Home Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) peter.suber's bookmarks Sure, journalists need to know digital tools, but they really need to know how to do digital research » Nieman Journalism Lab

Sure, journalists need to know digital tools, but they really need to know how to do digital research » Nieman Journalism Lab

peter.suber's bookmarks 2012-09-27

Summary:

"Anyone who’s been to j-school remembers the initial jitters — and the bundle of nerves — that came with heading out on assignments and to beats unknown in those dizzying first months.  Journalism schools have generally been good at steadying those nerves, giving students the confidence to explore new neighborhoods and challenging issues, and to ask tough questions. Throw in some sharpened writing skills and storytelling techniques, and we walked out with that traditional toolkit ready to go in the old media world.  But in a wired age, where knowledge on all topics is accumulating and proliferating, a new kind of fear should be persistent for journalists: Not knowing what you’re talking about. Or put more practically, not doing your research. There is little excuse these days for being uninformed and caught unaware. Expectations are being raised all around us.  Scholar-bloggers (and a legion of wonky twittizens) are now out in force. Statistics and data can be quickly located and brought to bear on most topics. Government agencies are creating research-oriented apps and APIs and uploading data sets fairly regularly. Unlike a decade ago — when much of the world’s deepest knowledge sat on dusty library shelves — targeted search engines and databases such as Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic Search, PubMed, and the Social Science Research Network now make access to scholarship easy. One-fifth of all scholarship is 'open access' (translation: no paywalls) and that trend is accelerating, according to the Peter Suber, director of Harvard’s Open Access Project.  There’s peril in not capitalizing on this flood of knowledge.

Any smart group of readers will call you out on ignorance in the comment thread (or just deploy the #clueless hashtag) and then float away forever to other sites. At stake for journalists is this: having enough credibility with one’s audience and being competent enough to convene readers/viewers who now have an overabundance of choices and alternatives. Otherwise, journalism loses its hard-won capacity to focus attention and define the contours of the public interest. In an overcrowded marketplace, it’s ultimately about turning out the highest-value work on a given news topic...  At the same time, the great anxiety for many journalism schools — and their central debate — is about how to merge traditional reporting skills with new tech tools and modes of delivery..."

Link:

http://www.niemanlab.org/2012/09/sure-journalists-need-to-know-digital-tools-but-they-really-need-to-know-how-to-do-digital-research/

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » abernard102@gmail.com
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Date tagged:

09/27/2012, 13:30

Date published:

09/27/2012, 16:29