Social Media, Bloggers Go Mainstream

The future of social media in journalism will see the death of “social media.” That is, all media as we know it today will become social, and feature a social component to one extent or another. After all, much of the web experience, particularly in the way we consume content, is becoming social and personalized.

But more importantly, these social tools are inspiring readers to become citizen journalists by enabling them to easily publish and share information on a greater scale. The future journalist will be more embedded with the community than ever, and news outlets will build their newsrooms to focus on utilizing the community and enabling its members to be enrolled as correspondents. Bloggers will no longer be just bloggers, but be relied upon as more credible sources. Here are some trends we are noticing, and we would love to hear your thoughts and observations in the comments below.

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Collaborative Reporting

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Reporting has always in some ways been a collaborative process between journalists and their sources. But increasingly, there’s a merger between the source and the content producer. As a result, more journalism will happen through collaborative reporting, where the witness of the news becomes the reporter, says David Clinch, editorial director for Storyful and a consultant for Skype. Journalists, Clinch says, must be able to pivot quickly between the idea of using the community as a source of news and as the audience for news, because they are both.

This requires a shift in the mindset of journalists, who are used to deciding what news is and how it is covered, produced and distributed, said Alfred Hermida, professor of integrated journalism at the University of British Columbia. “Social media by its very definition is a participatory medium,” Hermida said. “There is a potential for greater engagement and connection with the community, but only if journalists are open to ceding a degree of editorial control to the community.”

For those who involve the community in the reporting process, the payoff can be great. A noteworthy example is the way the newly launched TBD.com, a news startup in Washington D.C., has integrated social media and enlisted a community of bloggers into the newsgathering and production process, creating a collaborative reporting environment. This has allowed them to lay claim to several local scoops, said Liz Heron, social media producer at The New York Times. Heron also says TBD’s engaged community gave them an edge in reporting the Discovery Channel hostage situation.

http://mashable.com/2010/09/13/future-social-media-journalism/