GROUP 8 ASSIGNMENT

TOPIC: Give a detailed review of Stephen Quinn & Stephen Lamble’s “Online Newsgathering: Research and Reporting for Journalism.”

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According to Anthers, every form of journalism today whether prints, broadcast or online, involves the use of computers.  Stephen Quinn and Stephen Lamble in their book Online Newsgathering: Research and Reporting for Journalism explore the affordances of the internet and how it can be exploited to better assist reportage.

In describing how significantly the internet has affected journalism the authors uphold the view of Anthers that the internet world “proved to be the most significant human development since Guttenberg’s invention of movable type in the middle of the fifteen century” (Quinn 2001 1X). The internet in a way has led to audience fragmentation and there is need for journalists to change in order to accommodate this fragmented audience. The world has gone beyond people wanting information, they want control over the media (Murdoch 2005) and the internet offers this opportunity.

The internet provides journalists with an opportunity to broader sources of information and ways to generate story ideas. Some of the ways to generate news ideas include listserv

, online news groups such as yahoo and Cyber fiber, searching Google groups, new filters such as google alert, CNN alert, BBC alert, Australia alerts. Following is also an easy way of generating story ideas, this is done by monitoring reliable news organization around the world to pick story ideas based on how other journalists around the globe have reported. Other sources include archives of news organization, monitoring almanacs, covering humanitarian emergencies, consulting reference desk among others.

Once you have story ideas, there is need to source additional information to develop the story. The internet can be used to find expert and spokesperson to interview. They can be found via email and data bases on the web. Also journalist can make free or expensive phone calls using a technology called voice over internet protocol  VOIP

examples is Skype.

Blogging is thriving in the online environment as a newsgathering and reporting tool going by pew internet and American life project report of 2005. The authors argue that blogs have the potential to help reporters do better research and consequently produce better journalists. The potential use of blogs as a search tool is limited only by reporter’s imagination.

Also tracking sites can be used in tracking stories in the blogosphere however the sites should be used in conjunction with traditional search tools and others such as Wikipedia. The authors posit that Journalists should be involved in blogging because they are trained to write clearly, act ethically and are willing to check their facts. This distinguishes them from untrained bloggers.

Users Generated Content which has brought about citizen journalism is a source of research for new information, Guardian media reporter Julia Dag argues that with UGC, the long predicted democratization of the media has become a reality.

On finding trustworthy information online, the authors are of the view that finding information online has to be done with the latest technological devices to make it faster, easier and reliable.

 The internet age comes with certain needed skills a journalist must have. Some journalist will work as multimedia reporters and need to learn how to gather information appropriate for multimedia reporting. However, the level of multimedia involvement will vary, depending on factors like, size of the news organization, organization expectations of reporters and Specific News Situation. Steven Quinn et al citing Kerry Northrup, Efra’s director of publishing have long maintained that the future of journalism lies in the area of multimedia.

While the developed world is exploiting multimedia reporting, journalists in developing countries are yet to attain the necessary skills for it.

Quinn and Lamble emphasize on the need for journalist to evaluate news quality ensuring it is accurate and factual to attribute information to the right source to avoid Media organization from losing their audience. They opine that online journalists can evaluate information when they trust their own instincts, avoid taking anything at face value and avoid making assumptions. For effective evaluation of quality images, the authors emphasized on the need to decode the uniform resource locator (URL) as it will enable the online journalist to locate a website that is genuine from a fake. Other ways include checking credibility of the sites, looking out for the individual behind the site by using domain tools, checking for proper contact details, checking for links to other credible sites and looking out for fake email addresses.

On using computer assisted reporting to develop a beat, the authors suggest that the journalist must be educated on the field of interest, find and cultivate relevant contact, understand the language of the beat and also keep up to date with relevant news online. All these are made easier with the coming of CAR. An effective beat journalist in this century should have both a traditional contact book and a website. This will help to save time, keep contacts organized, provide a quick and reliable reference list of active links to the key website used regularly to inform his beat.

 A beat reporter with knowledge of car is a step ahead of his counterparts. However, Computer Assisted Reporting comes with huge legal complication especially on the web as a material published on internet could be legal or illegal to different countries. There are laws that protect such as freedom of speech and laws that hinder such as laws on copyright, defamation and digital piracy. Thus, online journalist and computer assisted reporting {CAR} researchers must not just contend with different laws between nations, but quite often with differences in approach within particular jurisdiction within the same nation. They must have a sound understanding of the law in the jurisdiction in which they work. And also learn about relevant laws and how they are applied both in the jurisdictions they gather information from and in the jurisdiction where their work will be published.

Bill Dedman (2007) opines that  that CAR does not replace the traditional techniques of journalism but it certainly strengthens them providing a better method to investigative reporting and a form of journalism called data journalism.

Summarily, the use of CAR methods according to the authors of this book is necessary because; Good statistics are hard, or impossible to argue against, Statistics can help separate facts from opinion and can often be expressed graphically to add visual impact to a story.