#aop3c: Social media will become newsgathering of 'first resort', says Chris Cramer

Social media now provides content 'much more visceral than anything a journalist can produce', Reuters global head of multimedia told delegates at the AOP Publishing Summit 2009.

The 'most compelling' pictures now come from citizens on the ground: it's 'much more exciting to consume', Chris Cramer said.

"What we have now are hundreds of millions of newsgatherers the world over," he added.

Journalists should not be intimidated by this, but instead should make use of the hundreds of 'mine canaries alerting us to everything that happening around'.

Cramer drew on the example of reportage surrounding Michael Jackson's death: he heard it first from his daughter who read about it on Facebook and TMZ.com. While he was sceptical at first, he had to later admit that he had been 'out-scooped'.

Blogging and social media is an opportunity, he stressed: "It's raw, it's unfiltered and it's here for the taking; it's a much more targeted approach."

Although there is inaccurate and biased information shared via social media - a 'spawning ground for myth' - it is also 'perfectly constructive for those who want to debunk truth'.

It is Reuters' job, he said, to curate content, in line with its core principles: 'integrity and freedom from bias define the business'.

"[W]hen we make mistakes, and we do, we're quick to own up to those mistakes," said Cramer.

Reuters is very excited by social media becoming the newsgathering of 'first resort'. 'New and much stronger' systems will come from curating information, he said.

External partners
"At Reuters we believe in the link economy, and [linking to] other equally relevant content and sites," he added. 

The company has made it 'very clear' in the last few months that it is happy to talk to other producers about revenue-generating ideas, he said.

It is 'Journalism 3.0': building business models that can be all-inclusive, he said.

Meanwhile, Reuters is investing in developing services providing 'completely relevant information to those who pay for our service'. 'Narrow-casting' to clients via PDAs rather than broadcasting, Cramer added.

Customers are kings and queens and the digital conversation is the future of our business, he said: "They used to say content was king, what is equally obvious now is that convergence is king."

More to follow from the summit throughout the day: in the meantime, follow this tweetstream featuring choice 140-character updates by digital journalists and publishers at the event.

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