Anyone who followed the Arab Spring on
Last year, Carvin joined the team at First Look Media,
Reported.ly doesn't really have a website. It uses Twitter as the central organizing platform, and then puts information (and conversations) on Facebook, reddit, and Medium. The promise is simple: "Global news, our way. That means your way, too." On day one, the focus has centered on Madrid protests against new Spanish security laws. It's the kind of coverage that's in Carvin's sweet spot - a citizens movement, public demonstration, many authentic online voices, and stirring images. Clearly, among social ventures dedicated to the news, reported.ly will be one of the year's most closely watched launches. I caught up with Andy for a discussion of the network's launch and his ambitious plans.
Tom Watson: Andy, you announced today a decentralized online presence for reported.ly that de-emphasizes a central web-based news hub. What's the theory behind the strategy?
Andy Carvin: It may sound counter-intuitive, but I view users of social media platforms as underserved when it comes to news. Many news organizations use their own social media presences to direct people away from those platform and consume content elsewhere - visit their website, listen to their radio program, etc. I think too many of us have become complacent when it comes to serving social media users directly. So we’re creating a news room that’s basically embedded on various platforms, engaging users throughout the course of the day and working with them to figure out what’s going on around the world.
This becomes especially important when rumors run amok on social media - I think it becomes incumbent upon journalists to be active members of those communities to nip rumors in the bud and help them sort out what’s true and what’s not. This isn’t to say we won’t have a website of some sort - we’re exploring a number of options right now - but the site will likely be an aggregator or dashboard that directs people to our reporting on social platforms.
Watson: Are Twitter, Facebook, reddit, medium going to be separate channels - do you envision separate audiences for each, or will there be bleed over in both audience (and their interaction) and how you curate and pursue stories?
Carvin: I don’t think they’re 100% mutually exclusive, but they each have their own rhythm, cultural norms, strengths, weaknesses, etc. For example, Twitter and reddit are both natural places to talk about a news story in real time, as well as get help from those communities when covering it. Medium is great for longer-form, more contemplative writing, whether it’s original reporting or self-reflection on how our work is going. So there will definitely be a lot of cross-pollination taking place across platforms, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be a mirror of each other, either.
Watson: You've built a team of "anchors" for reported.ly - how will they work, and will they be curators, editors, reporters, producers? What level of interaction in the conversation on those very different social platforms will they engage in?
Carvin: I’ve brought together a team of half a dozen of us who all have a wide range of experience in online community building and journalism. Originally, we intended to have people work in teams of two, with one having more of a public-facing anchor presence and the other being a producer behind the scenes. In practice, it’s more likely we’ll all have a public-facing presence each day, but varying from topic to topic.
Sometimes I may take the lead on a story while a colleague curates it, while on another story we swap because they’re better qualified for the other role. So I’ve hired people who are multi-talented and very eager to collaborate with both their colleagues and the public. And engagement will vary from platform to platform; some social tools are better at quick, real-time chat, like Twitter, while others like reddit have bulletin board structures, allowing for deeper discussion.
Watson: You became a go-to voice on the social graph during the Arab Spring and I've always thought it was partly because of how prolific you were (and are) but also because you baked in some needed skepticism and doubt into your curation. It wasn't just retweeting rumors. And over time that gradually built trust with a fairly potent network of followers and readers. My question on this: can that scale to the size of a small enterprise (clearly you believe it can!) but how?
Carvin: The first challenge was to hire a group of journalists who have a similar worldview about social media - that it’s possible to be transparent about rumors but in the service of confirming or debunking them. Once a rumor is out there, it’s out there. We could choose to ignore it and let it fester, or we could acknowledge it but throw a lot of professional skepticism at it, explaining why we’re making that judgment. By having a team of six of us across 10 timezones, it’ll make it easier for us to address a wider range of stories on any given day.
Watson: How does reported.ly fit into some of the other stuff First Look is doing? We've all seen so many social channels built by media companies that are really just promotional tools, there by and large to push eyeballs to the "real" content. I suspect that's not your aim - but how would you describe that interchange?
Carvin: You could call us a startup within a startup - we’re focused on our own mission, and First Look is giving us the support and infrastructure to make it happen. I’m hoping we’ll come up with opportunities to team up with The Intercept on reporting projects every now and then, but we’ve stamped out our own mandate, one that’s very independent and focused on experimentation. So other projects at The Intercept will continue to do their own thing, but we’ll always keep an eye out for opportunities where working together could make for some great journalism.
