Does lightening ever strike twice? A digital story.

The future is bright...but don't get blinded.

Paul Bradshaw’s ‘News Diamond’ presents a model for a 21^st century newsroom.

The model has two layers.

The first layer demonstrates how journalists can use the Internet; in particular, networking sites to increase the speed of breaking news stories. As journalists this should excite us all. Historically, journalism has been about breaking news and breaking it fast. The second layer shows how the internet can add depth to the story after its initial breaking, through blogging and forums.

Bradshaw’s model is exciting. It outlines the importance for today’s journalists to build and to stay in touch with, the Internet community. Keeping on top of sites like Twitter and Facebook can be central to network journalism. As more and more people use the Internet and the digital generation takes over, the importance will only become stronger.

Like with everything in online journalism there are pitfalls, such as reliability and breadth of audience etc. Despite this, even for sceptics, it’s difficult to argue that the Internet and networking sites do not strengthen a journalist’s resources.

Even with this strengthening, we must be careful not to forget or neglect previous ways of networking, such as the simple phone call. At the moment, in the early years of this interactive world we must only use the internet to complement older tactics. Maybe one day they will dominate, but then again we must not forget the previous approaches as we may lose personality to the job.

Always remember don’t look directly into the light.

IMAGES - '21st Century Newsroom' courtesy of Victoria Peckham from flickr.com, 'Bradshaw's Model', courtesy of onlinejournalismblog taken from flickr.com, 'sun and moon' courtesy of philly2008 taken from flickr.com.

Democracy or Anarchy?

Dictionary.com defines democracy as: ‘a form of government in which supreme power is vested in the people.’

It defines anarchy as: ‘a state of society without government or law’, ‘a theory that regards the absence of all direct or coercive government’, ‘political and social disorder due to the absence of government control.’

The rise of citizen journalism and user generated content (UGC) has led some to claim that the Internet is playing a key role in expanding democracy.

Dan Gillmor claims in his publication We the Media: Grassroots Journalism By People for the People is democratising the media. He claims: ‘The communication network itself will be a medium for everyone’s voice, not just the few who can afford to buy multimillion-dollar printing presses.’

This may be the case.

Activities such as blogging and UGC sites such as CNN’s iReport allow freedom of speech and expression to stretch further. They allow more and more people to tell their stories or others’ stories to a wider audience.

This freedom is not without its problems, such as inaccurate and sometimes wrong reporting of news. A famous example of this is ‘The Dorset Elk.’ In 2006 both Sky News and The Guardian showed a picture of what was said to be a forest fire in Dorset, sent in by a citizen journalist. A closer look at the photo shows two elks in the foreground, animals not native to Dorset. The photo was a photo taken in 2000, in Montana. CNN’s iReport also features the picture under the heading: Fire in Highlands of Scotland, the report remains on the website.

Is this democracy? People have freedom in what they write, but without controls set on what they write disorder ensues. This could potentially lead to dangerous outcomes. There is no real danger in the Elk hoax, however, if someone decided to publish a photo of their next door neighbour claiming he was a paedophile with no grounds of truth, it could be very harmful. Is this, by definition, a negative outcome of the anarchical state of the Internet?

By contrast, sites like the BBC’s ‘Have Your Say’ website do exercise a type of democracy. ‘Have Your Say’ allows users to express their opinions on news and current affairs while retaining editorial control. This replicates a democratic society such as our own where our voices can be heard within the law. As long as their editorial control is fair and objective, this is democracy.

UGC content has great potential to empower those who would not necessarily be able to get their view across, but we must be careful to ensure that this power is not abused.

IMAGES - "Anarchy" courtesy of Andrew Edmark taken from flickr.com, "CNN's iReport" courtesy of Ilikerall taken from flickr.com.

We are all Journalists now.

The internet has re-defined journalism. No longer do you have to spend a lifetime working your way through the ranks of a media outlet’s hierarchy to get your opinion or news into the public domain. Just set up a blog.

It sounds easy. In some respects it is, it took me around ten minutes to set up my blog, most of that time was spent deciding what to call it. I went outside the box: Chris Hedley’s Blog.

It is one thing creating and writing a blog, but surely the key is getting people to read it. That is the hard part. There are plenty of blogs out there that nobody ever reads; my blog could become a prime example. The blogs that I have come across tend to be written by journalists or are part of a media outlet.

So maybe you still need to work your way up the ranks to get yourself heard as there is no point in shouting for help if nobody is going to hear you. Some examples do exist, however, where working your way up the ranks is not necessary; take The Drudge Report. Matt Drudge was never a journalist but since his breaking of the Monica Lewinsky scandal the Drudge Report, according to ABC News, plays a big role in shaping the media’s political coverage in America. There is hope for us all yet.

So has the internet really re-defined journalism? Simple blogging does not make us journalists. If my friends read my blog, I could have just told them down the pub. If someone I do not know reads my blog, I could have just told them in passing when we were sat on the train. Blogging is just a medium to express your views or tell someone news. There must be a point where is does become journalism, I am just not sure where that point is. Hopefully by the end of the year I will find that answer.

We are not journalists yet, we’re just training.