Posts tagged with: Poynter Online
March 16, 2010
News in context
Journalists can play a critical role of providing broad and deep context that helps us understand the headlines. It’s starting to happen at news organizations such as Voice of San Diego and Texas Tribune. Context was a hot topic at SXSW this week and the discussion is worth following.
I’ve been critical of the lack of relevance of much of what we call news. Journalists often cover processes much better than they cover substance and nuance. So what we produce seems to have the opposite effect of what we say we’re trying to do: We foster detachment rather than engagement.
For example, how can I engage in the coverage of health care reform that is coming out of Washington, D.C. these days? I am vitally interested in the topic. As a self-employed, aging boomer, I pay a premium for a high-deductible health insurance plan that can cut me loose the minute I get very sick.
While I am mildly interested in the headlines about the last-minute vote-snagging on Capital Hill, I feel disconcerted and ignorant about all but the major provisions of the bill that the House may or may not pass.
I would like someone to tell me a lot more about what the bill might mean for me, the benefits, the risks, the trade offs. The answers are probably out there, but I just don’t have time to pull together the best sources and distill the key facts and arguments.
Isn’t that what journalists are for?
That question underlies a discussion Monday at SXSW Interactive in Austin, TX. A panel on “The Future of Context” pointed to an exciting role that journalists can embrace in the digital age. (I was not present but I followed it on Twitter; hashtag #futureofcontext.)
One member of the panel, Jay Rosen, has aptly described the current situation this way: “Suppose your laptop continually received updates to software that was never installed on your laptop.”
That does so describe how I feel about health care. I’m getting the incessant updates via headline and talking head. But I don’t have the background, the context (the software) that integrates and contextualizes the updates.
Isn’t that what journalists are for?
Here are links to more information about this discussion:
“Contextualizing Context,” by Elise Hu, summarizes the panel discussion.
Steve Myers’ live blog of the panel is archived on Poynter Online.
Rosen’s “News Without the Narrative Needed to Make Sense of the News.”
“An Antidote for Web Overload,” by Matt Thompson. Thompson, who recently joined NPR after a stint with the Knight Foundation, focused his 2008-09 Reynolds Journalism Institute fellowship on context in the news.
Also, there was a related discussion Monday at an event on the business of journalism at Reynolds. I posted a few highlights.
Update: One more important link: Future of Context Web site. (Hat tip to Staci D. Kramer.)
Here are examples of topics pages created by online news sites:
Rosen points to Giant Pool of Money, a This American Life segment that explains the mortgage banking crisis.
Texas Tribune, inspired by Matt Thompson, has dozens of topic pages that provide explanation and context.
Voice of San Diego has developed a regular feature called San Diego Explained. Here’s one on food stamps.
So this may be the beginning of a context page about context and journalism. Does it help you understand the concepts? How could I make it better?
Are you working on the future of context? I’d like to hear about examples of this work.
By Michele McLellan, 03/16/10 at 7:44 am
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