From Gutenberg to PittPatt – 4 takeaways from the first day of Journalism Interactive

It’s not easy to summarize the first day of an innovative conference like Journalism Interactive.  You’ll have to use the Twittersphere for that.  Instead, here are four takeaways before closing the Macbook on day one.

The future of the social media editor is uncertain.

In the morning panel, Social Media: Best Practices in Journalism, The New York Times’ social media editor Liz Heron told the audience her current role may be merely a transitional one.  In other words, she’s kind of a shepard right now guarding the online reaches of the flock, but at some point–she used the measurement of five years–the flock will be trained in the ways of social media and this integration renders her current role irrelevant.  (All shepard and sheep references my own.)  It was fellow panelist Jim Long of NBC News who compared social media editors in the future to “telephone consultants” of the past, saying, they wouldn’t make much sense.  A popular Tweet from @Donica raised a valid question about this prediction. Are we integrating social media training into our courses and preparing future journalists for this role?  Hmmm…something to ponder.

Weave, don’t separate multimedia elements in journalism curriculum.

This idea isn’t a new one, but it’s not being adopted quick enough in many schools for Amy Webb of WebbMedia.  Several journalism and communications programs keep new media–or dare I use that dreadful word convergence–courses separate from the other traditional media courses.  Amy reiterated the value of layering fundamental reporting courses with concepts such as data mining, facial recognition tools, usernames, transparency and deep web search, to name a few.  In addition to writing good headlines, she stresses we must also teach students about meta data and keywords.  Otherwise, who will find their stories?  (Even my new media head spun a little).  Most of us shake our heads in agreement with curriculum integration, however, it’s going to be a while before we’re all there.

Move beyond Google, and encourage students to conduct deep Web searches.

This tidbit is also pulled from Amy Webb’s above referenced keynote.  She shared a number of new tools, apps and gadgets that can make what we do as journalists more efficient, especially when it comes to deep Web searches.  At least twice during conference day one, speakers rallied for educators to encourage students to move beyond the typical Google search for reasons you probably know by now.  The examples Amy gave for enhanced searching involved up and coming resources like Helioid, Greplin, Spokeo and Knodes.  Each is fascinating in its own right, and intended to help us sort through the glut of random stuff online to find what we’re really looking for.  You can see the value there for budding journalists (and academics!).

If you’re concerned about online identity and privacy now…just WAIT, it gets worse.

Still pulling from Amy’s talk, now onto something rather creepy.  She predicted the future of Web search centers around facial recognition.  Yeah, you know, the thingy Facebook does when it automatically tags photos of you and your friends.  Well, meet something called PittPatt, now the property of Google. (!!) Forgive me for not remembering the EXACT details of how this goes, but Amy said something like this: thanks to PittPatt, if I have access to your Facebook page, I can predict your social security number with a scary amount of accuracy–give or take a small margin of error.  Once again–I wish I had more specifics to share with you here, but my mind is still trying to wrap around this concept.  Privacy?  What privacy?  To make us all stop holding our breath, Amy added we might be able to “digitally camouflage” ourselves from facial recognition mining bots online by using a program called CV Dazzle.  Whoa.

The next Gutenberg is sitting in our classes, and encouraging “disruption” may coax out his (her!) greatness.

Day one’s evening keynoter, Jeff Jarvis, spoke to the crowd about the buzz topic of our field right now, entrepreneurial journalism.  As you may know, early adopter journalism programs are now beginning to offer courses with this title.  Students research, develop and pitch and idea for something journalism-related that is also sustainable.  Since “nonprofit is only a tax status,” Jarvis requires students to pursue for-profit models in his course.  He argues journalists can’t ignore the business side of survival.  Adding, courses in entrepreneurial journalism often culminate with real pitches for money, which are excellent ways to encourage “revolutionary ideas” like that of Gutenberg’s printing press.

Jarvis cited research about the information model referred to as the Gutenberg Parenthesis.  This study, influenced his latest book, as well as thoughts about this younger generation.  Our information isn’t contained anymore.  How, it’s organized and used for society rests in the hands of the students in our classrooms.  He says as educators, we must challenge them to teach us something, therefore shaping the world with breakthroughs not seen since 1472.

Excellent first day at Journalism Interactive!  Here’s my take on day two.

For conference resources, including video of each panel, visit www.journalisminteractive.com.