Reality Umpire

The following is a MediaNote Classic. It was originally presented to MC101 students in October 2013.

Storyful may help put citizen journalism on the map. Or it may put full-time photojournalists out of work. Or it may help major news organizations preserve their credibility. Or it may be largely ineffective.

Storyful is a reality verification service for newspapers and other news outlets. Is a video shot by an onlooker to a disaster real or fake? Oftentimes, editors do not have the training to make that judgment. NPR reports.

Questions...

•Is it important for us to know that a news story is real? Why?

•Is Storyful good or bad for free-lance journalists? Is it good or bad for established new outlets like the Los Angeles Times?

•How is Storyful changing how media outlets cover important events?

Nobody Will Read This

Tina Brown was once one of the most successful magazine editors alive. So it was a bit of a shock when the former New Yorker and Newsweek editor proclaimed that magazines, journalism and reading itself are all dying art forms. We are, she said, reverting back to an oral culture.

Not surprisingly, Brown's remarks generated many very literate responses. What do you think? The Los Angeles Times reports.

Questions...

•Is the Internet leading to the death of reading and writing, or is there more of it than ever before?

•How do people learn about and think about big issues in 2013?

•How do you read in different ways than your parents or grandparents?

•How do people debate issues on the Internet?

•Why do you think the Internet causes all this "death" talk?

An End ... Or a New Beginning?

Newsweek is one of the nation's great news magazines. At its best, it has provided a sophisticated analysis of topics that should matter to a well-educated citizen whose life involved working, voting, learning and perhaps parenting.

And now, after nearly 80 years, it will print its last edition at the end of the year. Beginning in 2013, it will be a digital-only publication. And the new digital Newsweek will venture into an online world where it is far behind news sites like The Daily Beast and Huffington Post.

NPR reports.

Questions...

•What type of news the usually isn't covered should the new digital Newsweek try to cover?

•How can the digital edition be better than the paper edition?

•What can Newsweek do to get younger readers?

•What type of news stories really matter in creating informed citizens?

Bye Bye Borders!

Borders stores always seemed so impressive. A huge selection of books, plus music, plus DVDs, plus a good newspaper and magazine section, plus greeting cards and fun gifts, plus a cool coffee bar, plus stuff I've probably forgotten.

Apparently, that caused the company to pin too much of its future on physical brick and mortar stores at a time when paper books are rapidly giving way to digital book players. NPR reports.

OK, But I'm Not Whacking Spiders with an iPad!

Two extremely successful media entrepreneurs are developing publications, a newspaper and a magazine, for the iPad. According to this NPR story, there is a growing belief that iPad users will subscribe to digital publications, which is something general Internet users resist.

Summer 2010 Class: It's Been Fun!

Wednesday will be the last medianote of the Summer 2010 session. Thanks for being a great class.

The last medianote will be about eBooks and eBook players, notably Amazon's Kindle. Amazon reports that sales of digital books are now outpacing sales of hard-cover books, and the gap is growing. Your Humble Blogger wonders how long it will be before eBook sales catch up to paperbacks? And how long it will be before eTextbooks become dominant on college campuses?

NPR reports.

Will Glossy Pages Be Replaced by Bright Screens?

The iPad, Apple's latest much-hyped device, seeks to become the world's coolest digital text-reading device. And if it's cool and about reading, the magazine publishers want in on it. According to this recent Associated Press article, several top magazine publishers are developing iPad editions.

Who knows where this will lead.

What'll They Put in Doctors' Offices?

Magazines are, in general, doing pretty well. Advertising is down because of the recession, but subscriptions are at an all-time high. This is a much rosier picture than is the case for newspapers, books, broadcast television, and a lot of the traditional media. But magazines, like the rest of the world, are beginning to migrate online, according to National Public Radio.