Digital-first journalists think creatively and individually, so this is a post that can’t be completely true.
To whatever extent my observations here are true, digital-first journalists will reflect wide variety in the degree and application of the ideas and views I describe here. But I think these are ways many digital-first journalists think that differ from traditional journalism thinking.
- A digital-first journalist views a story as a process, not a product.
- A digital-first journalist likes to be first with the story or the idea, but likes to link when she’s not (as I linked above to a blog post where Jeff Jarvis discusses the view of the story as a process).
- A digital-first journalist thinks of the community as collaborators who can provide crucial information if you ask them (and may already be providing that information in their blogs and tweets).
- When a digital-first journalist hears a great quote or an interesting fact, she thinks, “I better tweet that” (after I verify it).
- A digital-first journalist gets more excited about a lot of retweets, likes, favorites, retouts, pins or a prominent link to a story than about play on the front page of a newspaper.
- A digital-first journalist thinks of obstacles as the details in her next war story, not as an excuse not to get the job done. (That’s a traditional way of thinking about news stories; the digital-first journalist applies that thinking also to technology obstacles and business-related obstacles.)
- When a digital-first journalist learns of a new gadget or social tool, he starts trying to figure out how to use it to do better journalism.
- When news breaks, the digital-first journalist thinks of good search terms to use in searching for tweets or other social content from people experiencing or witnessing the news.
- A digital-first journalist thinks journalism has a bright and boundless future.
- A digital-first journalist defies predictions and lists like this, thinking of issues, ideas and solutions no one has tried before.
Digital-first journalists are thoughtful and creative. Ten is not a magic number and this is not a complete list. What are some other ways of thinking that distinguish the digital-first journalist?
This is the third in a series of posts about digital-first journalism. I wrote earlier about how we work and what we value. Tomorrow I will address leading a digital-first newsroom, then how digital-first news organizations can succeed at making money.
This series and other aspects of digital-first journalism were discussed in today’s #dfmchat, Storified by Ivan Lajara.
Update: Kathy Vetter of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram has written a great response, elaborating on three of these points.
Update: I originally posted this Dec. 21, 2011. I updated it June 19, 2013.
September 2014 update: This post originally referred to my work for Digital First Media and thus capitalized Digital First throughout. I have left DFM and thought I should update this. I am still a huge believer in digital-first journalism, and still plan to lead workshops based on the points here, but I thought I should update this post to reflect that I’m talking now about an approach to journalism, not a specific company.
Good work. Journalists everywhere need this, not just at DFM-MNG-JRC. They understand the philosophy, but they’re looking for the instruction manual.
Here’s an ancient post of mine on the same topic:
http://newsafternewspapers.blogspot.com/2008/12/nuts-and-bolts-what-online-first.html
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Hey, Steve. We should get shirts made up with “Digital First Journalists Do It Right” and then have QR code with our info.
Or, maybe we can hold a slogan contest and pick the best one. Crowdsource for ideas, vote on your blog, etc. Could be a fun way to unite team via digital means.
We could also have fun with this…. You know you’re a Digital First Journalist when…
you go to a funeral and automatically start tweeting.
(could come up with 365 and make a calendar and sell it)
Anyway…. just thinkin’ pal
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Maybe “Digital First journalists do it with our thumbs”? I’d be more interested in t-shirts than calendars. Can’t remember the last time I used a hard-copy calendar.
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Yeah, you’re probably right about the calendar.
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[…] Steve Buttry, director of community engagement and social media for the Journal Register Co., is writing a series of valuable blog posts about Digital First journalism. Today’s entry is titled “10 ways to think like a Digital First journalist.” […]
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I find it interesting that your advertises digital journalists by what they “do and think,” when it only describes them by the tools they use. Or am I missing something?
So your list doesn’t so much separate digital journalist from traditional journalist because a good journalist do exactly the same thing you listed right?
For example, traditional journalist credit others who break a story first – it’s called attribution and it’s standard practice. Now they’re linking to do that. That’s just respect. But most journalist live to break news so they don’t have to credit others because they’re too busy working hard to get the right story.
And I guarantee you, if you get a story on the front page of the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, your story will have no problem being RT and linked to.
Good journalist always collaborate with their community to get the story right – how do you think we get all those stories about corrupt officials, bad cops, sleeping school administrators, etc., people tell us. Rarely is an investigative story started from a bunch of data though that’s been known to happen.
I’m a narrative non-fiction journalist and I’ve written 2,500 word stories where the number of quoted text can be counted on one hand. The truth is unless you’re Yogi Berra what most people say is an echo chamber. Few people have the profundity of Apostle Paul, most people speak in exposition. But every now and then they say something that adds such amazing context and transformative power and universal truth in what they begs to be set apart. That’s when you quote someone. So traditional journalists care about quotes.
A true journalist is a journalist in any medium because the medium is not the message, the message is the message, right?
Journalists are journalists because they’re curious, creative thinkers who use the tools at their disposal to tell stories.
Because we now tweet it instead of rushing to the pay phones outside the courthouse does that someone how separate us from the legacy of Pulitzer minions?
But I guess I would ask why are digital journalists, digital journalist? What is your motivation?
Since I’ve been a journalist for 18 years, starting when I was like nine writing about the local events of my neighborhood I find the one thing that separates the John Lock-induced, public journalist, the journalist who engages in a social contract with her community to accurately reflect their world – what separates that journalist from everyone else writing about stuff is a selfless commitment to accuracy. And this is rare in traditional journalism so I don’t expect it to be prevalent in DJ although technology allows us to more accurately reflect our communities because we have more data than our two eyes, ears and hands can produce.
Getting the story right supersedes all overriding principals even timeliness IMHO. If a 15,000 RT my tweet about Pierce Morgan getting suspended at CNN what does it profit me if I”m wrong? I guess it could but then again I wouldn’t want to hurt my integrity. But accuracy isn’t just about statistics or facts because those have bias depending upon the group gathering them. Accuracy is accurately reflecting an event or community that adds context but leaves the interpretative dalliance to the reader.
Are digital journalists concerned about accuracy? What do you guys think?
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I would add a digital journalist should grammar check her posts – Geez, writing too fast!
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Thanks for your comment, Writing Princess. Yes, absolutely, digital journalists care about accuracy. That was first on my list of values and I’ve blogged extensively here about accuracy and verification, and about getting to the actual truth (rather than the faux balance of quoting accurately sources on both sides of an issue, at least one of which is lying).
We disagree greatly about whether what I’ve described differs from traditional journalism. I described in detail on the values post where they differ. And your point about links and attribution is simply not consistent with my experience. I frequently (including today on Twitter) deal with the resistance to link to competition. I know lots of bloggers who mock the Washington Post for its longtime (but thankfully changed) practice of vague attribution to “a local blogger.” And how many traditional stories accept weak attribution such as “media reports”?
Your statement that “Journalists are journalists because they’re curious, creative thinkers who use the tools at their disposal to tell stories” made me laugh. I have spent much of the past four years addressing the resistance of journalists to use Twitter. And it reminded me of the resistance of some journalists 30 years ago to start using portable computers. Journalists are creatures of habit. And way too many of them resist change. Digital journalists welcome change, even if it makes us uneasy.
I may blog sometime about the differences, but I don’t have time today to respond point by point. But the differences between traditional and digital journalists go way beyond the tools. Transparency and engagement are a couple of other huge differences.
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(Portions taken from a column-in-progress)
Writingprincess, One of the misconceptions about the technological changes of the past couple of decades is that journalism has fundamentally changed. In fact, what we’re doing is re-ordering and re-priortizing the tools. During the past century, journalism has consisted of:
– Gathering information
– Organizing and interpreting information (infocrunching)
– Presenting the crunched info using text, images and sound
– Listening to reader (viewer/user) feedback
Because of the immediacy of the new tools, journalists who have traditionally worked in print, now have to think more like broadcast journalists. Because of the revolution in ease of creating still images, reporters now have to think more as photographers. Because of the revolution in ease of creating video, photographers now have to think more as film makers. Because of the two-way nature of the Internet, both users and journalists are becoming accustomed to collaboration from the beginning of the process.
The fundamental pieces of the craft have not changed, but the mindset of its practitioners must.
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Well-said, Mark. I look forward to the column (and enjoyed seeing you at Hobee’s last week). I think you’re right that the tools are changing processes and priorities, while many fundamentals of journalism remain the same. However, I don’t think listening to feedback was always one of the fundamentals. And I think that reassessment of values such as independence and objectivity, and the rise of transparency as a value, go beyond the changes forced by new tools.
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I guess I don’t see the difference between what I said and what Mark said. Journalism is journalism, the tools may be different but the mission remains the same. I do agree that most journalists are rigid in their thinking and do not want to change but like the hunter-gathers they will see the light. They won’t have a choice.
Real journalists don’t depend upon press releases, media reports and pontificating pundits for news. That’s broadcast journalism at its best. That’s the path that produces Glen Beck and Sean Hannity as news shows. The Internet and digital news revolution- at the rate it’s going – only reinforces this narrow media pathway.
The first real digital first online news organization was thedrudgereport.com, born out of a distaste with what he saw as biased news media and a lot of citizen tips to help him along. He was doing “digital first,” before it was a term.
People who want to tell stories to as many people as possible will figure out a way to do it, not matter the medium. To me the message is still the message and the medium is what changes. I have been involved in plenty of journalism experiments from community journalism, to digital journalism to whatever. And the new jargon about digital first is more about the biz model than about the story telling IMHO. That’s where the real difference lies. The breaking down of the invisible line between advertising and news-gathering is the real revolution in journalism, whether a journalist uses Twitter or not is beside the point, a red herring.
Such a line between money and news, used to be an unspoken secret now it’s an open wound. Thanks to the changing economics the Internet has ushered in. As soon as Google put an accepted value upon words true journalism was in trouble.
There’s a difference in wanting to accurately reflect the community where you live and wanting to make money from that.
Sites like Gawker and Forbes.com which pay writers based upon page views, news organizations who want to reward readers who click on ads, or sponsors, these are the changes that make journalists uncomfortable not just simply using Twitter for news.
Let’s get real here – technology is forcing news rooms to think about their biz models first, their story telling abilities second. They are too busy trying to defend their overfunded news-gathering largess against the growing, ever cheaper digital online publishing gurus to embrace the digital change. It’s like asking the Devil to take your soul and then thanking him for the privilege. Who in their right mind would willingly embrace their destruction?
Journalism will survive as it always has – it survived Pulitzer and Hearst, it can survive Murdoch and Disney. Won’t it won’t survive is people forgetting the purpose of journalism and a free press in the first place.
“The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure.” – Thomas Jefferson
Keep the waters pure gentlemen and we’ve got a future, muddy them too much with money-chasing tech smoke and mirrors and you got mob rule.
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I was thinking of Letters to the Editor. Journalism as a process is a new thing.
Did you see Amy Gahran’s Google+ post? She referred to hackles being potentially raised at BANG re: corporate transparency and reporting on themselves.
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No I didn’t see Amy Gahran’s Google+ post. Will check it out. Yes, the transparency surrounding how journalism gets paid for that is inherent in digital journalism was so secretive back in the day. In this lies the real reason for rigidity in companies like the New York Times, and The Washington Post, reluctant to embrace this so-called digital revolution. Currently, 90% of all media content we consume (Thanks Frugaldad for the info graphic) comes from just six companies -Disney being the biggest. It used to be like 20 companies. Media oligopolies have always been in power yet technology now allows us to see how much collusion there is in journalism. I left mainstream media a year after Google went public because I saw the writing on the wall. My old paper just fired basically everyone I knew because they decided on a “Digital First,” biz model and to them I guess that strategy included not having any journalist any more. Sure there’s a future for mainstream journalism if you want your news stories with aggressive product placements which is what some of these Digital First models are proposing – I mean why even pretend to do investigative journalism? Are you really going to bite the hand that feeds you?
Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1783 that a free press was essential to a free society, but how free is a our press now? Anyone who reads the Filter Bubble knows there’s an unsaid hypocrisy to those who look as the digital revolution as a path toward a more open society. In fact it’s just the opposite. But I’ve taken up too much real estate on Steve’s blog so I’ll shut up. Love the blog and discussing the future of this wonderful noble profession.
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Thanks again for your comments, writingprincess. You don’t identify which newsroom following a “Digital First” biz model fired everyone you knew or which “Digital First” operations are proposing “aggressive product placements.” I am not aware of anyone, certainly not Digital First Media, using either approach. I like to keep the discussion here factual. Newspapers trying to protect print have cut thousands of jobs (3,775+ jobs lost in the newspaper business this year, according to Paper Cuts). The point of the Digital First approach is to build a business model that will stop those cuts and eventually allow newsrooms to grow again. And tension between advertising and news is also nothing new or unique to Digital First.
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Writingprincess, When you refer to your “old paper,” are you referring to Gazette Communications in Iowa?
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Another great post. Really nice series about digital journalism.
I would add these:
A Digital First journalist, when thinking about her next story, plans what are the best multimedia assets she must use to tell it (mixing text with slideshows, videos, audio, etc.)
A Digital First journalist knows about storytelling and the principles that make an amazing story and uses them according, to publish across different platforms
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[…] 10 ways to think like a Digital First journalist […]
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I would add – as kind of a side point to Pedro’s great points above – that a Digital First journalist does not get caught up in his or her tools or technology to the detriment of the story.
I can’t give a positive example of this nearly as easily as I can a negative – when someone says, “Oooh, look at this shiny new app/site/tool/widget/thingamajig – I’m going to use that for my next story!”
It’s like buying a new pair of running shoes and wearing them to the royal wedding. Because, you know, it was the next day, and they were new, and of course that made it appropriate, right?
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Hello Joan,
Couldn’t agree more with you. That’s why I say a Digital First journalist must plan beforehand what is the best way to tell her story.
As you say, without becoming caught up in the tools, a Digital First journalist must know what best suits her storytelling for digital distributed content.
Look at this great story, by Cathy Horyn on the NYT, about the Milan Fashion Week ( http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/09/28/style/1248069106033/cathy-horyn-s-milan-fashion-week-report.html?ref=cathyhoryn ).
You could have done this with text and a picture slide show ( http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/milan-fashion-week-wrap-up/?scp=1&sq=cathy%20horyn%20milan%20fashion%20week%202010&st=Search ), but I believe the solution Cathy found is very good and a great example of digital journalism.
I’ve written about the need for interactive journalists (I know now I should call it Digital First journalists) on my blog, with some examples (like the two above) of what can be achieved by this practice ( http://digital-distribution.org/2011/04/28/let%E2%80%99s-talk-digital/ ). Would love to ear your thoughts on it.
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Good point, Joan. Everyone should seek to use tools appropriately. But I’ll also add that we should be aggressive in learnign how to use new tools (or whether they are worth using). That means we need to be willing to experiment, and to risk using a new tool in a story that’s not a perfect fit.
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[…] Comments « 10 ways to think like a Digital First journalist […]
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[…] of blog posts about Digital First journalism. The previous posts covered the workflow, values and thinking of Digital First journalists and leading a Digital First […]
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#2 is problematic you don’t have your bosses on board. I’m not allowed to retweet other broadcast stations, which is frustrating during the frenzy of a breaking news situation. Local news doesn’t tend to give credit to the competition in traditional ways. Links? Forget it. I think this will change as news organizations stop seeing social media as a threat to their legacy businesses. It’s actually the opposite.
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Your bosses need to learn. Send them links to this and to my advice for leading a Digital First newsroom.
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[…] on December 21, 2011 at 8:40 am | Reply 10 ways to think like a Digital First journalist « The Buttry Diary […]
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[…] « How a Digital First approach guides a journalist’s work 10 ways to think like a Digital First journalist […]
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I’m going to post this series as a single pdf, including comments. If you’d rather not have your comment included, please let me know: stephenbuttry (at) gmail.com.
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[…] 10 ways to think like a Digital First journalist […]
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[…] – “A Digital First journalist views a story as a process, not a product.” Steve Buttry, The Buttry Diary […]
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[…] — “A Digital First journalist views a story as a process, not a product.” Steve Buttry, The Buttry Diary […]
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This is a great post, Steve. I’ve only recently entered the journalism field, and I’m trying to wrap my head around writing for print but also building a story through new media. Your article was helpful and appreciated.
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Thank for this very informative post.I like point #4 about retweeting a quote or interesting fact. I add my ‘two cents’ at the end of a quote/fact because I know the it has been retweeted many times.
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[…] (If you’re a journalist and haven’t read them I highly recommend you do so: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 […]
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[…] a December 21, 2011, post by Steve Buttry tittled, ”10 ways to think like a Digital First journalist.” Steve laid down some basic ways Digital First journalists think that differ from traditional […]
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[…] – 10 Ways to Think Like a Digital First Journalist, by Steve Buttry, The Buttry Diary (2011)—Another big thinker about online content, with good thoughts about how to approach news in the digital world. […]
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1. A Digital First journalist is a journalist first, last, and always—with an unceasing reverence for facts born of original reporting. Who, what, when, where, why, and how will never go away and only become more important in a digital world.
2. A Digital First journalist is second to none when it comes to competitiveness, and strives to break any and all stories across all possible platforms.
3. A Digital First journalist never forgets that storytelling is paramount, that the role of a journalist on any platform is to shape the story in the most accurate and telling way possible.
4. A Digital First journalist realizes he or she is of, by, and for the people, and that engaging the community in mutual storytelling is both a high calling and a high art.
5. A Digital First journalist is at least conversant and at best expert in all the forms of media, including but not limited to writing, photography, graphics, and video.
6. A Digital First journalist leverages social media in every story and at every point in the process as an information source and distribution platform.
7. A Digital First journalists understands the innards of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and crafts all content with that in mind.
8. A Digital First journalist makes it a point to embrace all new technology and new platforms so as to understand the changing art of the possible.
9. A Digital First journalist is always aware of new revenue opportunities for the organization based on delivery of content on all platforms possible.
10. A Digital First journalist never stops asking what’s next.
Michael Conniff
The Isaacson School for New Media @ Colorado Mountain College
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An excellent list, Michael. I’d add data to #5.
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[…] 10 ways to think like a Digital First journalist […]
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[…] 10 ways to think like a Digital First journalist […]
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[…] Reading:- Here is Mathew Ingram on why digital first matters, Steve Buttry on ten ways to think like a digital first journalist, Emily Henry (@EmilyHenry) on ten reasons why online journalists are better journalists and Joe […]
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[…] Digital First journalists think creatively and individually, so this is a post that can’t be completely true. To whatever extent my observations here are true, Digital First journalists will … […]
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[…] on stevebuttry.wordpress.com […]
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[…] Springs today. Much of the workshop will be based on my earlier blog posts on working and thinking digital-first and on leading a digital-first newsroom. Here are my slides for the workshop: 0.000000 0.000000 […]
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[…] منبع […]
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[…] منبع […]
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[…] منبع […]
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[…] منبع […]
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[…] TEN WAYS TO THINK LIKE A DIGITAL JOURNALIST […]
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[…] 10 ways to think like a Digital First journalist […]
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[…] In a Twitter direct message, Jay likened his class to my work on Project Unbolt during my last few months with Digital First Media. My initial reaction was that Project Unbolt was about action and Jay’s class is about thinking, but of course, the two go together. Digital thinking changes how you work and changing how you work changes how you think. One of my first blog posts for my DFM colleagues was about digital thinking. […]
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