“YOU BE THE EDITOR’’ A media literacy presentation For the Martin Institute June 15, 2011 By

“YOU BE THE EDITOR’’A media literacy presentation

For the Martin InstituteJune 15, 2011

By

Joe Pepe, Publisher, The Commercial Appeal

Chris Peck, Editor, The Commercial Appeal

The roles and definitions of media are changing

• Legacy media – print newspapers, commercial TV stations, mass circulation magazines, local radio

• New/digital media – Web sites, mobile devices like iPhone and iPad, niche publications, Internet radio, TV

• Social Media - Facebook, Twitter, YouTube

Key words for understanding legacy media and their roles

• Newspapers, broadcast TV, magazines are built on a foundation of:

• -verification• -not publishing until you have the facts• Giving the other side a chance to respond• Minimizing personal opinions and points-

of-view

Key words for understanding new media and what they believe

• Everyone can be an editor and a reporter

• The world is anxiously waiting to learn what you know/believe

• Do it fast, correct it later, if at all

• Share what others say

• Include your own point of view, perspective, and comments

10 guidelines for social media at The Commercial Appeal • 1) Think of your reputation – and ours. First and foremost, remember that your social media activities reflect back on your reputation

and on the reputations of The Commercial Appeal and commercialappeal.com. As an employee or contractor with The Commercial Appeal your social media activities, even at home or on your personal time, can affect your work life forever. Don’t do things in social media spaces that would embarrass you or the newspaper.

• 2) Err on side of professionalism and good manners. In online social networks, the lines between public and private, personal and professional are blurred. But know this. Just by identifying yourself as a Commercial Appeal employee, you are creating perceptions about your expertise and about the newspaper. Do us all proud. In your use of social media reinforce the idea that you are reasoned, professional and knowledgeable.

• 3) Be transparent. Your honesty—or dishonesty—will be quickly noticed in the social media environment. If you are blogging about your work, use your real name, identify that you work for the newspaper and be clear about your role. If you have a vested interest in something you are discussing be the first to point it out.

• 4) Write what you know. Make sure you write and post about your areas of expertise. Stay away from speculation about the work or talents of others, including co-workers and competitors. Remember, you bear the burden of being personally responsible for your content.

• 5) Be judicious in what your share. Maintain confidentiality around proprietary information and content related to the newspaper. Make sure your social media efforts don’t violate the company’s privacy, confidentiality, and legal guidelines. Don’t comment on anything related to legal matters, litigation, or any parties we are in litigation with without appropriate approval.

• 6) If something gives you pause, pause. If you're about to publish something that makes you even the slightest bit uncomfortable, don't shrug it off and hit 'send.' Take a minute. Figure out what's bothering you, then fix it. If you're still unsure, you might want to discuss it with your manager or legal representative. Ultimately, what you publish is yours—as is the responsibility. Much better to pause before posting or tweeting, than trying to delete or retract later.

• 7) It's a conversation. Make it real and personable. As long as it doesn't jeopardize the reporting/exclusivity of a story, consider sharing parts of the reporting process with your followers. Talk to your social media audience like you would talk to real people in professional situations. But be polite and not nasty.

• 8) Try to add value to the conversation. There are millions of words out there. The best way to get yours read is to write things that people will value. Sarcasm, snarky asides may be fun at the time, but they aren’t all that enlightening. Social communication should help our customers, partners, and co-workers. It should be thought-provoking and build a sense of community, solve problems or help people understand the news business a little better.

• 9) Use social media to expand your role as the eyes and ears of the community. Social media can truly empower both journalists and the public. Be the eyes and ears for others by providing news they can use while out and about (dispatching news about traffic, events, etc.), then ask others for help in getting information that you can use in your work.

10) Keep learning. Identify and pay attention to savvy and informative social media users in the community. They can often be information and connectivity goldmines and help your own social media talents grow. And remind everyone that this is an evolving medium that requires some flexibility, must allow for some mistakes, and will continue to change.

This mix of legacy media values and new media values poses

opportunities and challenges • New media can give us instant news

• The new media don’t offer much context

• Old media often follow up

• Sometimes the stories mesh, sometimes they don’t

• News consumers are left having to decide for themselves what is true, what isn’t and what may be a mixture of truth and rumor or opinion

Weinergate began as a photo sent via Twitter

And Became Page One of The New York Times

Timeline of how new media and legacy media converged on

Rep. Anthony Weiner• Timeline: From a Photo to an Apology• Published: June 6, 2011 – The New York times • Recommend • Twitter • E-Mail

– • FRIDAY, MAY 27: A sexually suggestive photograph is sent to a young woman from the Twitter account of Representative

Anthony D. Weiner. It is quickly deleted. • SATURDAY, MAY 28: A Twitter user who has discovered the photograph shares it with his followers and alerts the

conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart. Mr. Weiner says on Twitter that his Facebook account has been hacked. Mr. Breitbart’s Web site, BigGovernment.com, publishes the photograph.

• SUNDAY, MAY 29: A spokesman for Mr. Weiner says, “Anthony’s accounts were obviously hacked.” • MONDAY, MAY 30: A spokesman says Mr. Weiner has asked a lawyer to look into the matter and determine if civil or

criminal actions against a hacker should be taken. Mr. Weiner tells CNN: “I was hacked. It happens to people; you move on.”

• TUESDAY, MAY 31: Mr. Weiner has a testy exchange with reporters, declining to answer questions about the Twitter photograph and saying it is time to focus on more important issues. He refers to one reporter with a derogatory term. “If I were giving a speech to 45,000 people and someone in the back of the room threw a pie or yelled out an insult,” he says, “I would not spend the next two hours of my speech responding to that pie or that insult.”

• WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1: Mr. Weiner gives interviews about the photo message to several news media outlets. He denies sending the photograph but tells MSNBC that he cannot “say with certitude” that it is not of him. He tells ABC News, “I was the victim of this,” and bristles when asked if it was appropriate for him to follow young women on Twitter, saying, “The implication is outrageous.”

• THURSDAY, JUNE 2: Mr. Weiner again says he is finished answering questions about the issue. • SUNDAY, JUNE 5: For the first time in years, Mr. Weiner cancels his appearance at the Salute to Israel Parade. • MONDAY, JUNE 6: BigGovernment.com posts additional photographs and e-mails that it says were sent by Mr. Weiner to

an unidentified woman. At a news conference, Mr. Weiner acknowledges that he sent the original photograph and that it is a picture of him. He also says he sent other inappropriate and explicit photos and messages to women he met over the Internet. “I came here to accept the full responsibility for what I’ve done,” he says. “I am deeply regretting what I have done, and I am not resigning.”

• A version of this list appeared in print on June 7, 2011, on page A28 of the New York edition with the headline: From a Photo to an Apology.

And just this week….

McDonald’s tweeted this on Monday

• Twitter • Have an account? Sign in Username or email Password Remember me Forgot password?

Already using Twitter via SMS?

• Don’t miss any updates from McDonald's• Get your account on Twitter today to stay up-to-date with what

interests you!• Text follow McDonalds to 40404 in the United States • • @McDonalds McDonald's

• That Seriously McDonalds picture is a hoax

• 22 hours ago via CoTweet

• Retweeted by gennesisism and 100 others

This isn’t just a national issue Fox 13 TV reporter Lauren Lee’s nightmare story

When new media and legacy media work well together

• The Commercial Appeal used Twitter to provide real-time coverage on the visit to Memphis if President Barack Obama - from the moment Air Force One touched down in Memphis - to Obama's departure as he snacked on BBQ on the plane.

• Prior to the visit, we came up with a hash tag -- #memprez -- that we used with our tweets and encouraged others to use in order to pull all related tweets together.

• At right, a sample of Tweet from columnist Wendi Thomas that appeared on commercialappeal.com during the hours that President Obama was in Memphis.

• We also aggregated tweets from the general public on this page: http://www.commercialappeal.com/obama-visits-memphis-streaming-social-media/. We had a live feed of tweets that collected all tweets using the #memprez hash tag. We picked the best of these tweets and collected them and posted them on our commercialappeal.com Web site using a tool called Storify. It looked like this:

The media literacy dilemma • Local news is going mobile.

• Nearly half of all American adults (47%) report that they get at least some local news and information on their cellphone or tablet computer.

• The information they seek out on mobile platforms is practical and real time: 42% of mobile device owners report getting weather updates and 37% get material about restaurants or other local businesses on their phones or tablets. Fewer get news about local traffic/ transportation, general news alerts local topics.

• One of the newest forms of on-the-go local news consumption, mobile applications, are just beginning to take hold among mobile device owners. Just 13% of all mobile device owners report having an app that helps them get local information or news, which represents 11% of the total American adult population.

• According to the survey, just 10% of adults who use mobile apps to connect to local news and information pay for those apps. This amounts to just 1% of all adults.

• Overall, 36% of adults report paying for some form of local news, the vast majority paying for local print newspaper subscriptions.

• “Many news organizations are looking to mobile platforms, in particular mobile apps, to provide new ways to generate subscriber and advertising revenues in local markets,” noted Lee Rainie, Director of The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. “The survey suggests there is a long way to go before that happens.”

• “Tablet penetration is growing so rapidly—as quickly as any device we have seen to date—it will be fascinating to see whether that changes whether people will pay for content online- for now it hasn’t happened,” said Tom Rosenstiel, Director of Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

• About this survey: Part of the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s 2011 State of the News Media Report. Phone interviews with 2,251 American adults (age 18 or more) in English and Spanish with 750 interviews conducted on cellphones. Margin of error: +/- 2 percentage points.

• Overview• By several measures, the state of the American news media improved in 2010.

• After two dreadful years, most sectors of the industry saw revenue begin to recover. With some notable exceptions, cutbacks in newsrooms eased. And while still more talk than action, some experiments with new revenue models began to show signs of blossoming.

• Among the major sectors, only newspapers suffered continued revenue declines last year—an unmistakable sign that the structural economic problems facing newspapers are more severe than those of other media. When the final tallies are in, we estimate 1,000 to 1,500 more newsroom jobs will have been lost—meaning newspaper newsrooms are 30% smaller than in 2000.

• Beneath all this, however, a more fundamental challenge to journalism became clearer in the last year. The biggest issue ahead may not be lack of audience or even lack of new revenue experiments. It may be that in the digital realm the news industry is no longer in control of its own future.

• News organizations—old and new—still produce most of the content audiences consume. But each technological advance has added a new layer of complexity—and a new set of players—in connecting that content to consumers and advertisers.

• In the digital space, the organizations that produce the news increasingly rely on independent networks to sell their ads. They depend on aggregators (such as Google) and social networks (such as Facebook) to bring them a substantial portion of their audience.

• As news consumption becomes more mobile, news companies must follow the rules of device makers (such as Apple) and software developers (Google again) to deliver their content. Each new platform often requires a new software program. And the new players take a share of the revenue and in many cases also control the audience data.

10 Steps to Teaching Media Literacy

1) Recognize we are in the midst of a media revolution – and go with it.

2) Embrace the new information tools.

3) Be media literate yourself.

4) Learn how to share and link up with divergent media sources.

5) Tell your local story in a global world.

6) Speak up for shared civic values.

7) Nurture and support the professional journalists in your midst.

8) Quit thinking news is free.

9) Help bring digital media tools to the poor and undereducated.

10) Think like the Dali Lama. Be at peace, fight media anxiety, and use your personal and social media to make this a better world.

Thank-You!