The New Journalism

jour·nal·ism:  the collection and editing of news for presentation through the media.

And not just because traditional news organizations have lost their ability to make a profit.

To be sure, there are a number of reasons for it — but a major one is traditional media’s large scale failure to produce, aggregate and disseminate content in a manner that adapts to the ways in which we are consuming media and information.

This has left a large gap that is being filled by ordinary citizens empowered by an increasing amount of online tools.

During last year’s massive Chinese earthquake, real-time, on-the-ground reports were being provided via Twitter and Flickr from citizens in the quake zone (despite the predictable censorship of the Chinese government.)

While terrorist attacks were occurring last year in Mumbai, India, citizen journalists — again, mostly through Twitter — were not only helping each other find paths to safety, they were providing the world with the most accurate, compelling news accounts with real-time updates.

On July 30, 2008, Tweeters were the first to break the news of a 5.4 magnitude earthquake that hit California — letting the rest of the world know of the tumbler before the rumbles had even stopped.

And now, as I write this, brave citizen journalists are utilizing Twitter, YouTube and Flickr to provide the world with incredible video, photos and 140-character updates of the riots, police charges and protests following the dubious election results in which the victory of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is being contested by vocal reformers in that country.

These updates from Iran are coming, despite reports that the Iranian government is attempting to block transmissions — and despite the real threats that face citizen journalists attempting to report the truth.

For example, I found this incredible photo via Robert Scoble’s post on FriendFeed … rather than anywhere on the so-called “mainstream media.”

And this brave citizen is Tweeting live updates to the rest of the world.

You can follow a real-time Twitter feed of news from Iran here.

All this while CNN — the self-declared leader in global news — decided to largely ignore the events in Iran.

So, while defenders of the MSM may pooh-pooh the online citizen journalists who continue to break the biggest stories of the day … it’s hard to argue with the results.

And, according the Mirriam-Webster definition of “journalism” provided at the very beginning of this post, these citizens are ABSOLUTELY journalists, collecting news, and then using online tools to edit and disseminate it.

This isn’t the case simply for earthquakes, terrorist attacks and government protests.

As I wrote in this post, when I first started out in the world of “traditional PR”, our main tools were a press release, a fax machine and the phone — and we were large at the mercy of journalists.  And, with hundreds or thousands of businesses or organizations competing for the same space in the newspaper or on the evening newscast — the “hit rate” wasn’t too hot.

With the New Journalism — every business, organization or campaign has the opportunity to become their own news organization.  Collecting, editing and disseminating their news content to a wide audience — or as targeted an audience as they choose.

Old media isn’t dying because people aren’t hungry for news and content.  People are simply consuming this content is new ways that fit into their workflow and daily lives.

Organizations will succeed when they fit the new communication tools into a strategy that allows them to be part of the New Journalism by collecting, editing and disseminating their content in ways people will easily consume.