Online Journalism

Brad Kalbfeld

Brad Kalbfeld, former AP broadcast editor, visited class to speak about how technology has changed from the past to the present. He showed the typewriter he used and old school tape recorder he first used when he traveled with the Pope.

He then showed the first laptop he used, which looked like a keyboard and calculator screen combined.

In the past 30 years, we have gone from using heavy, analog devices such as those typewriters and tape recorders to using the smartphones and laptops we use today. And it allows fewer people to do more jobs.

The model of having a reporter, copy editor, section editor/show producer and managing editor working together to produce content for readers/viewers being threatened by a citizen with technology is unfiltered and scary.

Now, there is a race to get citizens to send the information to the copy editor, to filter it.

Readers/viewers are now empowered because they know what they are getting and missing from the filters in between the reporters and the editors.

A citizen journalist presents a tremendous advantage to our ability to consume news: they are present.

If you have a strong, credible brand, people will go to you more often, in part because people are lazy.

News used to be a one-way proposition; today, news has to interact with the consumer.

Brad Kalbfeld, AP journalist and author of the Associated Press Broadcast Style Book, joined our class today to talk about the historical aspects of journalism and how it has changed/evolved in today’s world.

Check out his Bio here.

Kalbfeld showed us what a laptop and cassette player looked like from the 1980s — very bulky compared to today’s MacBook Pro standards. His next laptop upgrade was only able to show 4 lines of text at a time on a tiny screen.

Using analog, expensive and slow technology with a very limited number of people having access to it is a thing of the past. Now, there are a variety of multi-purpose gadgets that have made an incredible leap in technology from the past to the present. Things like the iPhone have made it possible for anyone to have access to telecommunications.

With this increase in technology, Kalbfeld notes that many of the traditional “filters” are beginning to decrease — nowadays, an article can be uploaded directly to a reader without having to pass through a variety of  editors.

There is often so much information floating out there that the reader/viewer is in charge. The implications of this is that the content can change, and the reader can now choose the news they want to read rather than having the news coming to them.

Kalbfeld says that in the journalism world, it used to be that people from a relatively uniform background made the calls. Now, the newsroom is more diverse than ever, representing a variety of different points of view.

When asked about citizen journalism, Kalbfeld noted that there is good and bad that comes with it. Citizen journalists can provide a level of coverage that professional journalists sometimes cannot. Some traditional journalists are scared of citizen journalists, because of their ability to appeal to the public. Kalbfeld believes that journalists need to find the balance for weighing editorial standards the same for both professional and citizen journalists. However, often citizen journalists do not understand how the camera can lie and manipulate stories, in addition to incorporating unwanted bias.

For better understanding news sources, Kalbfeld reccommends reading the “About Us” section on news websites. As a consumer, judging for yourself where the information comes from is very important.

News used to be a one-way field. Now, there are so many opportunities to interact with the audience. With the addition of the Internet, journalism has become increasingly participatory.

Kalbfeld says that in the end, journalists must be aware of ethical issues. This is critical for any good journalist!

Brad Kalbfeld visited our online journalism class at George Mason on April 5th. Brad Kalbfeld has been a writer, reporter, editor and news executive for more than 36 years, including 22 as Managing Editor/Broadcast for The Associated Press
He gave the history of journalism and reporting and his take on the future.
Brads takes:
Back in the day: You carried heavier equipment and info got across slowly. Type writers and tel x machines
Today: info moves faster, small items go a long way. Ex- the smart phone. Today, anyone can have access to information.

In the past new reporting went through up to five filter, reporter, section editor managing editor all the way up to the consumer
Today the reporter can surpass these filters straight to the consumer. Furthermore, anyone can report stories or events to the masses faster than news reporters who deal with filters. “Joe six Pack”
-Reporters now are using less filters, or even directly communicating with the consumers. The editors begin to lose more power. This gives the reader more power. Why?- Reporters and Joe six-packs have to worry about user consumption.
You have to be interesting. Readers have more options and outlets.

The news world has changed. Reporters are now appealing to different diverse niches. So readers can decide who they want to follow.
Dirty secret: “Professional journalists are scared of citizen journalists”:
Citizen journalists can have info pro journalists can’t get.
On the other hand: citizen journalists don’t understand how “the camera can lie”
They don’t have the background to understand getting all sides of a story.
-Ethical Journalism.

In summation: Reporting in the past moved more slowly and went through filters. The cause of this was a limited variety in reporting styles and views and the appeal to a small variety or niches.
Today news travels faster, and anyone can be the reporter. This gives the readers more options, which ultimately means more reporters appeal to more niches.
Either way reporting must be ethical, or consumers must be aware enough to understand the difference between ethical and unethical news telling.

Any old-school journalist will tell you that in order to successfully cover a multi-platform story, the key is in having the right equipment. While this used to mean having a full camera and tripod setup, a mic kit, and the right editing software, times certainly are a-changing.

New media has sparked a new phenomenon coined ‘mobile reporting‘, in which smart phones are used as the primary tool for capturing audio, video, and uploading it online. Through the integration of these technologies, journalism can capture images with a one-man team instead of a production studio. Here are some of the  ways that mobile journalism has affected the field as a whole:

• Audio capture
• Video capture
• Photography
• Mobile VoIP
• Twitter
• Ipad & Accessories

However, as with any new trend, there are some downfalls. While accessibility is increased, quality of audio and video has  certainly decreased. With the advent of mobile journalism and the citizen journalist, some might argue that these new methods allow increased accuracy and in-the-moment style reporting.

Having worked across the media industry for the past 36 years, one could say that Brad Kalbfeld has seen it all. From the pre-computer era to Twitter-topia, the media and journalism industry has transformed in these recent decaded into a whole different animal – and in order to prevent being left behind, today’s reporters must learn to live and love all forms of new media.

Just ask Kalbfeld.

“When people used to ask where I was from, I used to say ‘the future,’” he jokes. But all kidding aside, Kalbfeld really has been tuned into digital revolution – and it’s only benefitted his career. Not only was it his idea to  integrate audio and video into the Associated Press publications, but he came up with it five years before it saw fruition.

But in reality, it is those innovative ideas that create new media and what we experience today. The question now remains – what’s next?

Through the Associated Press, Brad Kalbfeld, who was with us in class today, “saw the world.”

I suppose it’s only appropriate to assume that he knows a thing or two about journalism.

1982: Typewriter = Laptop. After he finished typing up a story, he would read it out into a portable cassette recorder.

(Event) –Filter 1–> (Reporter) –Filter 2–> (Copy Editor) –Filter 3–> (Section Editor/Show Producer) –Filter 4–> (Managing Editor) –Filter 5–> (Reader/Viewer)

In the old days, the viewer didn’t know what they were missing out on — now, there’s so much information floating out there, considering that anyone can be a Reporter, the Reader/Viewer is in charge.

• People that would’ve never been able to be heard can now be heard — “they have voice where they’ve never had voice before.”

“YOU are the new face of journalism,” Klein said to the class. “Journalism doesn’t look like us anymore.”

There’s more pressure on professional journalists than ever before due to the rise of citizen journalism.

“News used to be a one-way proposition,” Kalbfeld said. Not so much anymore!

“It’s participatory.”

Investigative journalism, though, is special. It will get you noticed because the average Joe isn’t going to do it. It’s more intensive work.

Brad Kalbfeld, author of the Associated Press Broadcast Style Book and an Associated Press journalist for 31 years, visited our classroom on April 5 to talk about the evolution of journalism.

Kalbfeld started discussion by presenting the “laptop” that he first started with when he was a reporter overseas in 1982. The laptop was actually a large and bulky typewriter, which everyone considered convenient back in the 80s. The technologies journalists used in the past were heavy, expensive and slow — yet a very limited group of people had access to them as compared to today.

We now have smartphones and laptops at our fingertips, which makes it possible for anyone to have access to information. The ability to instantly connect with anyone around the world has drastically changed the realm of journalism.

During the “analogue world,” news information that readers and viewers received were getting filtered based on what reporters, copy editors, section editors and/or show producers and managing editors wanted to focus on reporting. Stories were filtered by at least four different people before they hit newspapers or television stations, and it was up to at least four different people to decide whether certain stories were deemed as important enough to present to the public.

Today, however, any “Joe Six-Pack,” as Kalbfeld likes to call an average person, has the ability to get whatever he or she wants to the public without other people’s approval. Joe Six-Pack is important in our society because he can make a video of a rollerskating squirrel that may interest a significant amount of people — Joe Six-Pack has therefore forced news organizations to get input from the audience about what is important to them. Nowadays, what matters most is user-participation and feedback from readers and/or viewers.

“Readers how have the power,” Kalbfeld said. “The people in the newsroom cannot ignore what readers want, and now readers are now empowered with the information of what’s available.”

What’s great about user-participation is that there is now a range of choices in what stories are made available. Judgements were made by people who were very similar in the past, but because the audience is now in control of which types of news stories are published, news is now very diverse.

“A citizen journalist brings a tremendous advantage in our ability to consume news,” Kalbfeld said. “That advantage is their criticism.”

Although citizen journalists are helpful in bringing light to certain stories that news organizations would usually ignore, Kalbfeld noted that citizen journalists fail to understand that cameras can lie. Therefore, he encourages student journalists and the general public to carefully examine where their news is coming from. Credible sites have a lot of filters that provide a lot of reliable information, according to Kaldfeld.

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