This is the announcement of the Digital Credibility Study, which was funded by the Knight Foundation
“ONA” Items
Virtual Brainstorming for ONA project
The ONA project used virtual brainstorm, facilitated D.S. Griffen & Associates. It was a way to gather a large number of people to brainstorm the project’s main survey
The ONA Digital Credibility Report
This is a PDF of the Online News Association study on digital credibility, co-authored by Howard Finberg and Martha Stone with assistance from Diane Lynch. Here’s what the goals of the project were:
ONA’s Web Credibility Study, for which it was awarded $225,000 from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (www.knightfdn.org), is studying the impact of technology and the Internet on the gathering and dissemination of news.
The study will work to develop and promote principles and guidelines for online journalism focusing on proper relationships between editorial content, advertising and e-commerce; the development of ethical standards and avoidance of conflicts of interest; and appropriate use of hyperlinking in a journalistic environment.
Digital Credibility Study Release Announcement
A copy of the announcement that the study results will be released at the ONA convention in Berkeley, Ca. on Oct. 27, 2001
Presentation of ONA Digital Credibility Report
Here’s a copy of the main online credibility presentation given at the ONA convention in 2001. The goal was to share the results of the ONA Credibility study conducted in 2000-2001. This PDF includes notes or a script for the presenters. It has the key elements the authors wanted to share with the audience. I conducted the survey work and wrote a large section of the report and was responsible for creating the presentation.
Understanding Online Credibility. An ONA Project
One of the more interesting and challenging project I undertook as a consultant was as a co-author on a study of online credibility for the Online News Association, which was funded by the Knight Foundation. The purpose of the study was outlined in the press release from ONA:
The study will work to develop and promote principles and guidelines for online journalism focusing on proper relationships between editorial content, advertising and e-commerce; the development of ethical standards and avoidance of conflicts of interest; and appropriate use of hyperlinking in a journalistic environment.
It was a big project and a great learning opportunity about putting together a research project with a level of academic rigor. My co-author was Martha Stone, another consultant.
“The results generated from ONA panel discussions and research will provide a foundation for the ongoing discussions regarding credibility in this very new medium. It is a chance to help shape solid journalistic practices early,” said Howard Finberg, co-director.
The project was announced by ONA via Business Wire release.
Info Highway: No News Speedway
A column I wrote for Editor & Publisher, published December 10, 2001, under the headline “Info highway no news speedway” and the subhead: “Readers want sites to break the news; online staffers want to break for lunch.”
The piece takes up the old tension between speed and accuracy and argues that online publishing has made it harder to resolve, because its deadlines are “neither fish nor fowl” — broadcast immediacy combined with words and pictures that linger on screen the way print does.
It cites the Online News Association‘s forthcoming “Digital Journalism Credibility” study, which found that the online public ranked timely information as the most important factor in judging the credibility of a Web news site, but ranked accuracy, completeness, and fairness first when judging an individual news story:
So, like the journalists, they want it both ways.
The column also notes Pew Research Center for People and the Press findings that two-thirds of the public were more generally interested in news than before the Sept. 11 attacks, and that 13% were using the Internet as their primary source for news about the war on terrorism.
The challenges for companies publishing in both print and online, I wrote, came down to the same three issues that had been “bewitching publishers for decades”: people, process, and technology. One online editor described the roadblocks this way:
Our systems don’t ‘talk’ to each other … unless we develop our own Web-based tools to bridge the gap. We have to do lots of dual publishing, often entering the same text, photos, video, etc., multiple times. No one in our print or broadcast newsrooms can update online, so during off-hours, all-staff meetings, etc., we are only as fast as it takes to reach someone.
The column closes on the one problem technology can’t solve — newsroom culture — quoting another online editor:
The biggest challenge is convincing the reporters that breaking news takes a higher priority than lunch with a friend or a workout at the gym. The around-the-clock publishing cycle still is a difficult concept to communicate and enforce.
The tagline at the end notes that I was then managing director of Finberg-Gentry, the Digital Futurist Consultancy, and would begin a term the following month as a Presidential Scholar in Residence, focusing on new media, at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla.