Meredith is vice president and managing editor of CNN Digital, where she oversees the editorial initiatives for CNN.com and CNN Mobile. She joined CNN in October 2009 and is based in Atlanta. Before coming to CNN, Artley was a managing editor for the Los Angeles Times and the executive editor of LATimes.com. Prior to joining the Los Angeles Times, she served as the editor and digital development director for the International Herald Tribune’s web operation in Paris. Previously, she was the associate editor at NYTimes.com. She is on the boards of the Online News Association and the Global Editors Network.
Speaker Summary:
Invite the Audience
CNN’s Meredith Artley introduced the audience to an idea she created called “open journalism.”
“This is basically a term I made up based on a lot of conversations I had,” Artley said. ”It’s about really listening and engaging with your audiences.”
She referred to CNN’s iReport as an example of this, especially how it both engages the audience and invites opportunities for self-involvement in the process of news production.
Scouring reader comments, Artley said, is also incredibly useful.
“Many of the comments give us ideas for follow up stories or different angles.”
To conclude the presentation, she stressed both the benefits and commitment of open journalism.
“It’s a way of life,” she said. ”Not a side project.”
Chronology:
Open Journalism
Meredith Artley started off her speech by introducing open journalism and how CNN used it in their reporting.
“This is basically a term I made up based on a lot of conversations I had,” Artley said. ”It’s about really listening and engaging with your audiences.”
“It’s a way of life, not a side project.” Open journalism is a mindset.
In order to use open journalism, journalists need to know exactly where the audiences are.
Journalists also need to use tools and data smartly by paying attention and knowing what’s popular.
Social networks aren’t just Facebook and Twitter, but journalists need to be using new tools as they come up, Artley said.
A New Example of Open Journalism – iReport
Artley then showed iReport on CNN’s website to the audience and explained it. She showed an example of an assignment page about Occupy Wall Street protests. She also showed an example of how visual the page is.
She said iReport is a great example of open journalism and stressed how engaging it is with the audience.
The second example is an open story about the earthquake that hit Japan. The open story is a way for CNN to take what they’re getting from iReport and the field journalists to make one big multimedia project, Artley said.
Artley said it’s a great tool to use for big events because of the way it works to make stories that aren’t just a video or just pictures.
“It’s a very powerful tool,” she said. She showed one of the videos that one of CNN’s reporters made for the open story as a demonstration. She talked about how raw it is, and that adds to how powerful the tool is.
She also showed the pictures in this report to demonstrate how the photos come from all over the world and engage a lot of people.
“Open Journalism” is a “Way of Life”
Meredith Artley, the Vice President & Managing Editor of CNN Digital, served as the keynote speaker for the News World Summit’s session aptly titled, “Social networks: the world’s new storytellers.”
Artley spent the majority of her time explaining an approach to journalism she coined — “open journalism.”
“It’s about really listening and engaging with your audiences,” she said. “It’s a way of life, not a side project.”
Artley then engaged in a panel discussion with Thomas Crampton, the Asia-Pacific Director of Hong Kong’s 360 Digital Influence and Yolanda Jinxin Ma, an Assistant Project Manager from Thomson Reuters.
There, the conversation attempted to shed light on predicaments in modern-day journalism — more specifically, the role of new technologies and the level of engagement a journalist should maintain with their prospective audience.
Panel: Social Networks Panel Discussion