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MOSAIC (Multicultural Organization of Students: An International Community), the Chinese Student Association, and the Colorado College Journalism Program joined forces to bring Chinese-American documentarian and journalist Xiaoran Liu to campus on Monday. Liu first spoke about the differences in the Chinese and American media landscapes and later screened her documentary, "Crossroads of Journalism Dreams."

The documentary follows five Chinese students at Columbia University School of Journalism as they navigate life as international students, discovering the contrast in media censorship, educational philosophy, and employment opportunities between the U.S. and China.

Liu, also a graduate of the School of Journalism, filmed the documentary about her classmates from 2012 to 2015. It begins during their education at Columbia, where there are only six Chinese international students in the journalism school.

The students seem to share a sentiment that they came to America for Columbia. "I didn't think that much about coming to America... more about coming to Columbia," said Liu.

But the differences between Chinese journalism school and American journalism school are striking. One student noted that in China she was taught mostly by academics, while at Columbia most of her professors had experience as journalists and much more of the work was focused on producing stories.

The emphasis on production of stories results in an intense program in which, in addition to class, students are required to churn out material, creating a high stress environment. The featured students spoke of depression and an uncertainty of whether they made the correct decision to pursue journalism in America. These concerns were exacerbated when they some-times met resistance from community members to speak to Chinese international journalism students about a story.

One student said she couldn't call her parents because "they will sense my depression." A different student summed up the ordeal by saying he was attempting to find his "direction under pressure." While this sentiment is felt by many international and non-international students alike, his status as an international student isolated him at times.

Chinese media censorship permeated many issues both in Liu's speech and in the documentary. Liu and her producers had to "talk about whether to step out of boundary or stay in it," when they "don't exactly know the boundaries." Senior Michael Wu, a co-chair of Chinese Student Association, said, "in a lot of cases you cannot do things freely [in China]."

One strategy to avoid trouble is to use individual stories to shed light on systematic issues rather than to address the systematic issue head on. But there is no surefire way to avoid problems, and Liu recalled a story in which one of her pieces drew ire, resulting in losing pay for her work.

Perhaps the best indicator of the level of censorship is the fact that Liu has not released the documentary online because "some things said [in it] cannot be said in China." She only shows the film in person-al screenings.

The U.S. provides a place where "there is no fear of doing journalism," one of the students said. However, that is not to say that media in the U.S. does not have other issues. One student who went on to work for an investigative news organization in the U.S. said, "there is less censor-ship but still bias." The same student also spoke of the potentially worrying attitudes of American treatment towards whistle blowers.

Notwithstanding the possible bias in American media, the freedom of press in the U.S. is appealing. One student said that even though there are more jobs in China, such opportunities do not matter if a journalist knows the truth but cannot say the facts.

Another theme that surfaced, especially towards the latter parts of the movie, was the difficulty international students have with employment visas. Educational visas are relatively easy to obtain when compared with work visas, specifically H-1B visas.

For an H-1B, the employer must sponsor an employee, pay part of the visa fee, and, most importantly, prove to the government that the job cannot be filled by an American citizen. It is a litany of tasks that many news organizations are unwilling to do, which precludes hiring of international students.

One student told the story of an interview with the United Nations Media Director, who asked two questions. First, are you a U.S. citizen? Second, do you have a green card? When the student responded no to both, the director had no more questions.

CC international students face similar problems. "You need a green card or residency to get into medical school," said first-year Peiheng Zhang. Despite these immigration status challenges, some of the students were able to obtain H-1Bs and now work for news organizations in the U.S. Other students featured in the documentary have returned to China to either pursue journalism or enter entirely different disciplines.

The combination of issues unique to Chinese international students, such as media censorship, visa limitations, and discussions of topics that are a part of young adult life, is the crux of Liu's documentary work. It is this combination that drives Liu's mission as she "tries to work as a bridge between the U.S. and China.

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Documentary Investigates Lives of Chinese Journalism Students in America - The Catalyst

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MOSAIC (Multicultural Organization of Students: An International Community), the Chinese Student Association, and the Colorado College Journalism Program joined forces to bring Chinese-American documentarian and journalist Xiaoran Liu to campus on Monday.

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Investigative journalism in China, which enjoyed a period of vitality from the mid-1990s to around 2013, is struggling to survive today as the government steps up its control of traditional and digital media. In recent years, a government crackdown has driven an exodus of veteran investigative journalists from the news media. Some have landed at cash-rich Internet companies, others at startups and philanthropic ventures. Still others have abandoned the media industry all together. Meanwhile, globalization, technological changes, and market pressures have shifted the paradigm for in-depth and enterprising reporting on China. Whether that reporting happens inside China or beyond its borders, we have seen international collaborations, data-driven journalism, and multi-disciplinary methodologies.

Even as the government reins in the news media, policies to promote the digital economy, combined with heavy investment in IT infrastructure, have created new potential space for media development. Moreover, China's growing integration with the global capitalist system has provided a flood of data and information residing at Chinese and overseas regulatory agencies, and at international organizations such as the World Bank. Chinese official government websites also offer information that can, in the hands of enterprising journalists, tell a much fuller story about China.

"Supervision by Public Opinion"

Investigative journalism, practiced in China under the aegis of "supervision by public opinion" - 舆论监督 or yulun jiandu, which can also be translated as "watchdog journalism" - has been recognized by the Chinese Communist Party since the 1980s as one of a number of key ways of keeping power in check. However, the extent to which the Party has allowed the press to engage in such reporting has varied under successive leaders.

In the mid-1990s, the "supervision by public opinion" mandate was taken up enthusiastically by a new breed of market-oriented newspapers and magazines trying to make their mark in a booming but competitive market. Over the next decade, civic-minded reporters broke new ground on a wide array of topics. They probed corruption in both government and private business. They exposed cases of police violence and uncovered the abuse of public funds. Notable work of that period, when it was not uncommon for reporters to devote months to a story, included an exposé on cartels in China's taxi industry, the first in-depth report on illegal blood selling that was fueling an AIDS epidemic in China's heartland; and the chilling undercover story of women being sold into the sex trade by a government-run drug treatment center.

Professional journalists in China were able to push back against relentless press controls, thanks in large part to a complicated and often ambiguous environment. They developed their own tools and techniques that allowed them to "hit line-balls," as they are fond of saying - doing coverage that just skirts the boundary of the politically acceptable. At other times, when the situation warranted, they stepped over the red line. In April 2003, for example, as it became clear that the government had not (as it claimed) contained the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), and China was coming under intense international scrutiny, journalists at media-like newsmagazine Caijing leapt into the breach, doing world-class reporting on the crisis. This surge of investigative journalism reached its apex in 2003, when state-run China Central Television paid special tribute to eight leading investigative journalists in an hour-long, prime time program.

Even as officials rein in the news media, policies to promote the digital economy have created new potential space.

Since 2003, however, the government has progressively closed off the loopholes that traditional media have been able to exploit. In 2004, for example, the Party leadership issued a ban on the practice of cross-regional reporting, whereby media from one city or province (where they have the most to fear from their local leaders and official censors) do investigative reporting in other jurisdictions. This prohibition had an appreciable impact on investigative reporting, even though some media still managed to slip reports past official censorship. Beginning around 2005, the government augmented its system of cautionary missives and bans with a more rigorous system of internal censorship, in which censors were placed directly inside more outspoken newspapers and magazines.

For journalists, the period after the heyday of 2003 has been a constant uphill struggle. Those who thought China's new leader, Xi Jinping, might bring a long-awaited thaw after he took power in 2012 have been sorely disappointed. Instead, political pressure on traditional media has intensified across the board, with new restrictions on the Internet and social media to boot.

In the face of the clampdown on in-depth journalism and the decline of the print media, scores of veteran investigative journalists have moved on to other ventures. Luo Changping, a senior editor at Caijing magazine, turned to the Internet to expose the dubious financial dealings of Liu Tienan, then deputy head of a powerful economic policy body, the National Development and Reform Commission. Soon after, his editors were forced to transfer him from the newsroom to a peripheral research post. Rather than be sidelined, he decided to leave Caijing. Luo, who subsequently won an Integrity Award from Transparency International, has now launched a consumer-related online media site in collaboration with OKO-Test, a German product testing and review firm.

In the face of the clampdown, scores of veteran investigative journalists have moved on to other ventures.

Other reporters who have left traditional media to explore new opportunities. Zhao Hejuan quit newsmagazine Caixin in 2012 to launch TMT Post, an online site covering technology, media, and telecommunications. Zhao is best known for her investigative series exposing corruption in the telecommunications industry, and for her report on an orphan trafficking ring. There is also Zuo Zhijian, a noted investigative reporter and director of the news department at 21st Century Business Herald, who has launched two digital companies - an e-reading app, and a platform for personal finance management. Zuo achieved renown as a journalist with his exposé on malpractice at the Shanghai Security Fund.

Many other journalists have applied their expertise to organizing public-interest campaigns. Deng Fei, formerly a top reporter at the Shenzhen-based Phoenix Weekly, now works full time on social causes, such as combatting child trafficking and providing school lunches in poorer rural areas. Wang Keqin, once the doyen of Chinese investigative reporting, best known for his investigation of the taxi industry in Beijing, has become an advocate for workers suffering from pneumoconiosis, also known as black-lung disease, caused by exposure to industrial dust in the workplace.

Investigative Journalism on China: NYT, Bloomberg, FT, and WSJ

Even as Chinese media have found it increasingly difficult to pursue in-depth or investigative stories, international media have broken new ground in their own reporting on China. In classic follow-the-money fashion, they have worked to expose the financial wealth and connections among China's top leaders and their close relatives. On March 29, 2010, the Financial Times pioneered the genre in an article called, "China: To the Money Born." The report focused on the dominant role played by the children of senior Chinese leaders in the country's hedge fund business. In November 2011, the Wall Street Journal followed suit with a report called " Children of the Revolution." The next year, in a package called " Revolution to Riches," Bloomberg News mapped wealth connections among China's top leaders. The foreign reporting bombshell came with a package of stories at the New York Times by David Barboza, focusing on the family wealth of then-premier Wen Jiabao. These stories and others provoked the ire of Chinese officials. In 2012, in the aftermath of these stories, China's Internet censors blocked the websites of the New York Times, which remain blocked to this day.

An Axed Story at Bloomberg

While international media are pursuing investigative reporting on China, they also have commercial considerations. In November 2013, top executives at Bloomberg News, one of the world's most powerful media organizations, axed an investigative series on the richest man in China, after the story had been cleared by top editors and company lawyers. Five months later, Peter Grauer, Chairman of Bloomberg LP, disclosed in a talk at Asia Society in Hong Kong that the company should have "reconsidered articles that deviated from its core of coverage of business news, because they jeopardized the huge sales potential for its products in the Chinese market."

International Collaboration: ICIJ

If reporting by Chinese media carries immense risk, and if the endeavors of international media threaten huge financial costs, what is the route forward for investigative reporting on China? The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) provided one answer with a series of cross-border collaborative projects, including the Panama Papers and Offshore Leaks. Both are projects with global scope, involving hundreds of journalists in dozens of countries. In Offshore Leaks, ICIJ obtained a list of nearly 22,000 offshore clients held by persons with addresses in mainland China and Hong Kong. These documents have still not given up all of their secrets, but journalists have already identified offshore accounts in known tax havens such as the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands, linked to some of China's most powerful individuals - including members of the country's parliament and executives from state-owned companies.

While ICIJ was careful to emphasize that it implied no wrongdoing on the part of the offshore account holders highlighted in its work, these investigations nonetheless pointed to serious questions of transparency and accountability in a country that has yet to enact legal provisions mandating disclosure of assets by government officials, who with impunity can shield their assets from detection.

Rich Resources for Reporting

The ICIJ stories point to new models of globalized reporting that help to marshall strength and hedge the risks of undertaking sensitive investigative stories. While ICIJ provided the data, the research, and security protocol, local media organizations offered local knowledge to create the synergy needed to conduct massive in-depth projects on a global scale. They also point the way to the new reporting opportunities offered by ever-more abundant caches of data and information in an era of global digitization. For the enterprising reporter - or group of networked reporters - extensive public records now available about Chinese companies and individuals offer an embarrassment of riches. These include regulatory filings and initial public offering statements, company reports (including those in Hong Kong and mainland China), land registries, court case filings, and other materials. Contrary to the general view that China's government holds any and all information close, official government websites often offer valuable information that can help journalists along on their trails of inquiry.

Among the most important sites is the official website of the Chinese Communist Party, which gives information on the travel itinerary of senior leaders, items on the agenda at top-level meetings, and personnel changes at various government ministries. Another website of significance is that of the Party's Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection (CCDI), the most senior body tasked with combating corruption and malfeasance in the party. By scraping the data from the CCDI site, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post was able to produce a multimedia package called " Tigers and Flies" that visualized the extensive graft probes undertaken under President Xi. The data-driven piece showed how the campaign has intensified dramatically since early 2014, spreading geographically across China. By focusing on 690 cases posted to the CCDI site, the newspaper was also able to trace the political lineage and interest networks (or guanxi) of senior and junior leaders, referred to in Chinese as "tigers and flies" who have been brought down across China. Eight months later, Chinafile of the Asia Society used the data from the same CCDI site to produce a visualization project to track corrupt officials.

Another official site that offers useful information is that of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, which provides extensive data gleaned from real-time monitoring of air and water quality on both a national and local level. To some extent, Chinese are already tapping into these rich information deposits. Domestic non-profit organizations and individuals have been able to generate reports using data from official websites. Ma Jun, one of China's foremost environmental advocates, has created his own interactive site tracking the state of water pollution in the country. The site allows visitors to search data for their own geographic areas, or for their own research or reporting. A host of other stories can be discovered, deepened, and illuminated through data and information released by various ministries on their portals - in large part because of the government's effort in promoting greater transparency as manifest official policy over the past decade.

Why Covering China Is Important

Domestically, investigative reporting in China is in a sorry state. We can scarcely point to a time over the past two decades when media were under such draconian restrictions. The sense of fear among journalists is palpable. Taking a longer view, however, investigative journalism on China - much of which we can still hope will be undertaken by Chinese - is in a state of transition; it has become more dispersed and globalized, with endless opportunities offered by rich online data and information.

Covering China in the digital age requires team work, a cross-disciplinary approach, cross-border collaboration, and core journalistic skills.

In China, investigative journalism has played a critical role in exposing wrongs and monitoring the powerful. As the country becomes more integrated into the global economy, and as Chinese companies expand overseas, covering China is more urgent and important than ever. Doing so in-depth in the digital and global age requires team work, a cross-disciplinary approach, and cross-border collaboration in addition to traditional journalistic core skills of reporting, writing, and critical thinking, plus the ability to deliver on all platforms: print, video, online, and mobile. In China, as in the West, the era of the lone reporter hero may be over, while technological advancement has armed journalists with tools to analyze and visualize massive amounts of data that have become increasingly available. While Chinese journalists lament the demise of investigative journalism in China, the genre may yet rise again, as good journalism would in the end serve the purpose of government transparency and accountability.
Ying Chan is Honorary Professor at the University of Hong Kong, GIJN consulting editor, and a founding member of the International Consortium for Investigative Journalists. She is an educator who created two journalism schools as founding director (1999-2016) of the University of Hong Kong's Journalism and Media Studies Centre and founding dean (2003-2010) of China's School of Journalism and Communication at Shantou University.

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China: Investigative Journalism Struggles but Survives

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Investigative journalism in China, which enjoyed a period of vitality from the mid-1990s to around 2013, is struggling to survive today as the government steps up its control of traditional and digital media. In recent years, a government crackdown has driven an exodus of veteran investigative journalists from the news media.

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With China's press becoming more market-oriented, journalists are reporting more aggressively on crime and corruption-and are facing violent retribution for their work as a result. A Special Report by Sophie Beach...

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The period from the mid-1990s to roughly the mid-2000s was a golden era for Chinese journalists. Now, however, many of the (still young) old guard have deserted, leaving inexperience in their wake.

Two years ago in Hong Kong, I sat around a conference table with some of the finest journalists to have worked in the Chinese media in the past two decades. Left and right of me were reporters who had broken major stories of corruption, malfeasance and cruelty, and who had, in the process, shaped the contemporary history of Chinese journalism - a history in which, from time to time, a broader notion of the public interest won out against the narrow interests of the Party-state.

Now, however, all of them were busy with start-ups ( "innovation" being the buzzword of the day) having little or nothing to do with journalism. The low point for me came when one seasoned former reporter said with some bitterness: "I no longer think of myself as a journalist at all."

Over the past few years, it has become increasingly clear that much of the experience the journalism profession in China has gained since the 1990s is being hollowed out by deeper economic, political and technological shifts in the media industry.

Many factors have driven an exodus of older talent from China's media, from poor pay and the digital transformation of the industry -  now hitting traditional Chinese media that for many years had seemed protected from the storms buffeting media elsewhere in the world - to the vagaries of censorship, which can sap the professional spirit. But the net effect of this shift is the progressive loss of professional journalism capacity in China's media.

That capacity could take many long years to rebuild, particularly if the stringent controls we've seen under President Xi Jinping continue into the next decade, leaving few stories on which journalists can cut their teeth.

Falling pay (relative to cost of living) and rising pressure mean the entire journalism profession is skewing younger in China. A 2016 survey by PR Newswire showed that more than 80 percent of the "front-line journalists" reporting the news in China were born after 1985, meaning they were 30 years old or younger. By contrast, a survey of journalists in the U.S., conducted in 2013 by the School of Journalism at Indiana University, showed the median age had risen from 41 to 47 since 2002.

Just over 80 percent of the Chinese journalists surveyed for the PR Newswire study - 1,477 in all - reported monthly income below 10,000 yuan, or 1,450 dollars. To put these numbers in perspective, this means incomes for Chinese journalists haven't budged from a decade ago, when Chinese media were heading toward the tail end of what had been a "golden decade" of journalism development, and when housing prices and other costs in major cities were a fraction of what they are today.

Last month, the youthfulness of China's journalists became a topic of renewed debate on social media in China after former FT China editor-in-chief Zhang Lifen (张力奋) said at the Bo'ao Forum for Asia Annual Conference that while the journalism profession anywhere in the world must rely on cumulative experience, journalists in China treat the job as a "young rice bowl" profession - in other words, as something to be endured only for a few years early in a career before one moves on to a job with real pay and a real future.

Zhang noted how, during coverage of the annual National People's Congress that same month, many young Chinese journalists had become distracted from the story at hand, pulling delegates (some of whom are celebrities) aside to pose for selfies. "Watching them, old journalists like us thought on the one hand that they were just having fun," said Zhang, "but on the other hand that this was really not how journalists should behave."

Is Chinese journalism, on top of all of its other problems, plagued with youth and inexperience?

These questions about journalism in China as a "young rice bowl" profession have been kicked around for a number of years now. Following the disappearance in March 2014 of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, a story that drew intense interest in China, many internet users were appalled by the inability of Chinese journalists to get valuable scoops like those reported by the likes of CNN, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Columnist Sun Letao (孙乐涛), writing for the Guangzhou-based Time Weekly, noted that youth and inexperience in the media had become evident on a number of stories that spring:

The MH370 incident just happened to coincide with the two meetings [of the National People's Congress and the CPPCC], generally a yearly highlight for serious traditional media. And what audiences witnessed were great numbers of young reporters, looking like they had just stepped out of college . . . diligently and firmly waving down delegates and stopping representatives to ask the same stereotyped questions, and writing the same stereotyped reports.

For Sun and many others, the failure of Chinese media to compete in reporting the MH370 incident, a story of core interest to the domestic audience, exposed the callowness and incompetence of the country's journalists. These were not just days of disaster for the aviation world - they were "days of disaster for Chinese media."

These "days of disaster" have persisted since 2014, as Chinese media have remained virtually silent on major breaking stories of the kind that in years past might have drawn more aggressive coverage. During this period, only the Tianjin explosions in August 2015 have offered a truly notable exception to the lull in quality reporting by China's domestic media. The explosions were a story of such immense scale, unfolding in a highly populated urban area, that coverage was impossible to quell entirely.

While broader political and industry trends are no doubt having an effect on the staying power of older professionals in the media, some point out that there is also a pre-existing bias toward younger professionals in hiring for media jobs. Many media in China, old and new, routinely advertise journalism jobs by prioritizing applicants "under the age of 35."

In the wake of the comments by former FT China editor-in-chief Zhang Lifen, an article on a WeChat public account shared screenshots of a recent job placement from the Chengdu Evening News, a major commercial newspaper in Sichuan province, which was looking to hire 23 reporters, all "under the age of 35," as well as six commentary writers "under the age of 40."

Using age as a hiring standard, said the WeChat article, might seem understandable given the fiercely competitive nature of the news profession, which sometimes requires late or unpredictable shifts to cover breaking stories, or to get print editions out the door. The pressures of the media workplace can demand a great deal of journalists, and younger staff are better equipped - or so the argument goes-to handle that pressure.

Even if all of the above were true - and there are plenty of arguments against - energy is no substitute for experience. If better, more professional reporting is the desired outcome, young journalists need the benefit of working with older and more seasoned colleagues.

The discussion inside China of the reasons for journalism's flagging appeal among older - even just slightly older - professionals tends not to dwell on censorship, the elephant in the room. But the fact is that media controls, now more stringent and more effective than at any time in the past two decades, have a constraining effect on all aspects of the profession.

The Chinese Communist Party has no interest, ultimately, in more professional reporting. As President Xi Jinping emphasized in his speech on media policy in February 2016, the media must " sing the main theme and transmit positive energy " (唱响主旋律, 传播正能量). They must, in other words, be obedient servants of the Party and its objectives.

All three of the reasons cited in the recent WeChat article for journalism becoming a "young rice bowl" profession in China - poor pay, health and well-being, and murky future prospects - might be resolved if the industry was permitted to develop with a sense of professional purpose. The article, however, could only hint at this underlying malaise. "Before, we called journalists the 'uncrowned kings,'" it said. "Now, they are just the temp workers of journalism."

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For Journalism in China, a Millennial Shift - China Media Project - Medium

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The period from the mid-1990s to roughly the mid-2000s was a golden era for Chinese journalists. Now, however, many of the (still young) old guard have deserted, leaving inexperience in their wake. Two years ago in Hong Kong, I sat around a conference table with some of the finest journalists to have worked in the Chinese media in the past two decades.

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When a 7.9-magnitude earthquake ripped through Sichuan province in May 2008, Lin Tianhong, a 29-year-old reporter at China Youth Daily, was one of the first to volunteer to head into the disaster zone.

"Everyone wanted to go," he recalled. "Otherwise, why be a journalist?"

Hours later the Beijing-based reporter was flying towards Sichuan's shattered countryside for what would be one of the most horrifying and defining moments of his short career in journalism.

For the next two weeks Lin trawled the disaster zone writing a series of devastating frontline dispatches. One article, Back Home, told the story of a couple who carried the corpse of their teenage son, Cheng Lei, home for burial after digging him from the rubble of his six-storey school.

"His mother wanted to put new clothes on him, but Cheng Lei's body had grown stiff," the journalist wrote. "The couple knelt before his corpse, stroking his hands and feet, calling out his name over and over again."

The heart-wrenching article earned Lin the respect of his editors and the adulation of a generation of Chinese reporters. But fast-forward seven years and the former high-flier has abandoned his notepad and pen and given up on journalism.

"Boredom," says Lin, who now works in PR on the 19th floor of Beijing's World Profit Center, when asked to explain his decision. "One day I woke up in the morning [and] asked myself: do you still think it is fun doing the same thing over and over again each day?"

Beijing's decision to expel the French journalist Ursula Gauthier in December has thrust the dispiriting situation facing foreign correspondents in China into the headlines. But Chinese journalists are facing far greater challenges - and many reporters are simply turning their back on the profession as a result.

David Bandurski, an expert on Chinese journalism from the University of Hong Kong, said an exodus was now under way from the country's newspapers as talented young journalists decided there was no future in the profession.

"We have reporters in their 30s and 40s who generally would be at the height of their professional careers in journalism who have left," he said. "The mood is quite dismal right now in China's media."

Experts say two key factors are driving the hollowing out of Chinese newsrooms. One is the increasingly bleak financial situation facing newspapers as they struggle to adapt to the digital age. The other is the ever greater constraints being placed by President Xi Jinping's increasingly authoritarian Communist party on what can and cannot be reported.

"It's really a kind of double whammy," said Bandurski, who traces the current political chill to Xi's rise to power in late 2012.

Since Xi became leader, Beijing has launched an all-out assault on freedom of expression, jailing journalists, bloggers and outspoken civil rights lawyers such as Pu Zhiqiang, who was recently convicted for sending seven sarcastic tweets.

In one of the most notorious cases a 70-year-old journalist, Gao Yu, was jailed for leaking state secrets after she allegedly passed an internal Communist party document to the foreign media.

Another journalist, Wang Xiaolu, a business reporter for one of China's top financial magazines, was arrested and forced to make a televised "confession" for writing a story about last year's stock market turmoil.

China fell one place in last year's Reporters Without Borders press freedom ranking and now occupies 176th position out of 180 countries.

Lin, who now works for a film company run by the billionaire Jack Ma 's Alibaba group, denied politics were behind his decision to quit journalism, instead pointing to the dwindling readership and influence of Chinese newspapers. "Nowadays, nobody reads your stories," he said. "Nowadays, readers are all living inside their smartphones or inside WeChat."

Chinese police push away journalists and supporters of the human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang outside a Beijing court in December 2015

But his frustration with censorship was evident in a blogpost in 2014 when he lashed out at the destruction of Southern Weekly, the once respected liberal broadsheet that he said had inspired him to become a journalist.

"All these years, people like us have seen our articles killed and our voices silenced, and we've started to get used to it. We started to make compromises and to censor ourselves," Lin reportedly wrote at the time. "We've gone too far, as if we have forgotten why we had chosen this industry to begin with."

Despite such problems Lin, who resigned from his last journalism job in April 2014, said it was still possible to write worthwhile journalism in China. "It's just like a person has 10 fingers. There is one finger you can't use but the other nine all work. There is one story you can't write but there are still nine others you can."

Asked what the 10th finger was, Lin laughed. "It's the same for you," he replied. "I guess I don't need to say it out loud."

Other young journalists are far less optimistic. "Being a journalist has no meaning any more," said a thirtysomething editor from one of China's leading news organisations. "My greatest feeling is that in recent years the industry's freedoms have reached their lowest ebb in history."

Before the Xi Jinping era, editors at least had the autonomy to choose their own headlines, the journalist complained. Now newspapers and websites were forced to conform to a tedious monotony of praise for China's Communist leaders. "The top headline must [always] be about Xi Jinping and the second must be about [prime minister] Li Keqiang," the editor said. "If you read one website, you have read them all."

Bandurski, the author of a book on investigative reporting in China, said the Xi administration's growing intolerance of critical reporting was becoming clearer by the month.

In the past, Chinese newspapers endured six-month-long government crackdowns in silence but would emerge from those periods by publishing a powerful investigative report or exposé. "We are not seeing those kind of examples any more," the academic said. "We are seeing much more silence."

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Posters of books about Chinese politics, including President Xi Jinping (centre), on display outside a Hong Kong bookshop. Photograph: Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty Images

Newspapers or websites that still tried to push the boundaries found themselves slapped back into line. A recent investigation into the social and environmental cost of the Three Gorges Dam by Shanghai's The Paper was pulled off the internet after seven hours.

"The winter has turned into an ice age in terms of media," Bandurski said. "For investigative reporting it has worsened steadily since 2005 and then of course the Olympics was a tough time. But since 2012 under Xi it has just gotten much, much worse."

Lin, who has a three-year-old son, said he had no regrets over his decision to abandon an industry whose days were numbered. "Chinese media is a disaster now. Even if these talented people stayed, what could they do?" he said of the ongoing exodus of young reporters.

After more than a decade in the business, the editor, who declined to be named for fear of reprisals, said he was also on the verge of resigning. "Freedom is very important - it is the most important thing - but we don't have it in China, especially in journalism," he said.

"You can't write what you want. You can't interview who you want. And even if you do, you can't publish it. Working in the Chinese media feels like you are wasting your life."
Additional reporting by Christy Yao

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China's young reporters give up on journalism: 'You can't write what you want'

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When a 7.9-magnitude earthquake ripped through Sichuan province in May 2008, Lin Tianhong, a 29-year-old reporter at China Youth Daily, was one of the first to volunteer to head into the disaster zone. "Everyone wanted to go," he recalled. "Otherwise, why be a journalist?"

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最悲凉的记者节！京华停刊，纸媒已死？

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最悲凉的记者节！京华停刊，纸媒已死？-搜狐

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来源投资界（ID：pedaily2012）文|李丽花（Echo）导读：就在记者节前一日，京华时报正式宣告元旦停刊，风行京城15年的纸媒巨头即将成烟云。纸媒崩盘、

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纸媒业衰弱后，我们距全民阅读时代还有多远？

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当今时代，快节奏的生活方式让越来越多的人习惯了"快文化"，传统的阅读方式已经无法满足人们对时效和多样选择的需求，也正是在这种社会背景下，纸媒业开始走下坡路。但纸媒的衰败并不意味着阅读时代的终结，阅读作为传承历史和文化重要学习途径，是国民素质和经济发展水平的体现，它具有极大的不可替代性。也正是因为这一点，阅读习惯的培养也深受国家及政府的重视。

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新媒体来了，传统媒体到底衰落了什么？ - iDoNews

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2015年可以说是各种概念井喷的一年，新媒体、自媒体、共享经济、众包新闻、互联网思维、众筹、互联网金融、网红经济、互联网+以及O2O等等，当然还有我正在研究的社群电商。似乎所有可以想到的概念，在过去的一年里都被翻炒烂了，未来的一年我们还能讨论些什么?

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中国报业2016发展报告（完整版）

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中国报业2016发展报告（完整版）_报业转型_传送门

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报业的传播能力通过媒体融合获得较大提升，赢利能力依靠多元产业效果初显。转型中，报纸，以及以报纸为主体的报业在国家舆论格局中的角色、地位、职能，都将迎来突破性变革。全文较长，可关注收藏后静心阅读。

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中国人喊纸媒已死 美国纸媒在干啥？_网易财经

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中国人喊纸媒已死 美国纸媒在干啥？ 中国人,纸媒,已死,美国纸媒

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报告 | 展望2016中国媒体：新媒体进一步抢夺传统媒体市场 | 麦迪逊邦

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2015年，中国 GDP 增长率自1990年以来首次破七，为6.9%；经济界预计2016年GDP增长率为6.7%，可见中国整体经济增速放缓，下行压力大。在经济新常态下，消费却在走强，消费成为经济的主导因素，其占 GDP 的比重不断扩大，由2014年占 GDP 的51.4%，到2015 年上升到66.4%；社会消费品零售总额也持续快速增长，对 GDP ...

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Have you as an entrepreneur, business owner, student or consumer asked yourself, "how do I keep up in today's fast-paced economy?" With many things trending one day and dead the next, it's important that we evolve with these changes and accept the fact that things change whether we like it or not. The same can be said regarding media.

The Internet has molded the way we are as consumers, allowing us the ability to find things in a matter of seconds. At the same time, traditional media still remains an integral part in our lives, allowing us to watch what we want, when we want. As an advertiser, it's pertinent that we find and maintain a balance between both types of media.

Although new media has taken its grasp on America, traditional media is still an important means of communication to consumers. Let's take a closer look at the two, and the effects they have on us as consumers.

What is Traditional Media?

Traditional media, or as some refer to as old media, has been used in the marketing/advertising world for years. When related to advertising, traditional media encompasses that of television, newspaper, radio and magazine ads. These forms of communication are the steadfast ways that businesses have reached both consumers and other companies for decades. They are the roots of advertising and the most common form utilized by businesses on a daily basis. Though traditional media is effective, over the course of the last few years we have seen more and more businesses utilizing new media to reach its target audiences.

What is New Media?

New media is the future of advertising. More and more consumers and businesses rely on new media to find their information. Ultimately, new media refers to content that is easily accessible via many different forms of digital media. When related to advertising, some examples of new media include online advertising (retargeting, banner ads, etc.), online streaming (radio and television) and social media advertising. Each of these are means in which businesses have the capability to reach consumers and other businesses with ease.

Effect of Traditional and New Media on Consumers

As consumers, we sometimes find ourselves in a conundrum when it comes to how get our information. Now-a-day, more and more consumers use the internet to quickly find information, making new media advertising pertinent for any type of business. However, at the same time, consumers still take a good chunk of time out of their day to use traditional media. On the way to work we have our radios playing, at home we have the television on watching the news, and at the doctor's office we find ourselves reading the magazine on the end table next to us. Each of these are forms of traditional advertising that we use on a daily basis.

As consumers, we may also find that there are instances when we multitask each day. Take it from experience, there are many times when I'll be at home watching television and at the same time I'll be on my tablet looking up the next vacation I'm going to take. It's at these times that as an advertiser you need to decide where the best place to put your money will be. Is it going to be running an ad on that television show that I'm watching, or is it going to be online while I'm surfing the web? For advertisers, it's important to find that balancing act and not to strictly choose one over the other, but to weigh all the options, and find a harmonious mix between both traditional and new media.

Finding the Equilibrium

The million dollar question is this - how do we find this equilibrium between a world of traditional and new media? For starters, although traditional advertising is important for businesses to effectively reach mass consumers, I highly recommend finding a way to inject a type of new media into all media campaigns.

Traditional media tends to be a bit more expensive than new media, but it also has the ability to reach a broad target audience. If the ultimate goal of the business is to reach a broad range of people, this is definitely the way to go. If you want to target a more narrow audience, then new media may be the way to go.

New media is changing the overall media landscape. New media allows businesses to target ads more specifically to consumers based on their age, gender, marital status, etc. It also allows businesses the ability to track what these consumers are doing and how they end up on your website. All of these reasons make new media imperative to any media campaign.

There are ways that traditional media can be tracked, but sometimes we ask ourselves is the ad targeting the people we really should be targeting? New media allows us to get this data and analyze our target audience. From there, we may have a better understanding of where traditional media dollars should be spent.

All-in-all, the key to a successful media campaign is to have a well-balanced mix of media that ultimately targets your businesses audience. It's important to not waste advertising dollars on media that won't be effective. Take the time to analyze your business's marketing plan and target audiences and ask yourself what types of media can be used to reach these consumers. Overall, utilizing a mix of the two has proved beneficial for a variety of our clients over the past few years.

Final Thoughts

When deciding between traditional and new media, it's all about finding equilibrium. For some businesses traditional media may not be the right choice and new media is. For other businesses it very well may be the opposite. As a media guru, I encourage each business that I work with to see both sides of the spectrum and to know that there is always a way to reach the end consumer. Just because traditional media has tested the tides of time, doesn't mean that new media won't outlast. Next time you plan your media attack, analyze all options and decide what will work best.

If you're having trouble striking a good balance between new and traditional media or could use some advice on what options are right for your business, we would be happy to help. Give us a call at 701-478-1111 and ask to speak with a Marketing Advisor or visit absolutemg.com/contact. We have the expertise needed to develop a custom media plan to fit your needs.

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Traditional vs. New Media: The Balancing Effect | Absolute Marketing Group

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Have you as an entrepreneur, business owner, student or consumer asked yourself, "how do I keep up in today's fast-paced economy?" With many things trending one day and dead the next, it's important that we evolve with these changes and accept the fact that things change whether we like it or not.

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尼尔森最新报告：谁说纸媒已死？

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听过"纸媒已死"这个说法吧？但如果你问问美国人民，可能有1.7亿人会告诉你"纸媒已死"的说法并非真相。事实上，最近尼尔森Scarborough的一项研究发现，美国有超过1.69亿的成年人在一个月内阅读过报纸--无论是传统报纸、网站上或通过移动App。在一个月内，接触报纸总数达到了美国人口的69％。

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Back in the 20th century, when print media was still enjoying a long, rich golden age, war correspondents were rock stars. Legendary figures such as Martha Gelhorn, who reported on the Second World War and Vietnam, and George Polk, who was murdered while covering the Greek civil war in the 1940s, brought news of faraway, conflict-torn places to an eager reading public – and became heroes in the process.

Today, it's unlikely you know the name of many, or any, war correspondents working in print. Instead, today's rock star print journalists – if there can be said to be any – tend to be the "talking head" columnists, who deliver readers a weekly slice of their lives and rarely venture anywhere more dangerous than the local organic juice store.

That's in large part because of fundamental shifts in the way we learn about what's happening in the world. Newspapers, of course, were superseded by television – and so became less about news and more about comment and entertainment. And now, TV is being superseded by the net. The way we learn about what's happening in the world is, again, undergoing fundamental change.

Want a glimpse of how this new world may look in 10 years time? Take a look at the work of Vice Media's Tim Pool, who made headlines in June when he used Google Glass – the internet-enabled glasses that Google will soon release to the public – to live-stream footage from the Istanbul protests. Tens of thousands logged on to see what Pool could see as he made his way through the thick of the crowd: the result was a thrilling, immersive take on the protest unlike anything else out there: "Some people have told me that it's like journalism video-gaming: an open window into what's going on," said Pool.

Before Pool started working for Vice he was a freelancer and had already racked up great success with live streams from other headline news events. Pool says that at its peak, his live stream of the Occupy Wall Street protests in NYC had 750,000 viewers. He also broadcast from Cairo in 2011.

So what? Well, Pool's success as an independent is noteworthy because it points the way to a future for the way we consume – and gather – our news.

The key question is this: what happens when connected, wearable devices such as Google Glass are so cheap that almost everyone has one? Then, any one of us will be able to become live-stream journalists whenever we want. G8 visiting your hometown? Stuck in a traffic jam filing past a road accident? Protest erupted in your city? Live-stream it.

It's already commonplace to talk about citizen journalism: the new era we inhabit, in which anyone with an internet connection can be a reporter. But the real golden age of citizen journalism will arrive, surely, when millions of ordinary people are fitted out with wearable devices such as Google Glass. How much richer would be our view of, say, the war in Syria if we had access to a vast number of live streams, direct from the conflict?

Soon enough, much of our news really will be peer-to-peer: a conversation between ordinary people. And when that day comes, the world will have even less use for the old-fashioned news reporter than it does now. But we shouldn't ever forget: seeing doesn't always mean understanding.
David Mattin is the lead strategist at trendwatching.com
For more trends go to www.thenational.ae/trends
artslife@thenational.ae
Follow us @LifeNationalUAE

And follow us on Facebook for discussions, entertainment, reviews, wellness and news.

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Trend: Live-streaming journalism will be a peer-to-peer revolution | The National

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Back in the 20th century, when print media was still enjoying a long, rich golden age, war correspondents were rock stars. Legendary figures such as Martha Gelhorn, who reported on the Second World War and Vietnam, and George Polk, who was murdered while covering the Greek civil war in the 1940s, brought news of faraway, conflict-torn places to an eager reading public - and became heroes in the process.

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According to Brad Hunstable, the CEO and co-founder of video streaming company Ustream, 2015 is "the year of video."

"Video is increasingly taking over the Internet," Hunstable recently told the International Business Times.

From short Vine clips to high-quality documentaries, journalists and newsrooms are in on the video craze. Live streaming, used mainly by citizen journalists in past years, is now widely welcomed by larger media companies as a way to give first-person, highly scalable video accounts of major news events.

In December, ABC News launched GoStream, which allows the network's journalists in the field to send raw video to ABC News through an app, which is then disseminated through streams.

Live streaming isn't a wildly advanced technology; you need little more than a camera with a data connection to get off the ground. Citizen journalists often use a mobile or tablet device. For more high quality video, an HDMI digital camera can be used. You'll also need an Internet connection--the speed of which varies depending on the system you use.

To get your videos out to the world, whether breaking news or studio events, a number of live-streaming tools are available, which vary in their cost and features. Here is an overview of some of the top tools being used by journalists, from citizens to newsrooms.

: Citizen journalists and activists around the globe have long used the popular cloud-based streaming video platform as a communications vehicle, via apps on mobile devices. Most recently, Ustream live streamer Bassem Masri became a social media star during the November protests in Ferguson, Missouri. Ustream offers a number of free options, including for mobile and desktop. To learn about the basics of video streaming production on Ustream, click here. You can sign up for a free 30-day trial before subscribing to a Pro plan. Monthly pro plans begin at US$99.

: Another key player in the live streaming space, Livestream offers tools and products for broadcasting events on any device. You can go live in HD for free with Livestream Producer, mobile apps, and Google Glass. To broadcast more sophisticated events, you can create a free trial account, with plans beginning at US$42/month. Livestream has widely been used to broadcast chats and events in the journalism space, such as by U.S. local news networks, popular VICE reporter Tim Pool, Columbia Journalism School and more.

: Designed for streaming from breaking news events, this free mobile streaming app (available for iOS and Android) was developed by NBC News Digital. Stringwire encourages users to become "citizen stringers," flagging their live video as eligible for an NBCUniversal news broadcast. NBC does not pay streamers, but the users are attributed whenever possible and own any content they personally shoot. NBC News is also encouraging its staff, especially field producers, to use the app.

: A basic, free-to-use service that lets users broadcast, watch and share live video through mobile phones and computers. The mobile app is currently available for iOS, Android, Nokia Maemo, Symbian, Bada and Windows Mobile platforms. Bambuser became well-known in recent years for its role in helping to mobilize citizen journalists across the Middle East during various periods of political uprisings. Since 2012, users of the Bambuser service have had the option to share their broadcasts with the Associated Press. The partnership enables The AP to use Bambuser as a source for user-generated content coming from citizen journalists. In addition to sharing the actual content, users are required to disclose some form of contact information so the AP can verify the video's authenticity and credit the owner.

Google Hangouts On Air/YouTube : With Hangouts On Air, you can broadcast live discussions and events to the world through your Google+ Home page and YouTube channel. To share a Hangout (which can be attended by up to 10 people), Google Hangouts On Air connects your Google Plus account to your YouTube account (both owned by Google), streaming through Google Plus. People can watch your Hangout while you are streaming, or by viewing the recording on your YouTube channel afterwards. For details on this option, as well as general live streaming tips, an overview of security concerns and other helpful hints, check out Video 4 Change's Citizen Journalist Guide to Live Streaming Video.
What are your favorite live-streaming tools? Let us know in the comments, on Twitter or Facebook. Image courtesy of Flickr user Eric Hersman under a Creative Commons license.

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Five live-streaming tools for journalists

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According to Brad Hunstable, the CEO and co-founder of video streaming company Ustream, 2015 is "the year of video." "Video is increasingly taking over the Internet," Hunstable recently told the International Business Times. From short Vine clips to high-quality documentaries, journalists and newsrooms are in on the video craze.

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Livestreaming apps are nothing new, but as smartphone cameras and internet connectivity have increased, as have the possibilities to broadcast straight from mobile.

Twitter launched their new livestreaming app Periscope today, and add to that the success of Meerkat, a new app which - for better or worse - has burst onto the tech scene in recent weeks, the prospects for a new, democratised era of broadcasting could be on the horizon.

For journalists and news organisations this means more options to report from news events and interact with the audience in real-time, but the development also increases the chances of citizen journalists playing a greater role in the news.

So here are five livestreaming apps worth checking out, for the casual user all the way up to the seasoned pro.

Periscope

Engadget is already calling Twitter's offering "the best livestreaming app yet" and, as the newest, it does offer a number of improvements over its competitors.

After signing in with Twitter and choosing to follow (or not) a selection of contacts and popular accounts, users are given three options.

The 'watch' section supplies a seemingly random selection of livestreams and the choice to view recent saved broadcasts from people you follow. Click on a stream and you can leave comments and 'heart' a stream by tapping the screen.

The 'people' section lets you manage who you are connected with and find popular accounts, but the central broadcast button is the business end.

Before shooting you can name the broadcast, choose whether to leave it public or make it private for selected followers, and toggle the tweet share and geolocation options.

The streaming is smooth but limited to portrait only - the desktop view is slickly responsive, adjusting to the browser window.

Once the broadcast is over you're given some immediate stats on the number of viewers, hearts, comments and cumulative minutes the broadcast received, plus the option to delete the video from public view.

Where Periscope could really stand out for newsrooms, compared to Meerkat, is in the geolocation function.

Subsidiary apps and tools have sprung up around Twitter and Instagram to help people locate images and no doubt the same will happen soon with Periscope, if Twitter don't get there first, letting newsrooms search for streams around news events anywhere in the world.

Pros: geolocation, slick interface, "like" option, private streams, autosave, responsive viewing on desktop

Cons: Direct shares to Twitter only

Screengrabs from before and after broadcasting in Periscope.

Meerkat

Meerkat founder Ben Rubin has become the de facto face of the livestreaming revolution, appearing on television, radio and stage to promote his business and the possibilities it brings.

But despite Meerkat's (intial) popular appeal and smart marketing, it has a number of limitations in terms of its actual functionality.

Signing in with Twitter, users can connect to contacts on Twitter and watch current livestreams. There is also the option to schedule a livestream for some point in the next 24 hours or start streaming immediately.

Filming itself is optimised for portrait view, however, and even when a user switches to shoot in landscape the broadcast will still appear as portrait to the viewer, while cropping the edges of the picture.

What's more, Meerkat zooms in on a seemingly arbitrary segment of the video when viewed on desktop, rendering the stream all but unwatchable. Meerkat streams are not saved within the app either, although you are given the option to download a video to camera roll afterwards.

Twitter recently turned off its social graph for Meerkat - that which allows the app to piggyback on its social network - but with $12m (£8m) in funding announced today for the month old app they should be able to work through any teething problems with relative ease.

It has also already been used by citizen journalists, if only in recording a particularly surly officer of the law in Los Angeles, but there will doubtless be more cases if there have not been already. simple, easy to use, scheduled broadcasts, large and social userbase already

Cons: almost unwatchable on desktop, portrait only, Twitter only, no autosave, no geolocation

Stre.am

Stre.am has more social options than Periscope and Meerkat, integrating with Facebook and Google+ as well as Twitter, and a few other features, but limitations too.

There's an activity feed for people you follow and a menu for current livestreams or saved 'reels'.

The same option of broadcasting or recording a reel is available in the filming mode, and reels are saved to the camera roll and posted in the app for 24 hours.

Options to save, share, enable the torch and enable geolcation are all available before and during the stream, and viewers can comment, like, share or flag streams.

At present there is no desktop viewing option whatsoever and filming is only in landscape, no doubt music to the ears of hardcore mobile journalists dismayed by the rise in portrait optimisation for mobile.

Interestingly, the chief technology officer of Stre.am's parent company Infinite Takes let slip on Twitter recently that he was working on a "standalone [social] network" for the app.

@ajreid @newmediajim @GabrielleNYC @MarcSettle @mashable 1 of many reasons why we're building a standalone soc. network for @streamwithadot.
- Jeremy Martin (@jmar777) March 16, 2015

Pros: geolocation, more social integration, live and recorded viewing

Cons: no desktop view

Streaming options in the Stre.am app.

Livestream

Livestream has been around since 2007, almost as long as Twitter, so has built up a number of added options for professionals.

In a recent podcast for Journalism.co.uk, Tim Pool cited Livestream as his app of choice as the stream displays a live bit rate while broadcasting, allowing him to know whether he's still online or just talking into a dead camera.

Alongside the normal options to share the livestream, you can also adjust the focus, take snapshots and add Instagram-like filters to change how it is viewed.

The scheduling options are far more advanced that on other apps, offering design and "geoblocking" options for certain areas.

A big issue for broadcasters though is the sign up process for viewing on desktop - if you tweet a link to your livestream and an unregistered user follows it they will have to sign up.

This is not necessary on mobile however, where audiences invariably have less patience.

For broadcasters with more professional equipment, the app can connect to GoPro Hero cameras via bluetooth, DSLR cameras via FTP, or even to studio cameras

Pros: connect to other cameras, pro options, filters, scheduling, live and recorded viewing

Cons: must sign up to view on desktop

Ustream

Ustream also launched in 2007, and has a similar array of upgradeable options for producers and their channels including graphics, multiple cameras and more.

On mobile, it's easy to schedule or start broadcasts, and the app has a handy grid system to frame the shot, as well as sharing options for Twitter or Facebook.

The latency - the amount of delay between shooting and viewing - could prove to be an issue on mobile, however, especially when it cuts the video short at the end, meaning you either have to monitor the stream at the broadcast end to know when to stop filming, or leave a gap of anything upwards of 10 seconds to make sure the whole event was broadcast.

The prevalence of ads on the desktop view compared to the full browser may put some viewers off, and although the landscape filming makes for easy viewing, it is not responsive like Periscope.

Pros: shot framing grid, huge userbase, live and recorded viewing, scheduled broadcasts, professional options

Cons: ads, long delay on broadcast

Got any more tips or apps for livestreaming? Feel free to join the conversation in the comments below.

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5 livestreaming apps for journalists and newsrooms

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Livestreaming apps are nothing new, but as smartphone cameras and internet connectivity have increased, as have the possibilities to broadcast straight from mobile. Twitter launched their new livestreaming app Periscope today, and add to that the success of Meerkat, a new app which - for better or worse - has burst onto the tech scene in recent weeks, the prospects for a new, democratised era of broadcasting could be on the horizon.

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What does traditional TV station can learn from live stream?

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What does traditional TV station can learn from live stream?

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传统电视可从互联网直播借鉴到什么?-传统电视,互联网直播-广电行业-hc360慧聪网

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传统电视可从互联网直播借鉴到什么?-传统电视,互联网直播

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互联网直播时代来临：狂欢背后的阴影不容忽视_新闻频道_中华网

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作者 邓洲(中国社会科学院工业经济研究所副研究员) 　　近日，一款直播网络平台因出现全国多地学校的课堂直播画面而引发舆论争议。网络直播的底线与约束监管机制也成为大家讨论和关注的焦点

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Live streaming is not a new concept, but the success of next-generation live streaming applications like Periscope and Meerkat indicates that people are ready to embrace this new way of interacting. Some predict that "periscoping" will soon become a way of life for many. This new approach to information sharing has profound implications for journalists. Here's a look at the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The Good

Live streaming allows journalists to connect with their audience more easily and immediately than ever before. The process of production and the need for expensive equipment and pre-production planning are all but eliminated. When a story breaks, coverage can begin immediately and experts can weigh in from wherever they happen to be. Often, live streaming is designed for a "second" screen to augment more traditional TV broadcasts.

Although more advanced methods of measuring the impact of live streaming will develop along with the technologies themselves, there are some valuable data points available today. Today, most journalists and outlets are able to measure views, followers and engagement as a measure of the success of live streaming.

The Bad

Back in the old days, it took a lot to get yourself on TV, but just as the internet has made it possible for anyone to publish photos or written articles, live streaming makes it easy for anyone with a smart device and an internet connection to broadcast live video. In short, pretty much everyone can take on the role of journalist if they want to. This means that professional journalists will need to work harder than ever to add value to the content they publish. If they are reporting live from the scene of a news story, they must be aware that non-journalist bystanders are likely doing so as well. It is essential for journalists and outlets to earn the trust and attention of their audience well before the story breaks.

The (Potentially) Ugly

Getting the news out faster is a great benefit of live streaming, but it can also lead to disaster. Many of the checks and balances that prevent errors in reporting are absent when it comes to live streaming. As events and stories unfold instantly without giving sufficient time to synthesize information and compose quality work, journalists will have to adapt and learn what is essentially a new skill. Reporters have always had to balance the need to get information out quickly with the need to get it right, but with live streaming they'll be doing it in real-time and without a net.

Live streaming is one more example of how the internet's open access to information is shifting the responsibility of vetting the trustworthiness of information from producers and publishers to the consumers of information themselves. It behooves journalists to educating their audience on how to determine if a news source is credible and if a particular broadcast is likely to be accurate. The profession of journalism has no choice but to embrace new technology and welcome a new generation of social media apps based on live streaming, but journalists can work to do it responsibly in a way that brings more value, not more confusion to their audience.

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How Live Streaming Platforms Are Changing Journalism

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Live streaming is not a new concept, but the success of next-generation live streaming applications like Periscope and Meerkat indicates that people are ready to embrace this new way of interacting. Some predict that "periscoping" will soon become a way of life for many. This new approach to information sharing has profound implications for journalists.

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Twitter's launch of the live streaming app Periscope last March, was received with much enthusiasm by those who believe that it will empower reporting and citizen journalism.

Live streaming apps are not something new. Few months before Periscope's launch, Meerkat , another live-streaming app, was released to the market. Bambuser, which allows users to live stream videos from their mobile phones and webcam-equipped computers, has been available since 2007.

But Periscope is a big deal because Twitter launched it. The social networking site numbers 316 million active users per month, which gives it an edge over its competitors . As of 2 August, the number of Periscope subscribers already exceeded 10 million .

Few hours after Periscope's launch on 27 March, users were live-streaming an explosion which rocked a building in New York City, as firefighters rushed to the scene. Shortly afterwards, opinion pieces on how periscope will change the internet and the news industry were all over the web.

Owen Williams, a reporter at The Next Web , described watching the explosion on Periscope as " more authentic than watching the TV news could ever be" . The app, he said, " has begun to transform the way that news can be accessed and consumed overnight".

The fact that today anyone owning a smartphone can have their own broadcasting channel with them wherever they go, seems like a revolutionary step towards the decentralization of media power, concentrated in the hands of very few corporations and governments around the world.

In the global south, where media outlets are usually located in capitals and big cities, residents of rural areas are now able to broadcast their stories to local and international audiences. While under regimes that impose media blackouts, activists and reporters can use the app and similar tools to live-stream protests.

A number of reporters have already tested Periscope to broadcast video reports and stories. BILD reporter Paul Ronzheimer broadcasted the journey of a group of Syrian refugees from the Greek island of Kos to Germany . In Nepal, BBC journalist Nicholas Garnett live-broadcasted damage in the Nepalese village of Sipaghat after April's devastating earthquake . In late April, the Guardian's Paul Lewis live-streamed interviews with Baltimore residents and community members as their city was being ravaged by riots.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGDBumfIdyc?rel=0&w=420&h=315

Despite the above-mentioned examples of how periscope can allow journalists to easily and cheaply live broadcast compelling stories, skepticism remains as to whether such apps will actually change the news industry.

T echnology journalist Mic Wright wrote that "periscope won't change the world." "A s odd as it may sound, live video of a fire, an explosion or a protest isn't the story, it's a catalyst for a story. We need analysis and thought to be introduced before something become news. Just being present is not enough," she added .

As millions of videos, images, posts, and tweets are produced and distributed on a daily basis, internet users do not need another app or social networking site as much as they need high-quality content that provide context and analysis to news .

"See the world through someone else's eyes," is Periscope's motto. Like any other social media network, it is up to the user to decide what they are going to do with the app, and what they are going to broadcast to their followers. Most Periscope subscribers have been using the app to share details of their personal lives, what they are having for dinner or videos of their cats doing silly things.

This, however, does not mean that journalists should or could not use the app in their work. After all, apps and social networking sites do not produce (great) content by themselves.

Today, more and more people, particularly youth, access the internet through their smartphones. By 2019 in Africa, internet use on mobile phones is expected to increase 20-fold . According to a 2015 study from the Pew Research Center, 92% of US teens report going online daily, an access facilitated by mobile devices. Nearly three-quarters of them own a smartphone .

Journalists can no longer ignore the possibilities live-streaming applications present not only to produce stories and media reports but also to reach out to large and diverse audiences.

This is why it is important that journalists and bloggers obtain professional training on how to use Periscope and similar tools in the newsroom, and journalism schools need to adapt their curricula to include mobile journalism courses .

For David Cameron, lecturer in communication at Charles Sturt University, "some of the issues to be considered [in mobile journalism curricula] will be the training of students to understand the technical and practical parameters of producing content for mobile delivery, the nature of mobile media audiences, and the development of cross-platform content."
Citations:
Twitter. 2015. Twitter Inc. 13 September 2015. https://about.twitter.com/company .

Periscope. "Periscope, by the numbers."Medium. 2015. 12 September, 2015. https://medium.com/@periscope/periscope-by-the-numbers-6b23dc6a1704 .

Williams, Owen. " Periscope and live video are changing the internet forever". The Next Web. 2015. 12 September 2015. http://thenextweb.com/opinion/2015/03/26/periscope-and-live-video-are-changing-the-internet-forever/ .

BILD. " Live-Übertragung einer Flucht aus der Hölle." 2015. bild.de. 28 August 2015. http://www.bild.de/politik/ausland/zuwanderung/flucht-aus-der-hoelle-das-video-42352374.bild.html

Garnett, Nicholas. "Periscope from remote Nepalese village of Sindhupalchok." Youtube. 30 April 2015. 12 September 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGDBumfIdyc .

Lewis, Paul. "The Baltimore riots: the night on Periscope - video." 2015. The Guardian. 12 September 2015.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2015/apr/28/the-baltimore-riots-the-night-on-periscope-video .

Wright, Mic. " Periscope won't change the world - but it appeals to journalists' vanity." 2015. 12 September 2015.

http://thenextweb.com/opinion/2015/03/30/roll-up-roll-up-to-see-the-omnibang/ .

Smith, David. " Internet use on mobile phones in Africa predicted to increase 20-fold." 2014. The Guardian. 13 September 2015.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/05/internet-use-mobile-phones-africa-predicted-increase-20-fold .

Lenhart, Amanda. "Teens, Social Media & Technology Overview 2015." 2015. Pew Research Center. 13 September 2015.
http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/09/teens-social-media-technology-2015/
Cameron, David. "Mobile Journalism: A Snapshot of Current Research and Practice." The End of Journalism? Technology, Education and Ethics Conference. 17th-18th October 2008. University of Bedfordshire, UK. http://theendofjournalism.wdfiles.com/local-files/davidcameron/David%20Cameron.pdf

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Can Periscope (and live streaming apps) empower journalism?

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Twitter's launch of the live streaming app Periscope last March, was received with much enthusiasm by those who believe that it will empower reporting and citizen journalism. Live streaming apps are not something new. Few months before Periscope's launch, Meerkat , another live-streaming app, was released to the market.

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Live streaming applications like Periscope or Meerkat have been around for some time, but lately social media giants Facebook and now YouTube are making a huge push into the area. While all live applications are widely used for entertainment or social communication, they also hold a great potential for journalistic live coverage. Of course, live coverage in general is nothing new since mobile crews and transportable equipment have provided on-the-spot reporting for decades. However, a mobile phone with a live streaming application certainly brings new functions and possibilities; they are more flexible to use, only require a single person to produce content, and can be transported nearly everywhere. Another benefit is that the filmed material reaches the audience unfiltered and in real time. Live streaming for journalists is especially handy for events that are unfolding quickly, allowing them to share breaking news and information as it happens.

Periscope, Facebook Live or YouTube Connect? Journalists can now choose between a number of different platforms to live stream videos. The biggest player in the game of immediate live streaming is Twitter's Periscope. In August 2015, only four months after its launch, the company had already surpassed 10 million accounts. A big pro for Periscope is its interconnectivity with a user's Twitter profile. Periscope gives the user an option to tweet a notification, letting their followers know that they are about to go live. In times of measurable user reach this is an advantage to journalists who already have made a name for themselves on Twitter, as they can easily gather large groups of followers on their Periscope streams. Periscope also offers the possibility for users to immediately react to the action in the live stream by posting questions or remarks that the uploader sees on their screen in real time. Although this might come in handy for journalists who want to create more interactive news content; filming, reading and reacting to user comments with one mobile device is not very easy for journalists, especially in emergency situations, where events can change drastically within seconds, and the focus should be on accurate reporting instead of user participation.

Facebook Live lets Facebook users stream live videos up to 90 minutes. As they are eager to raise awareness for their relatively new feature, Live videos are currently ranked very high in users' news feeds. In addition, Facebook also updated their mobile application and created an entire new space for Live videos. This YouTube-like section can be seen as an advantage over Periscope, as new audiences can be reached when users discover journalists' streams in the Live section of the app without having to follow them. Facebook Live's most notable point of difference is the ability for video to be retrieved at any time and its integration with other features of the app. Whereas streams on Periscope can only be seen in the very moment that they are broadcast, Facebook added the feature of making their streams available after they are live. This is a major advantage for journalists, who can reach audiences beyond time zones and momentary availability.

With Youtube Connect, Google is the latest media giant to launch a standalone live streaming service. Although not yet available, the application is supposed to have similar features to Facebook Live and Periscope. This new platform seems especially interesting for Journalists who are successful Youtubers and have built a large audience on their YouTube Channel already. Via the new live service, users would not have to leave YouTube, and thus it could be easier to retain high numbers of viewers for the live streams.
Why use live streaming?
Applications like Periscope and Facebook Live are technological platforms can assist journalists reporting from a live event or an emergency situation either by broadcasting the reporting itself or by looking for unfolding information on other people's live streams - say, in a crisis situation to get a picture of what is happening in the environment of the actual emergency. German BILD Reporter Paul Ronzheimer was one of the first journalists to produce exclusive news content on periscope. His coverage of interviews with refugees reached a large audience through the application. This example also illustrates how live streaming provides new opportunities for interviews, allowing the audience to ask questions in real-time. Using live streaming in this sense helps to create an interactive journalistic experience that elevates users from mere spectators to participants.

The fact that anyone with a smartphone can produce their own broadcasting channel is arguably a revolutionary step towards the decentralization of media power, concentrated in the hands of very few corporations and governments around the world. Especially in countries with less developed media landscapes, live streaming apps can have a transformative power for journalists. In rural areas, journalists, as well as citizens, are now able to share their stories and impressions to both local and international audiences. Take Syrian news Channel Damascus News Network, for instance. This capacity to report unfiltered content is even more crucial in countries where regimes censor or influence media outlets.

Yet, there are a large number of technical and ethical considerations that journalists must take into account before committing to a live stream. First of all, as easy as the process of taking out your phone and pressing the red recording button may seem, this alone still doesn't produce a "good" report. It requires a stable internet connection to function flawlessly and low-bandwidth might cause the stream to be interrupted or produce low quality image and sound. Since filming occurs on the phone, reporting from live streaming apps can require switching between the front and back camera, depending on whether the journalist is commenting to camera or if they are shooting footage of the events happening. As mentioned earlier, it might seem beneficial that there is no longer the need to time-consumingly edit video footage into a report, but this could also be considered as a drawback in ethical terms. Live streaming takes away the chance to reconsider, evaluate and journalistically assess news content. Traditional broadcasting, especially if not live, always operates in conjunction with an editorial board, researchers, and technical experts, whereas with live streaming the reporter is on their own. Also, and this very important in crisis coverage, an image once shown, can't be undone. People's identities cannot be obscured, their faces not blurred or blocked and filming victims goes against accepted ethical codes. Furthermore, the journalist has to be careful not to disturb or interfere with police or medical action in crisis situations. In the midst of the Brussels lockdown that followed the Paris attacks, for example, the police asked users to stop tweeting or live streaming about any operations taking place in Brussels, as they could also be read by the terrorists who were still on the run. While most trained journalists would refrain from filming ethically difficult material, live streaming applications present a unique risk when used by citizen journalists in terms of this moral codex.

So should journalists use live streaming applications for their news coverage? Here's a pro and con list to help you decide:
Pros

Unfiltered Video Streaming: There is no censorship involved. Journalists can provide their audience with first hand images of live events.

Immediacy: Real news, in real time, delivered directly to the audience.

Flexibility: All that is needed is a smartphone and journalists are able to report from anywhere in the world - as long as there is a stable internet connection.

Potential positive impact for developing countries: News content can be produced very easily and cheaply with live streaming apps. This makes it affordable for smaller media outlets and freelance journalists, especially in rural areas or developing countries.

Audience engagement: Periscope and Facebook Live both provide the feature for direct feedback - useful for audience questions, especially in interview situations.

Empowering citizen journalists: Entirely free from camera teams or editorial boards, citizen journalists can stream live events to their followers.

Cons

No editorial control: Quality journalism rests on a foundation of journalistic values and ethics. Live streaming the news takes away the editorial control of reassessing, fact-checking and researching for a deeper understanding and dedication to the truth.

No control over what could happen in live crisis situations: Especially if the outcome of an emergency situations is unclear, in the case of a terror attack or a natural disaster for instance, live streaming the events can lead to unfiltered footage of victims or their families being broadcast.

Dependency on internet connections: While wireless internet connection is mostly stable in western countries, it is hard to secure live streaming in more rural areas or in developing countries. Also, especially in emergency situations where large crowds of people are trying to access social media feeds the internet connection is likely lack of speed and stability. In the case of a natural disaster the infrastructure in a certain region might be so damaged that the internet goes down all together.

Potential interference with emergency operations: Following the Paris attacks, the French police had to ask Twitter users to refrain from tweeting or periscoping the events in front of the Bataclan, as the terrorists could have access to the footage as well. In emergency situations it is more important to guarantee that police and other action forces can work without interference from journalists.

About the Author:

Felix Hain is an intern at the European Journalism Centre in Maastricht. He studied Politics and American Studies and is currently enrolled in the Master's program Media Culture at Maastricht University. Before working at the EJC, Felix gained experience in television and print media working for German media outlets Bayerischer Rundfunk, Talpa Germany, BILD and Main Post.

Tags: Audience Engagement, Bataclan, BILD, Breaking News, Brussels Attacks, Censorship, citizen journalism, Covering Emergencies, Covering Terrorism, Damascus News Network, Digital Divide, Editorial Control, Facebook, Felix Hain, Google, Live Broadcast, Live Coverage, Live Stream, Live Streaming App, Live Videos, Media Ethics, Media Ownership, Meerkat, Paris Attacks, Paul Ronzheimer, Periscope, Police Operations, Refugees, social media, Syrian Crisis, Syrian Media, Twitter, Youtube, YouTube Connect

About the Author

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Emergency Journalism | toolkit for better and accurate reporting

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Live streaming applications like Periscope or Meerkat have been around for some time, but lately social media giants Facebook and now YouTube are making a huge push into the area. While all live applications are widely used for entertainment or social communication, they also hold a great potential for journalistic live coverage.