Newsgathering in the open

Emily Bell has written an interesting piece on the notion of “live” as a defining characteristic of modern journalism. She argues that any news organisation worth its presence in the digital space needs to work in real time all the time and consider “live” as the default mode of operation.

In it she discusses the nature of Andy Carvin‘s ongoing experiment with journalism on the Twitter platform. I’ve discussed with Andy a bit about what he’s doing on twitter. This is the discussion we had about it back in March, in response to an article by Jay Rosen.

My view is that a lot of what he is doing can be best characterised as transparent newsgathering as opposed to reporting. So the stuff that used to be privileged between source and journalist is seen in the public arena. The process of delivering a news item becomes public but the end product remains the same, a bit like showing your working in an examination.

I think the big challenge is knowing when it is appropriate. So far the only thing I’ve seen which has really challenged Andy’s work on this level has been the death of Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros in Misrata. That hinged entirely on whether it was appropriate or not, not whether his sources were right and the information valid.

To do what Andy is doing takes a great deal of confidence and forethought. I wouldn’t recommend it to every journalist because I don’t think every journalist wants or needs to work in this way.

Also when it comes to eyewitnesses to events, not everyone is going to be best persuaded to give their testimony in the public space. Think of it in the same terms as interviewing someone for a feature: they won’t always want to be seen talking to you, or overheard telling other people about events.

What Andy is doing in a way should remind every journalist out there of some of the core skills that often get overlooked in the noise around the importance emerging digital world:

Developing sources’ trust and confidence in you as a journalist
Learning how to analyse and verify information as it comes to you
Creating a reliable network around you whose peer review of information you are confident in
Knowing when to seek further verification through other channels
How and where to find reference points for information
Making sure that the facts being reported are evidenced and supported before claiming their accuracy

If there is one conclusion that I would draw from this experiment, it is what I tweeted:

“core skills of good journalism haven’t changed, core platforms of operation have.”

Newsgathering in the open

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