This skill could help young reporters, insofar as it ensures they can get good jobs, but it won’t necessarily help them develop their reporting skills. Assuming that Denton’s “public journalism” doesn’t pan out and sources don’t line up in the comments to be grilled by Gawker reporters, it’s difficult to see how Kinja will make Gawker staffers into better journalists. Right now, young reporters often must write, blog, aggregate, and tweet, which leaves little time for actually reporting. Adding interaction with commenters to that list won’t help.
Behind the News
06:50 AM - July 6, 2012
Gawker’s new comment system
Will it help or hurt the site’s young writers?
‘See you on the other side’ - Meet Jessica Lum, a terminally ill 25-year-old who chose to spend what little time she had practicing journalism
#Realtalk: This is the best moment to be in journalism - The old stuff isn’t coming back, but that’s okay
Streams of consciousness - Millennials expect a steady diet of quick-hit, social-media-mediated bits and bytes. What does that mean for journalism?
Sticking with the truth - How ‘balanced’ coverage helped sustain the bogus claim that childhood vaccines can cause autism
An ink-stained stretch - Can Aaron Kushner save the Orange County Register—and the newspaper industry?
What to do if you find a baby bird
Expert advice
Inside Google’s secret lab
We might deplore the practice, but posting pictures of our food online is a way to bring everyone to the table
How the ‘World’s 50 Best’ list changed the way elite restaurants do business
“Every time the restaurant switched up its format, it got plenty of accompanying media coverage that let judges know they needed to return to see what was going on”
CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
Uptown Messenger – Hyperlocal news for a neighborhood in New Orleans
Who Owns What
The Business of Digital Journalism
A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Questions and exercises for journalism students.
That Spider-man is a menace.
But he's a saint compared to Gawker!
#1 Posted by J Jonah Jameson, CJR on Fri 6 Jul 2012 at 04:26 PM
"Right now, young reporters often must write, blog, aggregate, and tweet, which leaves little time for actually reporting."
My dear Peter, write, blog, aggregate and tweet IS reporting. Ask any venture capitalist.
Ask any sociopath.
#2 Posted by Edward Ericson Jr., CJR on Mon 9 Jul 2012 at 11:16 AM
I am impressed by the amount of passion that Mr. Denton has for his new Kinja toy. What great news, that other websites may follow Kinja's lead to make it a leading web platform.
The world needs to know so much more about Hot Pockets and Pokemon.
#3 Posted by former_gawkerer, CJR on Mon 9 Jul 2012 at 01:03 PM
Having used Kinja since its debut on several Gawker sites, I'm not entirely sure what Denton means by saying that it sorts by most interesting comment. Frankly, I think it's completely unusable--just a very awkward and unnecessary reinvention of threaded commentary. I don't think he should be making decisions about presentation anymore.
#4 Posted by P.F. Bruns, CJR on Mon 9 Jul 2012 at 08:44 PM
Thank you, Mr. Sterne, for helping me to wrap my senile little brain around Gawker's headline:
"Frontline Documentary About ‘AIDS in Black America’ Still Doesn’t Reveal Who Gave Magic Johnson HIV"
... and, in particular, the meaning of the following excerpts:
"Our source ... said he had other people willing to verify Magic's non-female proclivities on the record. The source would only do so for a large sum of money that was too expensive for Gawker Media, let alone Deadspin ...
"If anyone has any more information about who gave Magic Johnson HIV, please feel free to contact us. I think we can afford to pay more money for this now."
Sounds like they're talkin' sums as large as, oh, $100 at least ! (That's of course in Kinja-Kash so the "winning source" must either divide by 10 for the actual cash value or else go pick out one of them really nifty Gawker t-shirts ...)
But what's money compared to the vast pride -- not to mention the career-boost -- of helping Gawker to scoop the competition on such a pressing and vitally important story ?
Won't be long before America starts singing the praises of this revolution in journalism: "Oh, say, Kinja see ..."
#5 Posted by Gawker Knocker, CJR on Thu 12 Jul 2012 at 09:32 AM
"Even if it doesn’t revolutionize journalism, Kinja could fix this problem, since it allows writers to control which comments are displayed. "
You mean the way it used to be, where new commenters were vetted by the established, and ignored (pinks) if they were not up to snuff? Where commenters were valued for their insight, and held very closely the concept of 'quality in, quality out? You mean the system Gawker had before Kinja, or PowWow, or AJ for that matter? The system that consistently brought in page views? You mean that system?
#6 Posted by former Gawker current Awl, CJR on Sat 14 Jul 2012 at 04:03 AM
Kinja is awesome and breaking up the clique of starred commenters (most of whom added no value or page views to the site) was a huge boon.
AJ is a vile human being and Neetzan has all the charms of a commentbot, but overall Gawker is ironing out the commenting kinks and actually starting to see their new commenting algorithm pay some dividends. It's truly an egalitarian platform for comments, even if the recent quality of the posts has been awful.
#7 Posted by Hot Pocket, CJR on Sat 14 Jul 2012 at 08:51 AM
"Denton thinks they will, once Kinja ushers in a new style of “public journalism” that will be more trustworthy"
I hope he remembered to pack a lunch for the wait.
But vis a vis employee relations, the impression I get is that Denton prefers to staff his shop with apprentices and journeymen. Once they master their craft sufficiently to feel able to take exception to Mr Denton's management style, they move on to more professional venues.
#8 Posted by Snertly, CJR on Sat 14 Jul 2012 at 03:05 PM
she's terrible and loud, don't like her all all on the show!
#9 Posted by April , CJR on Mon 3 Dec 2012 at 07:54 PM