Mathematic could help journalists?
The print edition of Wired this month opens with an interesting article by Chris Anderson about how mathematic and computing are changing the scientific method - no more models, only data gathering - (here the link to the online version).
One of the applications described is related to tracking the news. It is a platform funded by European Commission aimed to predict violence and spot disaster by monitoring online news feeds. It sound a little strange to me as anyone know usually journalists inform about facts after they happen, not before. I think is difficult to predict something if you read a newspaper, a part the next strike from workpeople of the public transports. Anyway, the system is called EMM (Europe Media Monitor) and is based on a software "that monitors 1,540 Web sites running some 40,000 articles a day. There's no database per se, just about 10 gigabytes of information flowing past a pattern-matching algorithm every day — 3.5 terabytes a year".
I was curious about the opportunity given by this system, but a first looks appears a little disappointing, the news in the italian home page were the same I can find in the principal italian news web site. So the question is: mathematics and huge investment in computing are useless in journalism?
I think yes, if you work with few rough data. In this case the numbers of articles published by the italian news web sites on which is based the search by the EMM software is quite reduced (no more than 24-32 articles for the most relevants)
Mark Deuze's Panopticon
Just few words about Mark Deuze. Last week I had the pleasure to meet him at the conference "Lo schermo globale: presente e futuro della televisione" organized by professor Fausto Colombo and the Osservatorio sulla Comunicazione , an academic research centre focusing on Media Studies and based in the Università Cattolica in Milan. Mark is a Professor of Journalism and New Media at Leiden University and at Indiana University. You can find more about Mark Deuze researches at his blog.
Mark is very brilliant and I found really interesting the use of the Bentham's Panopticon model as a metaphor of the modern newsrooms, or with Mark Deuze words: "the comparison of multimedia newsroom designs and Bentham's Panopticon, relevant in the context of increased worker monitoring and surveillance associated with new technologies in media companies" see Deuze's Blog .
Is it journalism an amateurs business?
You know, TIME has elected "you" person of the 2006 year.
Richard Stengel, Managing editor of TIME, explains the TIME's decision and reassures his colleagues, frightened by hordes of amateurs journalists, that this phenomenon is a sign of democracy : "There are lots of people in my line of work who believe that this phenomenon is dangerous because it undermines the traditional authority of media institutions like TIME. Some have called it an "amateur hour." And it often is. But America was founded by amateurs. The framers were professional lawyers and military men and bankers, but they were amateur politicians, and that's the way they thought it should be. Thomas Paine was in effect the first blogger, and Ben Franklin was essentially loading his persona into the MySpace of the 18th century, Poor Richard's Almanack. The new media age of Web 2.0 is threatening only if you believe that an excess of democracy is the road to anarchy. I don't." (Richard Stengel Article)
We agree with Mr Stengel. But for another reason. Citizen journalism isn't a a road to democracy because people contribute actively to the news flow. This is not citizen journalism, this is partecipatory journalism. In other words now there's a new source for journalists besides news agencies, Public relations managers, politicians, and others news media. This new source are the people who are able to send text, photo and video to the newsrooms in a digital format ready to be easily published.
Citizen journalism could be a road to democracy as a side effect of the diffusion of technology and in this way it contribute to change the gatekeepers criteria.
No more spectacles and show business in the news, but more facts and objectivity, because now more eyes can watch and more mouths can tell what really happens.