A New York Times project shows collaboration is the future of news

News August 9, 2011 2 Comments

The future of the news industry as it stands, is somewhat uncertain. As new tools emerge for discussing and creating news content, newspapers must adapt to keep up with the changing trends. But the more that these social platforms develop, the more newspapers lose control over their content and power to set the news agenda. While many have recognised this as an opportunity, there are still many publishers that are failing to adapt to the two-way dialogue and changing news industry. Those that do, risk getting left behind as they lose eyeballs to more socialised newspapers. The New York Times has just launched a new project that shows the future of news is in crowdsourcing and collaboration.

Introducing Beta 620

The new site from the New York Times (named after their location at 620 Eighth Avenue) is an experiment in launching new projects from the Times, that can be discussed publicly before deciding whether they launch on the site in full. As well as being a place for the Times to put forward projects in development, it’s also open up to users to suggest projects, uniting the paper with developers.

The projects within Beta 620 don’t focus exclusively on news, but the general user experience in the site, including entertainment and search. It is a significant project from the New York Times as it completely opens up the news experience and shows how collaboration will play a key role in the future of news production and consumption. The purpose of the site was put succinctly by Denise Warren, senior VP at the paper who said “It’s a place that gives a permanent home to the tradition of innovation,”. This is significant as it’s a recognition that innovation might come from outside the 4 walls of the paper.

You may know better than us

The future of newspapers depends on the ability of the publisher to take the stance that their readers might know better than them. This applies specifically to how news is sourced. By opening up their potential news sources to include the public, newspapers can more effectively gather community news at a local level, as well as adapt the agenda of the mainstream, national news. While newspapers will always have a role of authority, that’s necessary if we are to trust the news we receive, that role may be more as curators than producers. Crowdsourced news on its own will not survive unless there is a single source responsible for digesting it, isolating the facts and presenting it in a coherent way to readers. The age-old process of producing news content, only now the sources are real people on the ground, as opposed to a privileged few.

Is there money in collaboration?

Central to this of course, is the need for newspapers to be able to monetise crowdsourcing and collaboration efforts if these are to dominate the way we receive our news. The problem lies in the fact that newspapers will own less and less of the content they put forward to readers, so new methods of monetisation need to be explored. Right now people are happy to contribute news content for free, in the interests of presenting a fair and accurate version of news that’s real time, but this structure will likely change in the future, as more opportunities open up for people to turn this into a career or full time job. More newspapers will likely employ ‘on the beat’ journalists, bloggers and tweeters to cement their crowdsourced offering and ensure they get the best content before anyone else. Embracing crowdsourced efforts in this way will help to ensure it can be monetised. If we know we can access some of the best real-time content that has been curated and presented in a coherent way, we will be willing to pay for this, as it offers us a unique view of content that we can’t easily replicate ourselves.

The dangers of crowdsourcing

For all the benefits of crowdsourced news, it inevitably brings with it dangers that must be explored. The risk of opening up news sources significantly is that it becomes increasingly unmanageable to to check the credibility of sources and the accuracy of information. This is where the role of curation really takes hold. When you multiply your news sources from a few to potentially thousands, you don’t forego the need to organise this from a single source that can give it a viewpoint and coherency. In this respect, crowdsourcing can only go so far if ‘news’ is still to be of any true value to readers. While I admire news projects that are completely crowdsourced and use realtime monitoring to present the news, I still believe in the absolute value of more traditional newspapers over these, provided they are able to adapt. As difficult as it may seem, we still need a news agenda if current affairs and news in general are to play a significant role in society. Only now that news agenda has opened up significantly and importantly, everyone (that knows the tools of social media) has a public platform in which this agenda can be questioned, discussed and disputed.

In this sense, crowdsourcing and collaboration will only save newspapers, if the establishment itself understands the role of social media and the part it plays in society.

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