Persistent stories — The end of the news periodical

Audiences no longer behave according to the media’s schedule. In essence we are seeing the end of the “news periodical” in our age of 24/7 x 365 information environment. Audiences expect their news to available when they want to read it and delivered in the form that is most convenient for them — TV, print, radio, Internet, or mobile device..

the new basic unit should be a “page, a site, a thing that is created, curated, edited, and discussed.”

This creates the opportunity to re conceptualize “the story” as the basic unit of news. I am reminded of this by Jeff Jarvis‘ post this morning.

“The old building block of journalism — the article — is proving to be inadequate in the current onslaught of news. I’ll argue here that the new building block is the topic.

Rather than a story, Jarvis suggests that the new basic unit should be a page, a site, a thing that is created, curated, edited, and discussed.

In terms of Solution Journalism, the idea of persistent stories means that we need to conceptualize journalism as a social practice of inquiry and discussion rather than a form of “publishing.”

What might this mean in practice? Consider what the late Cole Campbell suggested in terms of the journalism as a social practice.

• Public Education: To use new forms of journalism to increase the capacity of citizens to understand the impact and relevance of environmental science and policies to their lives. The intersection of scientific facts and public values forms the foundation by which a site uses journalism to explain and conveys environmental issues and policies to the general public.

• Public Dialog: To create sound and just environmental policy through increased public engagement. This new emerging form of citizen engagement promotes dialogue with the public using journalistic techniques that include an interactive Web site, partnerships with public radio, community presentations, academic partnerships, and qualitative and quantitative research. As a result, citizens are better able to understand and make informed decisions about the complex social and ethical dimensions of environmental research and policy. (Campbell 2006)

Updates:

(1) Bas Timmers on the problems with updating on the web.

A story never stops.

(Oct 7, 2008) Don’t make them disappear: “Online it doesn’t work like that. A story never stops. You publish it, and then subsequently change it if necessary, when new facts emerge, new sources arise and/or commenters give you new insights to the situation. That’s the developing story, changing (in theory) forever.”

(2) Writing on the topic of persistent stories, Josh Korr at Publishing 2.0 points to Matt Thompson who writes:

• Until recently, newspaper editors defined news as “important developments over the past 24 hours.” … My understanding of journalism is broader. To me, journalism is the constant effort to deliver a truer picture of the world as it is. The “latest developments” provide one lens through which to capture that picture. And as long as journalism was primarily delivered by static media, that lens made perfect sense.

• The Web, however, makes possible other ways of delivering that picture of our evolving world. It allows us to shirk the tyranny of recency and place more emphasis on context - the information that often gets buried beneath the news.

So: Let’s start to think about the new standards and practices that the emerging technologies will require.