UkraineDesk Consolidates Breaking Ukraine Related News
June 10, 2014
I find hope for the future in a Gigaom piece about journalistic cooperation: “VICE, Mashable, Digg and Others Form a Collective for Breaking News About Ukraine, May Expand into Other Areas.” These publications are willing to work together to assure each of their audiences receive as complete a picture as possible about a very important series of events. Naturally, social media is involved. Reporter Mathew Ingram writes:
“A group of six news organizations and digital-media outlets — including VICE, Mashable, Digg, Quartz, Mother Jones and NBC-owned Breaking News — have created a somewhat unusual collective effort aimed at reporting breaking news about Ukraine, an effort they are calling #UkraineDesk. For the moment at least, the venture consists of just a common hashtag that all the different entities have agreed to use, which is then pulled into a similarly-named Twitter account, but some of the players say if it works they may expand into other areas.”
Ingram interviewed a few of the folks who came up with this idea; see the article for their brief takes on how the project came together and their hopes for the future. He also points out the diversity of publications that are participating:
“Whether the group does other things together or not, it’s definitely an interesting effort: VICE is known for its hip videos, Digg is a traffic-driving aggregator (which has also been experimenting with original content), Mashable is a social-media giant that has been doing more serious news since former Roberts joined the company last year, Mother Jones is a site known for its biting political commentary, and Breaking News specializes in mobile and real-time info.”
The write-up goes on to compare the members of this group to those that formed the Associated Press in 1846. That project was spurred by the costs of reporting on the Mexican-American war. I suppose the concept of a press collective was due for an update, and major conflicts seems to be a powerful prompt. I hope this is a sign of things to come—these days there are many who would benefit from exposure to varying points of view.
Cynthia Murrell, June 10, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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