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“ Cyberombudsmen ”. The Future of Media Accountability. State of the Media 2013. financially challenged editorially weakened more susceptible to political pressures fragmented audiences age of “ information deflation ”. Flaws of Conventional Media. increasingly on the defensive
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“Cyberombudsmen” The Future of Media Accountability
State of the Media 2013 • financially challenged • editorially weakened • more susceptible to political pressures • fragmented audiences • age of “information deflation”
Flaws of Conventional Media • increasingly on the defensive • public hungry for different sources of information • increasing pressure to provide “infotainment” = trivializing the news • victim of aging business models
Existential questions: • Can you have journalism without journalists? • If so, do you need an ombudsman? • Why can’t “letters-to-the-editor” or unpaid bloggers do the job? • Internet: savior and villain of media…
Bloggers: The Benefits • New perspectives • Fresh thinking • Not constrained by the newsroom culture • Very cheap…
Bloggers: The Downside • What are their standards? • Who holds them accountable? • HDWK? (“How do we know?”) • False information? • Opinion, not fact-based reporting
Ethics for Social Media - Profs • Be honest and fair • Minimize harm • Understand the difference between “public” and “private” • Be accountable • Beware of making deals
User comments • Set up standards • Be clear and transparent • Set up pre-publication mechanisms • Tie the rules to the key word search • Be watchful for post-publish feedback
Cyberombudsman • More pro-active • Less isolated • Playing “offense”, not “defense.” • Being the “porous membrane” • link among citizens, journalists and the web • Being a true agent of “citizen democracy”
Job qualifications • Wisdom of journalism • Independence and sound reason • Skills on applying standards • Analysis on text, video, audio • Internet literacy • Ability for ‘cyberombud networking’
Challenges online • Print columns springboard to ‘webtalk’ • Engage fully in social media • Involve ‘cybervigilantes’ • User-fed ‘hate speech tracker’ • Intermediation for teaching, criticism • Cooperate on wider ethical guidance