Creating new forms of journalism that put readers in charge

The creators of Homicide Watch, Connected China and PolitiFact met over pizza and agreed on a plan to promote structured journalism.

By Bill Adair - February 28, 2014

It’s been 20 years since the Internet began to disrupt journalism. It has turned our business upside down, but it’s also given us a new canvas to invent different ways of presenting information. It’s time to start reimagining the news story.

Last week, four of us gathered in a windowless conference room in New York to explore what we can do to nudge things along.

The participants were the creators of three projects that rely on new forms:

All three projects use a structured approach to present content in different ways. The animated diagrams of Connected China show you the family and government relationships that determine who has clout in that country; the lists and maps of Homicide Watch show who has been killed and where; the PolitiFact report cards reveal which politicians have earned the most Pants on Fires.

Homicide Watch, Connected China and PolitiFact are known as structured journalism because the articles contain fields of information that can be sorted and tallied. They provide readers with many ways to explore the content, both through individual articles and the data the articles create. Structured journalism puts the reader in charge.

“It’s a way of reporting that builds a comprehensive reporter’s notebook and then opens that notebook up to the public,” said Laura Amico. “There is no ‘old news’ in structured journalism, there is cumulative news. It is reporting that increases in value over time.”

There are a few other ventures that are experimenting with similar new forms, such as Circa, the app that atomizes the news into digestible chunks. But by and large, story forms are stuck in the past. We want more news organizations to experiment with structured journalism.

We began our New York meeting by trying to understand why media companies have largely failed to take advantage of the incredible power of the Web and mobile devices. We identified four forces that have stymied innovation:

  • Content Management Systems. They are designed to convert old media into new media and they provide little flexibility to experiment with new journalistic forms.
  • Newsroom culture. The rhythm in most newsrooms is based on a well-established work flow that produces predictable content. It’s not easy to suggest a wholesale change.
  • Product managers on the business side. They’re accustomed to selling the old recipe and often seem perplexed by new approaches.
  • Editors/news directors. They’ve got other priorities — such as having to choose people for another round of layoffs — and often don’t have the resources for a new venture.

Chua said editors need to get beyond the idea that “what’s new is what’s valuable. Sometimes it is. But sometimes it’s accumulated information and knowledge that is valuable.”

We then turned to the need for evangelism. What can the four of us do to get more news organizations to try innovative story forms?

We agreed to host a mini-conference in September before the Online News Association meeting in Chicago. It will allow us to demonstrate the promise of new story forms for industry leaders and innovators.

In the meantime, we’ll be writing and speaking about the new forms and encouraging organizations to do more experimentation. We invite you to join in these conversations by sharing your projects, ideas and hopes. #structuredjournalism

 

What’s next for the Reporters’ Lab

The sign should say "Under New Management." Our first task: figure out whether the apostrophe goes before or after the "s"

By Bill Adair - October 29, 2013

If journalism is in the doldrums, you wouldn’t know it from the Online News Association conference in Atlanta last weekend.

The sold-out conference offered a dizzying array of great panels and a midway that lived up to its name. Vendors ranging from Google to the Knight Foundation showcased a wide range of new digital tools for journalists. Matt Waite flew his drone.

The conference was a reminder that we’re at a moment of reinvention in journalism when we can radically improve how we tell stories and inform people. And that is our mission for the Reporters’ Lab.

I took over the lab when I became the Knight Chair at Duke a few months ago. It’s been dormant while I focused on teaching my fall classes, but now that the semester is well underway, I’ve got several projects underway. You’ll be hearing about them in the next few months.

I inherited the lab from my predecessor Sarah Cohen, a talented colleague I know from our days at the St. Petersburg Times. Sarah created the lab and used it to develop great tools for journalists.

I’ll be continuing that mission and broadening the focus. As the founder of PolitiFact, I’ve long been interested in developing new story forms. In a TED speech last year, I said it was time to blow up the news story and experiment with new forms.

We’ll be doing that in the Reporters’ Lab (although we will make sure the explosions don’t damage the Sanford building).

I’ve got some a veteran journalist and some talented students to help with our new mission:

Mark Stencel, a national leader in digital journalism who ran NPR’s website for the past four years. He’ll be writing occasional articles for our website as he explores what tools are available to journalists and what else they need.

Prashanth Kamalakanthan, a senior political science and film student at Duke who has written for the Nation, Alternet and the Duke Chronicle. Prashanth is researching digital tools and new story forms.

Aaron Krolik, a Duke electrical engineering student who has a talent for writing code and an interest in journalism. Aaron is developing our first digital project, which you’ll be hearing about very soon.

We’ll approach everything we do with a sense of curiosity and experimentation. We’ll try new things. Some will work. Some won’t. We welcome your feedback and suggestions. You can reach me at bill.adair@duke.edu.