At least one news outlet is trying to get it, even if it is a broadcast outlet.
Newspapers and other journalism organizations should pay attention to how ABC News has formed a partnership with Facebook to cover the 2008 presidential election. What makes this partnership work is Facebook’s social network. And why try to emulate their social network when you can harness the power of it?
If you don’t know what I’m talking about (and if you work for a newspaper you may not) ABC News and Facebook have teamed up to create a US Politics section of Facebook that also operates like a Facebook application. Users can vote on and discuss issues that affect America, and users can voice how they feel about the candidates and their positions. Users can also form their own debate groups and discuss whatever they want.
Facebook’s social network, however, helps make this feature popular and work. Every day my news field is filled with opinions of my friends. And I signed up for the application because I saw my friends voting and leaving their opinions.
I had to join the action. One of my favorite features of the application is the Soundboard, where users can leave what they are thinking about the campaigns right now. Facebook picks the five best comments at any given time and displays them on the US Politics home page.
This feature really shined this past Saturday during the New Hampshire primary debates. Facebook users were constantly updating their Soundboards, taking part in debates of their own and taking part in polls as ABC News and Facebook posted new polls during the debate.
It made the debate a lot more personal, and it was a conversation. It’s exactly what Web 2.0 is all about, and newspapers need to hop on the Web 2.0 bandwagon ASAP. ABC News, however, couldn’t escape some of their anachronisms.
One of the most annoying parts of a lot of debate coverage is the pundits, especially when they are just delivering spin. Some of ABC’s “esteemed” political journalists interviewed the candidates’ campaigns after the debates to see how the campaigns thought their men and woman did. Needless to say they all thought their candidates won.
Thanks ABC News. Facebook eliminates the need for that bloviating. I can see what voters think in real time. I can see who they think did well and if it will affect their opinions. I can see if the debates matter.
I thought CNN’s pundits on the night of the Iowa Caucuses were very helpful, but many pundits often aren’t (ahem, ABC). If you’re going to partner with a social network to essentially give you the world’s biggest and most-opinionated focus group, then don’t give us worthless pundits. It’s good to have political pundits who can help us navigate the process, but we don’t need “journalists” asking Barack Obama’s camp if they thought he did well.
That’s not journalism. I’d much rather see what the people have to say, and in many ways what happened on Facebook was much more interesting than what happened on ABC. The debates were boring and the coverage was bad, but Facebook was a fun, enlightening experience.
Many newspapers haven’t even allowed users to comment on their stories yet or put up blogs on their Web sites. They fear having conversations with their readers. They are held back by out-dated thought processes (and bad leaders).
They would never partner with a social network or even create one for their community. Because social networking is not “journalism.” But that’s exactly why so many papers will close down in the next 5-10 years.
They don’t get it. Instead of writing the same boring, old political story where a reporter interviews three people in town about how they feel about the election and calls it journalism, newspapers could allow every one of their readers to be a part of the process. They could take part in polls, discussions and form debate groups — just like Facebook.
Imagine the power that something like this could have over local elections and politics, which the majority of Americans don’t participate in. Every newspaper should do what ABC News did the next time a local election rolls around.
The quickest way to start a conversation right now is to start adding blogs to your Web site and allow users to comment on EVERY item on your site. Don’t fear the people. We do not know better than they do.
Then you can either form your own social network (this would probably only work at a forward thinking, technologically innovative company) or you could partner with an existing social network. Anyone can create groups on Facebook. Why not create a group for local elections right now for your town?
The point is, we can deliver better coverage and better content if we harness the power of social networks and the Web. Imagine combining quality traditional journalism with new media journalism with database journalism with social networking.
That would be news we could use.
And it should he happening right now, not tomorrow.