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Recovering backpacker, Cornwallite at heart, political enthusiast, catalyst, writer, husband, father, community volunteer, unabashedly proud Canadian. Every hyperlink connects to something related directly or thematically to that which is highlighted.

Monday 13 October 2014

Open News and Warren Kinsella: The Rest of the Story

 
 
 
I missed this story over the weekend - too busy being grateful, I guess, about the things I have and the opportunities that keep revealing themselves around unexpected corners.
 
With experience as both a journalist and a political writer, Kinsella has a foundation in both these worlds and enough removal from each, I think, to see some of the emerging big picture.
 
As broadsheet journalism dies out, media outlets are having a harder time retaining their readers online while still making money.  There's no easy model in this, which means media organizations need to find places to cut to start to downsize to keep profits in line.
 
Often times, this is front-line reporters.  This means that remaining reporters have more to do, less time to do it in, etcetera.  Particularly when much of local political drama is emerging on Social Media platforms like Twitter, we have this odd phenomenon where tools like storify are being used as actual news content.
 
Which brings us to an interesting place.  The wealthy media are trying to maximize their profit by reducing costs and access.  Fewer journalists face increasing pressure to produce more.
 
Enter User Generated Content, UGC.  You find it on Twitter, in particular, but also on sites like yBao, Facebook, etc.  It's not uncommon for big populations to include twitter conversations on the side which is fine, but we're seeing an increasingly of civilian tweets making their way to mainstream media offerings.
 
If Big Media is mad about political parties being able to use their content for free - does that mean they're going to start paying their UGC-content producing audience as well?
 
Life's little ironies...
 



Whether on Twitter or via other formats, User Generated Content
 

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