New media and investigative journalism.

1. Investigative journalism
Leveraging new and social media
Sanjana Hattotuwa
TED Fellow 2010
Editor, Groundviews (www.groundviews.org)

2. what is social media?
• Social media uses Internet and web-based technologies to transform
broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues
(many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and
information, transforming people from content consumers into content
producers. (Wikipedia)

3. what is new media?
• New media is a term meant to encompass the emergence of digital,
computerized, or networked information and communication technologies.
• New media is not television programs, feature films, magazines, books, or
paper-based publications. (Wikipedia)
• But increasingly, old media is leveraging the web, Internet and mobiles in
generating and disseminating news and information.

4. social media landscape over 2011

5. new media foundations
• Blogs
• Social networks (Twitter, Facebook)
• Mobiles: SMS, mobile photography and video
• And making this all possible is ADSL + 3G wireless broadband

6. what’s new
• Ubiquity of two way communications
• Addressable peoples, even those who IDPs or refugees
• Both news generation and dissemination leverages new media
• Disintermediated models vs. traditional media model
• Citizens as producers
• Low resolution content broadcast on high definition media

7. old media model
Event / Issue
Journalist
Mainstream
media Consumer

8. new media models
Event / Issue Consumer Citizen media
Journalist Mainstream Consumer
media

9. the revolution
Journalist Consumer
News as a package
Consumer /
Journalist
Witness
News as a conversation

10. what is out there?

11. bearing witness: Groundviews
www.groundviews.org

12. bearing witness: Groundviews
www.groundviews.org

13. readership and reach: web media
From 19 – 27 May 2010, Groundviews ran a special edition on the end of war in Sri Lanka.
Over this week alone, the site received over forty thousand readers and exclusively
featured over eighty-thousand words of original content, one video premiere, over
a dozen photos, generating over one hundred and fifty thousand words of
commentary. Tens of thousands more have read and commented on this content since.

14. commemorating Lasantha
http://unbowedandunafraid.com

15. online video: Vikalpa YouTube Channel
www.youtube.com/vikalpasl

16. alternative politics in Sinhala: Vikalpa
www.vikalpa.org

17. news from provinces: Perambara
www.perambara.org

18. boondi: alternative Sinhala critiques
www.boondi.lk

19. kottu: blog aggregation
www.kottu.org

20. kottu: blog aggregation
www.kottu.org

21. sinhala bloggers union: Sinhala blog aggregation
www.sinhalabloggers.com

22. sinhala bloggers union: Sinhala blog aggregation
www.sinhalabloggers.com

23. twitter: topical, pithy perspectives
www.twitter.com

24. curated content

25. curated content = selecting the best produce

26. curating news
• Buying fruits of vegetables • Curating news
• Check price • Check authorship
• Weigh it in one’s hands • Check for veracity, quality
• Is it accurate, fair, topical?
• Look at it from all angles
• What is the bias? Is it progressive?
• Look at it in context
• Select a few from many sources
• Look at a few, not just one
• Discard if out-dated information is
• Discard if old presented
• Be suspicious if it looks too good • Be cautious of unverified information
and breaking news
• Ascertain location where it was
produced • Is the producer local or foreign?

27. curated twitter content on sri lanka: news
http://twitter.com/groundviews/sl-news

28. curated twitter content on sri lanka: blogs
http://twitter.com/groundviews/sl-bloggers

29. facebook for work

30. social networking: facebook
550 million+ users

31. social networking: facebook
550 million+ users

32. social networking: facebook

33. social networking: facebook

34. social networking: facebook reach
Avg. FB account: 130 friends
Groundviews FB page has 2,439+ fans
Updates featured on ~317,000+ FB accounts. Instantly.

35. social networking: facebook reach with $0

36. social networking: facebook video

37. global trends in investigative
reporting and social media

38. distributed reporting
The Guardian deploying its community to help dig through 458,832
members of parliament (MP’s) expense documents

39. community sourced mapping
In Columbia, South Carolina, journalists of The State Media Company newsroom noticed something
didn’t smell right in their town. It wasn’t corruption, but an actual stink that was permeating the air
outside. Betsey Guzior, the features editor, decided to call on the community to help investigate the smell
using an open Google Maps.

40. local examples from groundviews

41. flooding in Colombo
http://groundviews.org/2010/05/15/colombo-goes-under-water-and-not-for-the-first-time

42. student unrest in sri lanka
http://groundviews.org/2010/11/04/a-turn-for-the-worse-undergraduate-protests-and-
unrest-in-sri-lanka

43. student unrest in sri lanka
http://groundviews.org/2010/11/04/a-turn-for-the-worse-undergraduate-protests-and-
unrest-in-sri-lanka

44. political hypocrisy
http://groundviews.org/2010/09/05/a-timeline-of-duplicity-promises-to-abolish-the-executive-
presidency

45. political hypocrisy
http://groundviews.org/2010/09/05/a-timeline-of-duplicity-promises-to-abolish-the-executive-
presidency

46. 18th amendment & executive presidency
http://groundviews.org/2010/09/06/the-pathetic-capitulation-of-the-organised-left-in-sri-lanka

47. election media spending
http://groundviews.org/2010/01/05/paying-global-media-for-local-elections

48. wastefulness
http://groundviews.org/2010/11/19/record-breaking-rice-cakes-but-at-what-cost

49. managing content: pulling in

50. essential email: gmail / google account

51. google search: updates from social media

52. google news: thousands of sources

53. google alerts: thousands of sources
http://www.google.com/alerts

54. google reader: a web based RSS reader

55. Managing content: Pushing out

56. wordpress.com: blogging

57. wordpress.com: blogging
http://si.wordpress.com

58. wordpress.com: blogging
http://ta.wordpress.com

59. wordpress.com: blogging via phone
http://en.support.wordpress.com/post-by-voice

60. wordpress.com: video
http://videopress.com

61. ustream.tv: broadcasting via a PC

62. ustream: mobile phone broadcasting
http://www.ustream.tv/mobile

63. enduring challenges
• Impartial, accurate coverage still vital, increasingly hard to ascertain
• Torrent of information, trickle of knowledge
• Veracity and verifiability
• Eye-witness accounts are partial, subjective
• New media / technology illiteracy even amongst journalists
• Apathy and animosity against citizen journalism
• Licensing and attribution of online content

64. key points: recap
• New technologies potentially give voice to all citizens
• Be sceptical of new information, but use new media to push and pull content
• Develop media literacy to embrace new technologies

65. Thank you