The profession of journalism is changing. Newspapers around the country are adopting stronger internet bases and this is in order to reach more people in a timelier manner.
Newspapers in Maine are no different. This includes the Bangor Daily News which has its own webpage to provide quick news coverage. The Bangor Daily News also has a Twitter and Facebook account. Maineville can also be found on Facebook. The bangor Daily News also has a Youtube account where news stories can be watched.
This move towards embracing new media has caused new jobs to be created in journalism. Eryk Salvaggio is an example of this. He works at the Bangor Daily News as part of the new media department.
The Bangor Daily News has six different people in their new media department. There are two assistants, two coders and two managers. All of the new media department also has other responsibilities in the newspaper.
Salvaggio’s job is to post stories from the newspaper to the website. He needs to update the stories that are on the front page of the website regularly. He is also responsible for monitoring the comments that people post to news stories.
The ability to post news stories can be both positive and negative for the public discussion. Posts must be edited for lies, libel, obvious promotion and general profanity.
The Bangor Daily News also aims to have a civil community on its webpage. Posts will be edited for antagonistic comments, but they do not enforce this as rigidly to promote healthy discussions.
The newspaper is legally only responsible to take content down if it has been complained about.
The Bangor Daily News is looking for ways to facilitate debate on its website and still reward the more relevant posts by readers. One idea that Salvaggio said is being considered is moving a user post to the top if it is the most useful to readers.
This plan would move the most relevant stuff to the top and provide more information to a news story. The plan would also give the people who want to argue a place to do it further down on the webpage.
Twitter is used to post the headline of breaking news and provide a link to the story on the website. This allows the newspaper to quickly reach the 1,250 followers. The Facebook page provides a similar purpose, linking to the main website with headlines and descriptions of the stories.
Salvaggio speculates that print journalism will stay around for longer than people expect but that newspapers will have to reconsider their business model. He also anticipates that the future of journalism is to become much more immediate and that because of the internet reporting itself will change.
Salvaggio also anticipates problems with the fact delivery model that is being used with Twitter. He states that with just facts the reader is unable to get the real context of the story.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
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