These are slides for a workshop on aggregation (with an unrelated tribute to Roger Ebert).

1. Ethical Aggregation
Link, Attribute, Add Value
Steve Buttry
ACES 2013
April 5
#aces13

2. RIP, Roger Ebert

4. Read more about it
• stevebuttry.wordpress.com
• slideshare.net/stevebuttry
• @stevebuttry
• stephenbuttry@gmail.com

5. Aggregation gets a bad rap
“I felt so … aggregated.”
– Bill Keller, New York Times

6. Aggregation gets a bad rap
“There’s often a thin line between
aggregation and theft.”
– Bill Keller again

7. Aggregation gets a bad rap
Plagiarism is “a perpetual danger in
aggregated stories.”
– Patrick Pexton, Washington Post

8. Who aggregates?
• The Bible
• Public libraries
• My Mom (yours, too?)

9. Who aggregates?
• Associated Press
• New York Times
• Digital First Media
• Just about every newsroom
• Sports notes columns
• Drudge, HuffPo & lots of online
“aggregators”

10. What is aggregation?

11. What is aggregation?

12. A range of aggregation
• Algorithm (Google News, TrendMaps)
• Data scraping & organization (EveryBlock)
• Curation (HuffPo, Drudge, AP)
• Re-report (and hopefully advance)
someone else’s story
• Original reporting (still may aggregate for
background, data)

13. NPR’s Andy Carvin
“I think curation has always been a
part of journalism; we just didn't call it
that.” – quoted in The Atlantic by
Phoebe Connelly

14. What is curation?
Museum curator: Journalism curator:
• Studies topic • Studies topic
• Chooses relevant • Chooses relevant
content (other content (social
sources & museum media, blogs, staff)
collection) • Authenticates
• Authenticates • Groups related items
• Groups related items • Provides context
• Provides context • Presents collected
• Presents exhibit content

15. Ethical aggregation
• Fair use (excerpt unless you have
permission to use in full)
• Attribute (by author & publication, not
“media reports” or “was reported”)
• Link (even if you get more value, you
drive traffic to the original source)
• Add value (comment, context, content)

16. Ways to add value
• Summarize • Organize
• Localize • Original reporting
• Round up • Background
• Crowdsource • Verify, challenge
• Reaction (social) • Commentary
• Reaction (media) • Context

17. Aggregation, curation tools
• Storify
• Spundge
• Publish2
• Document Cloud
• Google
• Twitter
• Advanced Twitter Search

18. Authenticate
• Ask: “How do you (they) know that?”
• Ask careful questions of crowd to help
you vet & verify
• Check links, tweets & information on
sources
• Attribute & say what you don’t know

19. Read more about it
• stevebuttry.wordpress.com
• slideshare.net/stevebuttry
• @stevebuttry
• stephenbuttry@gmail.com

20. RIP, Roger Ebert