Transferable skills of the modern day journalist

Shot on the Ipad 2

He was the former BBC director of global news and an employee of theirs for 30 years.

Then two years ago he joined Edelman, described as the world's largest Public Relations Agency, with 63 offices and more than 4200 employees as global vice-chairman. In September, he becomes the director of the Centre for Journalism at the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies.

For the doctorate study I have been pursuing, I have interviewed around 90 experts and game changers who point the way to a new horizon in communications, weighted by their experience.  I'm grateful to Richard as I am to all of those who have been generous with their time and been patient while I asked questions.

The future of journalism is a subject we keep coming back to, but its part of a wider debate on communications and the impact of society and culture.

The tools have been the enablers, but as Professor Brian Winston points out there exists a supervening neccessity to make do with the technology. If we did not have a penchant to communicate, to share, to become blase about our social axis, twitter would be redundant.

Now more so than ever, in this excerpt from Sambrook, the integrity of News and its transferable craft skills is called upon.Transferable because since every one is a publisher, clients can and do publish their own news.

But news comes with a number of codes about its probity. In Public Relations that's a soght after quality, as much as the art and what constitutes a story, which goes back to my doctorate study.

We face an ongoing collision of disciplines; the key is to understand the present, reconstitute that with the past, and be confident about the future, It's a great time to study the art of storytelling.

Capturing intelligence – the I-reality journalist

Capturing “intelligence” – the I-reality journalist


Journalism seeks the tenants ascribed to the hard sciences, a legitimacy via objectivity and truth. We remain cautious at calling ourselves artists in the creative sense.


Interviews, events, even the recounting of stories by protagonists is transmuted into materiality. A camera points and records: “Congressman, what were you thinking?” Factivity in journalism necessitates we use material world footage or otherwise the congressman remains in vision. 


In “A movement beyond classical Journalism” I write how classical news fails too often to convey the phenomenological awe and shock of events, because of its imposed constraints.

For instance, the scale of famine in Somalia or the murderous acts of an extremist Norwegian gunman shooting for 90 minutes. That’s 5400 seconds- start counting! 

News requires pictures or traces of an event.  Metonyms as metaphors e.g. a soldier’s helmet on the beach; cross reference “The Longest Day (1962)”, is the closest news embraces immateriality.

Hollywood has successfully captured thoughts via flashbacks and clever manipulation of the story diegesis courtesy of Russian formalist Vladimir Propp’s story form, the syuzhet.  

Movies of the mind

Inception (2010) takes hold of this and plays with mind and memory. Minority Report (2002) taps thoughts conjured by Pre-cogs in a futuristic world of “dreamlike investigative-reality flutter cuts”. Such investigative work is a simulacrum for mind story-teling. Cue the I-reality journalist.

Like astronauts seeking new frontiers, I-reality journalists wonder how to represent thought beyond the obvious material experience.

Filming Egypt’s uprising, Tahrir Momento (2011), I shot an elliptical syuzhet, attempting to capture sub-conscious recollections. Figures in the film speak. I paint my interpretation of their thoughts as I, a would-be sentient, pre-cog with plentiful handicaps, capture a past that I reflexively create for others. 

But I’m aware this sort of journalism thus far is riddled with problems. 


Perhaps because  these depictions are not objective, and we have yet to rupture the paradigm of digital in which its language development engenders a digital-trust quotient, where I can exercise art within journalism. 


Award winning film maker Mark Cousin calls this work impressionist. In the noetic world of digital gestures and glances addled with implicit messages, symbolic meaning transmutes.

The Outernet which works outside of the semiotics of classical journalism, bridging innovative concepts of new news story forms, created within the net influencing systems outside – The Outernet – may be one such cue. 

Our thoughts are a zone for deeper filmic exploration.

More recently MIT scientists showed how the brain/ mind empties itself to gather new information. 

If a consumer camera is soon mass produced that captures brains’ electrical signals, thoughts as seen here, and cameras reading data such as pupil dilation, will be closer to looking inside a person’s mental state. 

Then “Congressman what were you thinking?” will be a question we don’t even need to ask. Capturing intel from thought will become the next I-reality.

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Searching for the definitive in new journalism

Hey

Bit of a change for me here, but I thought of writing something in the first person. It's more of a reflexive diary entry - a sort of brain dump, but if any of it chimes with you, do as always plse ping me.

Yesterday I spent the whole day in the British library. At one point I looked up from the six books surrounding me and thought, what a way to be spending your time - when I'd sooner be out in the open air making a film or something.

But the Library - and I have been surprised myself has become a monastery. The reading rooms are something out of a Potter movie egging you on with imaginary hog what evers lurking around. Anyway enough of my soporific nonsense.

I did however come away with evidence I needed to build into my ongoing research and my PhD thesis about future media. PhDs are for me the pedagogical equivalent of waterboarding where you feel you're drowning in a mass of data and you just can't breath. Nothing is so quite psychologically mind pounding.

But when you do catch your breath and think through, you start to see glimmers of things that seem to make sense.

Take this statement that often platforms very rarely serve the purpose for which they were designed. The early adopters find a means, and then through the years and "misuse", often serendipity we get to that place.

You can trace this in, art, photography, and film which was first designed for science value, or that in the 50s cinema moguls thinking they wanted to be different from television introduced cinevision ie widescreen. There was no functional reason or clearly thought out aesthetic as you look at your latest movie shot in 1080i HD.

More closer to home, the net from 1996 when I first started on it, is way different from to today. For Berners-Lee it was his way to remember data. That's old hat. Now, if you haven't seen the news video from 1995 which shows the UK newspapers talking about the web, please do here.

David presenting at the annual Media Development gathering - Around 200 companies from around the world who publish in difficult environments.

But we haven't yet still cracked this thing of new journalism on the web. Through experimentation, we've made gains, but academics, and broadcasters continue as we, they, must ponder big questions for knowledge, power and economic value.

So, as a new cohort of trainee journalists are set to start this year, I think what it might look like in 2020?

In the meantime, we go to conferences, we listen to scions, people co-translating their experiences, some sharing pilot studies....We're constantly, rightly so, searching for the definitive in new journalism.

This statement crystallised my thoughts. In fact I must have coughed so loud in the library I might have been in danger of being kicked out.

"A new medium is not born fully formed with a clear mission and purpose. Instead the first people involved have to struggle with various formats to find what programming and information fit the medium’s particular strengths and weaknesses"

“...new practices do not so much flow directly from technologies that inspire them as they are improvised out of old practices that no longer work in new settings".

The attributes of the medium according to the author, Carolyn Marvis, come about through a negotiation of technologies. Now, this is a bit of a wow statement, because it gives some legitimacy to postulate with academic constraints, what might be?

Imagine in 2020, the generation working on the web looking at what we were doing now thinking OMG what Luddites. When I showed some students my Uher- a radio recorder - and explained this was the universal tool of choice in the 90s, laugh they nearly died. That it's a lethal weapon and in my 8 years of use I never injured anyone is a miracle.

So first let's think about the net as it exists now, the web and its unique qualities, where with a bit of trend extrapolation and modeling we might be able to kick to touch the crystal ball.

Here I pay tribute to Dr Latham, cuz I used to loath this stuff during my degree in maths and chemistry.. modelling.. but hey, 26 years later, here I am dusting it off. So what would the web look like, but more importantly what sort of journalism, the trading and exchange and sharing and asymmetrical flows of data will exist?

This is the stuff, yep I'm guilty, that I play through in performance lectures in conferences, though increasingly these Petcha Kucha 20 minutes need a different approach.

What you want is to be in an area provoking (nicely) people, them provoking you into thought -a sort of creative fight club where you draw threads and attempt new synapses from fresh and old understandings. Take our penchant now for blogging and expression, no different in the macro sense from the pamphleteers of the 16th 17th century.

In 2020 will we be paying for the web? Likely I said in this post here on Murdoch, though the argument's being made on economic grounds which is hard to swallow. It needs re-orientating - if you remember the exploits of the digital boffins of the 90s where download this version and pay for the upgrade was the norm, few objected.

I'm finishing off some work in Cairo, where I have identified for the participants 9 clear streams for videojournalism. If you think how only 10 years ago, the BBC playing with bi media thought working two media was radical, the idea today that a videojournalist does everything is heretical.

Actually we can push it further. The expression sticks in the craw, but integrated multimedia videojournalism (IMVJ), leaves little to the imagination at being a 21st century television studio. And it's far from solitary, but interdependent and collaborative.

Truthfully, videojournalism - as we know now - is no more radical than the kid - and I remember Paul Hardcastle's 19 (1985) as my yard stick - sitting in his bedroom working on a synth. The question thus to address which will unfold is one of aesthetics, weighed against purpose and a dirty word in journalism - art.

At some point, the art of the media and its practitioners emerges from the flock. Think Murrow et al ( the art of radio); Cronkite, Robin Day ( the art of the interview); Alan Hart (ITN) Michael Nicholson ( the art of television Reporter) . Sorry I have only mentioned UK and US - my ignorance.

This aesthetic involve a sort of rotation of themes and genre - contemporary versions of Noir, Dogma, or Russian two-step and flutter cuts mixewd with the unknown.

Data journalism become more hyperlinked. It's voice-driven and negates the use of a telephone (Will the telephone companies give way cuz I have already seen it) which finds a way to usurp the main news agenda. Multimedia, writing in 2007 will still adhere to these functionalities, but there are now new variables afoot.

But of huge importance beyond the innovations and the processes, is the individual. The most interesting thing will be, well, put it bluntly "You".

Someone asked but I have not empirical data to uphold this whether those entering or in any modal forms of journalism today are on average, more aware than those 20 years ago. Apropo what about the next ten years?

The tools will be ubiquitous, but what will the journalist require beyond the "press here and fly button" - knowledge and context? Why, if they can access that instantaneously on a mobile device. (I'm not here supporting this idea, just enamoured by it). Here's my trekkie moment

More guile and creativity to access stories. How do you access the truth as it happened, when organisations will be happy enough with the efforts of their own media telling their story. BA is a good example of this. This post fleshes this out.

And what about training and learning. The convention today is to take a glut of subjects. In this post and a link to a video by a former vice chancellor , we should start to train the workforce of tomorrow e.g. journalists, very differently.

It all adds up to some grand theory, except we've been here before. We've always been, and through the thoughts, books knowledge of others we've found our way. Except this time the none geographic nature of the web, places an interesting premium on paradoxically geographic centres of learning.

Ten years ago the impact of knowledge or journalism from Australia or China registered comparatively smaller with today, but today where you can spot excellence, we all gravitate to that company, that region, which becomes the new hub.

We've seen this Silicon valley, and as a new digital company drawing in users and knowledge exchange Media storm is a good example, often on the lips of many BBC execs talking about future media.

Interesting that Newsweek reported recently that Xinhua news agency may well be the dominant news in the future. If the little I know from my work in China tells me, technologically, the boundaries are porous, and now the country is placing a high quotient on information and data.

It all adds up to some interesting scenarios ahead.

So there are a few thoughts I thought of getting of my chest before I hit the Mac again to get some other work done :)

Normal service begins tomorrow. BFN

Future communications and journalism

In the 1700s the government of the day laxed the laws on newspapers and the pamphleteers had a field day. The scenario is not so unfamiliar to today, except it's different institutions attempting control.

Talking at SXSW in January, I told a warm and generous audience who showed up to my 10.00 Saturday presentation that the rules of videojournalism, the nature of comms was still being rewritten.

It stands to reason really; we're in the pamphleteer era. New scions are making their mark, many are yet to. There will be chaos and upheaval until it gradually settles, but then it never will.

There are some standards: we like stories; we need commerce, but the currencies are changing. Stories are being devised in an assortment of ways. videojournalism neither exclusively news, nor docs is laying down its marker, whilst the oldest system of trade is gaining pace.

Bartering. Money will suffice. Murdoch wants it to, but it won't always be the method of exchange, we know that much. Stallman probably had no idea what all this would come to

A video magazine
When I built my site viewmagazine.tv in 2004 I had a number of strong views; some have materialised as common themes: embedding video within a page, whilst others are yet to crystallise.

Apologies I'm not trying to be clever. But perhaps to illustrate how easy it was for traditionalists to be dismissive of ideas, when you did not have the tools or skill set to produce them. The rest is trend extrapolation.

A similarly trend extrapolated is video hyperlinking; embedded scanable links from XML driven TV, which can be stored, accessed etc. Deep drilling in video and accessing more of what we like, will get more interesting. If you're a TV show not carrying perma links, you will. TV always learns the hard way, from the newer media.

TV show making and its second shift aesthetic will be overhauled.

I've looked to congeal the years of radio, TV and print and ask what if? Firstly through a scientific methodology around my training as an Applied Chemist, then journalism and now through social sciences at SMARTlab and the Arts.

Fact is we're still in the dark ages of the web. History tells us that. Broadband speeds are still poor, despite our ambitions. Fathom what will happen at unlimited downloads- no constrains - actually 100mb first please.

Future Design
Think how the language of html to hxtml, will be ceded by xml. Design seven years on will have embraced a new renaissance, based around open spaces and mobile devices.

I mentioned that full blown video across the page would be the norm sometime ago. That didn't go down to well with some, but they were honourable not to throw eggs.

Next week I'll be sharing my views on the future of comms in a keynote with UK CEOs. I still subscribe to the comments on Apple's profile site that any attempt at predicting the future is a mug's game. But we can guestimate some intelligent trajectories.

I've amassed a number of interviews from key players to whom I grateful and will with some dispassion and academic rigour deconstruct those.

Content Analysis is producing some interesting ideas. There are also obvious holes in what we can plug e.g. our misuse at present of journalism grads and the methodologies for pushing forward online - finance evaluation.

The latter is a legacy of the dotcom boom when PE ratios meant nothing. Today, assets and liabilities still don't square up in modern nomenclature. Nine years on you'd think MBAs would have cracked it.

Meanwhile we continue to constrain a new system into an aging one. We do that for obvious job security reasons and the notion that it's better to modify, rather than entirely rebuild Rome. Furthermore how can you create what you're not completely sure of.

In some respect that's when art comes in. Whilst innovation without functionality is meaningless, this fluid period we see ourselves in combines artistic practice with a technology bent towards conceiving any number of ideas. Entrepreneurial indeed says Jeff Jarvis.

You begin to think we need to also reinvent a whole new vocabulary - it's happening. Our thoughts might turn to new modes of knowledge creation for a new generation - that's happening too.

And as we plough ahead, it's also worth looking back, farther back to contextualise. The past may not have all the answers we seek, but we deny its impact at our peril.

Those pamphleteers, some started to publish books, Defoe became one of the most celebrated journalists, many others went to the wall. We're not so different after all, but for sure it's not exactly the same.

David Dunkley Gyimah, academic, video journalist and artist in residence publishes next year looking at integrated video and videojournalism