Live Coverage

CJF Forum: Joshua Benton, director, Nieman Journalism Lab

Joshua Benton, director of the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University. Q&A hosted by Nora Young, host of CBC Radio's Spark.

Hey everyone, Dana here. The CJF Forum with Nieman Journalism Lab's Joshua Benton is about to begin...join the conversation via #cjfforums or by e-mailing comments to 21328@scribblelive.com.
by Dana Lacey1/18/2011 11:38:36 PM
About Nieman Journalism lab, from their site:

The Nieman Journalism Lab is an attempt to help journalism figure out its future in an Internet age.

The Internet has brought forth an unprecedented flowering of news and information. But it has also destabilized the old business models that have supported quality journalism for decades. Good journalists across the country are losing their jobs or adjusting to a radically new news environment online. We want to highlight attempts at innovation and figure out what makes them succeed or fail. We want to find good ideas for others to steal. We want to help reporters and editors adjust to their online labors; we want to help traditional news organizations find a way to survive; we want to help the new crop of startups that will complement — or supplant — them.

We are fundamentally optimistic.

We don’t pretend to have even five percent of all the answers, but we do know a lot of smart people. Primary among them are our readers; we hope your contributions will make the Lab a collaborative exchange of ideas. Tell us what’s happening around you, or what should be.

In addition, here at Harvard, we’re working with the Harvard Business School on new business models, the Berkman Center for Internet and Society on understanding online life, and the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations on one potential path for news organizations.

We hope you enjoy the work we do, and that you’ll join the conversation as it evolves.
by Dana Lacey1/18/2011 11:40:21 PM
Joshua Benton, 35, is the founding director of the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University, a project he calls "an effort to help the news business make the radical changes required by the internet age."

Before that, he spent a decade as an investigative reporter, columnist, foreign correspondent and rock critic for the Dallas Morning News and The Toldeo Blade. He studied history at Yale, where he focused on the American South. He grew up in small town Louisiana. His bio notes the he's been blogging since Clinton was president.
by Dana Lacey1/18/2011 11:41:05 PM
his site; joshuabenton.com
by Dana Lacey1/18/2011 11:41:15 PM
Our moderator tonight is CBC's Nora Young
by Dana Lacey1/18/2011 11:42:08 PM
Very excited to be attending my first #cjfforums
by sarah_millar via twitter 1/18/2011 11:42:24 PM
I'll be livetweeting the @jbenton (@niemanlab) chat tonight. #cjfforums
by boyreporter via twitter 1/18/2011 11:42:31 PM
Follow Nora on Twitter: @Nora3000
by abosanac1/18/2011 11:42:41 PM
Interesting facts about Benton, courtesy of his online bio:

He used to run (perhaps) the world's largest illegal mix-CD-trading operation. ★ He is a Cajun. ★ He wrote his first HTML in 1994 and has fond memories of the first Netscape beta. ★ His stories on cheating on state exams in Texas led to the closure of a school district, the firing of several officials, and perhaps the resignation of a state education commissioner, depending on who you talk to. ★ He has reported from 10 foreign countries, if Canada counts. ★ He is right-handed. ★ He has, in the recent past, named pieces of computer equipment after New Orleans Saints running backs, giants of 20th-century British fiction, members of the Long political dynasty, and characters in A Confederacy of Dunces.
by Dana Lacey1/18/2011 11:43:15 PM
"We've seen the casualties and we've seen what happens when MSM doesn't adapt." - @nora3000 changes journ. has already been thru #cjfforums
by sarah_millar via twitter 1/18/2011 11:43:27 PM
Nora Young, such a voice! #CJfforums
by DouglasThomson via twitter 1/18/2011 11:43:29 PM
Benton's newspaper columns and articles from a decade as reporter, foreign correspondant and rock critic:
www.clipfile.org
by Dana Lacey1/18/2011 11:44:16 PM
Benton starts with a guilty admission: he hasn't updated his blog in two years. www.crabwalk.com
by Dana Lacey1/18/2011 11:45:21 PM
Joshua on the Neiman Lab: it's 85% newsroom, 15% think tank
by abosanac1/18/2011 11:45:48 PM
Trend #1 for news in 2011: Tivo for News.
by abosanac1/18/2011 11:48:02 PM
For all the list-lovers in the audience, Benton offers eight trends

1. TIVO for news. Majority of tv use is no longer live.

Instapaper is the TIVO for text. "The time you encounter news is not the time you want to consume it." Instapaper, like other programs (Read it Later) allows people to save the text of an article and read it later when offline.
by Dana Lacey1/18/2011 11:49:12 PM
www.instapaper.com is free to register
by Dana Lacey1/18/2011 11:50:15 PM
iPad use peaks in the evening: it's designed for use on couches and in bed.
by Dana Lacey1/18/2011 11:51:19 PM
Trend #2: More sharing of content.

There's a strong cross-pollination of content, which traditional media tends to balk at. But each platform has a narrow audience -- instead of two Mega City papers, you have numerous small news sites that serve a niche.
by Dana Lacey1/18/2011 11:54:15 PM
Generally no money exchanged in these kinds of deals, @jbenton explains #cjfforums
by sarah_millar via twitter 1/18/2011 11:54:32 PM
www.flipboard.com a cool new RSS feed for your iPad
by abosanac1/18/2011 11:56:06 PM
RSS reader Flipboard (http://flipboard.com/) is more visual, "less geeky" than typical RSS readers, Benton says. He doesn't know why more people haven't jumped on the RSS bandwagon.

The idea: create a more laid-back news experience. Traditional media needs to start sharing content. 'if they want to be the primary source of news for their customers, they're going to have to present more of the world to their readers"
by Dana Lacey1/18/2011 11:56:27 PM
Journalism trend #3. The singles model for news

Producing journalism and circulating them often separated, but they should work together. Benton thinks we'll see the fledgling smartphone and tablet journalism breaking some ground. Wait and see what happens when Apple releases its changes to how it manages subscriptions and the App store, expected in the next few weeks...
by Dana Lacey1/18/2011 11:59:06 PM
Benton asks: does anybody remember what they were doing 20 years ago today? In the States, they were watching CNN because it was the day after the Gulf War started. (Editor's note: I was probably watching Ninja Turtles)
by Dana Lacey1/18/2011 11:59:57 PM
Gulf War reporting on CNN was the first time people experienced 24/hour coverage (this was the photo he showed us, featuring Bernard Shaw)
by Dana Lacey1/19/2011 12:01:03 AM
#Cjfforums 4/8 trends "We'll do it live" More live reporting online. Live, developing, evolving stories (eg. Tucson)
by boyreporter via twitter 1/19/2011 12:02:28 AM
#cjfforums Shooting in Tuscon was to Twitter/online news as Gulf War was to cable news.
by sarah_millar via twitter 1/19/2011 12:02:34 AM
5. Big boom in smartphones

You may think everyone is on smartphones, but they're still "relatively rare". In the U.S. only 20% of cell phone users use smart phones, but that number is going to rise.

What does that mean? Newsrooms must decide where to put their development cash: apps? which ones?
by Dana Lacey1/19/2011 12:03:48 AM
Shooting in Tuscon: national day of tragedy happened at a time when many Americans are on Twitter. Coverage of breaking news on social media will soon resemble cable news coverage.
by abosanac1/19/2011 12:04:09 AM
Trend #6: Trimming back in nonprofit news outlets.
by Dana Lacey1/19/2011 12:05:21 AM
NPR ratings on election night 2010: usage of mobile website up 83%. iPhone app usage up only 11%.
by abosanac1/19/2011 12:05:22 AM
In past few years in U.S., seen "massive explosion" in non-profit news orgs. Some have been around for years, but we're seeing a lot of startups getting big attention (i.e. ProPublica) www.propublica.org
by Dana Lacey1/19/2011 12:06:14 AM
#cjfforums NPR stat suggests mobile web use on election night, but By only showing %growth doesn't really give good answer
by vinaykm via twitter 1/19/2011 12:06:40 AM
Joshua on trend #6: I speak from an American context, not familiar with Canadian media landscape
by abosanac1/19/2011 12:06:41 AM
Benton: A lot of these non-profits launched by journalists. I love journalists, I am a journalist...but journalists not necessarily the best at running a business.
by Dana Lacey1/19/2011 12:07:49 AM
. @jbenton - there were a lot of these orgs that started with a lump sum gift (in u.s. Anyway) #cjfforums
by sarah_millar via twitter 1/19/2011 12:08:00 AM
Going see a thinning out of nonprofit media orgs in 2011.
by abosanac1/19/2011 12:08:28 AM
7. New front pages. front pages of newspapers always been a nice way to narrow down a universe of information into five or six stories. 50-60% of online traffic at New York Times comes form typing in "NYC.com" in the browser. Even higher for other news orgs. So all that talk about sharing links, etc. -- not necessarily how people are getting to your content. So front pages matter online: it's the place everyone sees first.
by Dana Lacey1/19/2011 12:09:37 AM
For all the talk about link-sharing and social media -- 60% of NyTime's traffic comes from people typing "nytimes.com" into the search bar.
by abosanac1/19/2011 12:09:42 AM
44% of Google News readers never click on a single headline. "they go, they scan, then they go somewhere else." he sees simliar patters in other news orgs.
by Dana Lacey1/19/2011 12:10:14 AM