million Facebook users experienced the "e-pocalypse" this past Thursday.

Two days ago, Facebook experienced an outage due to a glitch on Facebook's databases causing the site to be unavailable for a few hours.

As expected, Facebook was prompt with a resolution to the site's blackout and the site was restored without any changes. Facebook's representative, Robert Johnson, sent a public message via Facebook explaining the situation and apologizing for any inconveniences it might have caused.

Many were not able to update their status, share their pictures, "like" their friend's post, or comment on the trending news; activities that have become regular tasks for thousands, if not millions, of people.

Furthermore, something more impressive is the speed at which the news spread and the amount of attention it generated.

CNN, The Huffington Post, and The New York Times, to mention a few, reported this issue and kept updating their online posts as they found new details on the story. Other websites, like Network World and CBS News, went a little deeper into the story by reporting technical explanations to the outage.

Today, two days after the outage happened, news reports about the Facebook issue are still showing up on my RSS Feeds, which makes me think: Is the media being too dramatic or is Facebook so big and indispensable that it deserves that much attention?

Of course, this little Facebook incident has shown how addictive social media has become, but I do not think it required that much attention, specially if the site only went down for two hours.

Can you imagine what would happen if Facebook ever decides to close down the website? Heaven forbid.

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