Feb
21
Forget New York: Chronicling online news in Philadelphia
By
C.W. Anderson at PhIJI
Anderson
Internal, practical and cultural impediments have stalled innovation so far at many traditional news organizations, but that could change with a new and more resource-rich wave of outside influence, according to a leading observer of online media in Philadelphia.
C.W. Anderson, assistant professor of media culture at the City University of New York and author of the forthcoming book “Networking the News,” has been chronicling the history of online journalism in Philadelphia since 1997. Anderson delivered some of his findings Monday during a presentation at PhIJI, the Philadelphia Initiative for Journalistic Innovation at Temple University.
Anderson suggests that many news companies went online in the 1990s without a clear sense of mission, and sometimes only because The New York Times was already there. “Forget New York,” he says, explaining that the Big Apple has a different and unique media ecosystem. The challenges faced in Philadelphia more closely resembled those in Boston or any number of other smaller cities, according to Anderson.
On the slide above, you can read Anderson’s summary of the forces he says have stalled innovation. Fear was at the top of the list and perhaps not unrelated to some of the other causes. Next, Anderson says, a wave of external innovation – including most blogs – has failed to lift the industry due to it’s lack of sufficient resources.
Now, Anderson is hopeful that forces such as foundation funding, data journalism, social media and post-bankruptcy momentum might drive the industry to the next level.
Anderson noted promising projects in Philadelphia, including the William Penn Foundation’s collaboration with the Department of Journalism at Temple, the anticipated Philadelphia news portal under development by the Journal Register Company, as well as new initiatives announced at a previous PhIJI.org event by Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com CEO and publisher Greg Osberg.
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3 Comments
February 22nd, 2011 at 8:52 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Sean Blanda, Bar Camp for News. Bar Camp for News said: Last night, @chanders talked @phijiorg 'Stalled Innovation' and other trends in Philly's media scene http://cot.ag/h0Kd3U [...]
February 22nd, 2011 at 9:42 am
There’s a typo! News production is an industrial process.
March 11th, 2011 at 8:08 am
[...] late February, I had the chance to present the results of nearly a decades worth of thinking about and researching local news at Phiji, the Philadelphia [...]