AUSTIN, Texas--The future of news is not breadlines for journalists, a lack of reporting on politicians' scandals, and a dearth of coverage of what's really going on behind the lines of wars around the world.
In fact, a surprisingly optimistic author Steven Johnson said Friday during his talk, "The Ecosystem of News," at the South by Southwest Interactive festival (SXSWi), there's actually a bright future for news and the best hope for a vibrant, effective, and worthwhile news-gathering community is to look back at the model set over the last decade or so in technology journalism.
Steven Johnson
These days, there's no shortage of signs that the news business is collapsing in on itself, unable to develop a modern business model, and confused by how to tackle the threats posed by online classified sites like Craigslist and amateur bloggers posting news items obsessively and continuously.
And where many see these signs pessimistically as proof that the news business as we know it is dead, Johnson, whose books include "The Invention of Air" and "Emergence," sees the same fate as a good thing. After all, he suggested, why cling to failed systems when new ones that are rising to meet the needs of the future are emerging all on their own?
Johnson began his talk by framing what he called "old growth media," the traditional combination of newspapers, magazines, and television news. He recalled how, when he was in college in the late 1980s, he used to stalk his local bookstore around the same time every month, eager for the latest issue of Macworld.
Back in those days, he said, the best way to get the most recent news about what Apple was up to was to read periodicals like Macworld. Yet, with the long lead times of monthly magazines, that latest news was always several months late, Johnson said. Later, when things like CompuServe came along, he was able to compress the timeframe for getting the most up-to-date Apple news to a few days by downloading the most recent issue of Macweek.
And then along came the Web, and sites like MacInTouch.com, Apple's first site, rumor blogs, and fan sites, Johnson said, which made it finally possible to get the latest Mac news in near real-time. "Now the lag is seconds," Johnson said, "thanks to people liveblogging every passing phrase from a Steve Jobs speech."
Today, he said, many people are panicking as newspapers fail left and right, and as they see the likelihood that as a result, the crucial newsgathering role played by professional journalists will disappear with their dying employers. Yet the example set in technology journalism should give such pessimists something to feel good about, Johnson said.
And just because the impressive advances in newsgathering on the Web were seen first in technology journalism doesn't mean they won't spread to more mainstream--read: important--topics like local government, crime, and so forth.
"The Web...just has a tendency to cover technology first," Johnson said, "because the first people to use the Web were much more interested in technology than" things like school board meetings.
The point? That the model is established, and that for consumers of news, the example set in technology news should be cause for optimism, even if not for the health of the traditional news business. And the proof? Johnson pointed to politics, and the coverage of presidential campaigns.
He said that the first campaign he followed closely was in 1992. His main sources for the most up-to-date news were TV shows like CNN's "Crossfire" and magazines like Newsweek, The New Republic, and The New Yorker. At the same time, he said he watched each of that year's debates religiously and stayed up late to devour the post-game analysis on networks like CNN.
And while all of those outlets still existed during the 2008 election (except "Crossfire"), someone sticking to them last fall would have been hopelessly out of the loop compared to the millions of people who were obsessively glued to the Internet, which was delivering an unbelievable amount of coverage of all kinds about the election.
Johnson talked about how blogs like TalkingPointsMemo.com, HuffingtonPost.com, FiveThirtyEight.com, DailyKos, and Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish--one could determine his political bent by the sites he mentioned--served up a steady flow of breaking news and in-depth analysis never before possible during a presidential election. Add that to the fact that he could watch the debates with "a thousand virtual friends Twittering away with me" and the fact that as many as 8 million people watched President Obama's famous race speech on YouTube, and it's obvious that the political news ecosystem, like that of technology, has found a way to move past the antiquated models of just a few years ago.
"What's happening with technology and politics is happening elsewhere as well," Johnson said, "just on a different timetable."
Local news, once the lifeblood of newspapers, is unlikely to be so in the future. Papers like The New York Times can no longer afford to cover neighborhood stories that interest a small subsection of a much larger readership. Yet, it's those very issues that are of most interest to the people in those neighborhoods, Johnson said.
"Most of what we care about in our local lives is in the long tail," he said, referring to the ability of the Web to bring news about the smallest events to those who want it. And, of course, even the Times itself is now starting to cover neighborhoods with blogs.
"Five years from now, if someone gets mugged within a half-mile of my house," Johnson said, "and I don't get an e-mail alert about it within half an hour, it'll be a sign that something is broken."
And as more and more of this long tail-type of news is covered by those other than professional journalists, Johnson argued, it might well free up those professionals to work on the very kinds of stories that people worry they won't be able to do in the future: war coverage, investigations, and the like.
The key, then, will be for the traditional publications to serve the role of public gatekeepers, or filterers of the flood of information coming in from the amateur Web. And that, Johnson suggested, would be a natural task for the editors of institutions known for their authority: newspapers and TV news networks. And while the readership of physical newspapers has plummeted, the numbers for those publications' online sites has risen dramatically, proving that the audience is still there.
In the end, however, it will be the entire ecosystem of news that will bring the full value to news consumers. It will be social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, which can serve as link circulators, as well as large group filters like Digg and, yes, professional journalists and editors. All together, the news will get covered, Johnson said.
The problem is that what should have been a 10-year ecosystem evolution for the news business has been forced into a much more compressed timeframe by today's financial exigencies. And this sense of panic has caused us, as a society, to lose sight of what, in Johnson's view, is a very positive long-term change.
"We need to remind ourselves that there's a lot of value" in this ecosystem and what it will become in the future," Johnson said. But "it's tough to live through transformations."
By using semacodes, The New York Times could in the future make it possible for users with cell phone cameras to quickly and easily get access to the paper's latest video stories, as well as movie trailers and other video content, all by photographing the special digital symbols.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET Networks)SAN JOSE, Calif.--By now, just about everyone who follows the media industry has heard of the deep fiscal troubles of The New York Times. But even as the paper does its best for all the news that's fit for newsprint, it is also conducting experiments aimed at moving itself into the forefront of digital journalism.
At the Emerging Technologies conference (ETech) on Tuesday, Nick Bilton, the design integration editor and user interface specialist at the Times' research and development lab, spoke about "sensors, smart content, and the future of news," essentially a recap of some of the most forward-thinking projects coming from the tech-savvy minds at the paper of record.
Bilton explained that the Times' R&D lab is divided into three main subject areas: emerging platforms, analytics, and core R&D. As a member of the latter team, Bilton said he and four colleagues are devoting their time to researching new technologies that are 5 to 10 years out, particularly at systems involving innovative digital advertising.
Among the projects he talked about, one done in conjunction with software maker Adobe Systems seemed particularly appropriate in a world where everyone has a different size display and uses windows of infinitely varied sizes within their browsers. Bilton explained that the project is aimed at automatically resizing and reformatting data onscreen for whatever sized window in which the user is reading the Times, or its sister publication, the International Herald Tribune.
"When I resize the screen, it re-lays out and reformats the (data)," Bilton said. "It's a really unique way to resize and reformat data for different sized displays.
And he said that the Times' R&D lab is also looking intently at touch-screen devices in an attempt to best understand how usage of such technology impacts how readers experience the news.
Another innovative concept he talked about is what he called "smart content," a system that would keep track of what users have read digitally across all devices. So, under this system, for example, if a reader has looked at a story on their computer and then loads the Times on their iPhone, that story would be grayed out on the assumption that the reader wants to be presented only with the most meaningful data.
Bilton then talked about a digital take on the traditional street newspaper box, those banal metal containers which take your quarters and (usually) give you a copy of the paper. In the lab, the Times is experimenting with a machine, called "CustomTimes," that looks like a newspaper box with a computer monitor on it. The idea is that those who find the boxes--most likely in controlled indoor settings so that they aren't stolen--will be able to peruse Times content in the manner that best suits their needs, allowing them to print the stories they want at the touch of a few buttons.
A member of The New York Times research and development lab looks at a CustomTimes machine, which is essentially a digital newspaper box that allows users to choose the precise Times content they want and print it.
(Credit: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid)And in a nod to the fact that newspaper printing deadlines often force publications like the Times to close their earliest editions before results from things like elections or sporting events are known, the paper is also experimenting with a system in which users reading stories with incomplete results can send text messages and have final tallies sent to their mobile devices.
Similarly, Bilton said the paper is trying out a semacode system in which users with cell phone cameras can take pictures of the special, digital codes embedded in, say, movie advertisements and their phones could auto-load trailers for the film. The same would be true of any kind of video content the Times might offer, including its latest video stories, all of which could be available to users with mobile phones with cameras.
And, leveraging mobile phones with built-in GPS, the Times is also thinking about serving up localized content to users, Bilton said, as well as technology that could determine that if a user travels between cell towers at high speeds--likely because they're in a car--stories could be served up in an audio format.
Another interesting system Bilton talked about was one that could integrates Times' content in readers' homes, and in particular, on their Internet-connected TVs. He explained that the Times may offer APIs and that an example of how they could be used would be to auto-detect how far a reader is from their TV. And depending on the distance, the system could automatically change the layout of the content to match the distance and the optimal size of text.
To be sure, much of these ideas are quite a ways off, but some might be in the near future. And for the Times, this is definitely an important time to be taking the lead on digital innovation given that the paper is in serious financial shape and there's been talk about it shutting down its print edition.
Bilton seemed to say that the end of printed newspapers was nowhere near, and that no matter what technology comes along, there will always be a printed edition of the Times. But that may be wishful thinking. Still, regardless of whether you can still pick up an actual paper New York Times or not, there is little doubt that digital is the direction that will dominate in the future. And it's fitting, and crucial, that the journalistic institution that just about everyone else looks to for leadership takes the lead in moving the profession forward.
Leave it to the NFL to find an inadequate solution to the problem created by putting big games on its poorly distributed NFL Network.
If you're a football fan, you're no doubt very well aware that tonight, the Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers face off in one of the biggest games of the year. Yet, unless you happen to be a subscriber of one of the few cable or satellite services that carry the NFL Network--where the game is being broadcast--you won't be able to watch the game.
The Dallas Cowboys versus Green Bay Packers game Thursday night will be available only on the NFL Network, which reaches a limited national audience. To compensate, NFL.com is offering free access to live 'look-ins' on the game.
(Credit: NFL)Ah, but if you happened to pick up Thursday's New York Times, you might have come across a full-page ad with a big welcome message: "NFL fans, The National Football League wants you to see tonight's big game between Green Bay and Dallas.
"Despite our best efforts to reach agreements with all cable companies, we were unsuccessful."
The ad goes on to trumpet the new NFL.com Live service which, the ad seems to indicate, will allow fans to watch the game live on the Web or on their Sprint Mobile-enabled phones.
"For fans who don't have NFL Network--introducing NFL.com Live--an exclusive live broadcast covers tonight's game from all angles on NFL.com," the ad continued. "NFL.com Live Thursday Night Football will be anchored by a live, originally produced video program with live game look-ins, complimented by highlights, studio analysis, and exciting interactive applications."
Yes, it's true, the NFL misused the word "complimented."
But that's neither here nor there.
It turns out that what the NFL is offering via its free NFL.com Live service is a very limited set of short "look-ins" on the game. Mostly what fans will see while the Packers and Cowboys bang away on the gridiron will be talking heads in a studio analyzing the game that most fans can't see.
And that's too bad, and emblematic of the shift in attitude by the various professional sports leagues to make it hard for their fans to actually see the games they want to see. And if, by some chance, the NFL had decided to make the entire Dallas versus Green Bay game available online, it would have likely been one of the biggest Web events of all time.
But they would never do that, because giving their fans what they want is somehow not a desirable thing for the league.
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