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By Anjanette Delgado Conferences are comfortable places to work out foreign ideas. Free from organizational and political structures back at work, people are more willing to try something new. In July in Minneapolis, fellow journalist Jun-Kai Teoh and I ran this exercise with other journalists at SRCCON:
SRCCON (a contraction of “Source con”) is a conference for journalists and technologists, and it’s built on the concept of active learning. Instead of panels and lectures, sessions are designed for participation and learning from each other — like when we wondered what journalists would design if we asked them to reverse engineer the story workflow for impact rather than simply publishing. A newspaper reporter’s typical process is find story → report → write. But what if instead it looked like this: find story → identify the opportunities for change → report // gather stakeholders // discuss // ask questions // examine the cultural framework that leads to the problem // explore solutions → design for change → impact? Two discoveries — one surprising and both encouraging — happened when we tried this: First, this is a very audience-first or, better yet, community-first way of approaching a story. Thinking first about what sort of impact is possible based on the story leads you to think about what’s best for the people involved and who they are. They may or may not be victims. They are definitely affected by what’s happening — whether it’s crime, education, infrastructure, whatever. There’s a ton of overlap here with engagement journalism; we designed events, listening sessions, ways of bringing people from both sides of the issue together for greater understanding. Here’s what we heard from two of the groups: “So we had a story about body camera use for Philadelphia police, and in many cases of police interaction with the community, there was no body camera, even if the policy put forth by the police department mandated that there should be. And so sort of the impact we were hoping for is...sort of multi-tiered, starting with making sure that the incidences of having no body camera footage goes down but also starting to address the culture inside the police department of enforcement of that rule. The rule is already there. And then also talking with the community about why that's necessary and helping to...bridge the trust divide between the community and the police. “And then eventually, obviously, the incidences need to go down of this police abuse and search and seizure and all that kind of stuff, which is the reason they bought the body cameras in the first place. The ultimate impact would be that it stops or goes much lower.”  (Participant sketch, SRCCON19)  (Participant sketch, SRCCON19) _____________ “Our project had to do with Leon County's crime rate. It's the highest in Florida for the fifth year, despite a dip. And we thought what would be most constructive for creating change, as a result of letting the community know about this issue, is to put it into perspective and look at perception...Rather than reinforcing the perception that this place might be dangerous, and you shouldn't go there, we can look at what is working to actually drive the crime down. Because even though the crime is highest there, it is continuing to fall. And (we can) evaluate what's working to drive the rates down, amplify the solutions, look for opportunities for change.”  (Participant sketch, SRCCON19) _____________ Second, talking about the potential impact of a story with others can lead you to question the obvious, question the premise most reporters would start with. Here’s what happened when we discussed the potential impact of a story about bridges in need of repair: “Our problem was...One in 10 bridges in Michigan were falling apart. So...bad infrastructure. And, like, we first started thinking...well, the obvious impact is...better, safer bridges. Fix the bridges. But then we were, like, wait a minute. Maybe the solution isn't (new bridges). Maybe we don't actually need this bridge. Maybe we need something else. Maybe if there are too many cars, and people want bike paths...We just don't know. So we sort of paused and went ‘we don't have the context. And so let's figure out a way to…instead of trying to decide on what the impact is, maybe the impact is…having the community have a say in that.’ So our solution was to take what data was available about the status of the bridge and go to the local community for some of them…Start talking to those communities and say: How do you use the bridge? How do you feel about this bridge falling apart? And what would you rather have here? Do you want the big bridge fixed? Do you want a bike path? Do you want something else?…But my hope in it was: Instead of just telling the people what to think, let's try to be a bridge for the community to say ‘this is what we want this thing to be.’” Why is a bridge the only answer? Maybe it IS the answer, but we don’t really know until we ask.  (Participant sketch, SRCCON19) _____________
Critically, one journalist also reminded us of the unintentional impact of crime reporting: “I think it's just as important for us to think about that, as it is to think about intentional impact, particularly when it comes to crime stories, that can so often perpetuate stereotypes and perceptions. And I've been talking to a lot of community members in Oakland, California, who have told me that I avoid the news these days, because it disempowers me. It's just about attacks on my community. And that's the sort of impact that that sort of coverage often has on local communities.” We’ve published the full slides from the “Designing for Impact” workshop, with sketches of every group’s intended process and comments about the red line between journalism and advocacy, here. Kai and I would love to try this experiment again with different types of journalists. Would reporters make the same things? Would engagement journalists? Would people who have never been journalists approach this the same way or instead map out a different reporting process entirely? SIde note: I’ve discovered these two things to be true in my career, too. When I set publishing and byline goals, I falter. My message is discordant. When I instead set a goal of inspiring more journalists to consider impact in their work, my own process changes, I’m open to other strategies, I question the obvious, reach more people and end up learning far more from the great work we do together. Impact Stories: In this edition of impact stories, here are just some of this year’s Online Journalism Award finalists leading to change already:
Oh, and you have to love any announcement of a job promotion (congrautulations, @palewire!) that includes impact. If you have an impact story to share, email afrdelgado@gmail.com. Anjanette Delgado is the senior news director for digital at the Detroit Free Press and freep.com, part of the USA Today Network. Twitter: @anjdelgado. Jun-Kai Teoh is a journalist and developer at Newsday Opinion working on nextLI, a data research project about Long Island.
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By Anjanette Delgado
One of the first things you see when you Google Karisa King is her bio, which ends like this: “Her stories have led to stronger patient protections and uncovered the mishandling of sexual assault cases in the U.S. military.” I knew I’d like her right away. With just four sentences summing up her 20-year career as an investigative reporter and editor, she used one of them to talk about the impact her work has had on society. Why? “When I think of investigative reporting and the impact of what we do…I think it’s important to signal to readers in that way that we place a lot of emphasis in terms of social value,” King told me. “Impact can come in many forms, but it usually involves some change for the greater good.” King now runs the investigations team at the Dallas Morning News. Before that she ran investigations for the Las Vegas Review-Journal for three years, and before that she was an investigative reporter in Chicago and San Antonio. “Investigative reporting is at the core of our mission as a newspaper,” she said. “We can’t afford to do investigative reporting as a luxury. We have a responsibility to provide a check on power and shine a light on abuse. (The) audience expects to see those stories.” When one of their stories is a catalyst for change, a reporter will write about it as a follow-up story to the original investigation. “Again, that goes back to letting readers know we view that as a core part of our mission,” King said. That includes law changes or even bill filings — “anything that is more of a concrete step toward reform or even calls for reform, we write about it.” John Hancock works with King and runs a team of computational journalists. He’s also hiring for one, and this is listed in the job posting as an essential function of a computational journalist: “Create or monitor metrics reports and other feedback loops to measure project impact.” I needed to talk to him to know what that means, because as soon as you ask someone other than an investigative journalist what they mean by impact you can run into a wide range of answers. For a guy like Hancock who straddles the worlds of tech and journalism, impact means at least two things: First, it’s real-world change, like “Pain & Profit,” a 2018 investigation into Texas’ managed care system. On that project, a computational journalist worked with investigative reporters to bring system abuses to light, and now bills to overhaul Medicaid await Gov. Greg Abbott’s signature. Their timing was fortunate, he said. The series published in the months leading up to the biennial session of the Texas Legislature, making it top of mind for lawmakers. Second, you have his team’s effect on the company business. “There’s also the impact we have in terms of our newsroom goal of increasing digital subscriptions,” he said. “That’s the metrics side of it. Things that play into that are how many people are using a tool we’ve built or a site that we’ve built.” Time on site, returning visitors, page views. “It’s really two sides,” Hancock said. Computational journalists at the Dallas Morning News work most closely work with the investigative team. They build web apps and data visualizations, and they develop tools to help journalists work faster and more efficiently. “There’s a real inherent expectation that what you’re working on is going to have some sort of impact on somebody,” he said. “The expectation as a computational journalist working with the investigative team is you’re going to have your hands on something that’s really going to matter.” Impact can be surprising and unpredictable, and we can debate the extent to which reporters have any control over outcomes. Nonetheless, the opportunity for real-world change is a factor in green-lighting projects at my newsroom, the Detroit Free Press, and on King’s team. “The potential for impact is absolutely part of that calculus on the front end for me as an editor,” she said. --- Try it: “What’s your why? Share it with your audience to sustain your future," by Jennifer Hefty. Reporters at the Fort Collins Coloradoan take a crack at convincing readers why they should become subscribers and fund journalism with their own bios. It reminds me a little of Karisa King’s impact statement. And an impact story: The City, the new nonprofit digital news source designed to fill a gap in local coverage of New York City, has notched another early win. From the May 30 newsletter: “You might remember last week how we revealed that a Brooklyn community board bought a $26,000 SUV. The story gained some attention – including from Mayor de Blasio, who called for an investigation.” You can support The City here. If you have an impact story to share, email afrdelgado@gmail.com. Anjanette Delgado is the senior news director for digital at the Detroit Free Press and freep.com, part of the USA Today Network. Twitter:@anjdelgado.  Whether you’re making your case to subscribers or donors or just wanting to know what’s working, now is a good time to start tracking the impact of your journalism. Knowing your page views and monthly uniques is important, but so is being able to show that your investigative work inspired a change in the law or got the shady pol ousted. I’m seeing more and more newsrooms getting into subscription sales and making the case that #journalismmatters and requires investment. They’re not wrong, but I’ll argue it’s stronger communities that really matter and journalism is one way — albeit a necessary way — of getting us there. So let’s track that change and see if we can understand more about what the triggers are. Here are a few tips for getting started:
1. Agree on what types of impact matter to your organization. Real change, social likes? Think of the audience here. What will matter to donors, subscribers, your community? We define impact as “real-world change that happens as a result of our journalism,” and here’s what we track:
3. Talk to your staff about what you’re doing and why. Get buy in from key stakeholders. The investigative team is obvious, but others will see the benefit, too. Remember your editorial board, if you have one, because those folks actually advocate for change and need to know/show whether they’re effective. If Mongeau had just shared a finished list with staff and said “do this,” it wouldn’t have worked, she said. Without buy-in it becomes “just one more thing” we all have to do. Our selling point was that impact offers a balance to pure page view tracking and a more complete assessment of the i-team. If this work doesn’t make our communities better, what are we really doing here? I hear this at farewell parties for colleagues: Mission is what keeps journalists going despite worries about the industry’s future. 4. Get started however you can. The tool doesn’t matter as much as seeing progress, but a good tool makes it easier. We started with a Google Form that fed into a spreadsheet before deciding to invest in software dev; so did The Hechinger Report before switching to CIR’s open-source tracker. (We both knew forms wouldn’t work long-term because spreadsheets get unwieldy quickly, but they helped us refine our list of impacts to track.) Pedro Burgos’ Impacto project uses web scrapers to streamline the work (though that requires evidence of impact to be online, where it can be scraped). 5. Don’t let software stall your progress. Simple may be better for your developer, who probably has a bunch of other projects to get to, and it definitely is for the journalists using it. 6. Share your results with your readers, subscribers, members. Let them know why this matters, how they’ve helped (this is key) and how they can help going forward. How they can help might mean giving money, but it also could mean sharing story tips or calling their government representative. 7. Remember to share this information with marketing, sales and memberships, too. They’re trying to make an effective case for investing in the type of work that makes people’s lives better. At The Hechinger Report, Mongeau said she’s found impact effectively motivates both donors and members to give. Regardless of our business models, we all could use a bit more of that motivation. Here's some stories from the trenches and their impact:
Anjanette Delgado is the senior news director for digital at the Detroit Free Press and freep.com, part of the USA Today Network. Twitter: @anjdelgado. Editor’s Note: Changes in the way Americans receive programming have opened up new possibilities for us to see stories created for television around the world. Pamela Douglas, associate professor of screenwriting at the USC School for Cinematic Arts, is author of the seminal book Writing the TV Drama Series, which has been translated for audiences in Spain, Germany, Italy, France, China, Taiwan, Korea and elsewhere. As she prepared its 4th Edition (2018), Professor Douglas decided to include a section on dramas written and produced in other nations for the first time. Read on for insights on what this might mean for entertainment, for the media business, and maybe even for peace among nations.
By Pamela Douglas Previous editions of my book have been America-centric, and to an extent that’s useful because American shows are known world-wide. Increasingly, though, the global marketplace influences what shows are produced and – of special significance to writers – how they’re written and the kinds of characters and stories they contain. Though tensions may rise between nations, universal human feelings and relationships travel across time and space, and television is our way to connect. With all the tensions in the world, we can be inspired by the cooperation that grew naturally in Sweden and Denmark when they collaborated to make Broen/Bron. It asks what happens when a body is found on a border bridge, half in Sweden and half in Denmark. The drama was so popular it has been remade in America as The Bridge on FX, set on the U.S./Mexican border, and in UK/France as The Tunnel, set in the Channel Tunnel between the two countries. In all versions, two countries’ police must work together despite cultural differences to solve the crime. Is this a wave of the future? Peace on Earth through television? Well, we’re not there yet. Writing in The Hollywood Reporter, Kayti Burt suggests both a caution and a hope: “In a global marketplace already dominated by English-language content, especially of the American and British variety, could the potential transition into an era of more international co-productions further homogenize the global market? Or will the fact that American and British production entities are bringing their money to other regions with fewer resources mean more diversity in the stories being told to a wider, global audience? … Transnational TV drama co-productions may be a commercial function of a global market, but I still have hope that an increase in more transnational and international stories will be good for the American public. Sure, in a domestic market where more people watch Dancing with the Stars than The Americans, high-end TV drama is not going to change the hearts and minds of a country with isolationist tendencies in an increasingly interconnected world, but — as an art form that specializes in empathy — it might change a few.” After surveying how television is made throughout the world, my profound realization turned out not about the indigenous shows, but the prevalence of Netflix as a transformative global phenomenon. That’s somewhat true also of Amazon Video, but Netflix really is everywhere, speaking the language of the people. As of 2017 it had over a million paid streaming subscribers and made massive investments in new shows. The company says it spent around $8 billion on content in 2018 alone. According to The Los Angeles Timesin 2017, Netflix now counts more overseas subscribers than domestic ones. For example, the South Korean movie Okja, and the series 3% from Brazil are designed to appeal both to local audiences and viewers worldwide. That’s not to say anyone is rooting for the centralized power that a single platform may provide, however magnanimous. If our minds are already boggled by the abundance of shows now available in the U.S., imagine what a challenge it is to comprehend the profusion of international television in addition. I’m reaching for a more insightful conclusion than simple “muchness.” A sprit of global connectivity – humanity beyond borders – has always attracted hope for the future. On a single day in the summer of 1967, the then-new Beatles song, All You Need Is Love beamed around the world by satellite to 400 million people who experienced it simultaneously through a BBC-TV special Our World. Now in less innocent times, we’re learning to celebrate differences almost as much as unity, and one of the lessons in writing the global portion of the 4thEdition has been the diversity of TV dramas overseas. Writing the TV Drama Series teaches the craft of professional television writing, but beyond that is something of a mission. I agree with film Critic Walter Iuzzolino who told Emmy magazine, “The wave of cultural conservatism that’s sweeping Western society is strange and unsettling. So now there’s an argument for real windows onto other worlds, other cultures and other societies. More than ever, being isolated culturally is a bad thing.” The Media Impact Project evaluates a slate of Entertainment Diplomacy programs sponsored by the US State Department. These programs posit that cultural exchange through entertainment is a valuable enterprise, so-called soft diplomacy. We are happy to welcome Professor Douglas to our pages as a guest blogger on the power of media to cross borders. Check out new program The Africa Narrative, which seeks to inspire balanced TV portrayals of Africa and its 54 nations. by
Connie Hassett-Walker Associate Professor of Criminal Justice, Kean University Editors note: This article appeared in The Conversation, reposted here with permission and with our thanks for continued insightful research and commentary from the world of academia. At MIP we are interested in finding ways to to promote civil discourse. The breech between anti- and pro-gun proponents seems an excellent place to attempt understanding of "the other" side. Decades of research tells us that media viewing has an affect on our thoughts and perceptions. Perhaps we should all sit down and watch each other's media with open minds... It was an ordinary day in 2011, when I found myself watching a YouTube video of a gun owner making a semi-automatic rifle discharge bullets rapidly, as if it were an automatic weapon. My husband, a gun owner, watched firearms videos like this one. But I had never seen one. Intrigued, I sat down on the couch to absorb the imagery. Hooking his thumb through his pants belt loop, the YouTuber demonstrated how pushing the gun forward, rather than pulling the trigger, allowed the gun’s recoil to “keep the gun going.” In other words, he was bump firing his rifle. I’m a criminal justice researcher. At the time, a flurry of thoughts popped into my mind. Aren’t citizens forbidden to own automatic weapons? Is it legal to make a video of a semi-automatic rifle performing like an automatic firearm? What about the 1930’s machine gun ban - is there a YouTube loophole of some sort? This was 2011, seven years before a gunman at a country music festival in Las Vegas used a bump stock to make his shooting spree more effective and deadly, killing 58 people and injuring 851. Watching that initial video led me to spend the next five years exploring online gun videos and gun owner communities. It also led to a moderation in my views on gun-related issues – something I believe resulted from the understanding and empathy I gleaned from those videos. Video opens a window on worldMy exploration would become the book “Guns on the Internet: Online Gun Communities, First Amendment Protections, and the Search for Common Ground on Gun Control,” forthcoming in August 2018. That first video, and the many videos I would subsequently view, showed me how gun owners could legally share content that, in the case of bump stocks, could effectively render a particular gun control law moot. A gun enthusiast on how to bump fire without a bump stock.This realization led to the question - is it worth it to pass a law, as Florida recently did, banning the sale of bump stock devices, when people can just make and upload a how-to video of bump firing without the device? I felt like I had accidentally stumbled onto a secret that was hiding in plain sight. I also realized that despite being married to a gun owner, I knew very little about gun subculture, either in real life or online. But I could learn. Guns, part of fabric of lifeFor all the noise around gun control versus gun rights, there was a story that was missed by non-gun owners like me: how much these guns mean to those who own them. Delving into gun subculture online – which in some, though not all, ways reflects real-life gun subculture – can provide a perspective that may be, for non-gun owners, very different from their own. Americans live in a time of political polarization on a variety of social issues, gun rights among them. Both gun control and gun rights supporters would benefit from understanding how those with opposing political and social views see their identity and their culture. Recent data from the Pew Research Center illuminate the extent of gun owner use of the internet and social media. Thirty-five percent of gun owners responding to the Pew survey indicated that they often or sometimes visit websites focused on hunting, shooting sports or guns. Ten percent participate in gun forums online. Culture and its smaller subcultures comprise the values and behaviors that define a group of people. A related idea is homophily, that is, the desire to connect with others with similar characteristics, experiences and interests. Gun owners engage in this both in real life – for example, by attending gun shows, joining shooting clubs – as well as online. Gun owners join Facebook groups with words in the names like freedom, liberty, oath keepers and duck hunters. They also join Facebook groups devoted to survival skills, love of the outdoors and hunting and fishing. They post in the comment sections of gun-related blogs. These are just some of the ways that gun owner subculture flourishes online. Dissing politicians and shooting old computersI learned that gun owners share ideas, images of firearms and videos signaling to other gun owners and the greater online community the accepted norms, values and activities of gun subculture. They use hashtags like #freedom or #2A, for the Second Amendment, on a posting. They post key words and phrases such as “take our rights away,” “Patriot class,” and “lock ‘n load.” A gun owner shares tactical advice on what to do if you ever encounter zombies.Gun owners showcase their rapid-fire skills with semi-automatic guns; explain how to clean a firearm; complain about political parties and gun control organizations; and compare one type of gun versus another. See, for example, “Glock 17 vs. Ruger SR9.” I’ve observed that gun-owning YouTubers have a lot of fun filming themselves and their friends shooting all kinds of things – targets, zombies and computers. I‘ve come to view firearms as part of the fabric of their owners’ lives, complementing other lifestyles such as rural living, hunting and camping. Previously, I had thought about guns mostly as something dangerous, unnecessary and likely to lead to a homicide or suicide in someone’s home. Not any more. I developed some favorite videos and YouTubers. Having peered into a slice of these gun owners’ worlds, I felt a sense of familiarity despite not knowing any of them in person. This gave me an idea. If I felt a connection to particular YouTubers and videos, would others experience something similar? How to bridge a divideRecent research suggests that individuals can form attachments to media personalities whom they do not know in real life. If feelings of connectedness could be deliberately cultivated among gun control advocates and gun owners, might it be possible to parlay that into better understanding of the perspectives of those on the other side of the gun controversy? Could this lead to a productive conversation about gun rights and gun control in the U.S.? Some research suggests that it is possible to shift people’s opinions, even strongly held ones, and enhance empathy for others who hold very different opinions. Other scholarship has connected familiarity with reduced prejudice. So while a total opinion change isn’t likely when trying to bring opposing viewpoints closer, small movement on a seemingly intractable issue might be possible. Through the process of watching hundreds of videos made by and for gun owners, I find that my views on guns have shifted away from unquestioning support for gun control toward a more neutral, even gun-friendly, perspective. I’m also much more aware of what I don’t know, including the particulars of all things gun-related (parts, accessories). The deadlock between proponents of gun rights and gun control is frustrating. To that end, I conclude my book by proposing that both gun control and gun rights supporters watch 100 YouTube videos featuring content from the opposing camp. Watching their videos helped the author empathize with gun owners. ShutterstockViewers should approach their watching with an open mind. They will see a slice of the other’s life in the context of their world. Here’s a hint for a “starter” video (for gun control supporters) to get the process underway. And for gun rights supporters, this. Would this video watching experience work? Take the challenge and find out. A team of journalists learned the value of tracking the impact of their research on cashless tolls on New York thruways; their findings are shared in this second piece by guest blogger Anjanette Delgado. In the first blog, Delgado described a deep dive into the inner workings of the cashless toll system, where they gauged effort versus value to their readers. The team utilized crowdsourcing to collect “horror stories” of drivers charged with fees for trips they hadn’t made and even had their cars repossessed and organized a panel to help drivers facing steep bills. By Anjanette Delgado Guest Blogger for the Media Impact Project We typically record impact in our media tracker after we’ve completed an investigation or project, but this time we wanted to track it in real time to see what we could learn from correlation, and whether we could prove cause. (This could be useful in further investigative work.) Impact appears to be tied most to these things: Don’t let up. Unlike a lot of our investigative work in which multiple stories publish on one day, here we’ve published relentlessly as we learn more and more about this incredibly secretive system. Offer solutions to those looking for a win. We wrote an editorial identifying three things the state could do to improve the system. The state implemented all three right away and credited us for the suggestion. Focus on the human drama. The horror stories are easily the most-read pieces in the investigation, most likely because they are compelling narrative dramas that make you feel something (outrage, sympathy). Those victims are part of a federal class-action lawsuit against the state Thruway Authority, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority; Conduent; and debt collectors. Make sure the people, agencies and companies you’re investigating know you’re doing it. Digging into Conduent, the private company that handles the “back office” billing for the Thruway Authority and controls nearly half of the U.S. electronic-tolling market, continued alongside the human stories. When we asked state officials questions, especially questions that proved we knew a lot about the system already, they responded in commentary, a letter to Conduent and a visit there. When we invited state officials to our panel event with drivers, they started an amnesty program that eventually cleared 281,000 violations, for a total of over $1.4 million. Conduent still has not gone on the record but has been reading our coverage. In June, two U.S. senators — Bill Nelson of Florida and Gary Peters of Michigan — called for a Federal Trade Commission probe of Conduent. Identify the people who are most likely to champion the cause and have the power to make change. Early on in our reporting we identified two local politicians — state Sen. David Carlucci and Assemblyman Tom Abinanti — who had started making noise about the problem. We quoted them many times and checked in often to see what they’d learned about the system. They’re behind the Toll Payer Protection Act, which passed both houses in July and sits on Gov. Cuomo’s desk awaiting his signature. “As we were proving points, that this system is bad and has been bad for awhile … we definitely said this is fixable,” Esposito said. In July they called for New York to end its deal with Conduent. When possible, connect people on both sides of the story in a safe space. The panel event brought together drivers drowning in bills with lawyers offering advice and with representatives from the Thruway Authority who could help. Those representatives, who originally said their billing company is “the best in the country,” traded phone numbers with drivers and offered one-on-one help. Still investigating While the community has seen some positive change in the billing system for cashless tolls, we’re not done investigating. We still don’t know: The exact cause of the billing errors. Fully fleshed out networks and connections for the key players involved with cashless tolling. A complete accounting of the fines Conduent/Xerox paid for failing to meet performance standards. (The Thruway has charged Conduent $477,272 for failing to meet performance standards.) How much money changed hands through lobbyists and PAC's in relation to the bridge and cashless tolling. What role the federal government is playing in this, both legislative and executive. Whether it was a single part or a systemic problem that caused the errors. Cuomo’s office also won’t go on the record. And not every driver wronged by the system has found relief. Still, New York state continues building out its cashless tolls system. In June the Thruway announced five plazas in the Lower Hudson Valley would go cashless by the end of the year, as the entire system switches by 2020. Executives at Conduent — which operates in every state and specifically works in cashless tolling in New York, New Jersey, North and South Carolina, Florida, California and Texas — are earning millions. And the cashless tolling technology, especially the equipment that reads and tracks license plates, is part of a much larger system of public surveillance for private profit that’s spreading rapidly on promises of convenience and increased safety. “This is one of those investigations with long legs, capable of stretching across not only all of New York but likely most of the U.S.,” Scandale said. “It will impact every motorist (not only) financially but also cyber security-wise. Surveillance on you will grow as cameras proliferate and your whereabouts are logged on databases.” Change, while beginning in New York and Florida, needs to spread to other states as well. "We may solve it here if Cuomo signs the legislation, but what about Texas?” Esposito said. Anjanette Delgado is the senior news director for digital at the Detroit Free Press and freep.com, part of the USA Today Network. She worked at lohud.com during most of this investigation. Email: adelgado@gannett.com, Twitter: @anjdelgado. By Anjanette Delgado
Guest Blogger for the Media Impact Project Editor's note: What is the “worth” of investigative journalism to readers? In this new piece by guest blogger Anjanette Delgado, a New York team reports on how they measured potential interest in an investigative series on cashless highway tolls. First of a two-part series. A deep investigation into cashless tolling on a new bridge in New York began by floating this trial balloon: "Tappan Zee, Mario drivers hit with thousands in fees” At lohud.com, we had been hearing about local drivers getting bills, sometimes for thousands of dollars in fees, to cover their $5 trips across the Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge. The story included a callout asking more drivers to come forward. We used the impact and effort matrix to determine whether a full investigation would worth the time and resources we’d be investing because we choose to apply our resources where we can do the most good. That first low-effort story, done in less than two hours, tested both audience interest and opportunity for impact. A flood of responses followed, showing the opportunity to right a wrong for a significant number of people and make a real difference in our community. (A similar story borne of other complaints around the same time drew little response and ended up being a much smaller story for us. We just didn’t see proof that the issue represented a job our community wanted us to do.) Now, nearly a year in, we include this impact statement with toll stories: Reporters at lohud and The Journal News have spent months investigating cashless tolls to find out why drivers are getting fees and escalating fines for tolls for which many say they were never billed, who's running the system and where the system is breaking down. The reporting so far has prompted changes, including: an amnesty program forgiving $1.4 million in individual bills; a bill introduced in Albany to help toll payers; a new web page for the amnesty program instead of using the faulty Tolls By Mail site; more distinct envelopes so drivers know they've received a bill; new toll signs on the Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge; more responsiveness from Thruway officials, two of whom attended a lohud forum on cashless tolling and personally helped drivers with their individual cases. legislation drafting a tollpayer’s bill of rights; and an apology from the lieutenant governor. “So many of the people we talk to felt helpless and that’s where we come in,” said Frank Scandale, the project’s editor and head of investigations at lohud.com. “We have been able to get to the bottom of some things, get help for our readers, and put some of these bureaucrats on the defensive.” Parallel channels This investigation is largely running on two parallel tracks: 1). A deep dig into how the system works, who’s managing it, where the breakdown is happening and how this technology is being used for surveillance. Frank Esposito is investigating this, and he’s using a network mapping technique to connect seemingly unrelated individuals into networks with clearly defined goals. 2). Crowdsourcing and horror stories. These are the drivers getting pulled over and left beside a road in the Bronx at night after their car is impounded for a suspended registration for unpaid tolls. These are the drivers taking taxis to work now because their cars have been repossessed after fees got out of hand. These are also the drivers helping us fact-check some of the statements coming from the players in the first track. Chris Eberhart has been working on this track. We also quickly assembled a panel event offering help to drivers struggling with steep bills (two lawyers, a state senator and a representative from AAA). We invited the state Thruway Authority, which is responsible for the toll system, to take part. Anjanette Delgado is the senior news director for digital at the Detroit Free Press and freep.com, part of the USA Today Network. She worked at lohud.com during most of this investigation. Email: adelgado@gannett.com, Twitter: @anjdelgado. Look for the second part in this series next Tuesday. by John Fraser, PhD Dr. Fraser is the President & CEO of New Knowledge Organization Ltd, and a Fellow of the Media Impact Project at USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center. This is the final in his series of guest blogs on social media use among millennials. .Savvy digital consumers are skilled at parallel processing. Despite the many criticisms that suggest that young people have difficulty focusing, the research is now starting to suggest that younger people have developed neural processes that accommodate parallel content processing. NewKnowledge Organization, in collaboration with The Media Impact Project at the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center, has been working with PBS NewsHour to study how early career adults under age 35 are choosing to engage with media news consumption, with a specific focus on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Unexpectedly, we are learning that early career adults are more likely to consume an entire news story as it appears in their multimedia stream. What may appear as distracted browsing may actually represent more attentive reasoning to content surrounding them. Being raised as digital natives seems to have helped early career adults hone the craft of editorial control. They simply switch channels when the content is not timely or relevant. The volume has helped to finely hone their ability to filter and cut without regret of loss. The passive broadcast model assumes that a story arc must first establish context, describe the challenge, the public face of people struggling with the problem, and then finally lay out a solution or opportunity. Our studies suggest that this time-honored tradition no longer fits with a parallel processing learning ecology. A good story today dives directly into a conundrum, a paradox, a declaration of threat, or quite simply a good set-up for a joke. The content that has a “hook” is often created with a staccato promise of a future, and an A-B-A-B structure that highlights the known and the aspirational finding to carry the story forward. Appealing news media, especially the content that may not be breaking and timely, such as scientific discoveries or processes, seem to be more palatable to a young audience when they anchor back to social process and daily experience. We’re starting to speculate that a fundamental element for consumption of STEM stories may be intrinsic motivations to consume what is purposefully linked to life’s processes and strivings. As we drilled down through the comments surrounding a Facebook Live event that focused on emerging robotic technologies, we quickly found that many of the comments that at first appeared as sarcastic actually outlined a moral conundrum that was not present in the main story. We suggest that the quick commentary from viewers in Facebook Live or any other running commentary first appears as if it’s a good joke, a contrast or comparison that seems at cross-purposes to logic of the presentation. Closer examination of light humor online suggests a more deep-seated humanities inquiry that sits below the surface of a joke. These in-jokes may not be as transparent to the reader as the sender. But, at the heart of these commentaries, jokes, sarcastic exchange, or even a belligerent comment may reveal questions of how the user is questioning the nature of life today. References Electronic Media Use, Reading, and Academic Distractibility in College Youth, Laura E. Levine, Bradley M. Waite, and Laura L. Bowman. CyberPsychology & Behavior. August 2007, 10(4): 560-566.https://doi.org/10.1089/cpb.2007.9990 The Associations Between Social-Media Use and Academic Performance Among Undergraduate Students in Biology. Jonna M. Leyrer-Jackson, Ashley K. Wilson, Journal of Biological Education. Mar 2017, Vol. 25: 1-10 Smartphones and Cognition: A Review of Research Exploring the Links between Mobile Technology Habits and Cognitive Functioning Henry H. Wilmer, Lauren E. Sherman, Jason M. Chein Frontiers in Psychology. Apr 2017, Vol. 8Crossref Sleeping with Technology: Cognitive, affective, and technology usage predictors of sleep problems among college students, Larry Rosen, Louis M. Carrier, Aimee Miller, Jeffrey Rokkum, Abraham Ruiz, Sleep Health. Mar 2016, Vol. 2, No. 1: 49-56 “All Over the Place”: A case study of classroom multitasking and attentional performance. Dan Hassoun, New Media & Society. Nov 2015, Vol. 17, No. 10: 1680-1695 It’s Not Who I Am, it’s What I Do: Youth gamer identity and science understanding Asbell-Clarke, J., Fraser, J., Gupta, R. & Rowe, E. (2013), Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association, 1 Journalism's Next Wave Will Need to Fully Embrace Social Media To Engage Savvy Millennials7/30/2018 by John Fraser, PhD Dr. Fraser is the President & CEO of New Knowledge Organization Ltd, and a Fellow of the Media Impact Project at USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center. This is the second in his series of guest blogs on social media use among millennials. In a previous blog, I described our national study of teen gamers, It’s not who I am, it’s what I do indicating that the study had broken new ground in that we found that most high school-age “gamers” were not all-consumed by their media tools, but set aside a reasonable amount of time and energy for digital experience as part of their identity development process. What was more revelatory in that study was that teens were choosing their digital gaming to reinforce their ability to achieve success. Those who were more successful in science-based academic pursuits were more likely to use their digital gaming in isolation to advance their mastery, while those youth who were less academically successful with science were more likely to collaborate as a way to be successful. Six years after we started those studies of high school students, we’re in the middle of a different study in collaboration with The Media Impact Project at the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center. Our research team has been working with PBS NewsHour to study how early career adults under age 35 are choosing to engage with media news consumption, with a specific focus on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). In that process, we’ve been debunking claims based on academic definitions of success where prior generations succeeded in school. These claims might simply reveal generational prejudice too. The evidence we’ve collected on early career adults suggests that claims of social media destroying learning as we know it are unsupported. But it’s not only audiences that are changing. News makers’ practices are evolving too. Our results show that the news producers are caught in a complex battle between traditional best practices for broadcast reporting and acknowledging how young adults now consume and interact with media content. Traditional journalism practice expects a reporter and producer to collaborate on finding information to tell a story. New journalism is now being produced as a public, transparent enterprise, with tentative information appearing online and then followed by reasoned synthesis and revision – all in the public eye. Newspapers have been slow to adopt the developing news-making approach, with newspapers of record like the Guardian being first to publish timelines of breaking news on their web portal. Meanwhile, outlets like Huffington Post have been allowing story revisions and tracking those changes to show the process. And quite recently, the likes of the New York Times and Washington Post are following suit. In the broadcast community, however, the opposite can be said to be true. Twenty-four-hour news stations such as MSNBC and Fox News use constant repetition to announce facts recapitulated by reporters, who often simply reinforce the station’s political biases. Today, new media and the wash of information has created a new learning ecology for news consumption. Early career adults expect participatory dialogue surrounding their news media. They anticipate that information will be shared, negotiated, and challenged. It is the engagement in discourse that helps shape their understanding of validity in contemporary media consumption. Young career adults are not as cynical as reports about social media would suggest. Rather, they are more media savvy in what they choose to accept, have less willingness to listen to thoughtless recapitulation, and imagine themselves as editors sorting through the wash of content to remain abreast of topics. The dialogue itself is part of the spectator sport of media consumption today. Social media is an exercise in editing, filtering, and culling information. It appears that success with journalism in the coming era will focus on becoming a more responsive community to engage and find relevance. STEM stories, and all media, in the next wave of reporting will be more about existing as part of social media dialogues than simply broadcasting and moving on to the next spectacle. References Electronic Media Use, Reading, and Academic Distractibility in College Youth, Laura E. Levine, Bradley M. Waite, and Laura L. Bowman. CyberPsychology & Behavior. August 2007, 10(4): 560-566.https://doi.org/10.1089/cpb.2007.9990 The Associations Between Social-Media Use and Academic Performance Among Undergraduate Students in Biology. Jonna M. Leyrer-Jackson, Ashley K. Wilson, Journal of Biological Education. Mar 2017, Vol. 25: 1-10 Smartphones and Cognition: A Review of Research Exploring the Links between Mobile Technology Habits and Cognitive Functioning Henry H. Wilmer, Lauren E. Sherman, Jason M. Chein Frontiers in Psychology. Apr 2017, Vol. 8Crossref Sleeping with Technology: Cognitive, affective, and technology usage predictors of sleep problems among college students, Larry Rosen, Louis M. Carrier, Aimee Miller, Jeffrey Rokkum, Abraham Ruiz, Sleep Health. Mar 2016, Vol. 2, No. 1: 49-56 “All Over the Place”: A case study of classroom multitasking and attentional performance. Dan Hassoun, New Media & Society. Nov 2015, Vol. 17, No. 10: 1680-1695 It’s Not Who I Am, it’s What I Do: Youth gamer identity and science understanding Asbell-Clarke, J., Fraser, J., Gupta, R. & Rowe, E. (2013), Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association, 1 by John Fraser, PhD
Dr. Fraser is the President & CEO of New Knowledge Organization Ltd, and a Fellow of the Media Impact Project at USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center. His series of guest blogs on social media use among millennials will appear each Monday for the next three weeks. Op-ed pieces about the cost of social media to civil society tend to be reinforced by an age-old trope that young people (no matter what generation) are enamored with their new technologies but have increasingly lower attention spans never before seen in human history. Rock and roll was supposed to lead to the demise of society in the 1950s, almost the same way that fast cars and sexualized clothing of the 1920’s were assumed to be evidence of the end of western European civilization. It seems that social media is the new rock and roll. As new social media emerged, academics perhaps not raised with these technologies invested in a rapid-fire process of pathologizing digital behaviors. They often characterized failure as an inability of users to succeed in traditional learning modalities. It was those modalities – single-task execution or concentration in a classroom – where academics were rewarded in their own careers. They studied game addiction, comparative loss of single-task attention skills, and how social media negatively impacts academic performance. While some studies were hopeful about the value of digital tools in society, the negative public reports far outweighed the positive. In the face of that work, our national study of teen gamers, It’s not who I am, it’s what I do broke new ground. We found that most so-called high school-age “gamers” were not all-consumed by their media tools. In general, youth had set aside a reasonable amount of time and energy for digital experience as part of their identity development process. What was more revelatory in that study was that teens were choosing their digital gaming to reinforce their ability to achieve success. Those who were more successful in science-based academic pursuits were more likely to use their digital gaming in isolation to advance their mastery, while those youth who were less academically successful with science were more likely to collaborate as a way to be successful. It is only in the past few years that we’ve seen an abundance of affirmative studies that consider how social media is changing the way we think – not better, not worse, just different. We’ve labored too long on the assumption contemporary youth have low attention spans, when it’s now becoming apparent that most youth are simply exercising good judgment on how to use their time effectively. References Electronic Media Use, Reading, and Academic Distractibility in College Youth, Laura E. Levine, Bradley M. Waite, and Laura L. Bowman. CyberPsychology & Behavior. August 2007, 10(4): 560-566.https://doi.org/10.1089/cpb.2007.9990 The Associations Between Social-Media Use and Academic Performance Among Undergraduate Students in Biology. Jonna M. Leyrer-Jackson, Ashley K. Wilson, Journal of Biological Education. Mar 2017, Vol. 25: 1-10 Smartphones and Cognition: A Review of Research Exploring the Links between Mobile Technology Habits and Cognitive Functioning Henry H. Wilmer, Lauren E. Sherman, Jason M. Chein Frontiers in Psychology. Apr 2017, Vol. 8Crossref Sleeping with Technology: Cognitive, affective, and technology usage predictors of sleep problems among college students, Larry Rosen, Louis M. Carrier, Aimee Miller, Jeffrey Rokkum, Abraham Ruiz, Sleep Health. Mar 2016, Vol. 2, No. 1: 49-56 “All Over the Place”: A case study of classroom multitasking and attentional performance. Dan Hassoun, New Media & Society. Nov 2015, Vol. 17, No. 10: 1680-1695 It’s Not Who I Am, it’s What I Do: Youth gamer identity and science understanding Asbell-Clarke, J., Fraser, J., Gupta, R. & Rowe, E. (2013), Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association, 1 |
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