Clay Shirky: The future of journalism
Blog tasks
Go to the Nieman Lab webpage (part of Harvard university) and watch the video of Clay Shirky presenting to Harvard students. The video is also available on YouTube below but the Nieman Lab website has a written transcript of everything Shiky says.
1) Why does Clay Shirky argue that 'accountability journalism' is so important and what example does he give of this?
Clay Shirky argues that accountability journalism is important as it allows the audience to be informed when people across the global are acting incorrectly and allows them to expose corruption. The example given was Father John Geoghan a priest who had raped and molested over 100 boys in his care, he was able to get away with this as the Catholic Church failed to punish him correctly. This was later exposed by the Boston Globe.
2) What does Shirky say about the relationship between newspapers and advertisers? Which websites does he mention as having replaced major revenue-generators for newspapers (e.g. jobs, personal ads etc.)?
Advertisers in the past were overpaying for services which they hardly benefited from, this allowed for newspapers to do more high risk news stories. Example given was Best Buy was not willing to help support Baghdad Bureau because they cared about the news from them "They just didn't have another other choice".
3) Shirky talks about the 'unbundling of content'. This means people are reading newspapers in a different way. How does he suggest audiences are consuming news stories in the digital age?
He suggests that audiences consume news in bulk on social media in a less intellectual way due to the digital age. News institutions are now focuses on how to get the most page views and clicks.
4) Shirky also talks about the power of shareable media. How does he suggest the child abuse scandal with the Catholic Church may have been different if the internet had been widespread in 1992?
If the internet had been around in 1992, more people would've found out about the news quicker, however due to the paper being passed down multiple times it took longer. “Many of the good effects in limiting the Catholic Church's ability to continue doing this were as a result of the public reuse of the documents in ways that were simply not possible in 1992 and had become not just available, but trivial by 2000.”
5) Why does Shirky argue against paywalls?
"The whole point of adding these restrictions is to take an infinite good and to be able to sell it as if it's a finite good and you have to prevent the audience's ability to act as a publisher in order for that business model".
6) What is a 'social good'? In what way is journalism a 'social good'?
Social good is something that benefits the public. Journalism is an example of a social good as it informs the public about important news.
7) Shirky says newspapers are in terminal decline. How does he suggest we can replace the important role in society newspapers play? What is the short-term danger to this solution that he describes?
8) Look at the first question and answer regarding institutional power. Give us your own opinion: how important is it that major media brands such as the New York Times or the Guardian continue to stay in business and provide news?
I think it is important for major media brands such as the New York Times and the Guardian to stay in business as they have proven themselves to be reliable sources of information and have been able to produce good accountability journalism. The digital age as introduced a lot of fake, unreliable and clickbait news, media institutions such as these (New York Times) are needed in order to provide the public with the correct news and quality journalism.
Go to the Nieman Lab webpage (part of Harvard university) and watch the video of Clay Shirky presenting to Harvard students. The video is also available on YouTube below but the Nieman Lab website has a written transcript of everything Shiky says.
1) Why does Clay Shirky argue that 'accountability journalism' is so important and what example does he give of this?
Clay Shirky argues that accountability journalism is important as it allows the audience to be informed when people across the global are acting incorrectly and allows them to expose corruption. The example given was Father John Geoghan a priest who had raped and molested over 100 boys in his care, he was able to get away with this as the Catholic Church failed to punish him correctly. This was later exposed by the Boston Globe.
2) What does Shirky say about the relationship between newspapers and advertisers? Which websites does he mention as having replaced major revenue-generators for newspapers (e.g. jobs, personal ads etc.)?
Advertisers in the past were overpaying for services which they hardly benefited from, this allowed for newspapers to do more high risk news stories. Example given was Best Buy was not willing to help support Baghdad Bureau because they cared about the news from them "They just didn't have another other choice".
3) Shirky talks about the 'unbundling of content'. This means people are reading newspapers in a different way. How does he suggest audiences are consuming news stories in the digital age?
He suggests that audiences consume news in bulk on social media in a less intellectual way due to the digital age. News institutions are now focuses on how to get the most page views and clicks.
4) Shirky also talks about the power of shareable media. How does he suggest the child abuse scandal with the Catholic Church may have been different if the internet had been widespread in 1992?
If the internet had been around in 1992, more people would've found out about the news quicker, however due to the paper being passed down multiple times it took longer. “Many of the good effects in limiting the Catholic Church's ability to continue doing this were as a result of the public reuse of the documents in ways that were simply not possible in 1992 and had become not just available, but trivial by 2000.”
5) Why does Shirky argue against paywalls?
"The whole point of adding these restrictions is to take an infinite good and to be able to sell it as if it's a finite good and you have to prevent the audience's ability to act as a publisher in order for that business model".
6) What is a 'social good'? In what way is journalism a 'social good'?
Social good is something that benefits the public. Journalism is an example of a social good as it informs the public about important news.
7) Shirky says newspapers are in terminal decline. How does he suggest we can replace the important role in society newspapers play? What is the short-term danger to this solution that he describes?
“We need a class of institutions or models whether they’re endowments or crowd-sourced or what have you — we need a model that produces five percent of accountability journalism. And we need to get that right 17 times in a row.” The downfall to this however, in the short term their is a potential loss in accountability journalism.
8) Look at the first question and answer regarding institutional power. Give us your own opinion: how important is it that major media brands such as the New York Times or the Guardian continue to stay in business and provide news?
I think it is important for major media brands such as the New York Times and the Guardian to stay in business as they have proven themselves to be reliable sources of information and have been able to produce good accountability journalism. The digital age as introduced a lot of fake, unreliable and clickbait news, media institutions such as these (New York Times) are needed in order to provide the public with the correct news and quality journalism.
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