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Like most self-important members of the media I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of journalism and the role of the journalist. Now, let’s imagine that Apple’s iFixeveryindustry slate doesn’t cure all the media’s ills and realise that some thinking needs to be done.

After a recent meeting with news aggregator Daylife I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how being a good curator of experts is possibly the best weapon a journalist has to use. As more information becomes publicly available we don’t need Woodwards and Bernsteins to unearth smoking guns, we need more people to process and explain the relevance of all that data.

As Malcolm Gladwell points out, the delay in exposing Enron’s financial mess wasn’t due to malpractice, deceit or lack of information. The important numbers were all out there for public consumption, but nobody had connected the dots. You don’t need to be a wood expert to complete a jigsaw any more than Jonathan Weil needed to be an accounting whizz to break the Enron story in the Wall Street Journal – you just need to know who to speak to.

And as Nick Davies says in Flat Earth News, the reason journalists miss out on so many interesting stories isn’t always because the government witholds information. On the contrary, it’s often because governments release too much information to be properly processed.

But with a motivated and mobilized group of experts, the information can be crunched. And for once, I won’t use Wikipedia as an example of crowdsourcing done good. Just look at the Guardian’s work in outsourcing the processing of the MPs’ expenses data to its readers to consume and hunt out irregularities. This task would have taken their journalists months to sort through and find the story, but not any more.

Imagine next time a mass of data becomes available and it is put in a Google Wave. What if Weil could have done that with Enron’s accounts, inviting tax experts and students to help sort through it, editing, highlighting and adding any useful information? Or, to use a more banal example, what if a motoring correspondent covering a motor show shared his article with expert bloggers from all the relevant subject areas before it was put in the page?

No one journalist can know everything about their beat or subject, they need – and should seek – help. And this goes beyond gathering quotes. A hatchback loving blogger could chip in and correct any mistakes about his subject area. Likewise, a motorbike expert could speak up, making the piece more rounded, accurate and appealing to readers.

There is a big difference between a puzzle and a mystery and how they’re solved. Puzzles have bits of information missing that need to be found. Mysteries are usually more complex, needing an improvement in the exchange  and understanding of existing information rather than more facts and figures that could actually cloud matters. If Wave’s technology can help the flow of information and let journalists focus on the puzzles, then we can focus on what journalism is actually good at. Have I missed anything out of this blog post? Of course I have.

By @jamesseddon

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A few weeks ago my boss asked me to start sending out an email with links to the week’s biggest tech stories to encourage those who aren’t so geeky to keep up-to-date with industry news. Thought I may as well post in here too. It’s pretty mainstream tech stuff, but as a journalist I’ve got pretty handy at cutting and pasting so thought I may as well share here too…

Here’s the five tech stories no nerd should be without from the last week.

Sun launches multiplayer quizzes
So what? Well firstly, it’s making quizzes social (1pt in buzzword bingo) and secondly it’s another trial of paid-for-content. This is using micropayments, although that term traditionally meant fractions of a pound (0.14p) and this is actually small payments (15p).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/05/sun-web-multiplayer-quiz

Times launches Times +
So what? So this is Murdoch playing with subscription models and paywalls. This isn’t a world first and isn’t around content. It’s more like an members’ club where people can get exclusive deals and tickets. Leveraging Times’ reputation as a premium content provider it’s more wine deals and theatre tickets than gig tickets. And all for £50 a year.
http://www.timesplus.co.uk/

Amazon to launch Kindle in UK
So what? They’ve finally managed to sort out a way around Europe’s arcane copyright laws, so you’ll be able to buy digital books here and read them on the beach in Spain. Also touted as the 169th way to save newspapers this year. Number 170 is printing them on things people actually want, like sandwiches.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/oct/07/amazon-ebooks

Foursquare hits the UK
So what? If you use Twitter and follow Americans you’ll have seen people declaring themselves as ‘Mayor of XXXXX’. The location-based, social, real-time app not only uses a huge four buzzwords when being described, but is actually quite addictive. Come and add me if you decide to play. I’m currently Mayor of Virgin Media – no joke.
http://foursquare.com/user/jamesseddon

Google defending book deal
So what? So Google has agreed a £125m deal with American publishers so it can digitise millions of out-of-print books and offer them for free online. More data = better targeted ads = more money for Google.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/oct/09/google-books-brin

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