The promise, risks and reasons for liveblogging

Liveblogging offers a lot of promise for a future model of journalism that features professionals, sources and citizens working together to provide a more complete picture of the world around us.

In a previous post, I discussed liveblogging and its current forms. There are three main categories: first, there’s the liveblog that covers events we can all see, televised events like a World Series game. Second, there’s a liveblog that covers events we can’t see, like a court case. Finally, there’s the “this just in” brand of liveblog for a breaking news event or a crisis, where up-to-the-minute coverage is needed.

First, let’s discuss televised events. In some cases, liveblogs here make little sense. Few people watching the State of the Union would need a separate commentary during it.  The State of the Union is an uninterrupted event, like a film.

You don’t need a reporter during a speech, just like you don’t need someone whispering in your ear during a movie. A liveblog of the State of the Union might serve for someone who couldn’t watch but wanted to keep up with it as it happened. It could also serve as a transcript for later readers. Most people, however, would probably prefer a brief synopsis.

Liveblogs hold more potential for televised events where there’s a break or a lull in the action. Baseball and football are good examples where there’s plenty of time that’s ripe for good observations about the game. If the liveblog is set up as a chat, the fans can set the agenda of the conversation, rather than just listen to the announcers; it creates a community space, like having a bunch of buddies watching the game with you.

Liveblogging’s greatest potential is for events where we can’t see all the action or wouldn’t easily comprehend it even if we could. These include court proceedings, political events, terrorist attacks, wars, natural disasters or, on the bright side, space landings and major scientific breakthroughs. Livebloggers become our eyes and ears on the ground, valued for their ability to get details and separate facts from rumors.

We’ve had live coverage for decades, in radio and television. So to imagine what liveblogs could end up doing for reporting, let’s look back at the evolution of live coverage.

One of the major events in live television coverage was the Kennedy assassination in 1963. Live reports came within minutes of the shooting. Reporters came to us by the hour with new information, but it was largely a one-way conversation, reporter to viewer. For public reactions, reporters went to the streets. Take a look at this NBC News “man-on-the-street” session after the assassination (Note: you may need to reload the clip).

With liveblogging, this type of reporting stands to change a great deal. First of all, getting people to talk about such a grave subject will no longer demand the television reporter’s awkward question, “How do you feel?” The reactions will come naturally, remotely from the audience.

Whether through liveblogs or other forums, people will send reactions in text, audio and video form. A middleman on the street will no longer be needed for such events; the audience will send their feelings and coverage themselves.

Abraham Zapruder was interviewed immediately after the assassination, but it took 12 years after JFK’s death for his film to come to light. A modern-day Zapruder could have done it with an iPhone and had it on an iReport or NowPublic within minutes. As sites allow multimedia reader commentary, such footage will become easy to add to a liveblog.

Next, let’s take a look at coverage of 9/11. Here’s CNN on that morning. Whereas in ’63, you had a one-camera shot of a reporter, here our attention is constantly divided. We hear the reporters, while we see a video image. The screen divides at times into a video image on one side and live reporters on the other, while audio of the reporters is mixed in.

Take this to the next step: television coverage may begin to rely on the Internet. Soon news coverage will feature not just windows for video images and reporters but also for tweets and liveblogs.  Already Twitter feeds get a space on many CNN broadcasts, and liveblogs will be just one more window on our screens, where users throw in their accounts, their photos, videos, audio, etc.

News organizations will need to find a way to filter it all, perhaps with a minute delay on entries to delete anything obscene and flag possibly inaccurate information or by hand-selecting which user-generated content appears.  In the end, however, interactions between readers and news agencies on liveblogs will serve both groups well.

For example, in the 9/11 scenario, notice the CNN reporters telling us they’re calling their sources and trying to get information. On-air, they struggle in their discussion with Sean Murtaugh because he can’t see certain things from his “vantage point.” In a liveblog scenario, tons of eyewitnesses could contribute their vantage point and speed up the process of information-gathering, helping both users and reporters.

Meanwhile, when reporters contact their trusted sources, if they do so transparently via liveblogs, we as users can follow along and interact directly. Liveblogs then become a kind of online news conference where users directly address sources and reporters. After all, if Murtaugh is willing to speak on national TV, why shouldn’t he be wiling to take our questions?

At the present time, Twitter’s “direct message” feature allows us to single out a person for communication, and this is an early model of the structure for conversations in liveblogs. Imagine first a window where the reporter welcomes all his sources and readers, then sub-windows where sources either offer their own chat or readers can request a chat with them.

As news travels faster and faster, there’s an increased risk of misinformation. One of the issues that Oliver Stone’s 9/11 film “World Trade Center” captured was how quickly rumors spread on that day. With everyone on their phones and PDAs, plenty of false information spread about who was responsible and what had happened. Our urge to get information out before verifying it will only grow with the advance of technology, and it will be crucial for the reporter to become a voice of authority, while staying connected to their audience.

Despite that risk, liveblogging will allow for a much greater sense of empowerment and community among citizens in the pivotal events of the future. When we watched the Kennedy assassination and the 9/11 attacks, many of us were glued to our TV sets but felt powerless. With the integration of liveblogging technology, we will be able to air our questions and concerns in a joined forum of citizens, reporters and, hopefully, reliable sources.

Beyond crises like JFK’s death and 9/11, liveblogging has great potential in areas so far untapped. Think about liveblogging in war. So far, we’ve had plenty of live reports in war, but usually reporters answer to an anchor, not directly to the public.

If democracy keeps up with technology, liveblogs could easily arise where reporters, news consumers, parties involved in the conflict and people affected by the conflict are all converging to interact. There can be liveblogs of assaults on American forces or of other big events. War blogs will be one area where a multimedia environment will make a huge difference, as commenters can post video audio and photo with their posts.

The only thing that can prevent liveblogging from revolutionizing live coverage is corporate and political bureaucracy getting in the way. The potential is there for transparent open conversations, where those of radically opposing opinions can speak and link us to the evidence for their opinions. There will be a need to verify identities, distinguish fact and rumor and define what is too objectionable to air, but I believe this can be done while still advancing this a revolutionary and open form of reporting.

Imagine a liveblog transmitted from space years from now as we land on Mars. Astronauts, reporters and viewers will be exchanging information and questions.

Sound crazy? Maybe.

But the future is full of potential.