1) Go to the Nieman Lab webpage (part of Harvard university) and watch the video of Clay Shirky presenting to Harvard students.
2) Play the clip AND read along with the transcript below to ensure you are following the argument. You need to watch from the beginning to 29.35 (the end of Shirky's presentation).
3) Why does Clay Shirky argue that 'accountability journalism' is so important and what example does he give of this?
He thought is that newspapers ability to produce accountability journalism is shrinking, he is convinced that it keeps the people under control and not lead them to corruption. The examples he gave of this is how "spotlight" is based on journalists investigation that talks about child sexual assaults that includes the churches and persist.
4) What does Shirky say about the relationship between newspapers and advertisers? Which websites does he mention as having replaced major revenue-generators for newspapers (e.g. jobs, personal ads etc.)?
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5) Shirky talks about the 'unbundling of content'. This means people are reading newspapers in a different way. How does he suggest audiences are consuming news stories in the digital age?
Shirk suggests that audiences are consuming news stories through online, which is very accurate, he suggests that consumers rather than the producers are the ones that are bundling the content together. As this is because the audiences would only click or read the stories that they would want to watch/hear about or what is mostly reverent or is in their comfort zone.
6) Shirky also talks about the power of shareable media. How does he suggest the child abuse scandal with the Catholic Church may have been different if the internet had been widespread in 1992?
If the internet had been as big as it is now, child abuse scandal with the catholic church would have gone viral and many many people would know about it as well as show a bigger audiences how the powerful can be and how they use their power to do things and stop things from coming out to the audiences.
7) Why does Shirky argue against paywalls?
He says that paywalls are restricted, the audiences are not going to pay for their news even though it is needed because there is a lot of republications and reuse of paid content on free sites and what has happened with some of the newspapers such as the sun - sometimes it isn't too successful.
8) What is a 'social good'? In what way is journalism a 'social good'?
Social good is something that benefits a majority of a large group of audiences. One example a way that journalism is a social good because journalismist do try to expose the powerful people just like the case with the involvement of the church and the child assault, other than journalist, no other person in the media would be able to expose such corrupt people to the audiences.
9) Shirky says newspapers are in terminal decline. How does he suggest we can replace the important role in society newspapers play? What is the short-term danger to this solution that he describes?
Shirky says that we need a class of institution or deals that produces five precent of accountability journalism and that you can only replace newspapers with newspapers themselves. Shirky thinks a bad thing is going to happen and people aren't taking it seriously, there is going to be a decline in accountability journalism which means corruption will be riffe.
10) Look at the first question and answer regarding institutional power. Give us your own opinion: how important is it that major media brands such as the New York Times or the Guardian continue to stay in business and provide news?
In my opinion, i think it is importation for big brands like NYT and the Guardian continue to stay in the business and provide news because they deliver the right news and fulfil their roles of exposing and questioning the powerful. But i think big newspaper like them wouldn't go down so easily as they are very popular with their audiences and read by many.
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