The post-journalist’s toolbox - Trends in digital storytelling

Based on the stories collected in the essay La Scimmia che Vinse il Pulitzer. Personaggi, avventure e (buone) notizie dal futuro dell’informazione [The Monkey Who Won the Pulitzer. Characters, Adventures and (Good) News from the Future of Information, translator’s note] here we provide an outline of the main trends in the current digital information scenario. Beyond the much feared crisis of information, we are actually witnessing the appearance of a great number of initiatives and projects which attempt to keep last century’s journalism values alive (though with many economic contradictions). Any journalist, even in the science field, who is interested in communicating in an innovative way can rely on a set of instruments – from the timeline to live coverage, passing through fact-checking – which can change the reporter-reader relation. “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated”, said Mark Twain using some irony to comment on the rumours about his death. The same could be said about journalism today, often reported as dead facing the advance of the Internet. But does the digital revolution really jeopardise the future of information? Ory Okolloh, a young Kenyan lawyer would not tell you so. She belongs to a generation of African people who see the web as a chance for the emancipation of their continent. Ushahidi, the platform collecting eyewitness reports sent in by common people she created to document the violence in the aftermath of Kenya’s 2008 elections, is now used by thousands of people and institutions in the world, including the UN which has recently adopted it as an instrument to coordinate interventions in Haiti. From Nairobi to Sydney, investigation journalism is stronger than ever thanks to Julian Assange, an Australian globe-trotter hacker who believes the Wikipedia spirit can contribute to unveil the deceptions of powerful people ruling the countries. Over the past few years, Wikileaks has published dozens of undisclosed and confidential files (including the manuals for the treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo), unveiling environmental scandals and acts of political corruption that have been subsequently reported by dozens of international newspapers. In his turn, the 20-year-old Dutchman Michael van Poppel is the clear demonstration that the ability to spread real-time information has not been put at risk by the crisis of giant companies. Although this boy has never read a newspaper, also thanks to a Twitter account, his BNO News systematically beats any large-scale international press agencies, as was the case when he first reported the news about the earthquake that hit L’Aquila in Italy. Also in traditional newspapers there are people fighting the current impasse and looking at the future with hope: it is the case of “journalists with nerd tendencies” from the Interactive News Technologies department of the New York Times who design new digital formats for news, investing on a mix of graphics, interactivity and readers’ involvement. Those are some characters described in La Scimmia che Vinse il Pulitzer. Personaggi, avventure e (buone) notizie dal futuro dell’informazione [The Monkey Who Won the Pulitzer. Characters, Adventures and (Good) News from the Future of Information, translator’s note] (Bruno Mondadori, 2011), an essay * This article is a revised transcript of the speech given by the author at the Workshop Science Journalism and Digital Storytelling, which was held on 23 November 2011 at SISSA of Trieste.