Building the ideal newsroom for the next 50 years

Using Semantic Technologies For Story Development & Reader Engagement

One idea for the newsroom of tomorrow will be to use some of the online media mining tools developed for corporations to determine the stories that are of most interest to a community. The press would use monitoring tools to determine both what is developing, and what becomes relevant and important to the community, through, references, links and comments. Those news stories that pick up steam quickly will be the agenda items for the press to investigate in greater detail, just as the Seaverns Avenue story in the Boston Globe was a story that the reporter decided to investigate because of how the community discussion unfolded within social media. Armed with the knowledge that the public is discussing a story the press will then investigate details no one else is reporting. The press is already being influenced by the issues that are highlighted in social media; the use of monitoring tools would give the media the ability to recognize what stories are important to the community within social media at an earlier stage.

This from my article on intermedia agenda setting
http://pr.typepad.com/pr_communications/2008/11/making-sense-of-int...

and
News Gathering Tools Enable Journalists To Compete With Blogging Brethr
http://pr.typepad.com/pr_communications/2008/04/news-gathering.html

Would be curious to learn of newsroom's that are adopting such technologies.

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Permalink Reply by Michael J on December 30, 2008 at 2:49pm: In case this didn't get on your radar..http://www.miller-mccune.com/article/deep-throat-meets-data-mining
from the story:
"Now, though, the digital revolution that has been undermining in-depth reportage may be ready to give something back, through a new academic and professional discipline known in some quarters as "computational journalism." James Hamilton is director of the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy at Duke University and one of the leaders in the emergent field; just now, he's in the process of filling an endowed chair with a professor who will develop sophisticated computing tools that enhance the capabilities — and, perhaps more important in this economic climate, the efficiency — of journalists and other citizens who are trying to hold public officials and institutions accountable."; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by John Cass on December 30, 2008 at 8:54pm: I'd heard about computational journalism, but the definitions I'd seen were for existing databases rather than scanning the web. Thanks for the lead, I will follow up with James.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Chris O'Brien on January 6, 2009 at 6:01pm: John: Interesting post. My feeling is that the role of semantic technologies is going to be huge. But my sense from talking to folks in newsrooms is that it's not even on the radar. I know Jay at Duke and think it would be great for you two to chat. Let me know if you want help in connecting.

Also, on the subject of computational journalism, Ga. Tech I believe had a big conference on this last year, and hopefully will be doing it again this year.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by John Cass on January 8, 2009 at 12:43pm: Thanks Chris, I reached out to Jay, and we are going to chat at some point. I'd appreciate it if you might do a post on asking newsroom participants if they are using such technologies? People would be more likely to answer the question as you have the relationship through the newsroom site.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Albert on January 6, 2009 at 8:16pm: his is classic, brlliant, and scary to think about. Picture this, Ben Bradley in an editorial board meeting. On the wall is projected a huge Cloud Tag, no better yet, the conference table is a huge Cloud Tag with people around the table touching words to explode blogs, mashup diagrams and comments on blogs. Another section of the conference table echoes a You Tube video of an argument among residents at a school board meeting captured by a PTA mom.

Now on the issue of computational journalism, I get just a tad bit leery about gaming the technology, if it is anything like SEO tactics, I'm not sure there is anyone we can trust. :)

All the best folks.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Michael J on January 7, 2009 at 4:59am: Albert-
I love the description! CNN and MSNBC in the last election were getting pretty close on the tech.

But, "secret sauce" in the tech is Ben Bradley and the people in the room. In a Black Swan world, computers suck at having a "hunch" or being able to Blink (Gladwell). Consider how many computers and geeks and algorithms Lehman Brothers, or the other financial geniuses, had.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by John Cass on January 8, 2009 at 12:45pm: Michael, were cnn and msnbc using semantic technologies then?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Michael J on January 8, 2009 at 2:40pm: I don't know enough to know, but I think not. What I was referring to were the GUI's. The business about a table full of input, manipulated by movements of hands. With everyone in a group watching at the same time. The tech they put in place to analyze the electoral votes was pretty cool.

Watching Chuck Todd playing what if and moving states from here to there was very neat.

Just another two cents.

I think you are really on to something when you said ,"Armed with the knowledge that the public is discussing a story the press will then investigate details no one else is reporting." This is a huge cultural shift for newspapers, especially the "big" ones.

One of the things I think I've learned about conversations in the Cloud is that the most effective way to move a discussion forward is to search around for an ongoing discussion, lurk until you have something that might move it forward. It's actually the same process used by really good consultative salespeople.

This is not a new practice. But I think the way you frame it for journalists makes lots of sense. Most important it changes the focus of reporters and editors from what they think is important to what their readers think is important. In the old days, reporters often came from the population that made up their readers. Today, not so much. It's the downside of professional school.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by John Cass on January 8, 2009 at 3:09pm: I think there is still a role for a journalist with an eye for a story, but I also think there's a big role ahead for tracking what readings are discussing.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Michael J on January 8, 2009 at 4:02pm: we agree.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by John Cass on January 8, 2009 at 12:44pm: Hi Albert, you are taking this beyond what I was thinking, but yes, I think that's possible. :-); ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Krista Thomas on January 23, 2009 at 3:51am: Hi John,

Full disclosure, I work for Thomson Reuters on our Calais initiative -- a free Semantic Web service and open API at OpenCalais.com.

I tweeted your post and couldn't agree more. And beyond reader engagement, we are hearing about papers using Calais to do investigative reporting.

For instance: do textual analysis of city govt. awarded contracts secured through FOIA, and then do the same for news items, birth, marriage and death announcements, etc. to create a fuzzy social graph. Then mash them up to see what patterns emerge.

One of the things that Calais detects is FamilyRelation, so it can get pretty interesting.; ▶ Reply to This