Tech notes

Jul 13 2006 By Herb Kim, The Journal

Thanks to major advances in digital technology, we've come a long way since the first BBC news broadcasts were delivered by a presenter reading from sheets of paper.

Technologies like news websites, text services, blogs and RSS have massively impacted the way in which news is gathered, presented, transmitted and received.

Services and websites like Sky News, Google News and News Now bring us breaking stories from around the world almost instantly to our TVs, computers and mobile phones - a seismic shift from the days when the Six o'Clock News was everything.

But of the many recent advances brought about by digital technologies, perhaps the biggest change is how it has enabled a widespread "democratisation" of the news.

Take Digg.com, for example, a relatively new website that ranks news articles on their popularity - visitors "digg" their favourite stories, pushing them up the chart with each vote. It turns the traditional model of the mainstream media on its head - readers, not editors, deciding what's hot and what's not.

It's not without flaws, but Digg.com nevertheless represents a bold move towards a more democratised form of reporting.

A major influence on this digital democratisation of the news media is the rise of so-called citizen journalists - amateurs who post subjective news blogs and those who send in emails, photos or videos from their mobile phones to traditional news groups.

For example, just one year ago it was citizen journalists who recorded some of the most harrowing and revealing images of 7/7.

This material was used in newspapers and on TV, one of the first times non-professional news content had been used so extensively.

While digitally transmitted news is a clear threat to traditional news media, it can also bring new opportunities and ways to gather content more efficiently.

Some of the world's most prestigious publishers are recognising the power of citizen journalism, such as the Herald Tribune (published by the New York Times), which recently agreed to use headlines from South Korean news site OhMyNews.com on its own website. Around 75% of the site's stories are the work of the network's 40,000 non-professional contributors.

The news media landscape is changing and citizen journalism and websites like Digg.com will all have a big part to play in this new environment.

I don't think technology will damage traditional news sources like the BBC and The Journal. Instead, I think we'll get the best of both worlds, with already respected organisations and websites using blogs and other forms of citizen journalism to complement their main news coverage.

Thanks to these sorts of technological advances we'll benefit from greater choice and higher quality information. Now that's a good story.

Herb Kim is chief executive officer of Codeworks, the North-East's centre of excellence for digital technology.