New Media Unit

Anthony said AP puts thought and effort into creating "the conditions for accuracy" that can guide the actions of journalists when news hits. It's an approach that emphasizes constant communication and reinforcement of verification as a core part of what AP does. "A lot of people look at accuracy as only a decision that's made in the moment: do we go with this or do we not go with this," he said. "Obviously that's a fundamental part of it, but I think that being accurate also involves creating the conditions for accuracy in advance, even if it's only a few minutes."

Katie Couric on Social Media and Real-Time Journalism

Onward State, the student news site that incorrectly reported Joe Paterno's death Saturday night, has been cited as an example of the future of student media: a lean, social-media savvy news outlet dedicated to scooping the tradition-bound student newspaper.

Tomorrow (Jan. 14, 2012) marks the one-year anniversary of Tunisia's liberation from 23 years of oppression under dictator Ben Ali. It was a liberation sparked by one man's shocking public protest against injustice through self-immolation and fueled by the power of citizen journalism and social media. During the last months of 2010, Tunisians captured footage of protests and government oppression and shared them with thousands via Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Within weeks, similar protests sprang up in Egypt, Libya and other Arab countries, giving birth to the Arab Spring. With the power of the media now in the hands of every citizen with a smartphone, questions about ethics and accuracy are working their way through the journalism industry -- how do we know what we see on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter is true? Who are the media watchdogs for a form of journalism rooted in unedited immediacy?

"The three evening newscasts have become more different from one another than at any time I can remember," said Bill Wheatley, who worked at NBC News for 30 years and now teaches at Columbia. The differences provide a stark illustration of the state of the news media - much more fragmented than ever, but also arguably more creative.

his may be the year where newspapers finally drop the idea of treating all news as a product, and all readers as customers.

Andy Carvin and Clay Shirky spent an hour on WBUR's "On Point" program Tuesday morning discussing Twitter's impact on media and the world. In one of several insightful exchanges, Carvin explained how Twitter helps him cover the Arab spring uprisings:

This is an article about how Twitter followers can be news reporters in a way because their tweets can give information about what is going on in different parts of the world.

As the study describes, Twitter has come to play a crucial role in the way that news functions during events like the Egyptian revolution-like a crowdsourced newswire filled with everything from breaking news to rumor and everything in between, and one that both uses and is used by mainstream media: "The shift from an era of broadcast mass media to one of networked digital media has altered both information flows and the nature of news work … during unplanned or critical world events such as the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings, MSM turn to Twitter, both to learn from on-the-ground sources, and to rapidly distribute updates." The evolution of what media theorist Jeff Jarvis and others have called "networked journalism" has made the business of news much more chaotic, since it now consists of thousands of voices instead of just a few prominent ones who happen to have the tools to make themselves heard.

This article details three social media skills that the author of the blog "10,000 words" believes should be taught in Journalism school. The author believes that Social Media should be brought into the curriculum in these schools. This author's three points are that twitter is a "story machine", live teeting/facebook events is a skill, and that content scheduling is king. In my opinion, these three points are very interesting, and important in terms of the future of education.

Newsdesk Live is not another bloggy account of today's top stories like Yahoo News' The Upshot or The New York Times' The Lede. Newsdesk Live includes the day's story budget and conversational updates on what Guardian journalists are seeking and learning. The blog invites readers to contribute by posting comments, emailing or tweeting.

You might remember last year that the Guardian tried publishing its story budgets online to invite feedback and tips from readers. Today the UK newspaper takes the next step toward a transparent, "open" newsroom with a daily live blog from the news desk.

News of singer Whitney Houston's death spread like wildfire on Twitter since the news broke with a tweet from Associated Press at 4.57 pm. AP's tweet was retweeted over 10,000 times, as you can see on Topsy's trackback page for the tweet. UPDATE: Using Topsy tools, we found that the story was broken on Twitter 27 minutes before AP by @chilemasgrande in this tweet: "My sources say Whitney Houston found dead in Beverly hills hotel.. Not in the news yet!!". As of this update, this tweet had only been retweeted once. A case of a Twitter user breaking news before the press, caught in action! Original blog post continues below…

Imagine being able to get live news updates from one of the top cable news network on your PC, iPhone or iPad in beautiful HD quality. That day is coming soon, as earlier this week, CNN demoed its new TV Everywhere video offerings to an audience at SXSW. During the conference, CNN Digital General Manager KC Estenson showed off high-quality video and multiplatform capabilities that will enable viewers to watch customized video streams wherever they are and on whichever devices they choose. The only catch? To do so you have to be a pay TV subscriber with CNN as part of your video package.

"The Future of News" is a groundbreaking 10-part series for public television where the best minds in traditional and new media meet to discuss the role of a free press in an ever-changing digital democracy. Watch video clips from the series and get links to discussion topics.

Six minute video from the Center for Future Civic Media's "Future of News and Civic Media" conference showcased some of the work done as a part of the Knight News Challenge, focusing on creative ways to provide people with the news and information needed to manage their communities effectively.

only 9 percent of U.S. adults get their news from Facebook and Twitter, although of that group, Facebook is used most frequently as a source of news. That's according to the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism's State of the News Media 2012 report.

In 2011, the digital revolution entered a new era. The age of mobile, in which people are connected to the web wherever they are, arrived in earnest. More than four in ten American adults now own a smartphone. One in five owns a tablet. New cars are manufactured with internet built in. With more mobility comes deeper immersion into social networking. For news, the new era brings mixed blessings. New research released in this report finds that mobile devices are adding to people's news consumption, strengthening the lure of traditional news brands and providing a boost to long-form journalism. Eight in ten who get news on smartphones or tablets, for instance, get news on conventional computers as well. People are taking advantage, in other words, of having easier access to news throughout the day - in their pocket, on their desks and in their laps. At the same time, a more fundamental challenge that we identified in this report last year has intensified - the extent to which technology intermediaries now control the future of news.

According to this consensus, the future points toward a network-driven system of journalism in which news organizations will play a decreasingly important role. News won't be collected and delivered in the traditional sense. It will be assembled, shared, and to an increasing degree, even gathered, by a sophisticated readership, one that is so active that the word "readership" will no longer apply. Let's call it a user-ship or, better, a community. This is an interconnected world in which boundaries between storyteller and audience dissolve into a conversation between equal parties, the implication being that the conversation between reporter and reader was a hierarchical relationship, as opposed to, say, a simple division of labor.

Storify's brand-new iPad app unveiled this morning should extend the curation tool to new, more-casual users and increase the live-blogging of conferences and events.

Storify's brand-new iPad app unveiled this morning should extend the curation tool to new, more-casual users and increase the live-blogging of conferences and events.

Here, then, in an easily-accessible Poynter-esque list, is what these folks - and you - can learn from the social media debate:

News must be really hard to follow for an everyday consumer of a newspaper website. First tweets go out, sometimes with no links to additional coverage. Then a few grafs go up on a blog, followed by additional updates, either to the top of that post or as new posts. Eventually, a print story gets started, which is posted through an entirely different workflow onto a different-looking story page. This version is usually written as an hourglass-style narrative, following typical print conventions. For the rest of the day, new updates start going to this story rather than the original blog post. Having a hard time following? Here's a graphic to help: