Fixing filter failure ensures quality journalism reaches news consumers

Information overload is not a new problem. As Clay Shirky said, receiving a high volume of information has become the norm. At the root of the problem is filter failure.

Since the introduction of the printing press, the publishing industry has held the duty to decide which information was important enough to print. However, once the Internet became mainstream, producing content was cheap and easy. Therefore, publishers were no longer needed to "print" a novel, and newspapers and traditional media outlets weren't the only ones reporting the news. A whole new wave of information broke through the filter of traditional publishers.

The expansion of the Internet coupled with the rise of blogging and social media allows the general public to become content producers, documenting everything from the mundane to the vital news with Facebook status updates, tweets, instagram photos and more. Our problem now is sifting through all of those mundane Facebook status updates to find that really important bit of information we might deem newsworthy.

As consumers of information, we once gathered news from the morning newspaper, perhaps the radio during our drives to and from work or school, the evening or late night newscast and of course the talk around the proverbial water cooler. Altogether, we received information from these four main avenues, and we understood the filters that governed the flow of information to us.

Now, those channels that flow information to us have doubled, maybe even tripled. News has never been more readily available than it is today, and it is available on many platforms, including but not limited to print publications, TV, radio, podcasts, streaming video, websites, email blasts, text message alerts, tweets, Facebook status updates and blogs. Like Shirky said, we have to assume we will continue to be targeted; the flow of information will not slow or stop, especially with so many vehicles of getting information to us.

Not only is there more information to spread and more channels for flowing that information to consumers, the standard for sharing information has also been lowered. Shirky pointed to livejournal, a blogging website that was popular about 10 years ago with teenagers who wrote about their angst-filled high school lives. Those blogs were public diaries often filled with information few people would care to know. Yet they were out there, in the blogosphere, for anyone to read.

Shirky says the filters we had are broken. When the filters fail, it is time to design new ones.

To ensure news stories are making it through the filters and standing out from the plethora of information available, especially online, journalists need to become better filters themselves.

A journalist's job is to gather information from multiple sources and to share that in a fair, accurate and succinct report. To do that with today's massive amount of information flowing our way, journalists need to be suspicious of the information we receive. Information published online or by another outlet, should not be taken as fact without scrutinization. We still need to fact check, investigate and be wary of sources that might steer us wrong. Only then can journalists remain relevant and preferred over the average content producer.

Sharing news stories with consumers relies on two filters: the publisher and the platform's parameters. As journalists, we are the publishers, and we still decide what information is important enough to share with our readers, viewers, listeners or users. The second filter, the platform parameters, deals with how we share our stories, especially in regard to the web and mobile devices.

As an industry, we know search engine optimization plays an important role in how we word headlines, subheads and cutlines. Using "picture" rather than "photo" may drive more web traffic to our site if it is a more commonly used search term. When sharing links to our news stories on Twitter, using hashtags as a way to sort and label information for consumers will help them to find which of our stories are relevant to their particular interests. These are examples of parameters we can control to ensure our stories reach our audience, despite the information overload.

As journalism forges onward into the digital age, coping with filter failure will make or break our industry. How journalists receive information and how we share it with consumers needs to adapt to work with new filters to ensure quality, rather than just quantity.

Super Bowl viewers will engage with two screens Sunday

This Sunday, many Americans will watch Super Bowl XLVI, but the television will not be the only the electronic device to which viewers turn.

Almost half of Super Bowl viewers are expected to check their mobile devices up to 10 times during the game, Mashable reports. More than 80 percent of polled viewers said they will check their mobile device at least as much as they did during last year's game, Mashable reported citing a Harris Interactive study.

Live tweeting and Facebook-status updating via mobile devices has become a common way to interact with friends and the outside world during live televised events, including presidential debates, awards shows, last year's royal wedding, last week's State of the Union address and Sunday's big game.

However, the practice of TV watching with mobile device in hand is not limited to these special events.

A yet-to-be-released Nielson study found about 45 percent of Americans who own mobile devices watch television while engaging with a second screen, reported the Washington Post. Among tech-savvy teenagers, that percentage is even higher at 53 percent. The trend spans across the generations with 38 percent of tablet users ages 55 and older reporting they also watch television with their mobile device in hand.

Interested to hear from a member of the older generation who uses tablets while watching TV, I called my own mother, a 57-year-old housewife with an iPad. Sure enough, she is part of the 38 percent. Specifically, she checks for recipes and products mentioned during her morning and daytime news and talk shows. Sometimes she checks the shows websites; other times her search turns to Google, she said.

While my mother surfs the web as she watches television, others also engage in discussion about the shows they are viewing.

Using Twitter search terms, called hashtags, signified by the pound sign, Twitter users interact with other TV viewers and even the stars of television shows. On NBC's "The Voice," which will premiere its second season following the Super Bowl, viewers are encouraged to tweet to the show. The show even invoked a social media correspondent to drive conversation on air and online. Bravo executive Andy Cohen also uses his Twitter account to pull audience questions during his late night talk show.

This two-screen multitasking has pushed traditional Super Bowl advertisers to reach the audience through multiple devices. Already, more than 39,000 subscribers have signed up for YouTube's adblitz, a channel that compiles the 2012 Super Bowl ads. Also, Discovery News reported Chevrolet has released a Super Bowl smartphone app that allows users to enter to win prizes, and Coca-cola has a Facebook page and website where users can interact with the brand's signature polar bears as they watch Sunday's game.

What does this mean for journalists?

For broadcasters, the overall trend of engaging with a second screen means it will be increasingly important to provide viewers additional online resources.

For legacy publications and online mediums, tweeting during live televised events like the Super Bowl may drive web traffic to their sites, simply because that is when a captive audience is viewing their tweets.

And for the sports journalists covering Sunday's Super Bowl, quickly updating statistics and utilizing social media will be key to grabbing the interest of mobile users.