The Future of Journalism

2017 was saw a crisis in Journalism unfold. An already struggling industry suddenly saw a newly elected president Trump not only attack the media but to create his own 'truth', refusing to bow to facts or accuracy. In this climate it seemed that media was changing and to address this UTS set up the Centre for Media Transition.

Working with the Centre for Media Transition and Innovation and Entrepreneurship, I helped to create a series of events to drive discussion around the future of journalism:

Jeff Jarvis Journalism Jam - 26th July 2017
Creative Clusters: Journalism+ workshop series - 8 August to 19 Sept 2017
Clusters Last Stand seminar featuring guest Rob Wijnberg, de Correspondent - 15 Sept 2017
Final pitching and feedback event - 6 October 2017

Jeff Jarvis Journalism Jam

On 26 July 2017 to support the launching of the Centre for Media Transition at UTS, we welcomed City University New York’s Jeff Jarvis - journalist, professor and Open Web advocate - to introduce a half day intensive 'Journalism Jam' to explore media's varied futures.

It was a wonderful event to co-ordinate and facilitate and a pleasure to work with the amazing CMT team of Peter Fray, Derek Wilding and Keely Duffy. With the help of some leading experts we explored 6 key areas:

Exposing the Dark Web:

The Dark web is where many media manipulation plans have been hatched. How do we keep track of what is cooking on the dark web and get ahead of it?

Expert: Kevin Nguyen, Storyful

Popping the filter bubble:

Social media allows us to live in an echo chamber, only hearing the opinions that validates our world view. How can we allow people to find information they are not looking for? How to we create the natural serendipity of newspapers online?

Experts: Simon Knight & Gabriel Yakub, UTS Connected Intelligence Centre

Gamifying for Truth:

It has been said that we are living in a ‘post truth world’ but how can we gain some kind of grip on what is true and what is designed purely for manipulation?

Experts: Jen Wilson, Project Factory and Tim Lea Blockchain entrepreneur

Building new standards for trust:

Our media institutions and the larger media ecosystem are facing corroding public trust. How do we address this? How does the media become more equitable, inclusive, reflective and accountable?

Expert: Derek Wilding, UTS Centre for Media Transition

Puberty News:

tackling media literacy in teens and pre-teens: Thanks to social media the public is no longer just the audience: they are also the broadcasters. How do we make sure that we ‘as broadcasters’ act in a safe and ethical manner? How do we evaluate the news we consume?

Expert Saffron Howden, Editor of Crinkling News

New ways of funding journalism:

We are in a paradoxical situation where our need for well funded investigative journalism is at a high just when the funding for that type of journalism is at an all time low. How can we create a new sustainable business model?

Expert: Rose Powell, Walkley Foundation

Each of these themes were explored in greater depth and then mapped using Meta maps. While each theme had it’s own insights there was one insight that kept coming up - the need for more critical thinking. This insight became the focus of the next clusters series which looked at the Future of Journalism (link to future of journalism post).

For a more detailed write up on the event please visit:

https://medium.com/building-15/the-future-of-media-can-be-bright-rather-than-bleak-1e29c629153f

https://www.uts.edu.au/partners-and-community/initiatives/innovation-entrepreneurship-and-creative-intelligence/news-14

The Future of Journalism Creative Cluster

This goal of this cluster series was to come up with two strong and innovative projects that could be developed by CMT with the help of external funding sources. Two potential projects emerged during the prototyping phase of the cluster program: “Strawman” and “Wire You” (previously “Talk of the Town”). Strawman is an online browser extension that detects logical fallacies, and Wire You is a hub site that uses data mining to help regional journalists source stories.

Strawman has received a FASS Collaborative Research Grant and is currently employing one of the cluster participants as a research assistant who is working closely with Kirsty Kitto and Simon Knight from the UTS Connected Intelligence Centre. Wire You is still in development and PhD candidate Marie Palmer is seeking funding.

The Journalism + program was a great event series and lead to many successful outcomes including our big goal of having two strong project ideas.