luminous flux: inspiration

“ Trust, not information, is the scarce resource in today’s world. Trust is something that is hard to earn and easy to lose. And it is a core element of journalism; few other professions are so dependent on trust. It is also an enormous underserved market. Media companies will learn that it is trust, not SEO, branding, or content farming, that’s the road to success. ”

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All stories are not the same, each type of story we do as journalists has opportunities to augment the work with data, structure, and context.

The amount of customization, the amount of experimentation, the amount of journalism that would have to go on to make that work is impossible for a vendor selling a product to do. But it’s precisely the kind of experimentation we need to be doing.

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Most newspapers rely on gigantic, expensive, monolithic content management systems that function very much like the production systems that print the paper every day. Inputs go in, magic happens, a website comes out. It works the same way every day or there’s hell to pay.

And around that rhythmic mode of operation, we’ve created comfortable workflows that feed it. And because it’s comfortable, there’s an amazing amount of inertia around all of it. Change is scary. The consequences down the line could be bad. We should go slow.

[Because of this,] experimentation takes place almost entirely outside the main content management system.

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There was surprising agreement across the groups on the problem areas for online journalism. The same needs came up in group after group:

• How to provide news in a way that fits the user’s time more effectively
• How to build in context and background in news stories stories
• How to improve discovery and ensure users’ access to multiple viewpoints
• How to improve and make more credible user contributions and comments

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“ Writing something that other people will read forces you to think well. ... The things I've written just for myself are no good. They tend to peter out. When I run into difficulties, I find I conclude with a few vague questions and then drift off to get a cup of tea.
Many published essays peter out in the same – particularly the sort written by the staff writers of newsmagazines [who] feel obliged to write something "balanced." Since they're writing for a popular magazine, they start with the most radioactively controversial questions, from which-- because they're writing for a popular magazine-- they then proceed to recoil in terror. Abortion, for or against? This group says one thing. That group says another. One thing is certain: the question is a complex one. (But don't get mad at us. We didn't draw any conclusions.) ”

“ When I see young journalists talk only about their passion to write and tell stories, I worry for them that they will find fewer jobs and less of a calling. But when I hear journalists say that their passion is to report, to dig up facts, to serve and inform the community by all means possible, I feel better. When I hear a journalist talk about collaboration with that community as the highest art, then I get happy. ”

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“ [Articles] were a necessary form for newspapers and news shows but not the free flow, the never-starting, never-ending stream of digital. ...

The most precious resource in news is reporting and so maximizing the acquisition of facts and answers is what we need. ... [The] goal of the process [is] keeping the public constantly informed. ... An article can be a byproduct. ”

“ Wer „Snippets“ – zum Beispiel einzelne Sätze oder eine Überschrift – verwenden will, soll nach Vorstellung der Verleger künftig eine Zustimmung („Lizenz“) benötigen und Vergütungen bezahlen. Wer sich nicht daran hält, müsste mit Abmahnungen, Klagen oder anderen Sanktionen rechnen. Dieses „Snippet-Recht“ würde zunächst Informationsdienstleister wie Suchmaschinenanbieter und Nachrichten-Aggregatoren betreffen, die in ihren Suchergebnissen naturgemäß kurze Ausschnitte aus Online-Artikeln anzeigen. ”

“ What may be a sub-footnote in a someone's life could be a major news story for several weeks - just where are you going to find the gory details on that in 50+ years? Certainly not in the latest version of the Wikipedia article. ”