Online Journalism Blog

THIS BLOG IS MOVING

2007-02-02T15:05:00.000Z

I've bowed to the inevitable and decided to move the Online Journalism Blog to Wordpress. I've had a few good years with Blogger but the relationship never felt like it was going anywhere, and, to be honest, on occasion I even felt ashamed to be seen in public together.

I admit, I was starstruck by the prospect of better Google rankings, but the indie appeal of Wordpress has finally won me over. Oh, and the fact that when Blogger went over to a Google sign-in I couldn't log on at work (I'm sure it's something to do with cookie settings and I could sort it out if I had the time, but no, I'd rather spend endless hours configuring Wordpress to work the same way).

So, if you want to carry on reading my clippings, comments and very occasional flash of insightful analysis, add http://onlinejournalismblog.wordpress.com/ to your Favourites and http://onlinejournalismblog.wordpress.com/feed/ to your RSS feed.

I may occasionally still post to Blogger while I figure Wordpress out, but don't hold your breath.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Integrated Newsrooms part 1: The new Telegraph model

2007-01-27T17:05:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. In the first of a promised three-part series, Editors Weblog looks at the new 'multimedia hub' newsroom of the Daily Telegraph. Unfortunately, it reads a bit fluffy, complete with a riding-into-the-sunset final paragraph:

"[Rhidian Wynn Davies, Consulting Editor of The Telegraph] says simply “we couldn’t do what we do now in the old structure”. [Edward Roussel, Digital Editor at The Telegraph] explains a little further “Everyone is on one floor and no-one can hide away in their office – there aren’t any. It improves communication. I don’t think anyone would want to go back to how it was. It’s such a dynamic environment now, we have short sharp meetings where decisions are made quickly rather than hour long arranged meetings. Before people didn’t communicate. Now those that aren’t good at communicating are forced to. There is no question that it works a lot better and the quality of the content is higher”"

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Newspaper Video: Editing and apps

2007-01-27T16:57:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. Andy Dickinson presents his summary of what newspaper video producers need, in terms of software. A second part is also promised which covers freeware/shareware options.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Online journalism discussion

2007-01-27T16:29:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. The OJR have launched a discussion board on their website around online journalism - looks like a great space to contribute to.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Students make mobile phone news

2007-01-27T13:37:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. News editors, meet the graduate journalists of 2017 (caveat/shameless plug: students on the journalism degree I teach on will have these skills too when they graduate in 2008, but judging from what I hear of online journalism education I'm assuming they're the exception rather than the rule. Controversial? Well, the beauty of a blog is, you can pull me up if this isn't the case. So, if you teach on a journalism degree please let me know - via comments - what new media/multimedia skills your students gain. Conversely, if you're a journalism student, I'd also like to hear what skills you're gaining and what you think you should be learning. Parenthesis over.)

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Futurology

2007-01-27T13:18:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. I've only just caught up with Shane Richmond's post on the future (or proposed death) of newspapers, following a seminar which suggested in the year 2012 "a typical media group will have a stable of publications: a daily premium news magazine, a free daily paper, a portfolio of websites, an internet television channel and a hyperlocal publishing network."

Richmond disagrees with the magazine element because "people are less and less inclined to pay for bundles of content" and the RSS-fuelled Daily Me (Frighteningly, Negroponte's idea is over a decade old) is a "model of media consumption that leads me to believe that media delivery to portable devices (phones, PDAs, electronic readers, flexible displays etc) will, at some stage in the future, supersede ink-on-paper media. I think so, others in the room disagreed."

I'm of the mind to agree that portable devices and the My Google-style personalised news page will come to dominate news consumption, but that paper will continue to have an important role for the reason that RSS still requires you to select what interests you, whereas paper presents a browsing experience different to the 'search-and-scan' approach online. Research shows people are very task-oriented when they go online; a paper is an opportunity to come across stories you wouldn't otherwise find; and in a local paper context, get an overall picture of what's happening.

Now, two things may change this: first, social recommendation. When those whose judgement we trust begin to drive our news consumption in a mainstream way, the editor's role becomes, if not redundant, at least transplanted. Second: screen resolution. When reading a story online or on a portable device becomes as comfortable as reading paper, we may drop the search-and-scan approach.

As for magazines, as I've written elsewhere, I think one future for them is as facilitators of virtual communities - a forward thinking magazine publisher will be investing in social recommendation software, forums, reader-editors and expert bloggers right now...

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Trinity Mirror head speaks of "garlic bread moment"

2007-01-27T11:08:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging].

At yesterday's Citizen Journalism conference Trinity Mirror Head of Multimedia Michael Hill spoke of this being the "garlic bread moment" for the local press - the realisation that new media and citizen journalism "is the future".

At the same time "Local papers have been doing citizen journalism for over a hundred years - it's always been about local people." The battle now is to convince hearts and minds that local people want to consume - and take part in - their news in a different way. This is the "man on the Clapham Omnibus 2.0" who checks the news on their mobile phone, picks up a free newspaper but walks past the newsagent, searches for items of interest online, and relies on bloggers as much as journalists.

"We have to accept that breaking news online has to come first," he said, a process he intimated some journalists were finding hard to swallow. One had protested: "Why kill the goose that laid the golden egg?" His response? "The goose has got bird flu".

The process of persuasion has already begun, with 'Back to Basics' presentations to Trinity Mirror staff around the country. In the process the company has discovered latent talent in some staff - web savvy journalists; writers who can also edit video - but there is a conscious attempt not to "create islands" of 'new media teams' or 'digital teams'. Hill described the process as being "like turning round an oil tank," and that some staff would never get it, "but they'll do what they're told to do."

The group have a number of plans for the future. Hill argues that "Local is Web 2.1," and work is already under way on the first five of a planned 35 'micro-sites' around the country, created by key local people. Blogs are already integral to the newspaper sites, with 34,000 pages being read across the group in the last week alone, and will become more so, as the group looks to tap into the niche publishing of 'Long Tail' economics, illustrated most vividly (and to some attendees' consternation) by the 'Geordie Dreamer'.

The group are also working on technology to rank stories by the number of people viewing them. "Newsworthiness used to be a judgement of what would sell copies," he explained, but for the website it is a judgement of what will generate page views.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

/discuss... How?

2007-01-27T10:34:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. What's happened to the Press Gazette /discuss section? I was just about to comment on the latest piece in the print paper ('Mainstream media must show respect for the new kid on the blog') only to find the link at Press Gazette now goes straight to the AOL homepage.

So, no copying and pasting, no linking, and because I have other stories to blog (and a bathroom to strip) Press Gazette (and AOL) lose the opportunity to get a few more hits.

The piece in a nutshell focuses on Daily Mail columnist Keith Waterhouse's "distaste for bloggers" but that this changes "when it comes to photo bloggers. Citizen journalism suddenly becomes worthwhile, even respectable, if the blogger has a camera."

Interestingly, given that the issue was debated at yesterday's Citizen Journalism conference, Waterhouse is quoted as saying

"This Damascus U-turn took place in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein's
execution, when the pictures began to come in.
"You will recall that the reports originally had it that the death sentence was carried out with as much decorum and dignity as such gruesome rituals allow.
"No Western reporters were present - the BBC's John Simpson was asked along to the necktie party by the Iraqi leader himself, but was turned away.
"The bloggers were there, though, armed with picture-snatching mobile phone cameras. The official photo coverage, taken to convince the world that the monster had indeed paid the price, were grisly enough.
"The bloggers' contribution - grabbed at the gallows either by a mini-mob of gleeful Shia interlopers or by the condemned prisoner's guards themselves - shocked all right-thinking people."

Thankfully, because Waterhouse's piece is available online, I can quote at length.

Well, you may not be able to discuss it at Press Gazette, but feel free to discuss it here.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Sky and social networking?

2007-01-27T10:24:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, social networking]. Journalism.co.uk is reporting on plans by Sky for "a video-based social networking website with Google":

"Asked if it will have a creative or news-based focus, Mr Wright said it could be a 'combination of those things'. However, he added that the site would not follow either the MySpace or Bebo social network formulas - thus offering the possibility of something wholly unique."

But possibly more interesting is the note that "Google also agreed to provide search and targeted search advertising, email, messenger and VoIP telephony." While social networking is relatively new and difficult to get right, facilities such as these could make a difference to the user experience and, more importantly, advertisers.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Citizen Journalism conference blog

2007-01-26T17:36:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Well, the Citizen Journalism 2007 conference finally took place today. Michael Hill, Trinity Mirror's Head of Multimedia, spoke of the group's "garlic bread moment" in converting to the new media age, while blogger Tom Reynolds talked of the power of the blogosphere, as well as its self-regulating nature. Vicky Taylor, the BBC's Head of Interactivity, outlined the organisation's approach to user generated content, and the whole was riddled with extensive questioning and debate.

You'll find some coverage already at Journalism.co.uk (Trinity Mirror launches ultra-local citizen journalism sites), but for more on the speeches take a look at the conference blog at http://citizenjournalism.wordpress.com/ - which I'll be adding to later - and there's a conference wiki at http://citizenjournalism.xwiki.com/xwiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome which anyone can contribute to.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Journalism stories: A multimedia approach

2007-01-25T09:03:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Great series of articles from Mindy McAdams on how to approach interactive storytelling - well worth spending some time on:

Journalism stories: A multimedia approach (Part 1)...

Journalism stories: A multimedia approach (Part 2)...

Journalism stories: A multimedia approach (Part 3)...

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Labels: interactive storytelling, Mindy McAdams, journalism, online journalism

List of guidelines for the BBC's Web 2.0 project

2007-01-25T08:59:00.000Z

For some reason I am unable to log in to my Blogger account from work, and so am having to post this via email. So, forgive me if this doesn't read as smoothly as it could:

Quick link for today: Tomski's list of guidelines for the BBC's Web 2.0 project. My favourite guideline: "5. Treat the entire web as a creative canvas: don't restrict your creativity to your own site."

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Labels: citizen journalism, danny sanchez, journalism, online journalism

Web sites for citizen journalism techniques, tutorials

2007-01-23T11:05:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. A list of resources from Danny Sanchez that's worth browsing if you're interested in the CJ arena - particularly OurMedia Personal Media Learning Center: "A great resource containing interviews with citizen media pioneers, summaries of media law and more."

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

PCC to regulate newspaper audio and video

2007-01-23T11:00:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. Journalism.co.uk reports on the move by the PCC to extend its regulation to cover newspaper audio and video, with chairman Sir Christopher Meyer quoted as saying: "We have now persuaded the newspaper and magazine industry of the United Kingdom to agree also the principle of our regulating moving pictures and sound on newspaper's websites [...] we are going to make an announcement, I hope, pretty soon in the next few weeks about exactly what that entails - there are some definitions to be sorted out - but it's a major step forward, and it's the first time, I think, that newspapers have voluntarily agreed without outside pressure to extend the remit of regulation through the PCC."

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

A glossary of online news terms

2007-01-19T19:02:00.001Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. The Online Journalism Review have started a potentially very useful glossary of online news terms on their site - and in admirable fashion, have made it a wiki that registered users can edit.

I've been in there and said my bit, adding user generated content, crowdsourcing, podcast, vodcast, vlogs, moblogs, photoblogs, CMS, and 'wiki' itself - and just to be a pedant, I've changed the headings from being simply bold (meaningless), to actually using heading tags (h3, if you must know). I'll be claiming my percentage when the OJR's search engine rankings improve.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

The most popular news video clips online

2007-01-19T19:01:00.001Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, video journalism.] How have I missed this before? The Guardian have been featuring a chart of viral news videos since November, with weekly commentary by Jemima Kiss. Well worth bookmarking.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Newspaper group to train its 1,500 journalists in online skills

2007-01-19T16:36:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. As if proof were needed of the need for online journalism skills in today's jobs market, HoldTheFrontPage reports that:

"Every journalist working on a Northcliffe newspaper is to be trained to update its accompanying website, putting stories online themselves and learning how to "add value" to articles.
"The group says fully integrated multi-media newsrooms will soon be in operation across its titles, with all of its 1,500 journalists writing for both print and online."

What's particularly notable here is the fact that "Sub-editors are also able to rewrite headlines for online stories." The punny, cryptic headlines that work in print are not always suitable for search engine-optimised, scannable online consumption - but is this what they mean?

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Last chance to book a place on Citizen Journalism 2007

2007-01-18T11:31:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. If you want to listen to the BBC's Head of Interactivity Vicky Taylor, best-selling blogger Tom Reynolds and Trinity Mirror's Head of Multimedia Michael Hill, you'd better get a move on: booking closes tomorrow for the Citizen Journalism 2007 conference in Birmingham on January 26.

You can book online at MediaSkills.org's page on the Citizen Journalism conference which will take place next Friday (January 26).

Hope to see you there.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

CNET, journalists and the whole social net thing

2007-01-17T13:47:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. OK, this is getting eerie. Or perhaps my presentation at the AJE conference in Huddersfield on Friday just happens to take in too many things, but also on my list of Things To Talk About is the vague term of 'social media'. Hey presto, Jemima Kiss writes a thorough piece on the subject at CommentUnlimited following a forum held by the Association of Online Publishers:

"Daniels outlined CNET's move towards what Tim O'Reilly (the Web 2.0 guy) described as architected participation. She said CNET's core mission was to interpret and filter content and that that will remain the same, but that the public have different expectations about the media they use and expect to be able to find and use their voice to participate in the community around it.
"Daniels said: "It may not necessarily be that many people but what they say is incredibly valuable. We want to enable those thought-leading people to engage with the site and give them a platform equal with our editorial team. And if we can get our thought leaders to contribute, the lurkers will benefit more."
"Daniels was referring to CNET's new-ish "My CNET" type feature, where users can set up their own profile page, add comments to stories, write their own blog and so on. The most frequent contributors can even get their byline on the front page - which CNET's own journalists can't."

I could go on quoting, but you may as well read the article...

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Wikis will be the new blogs

2007-01-17T12:57:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, wikis]. More perfect timing - as I prepare to talk about using wikis in teaching online journalism, The Telegraph's Shane Richmond posts on how vandalism is the biggest threat to wikis' widespread adoption (it's a response to Bambi Francisco's post 'Why media will embrace wikis'). He promises to write more tomorrow.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Note to journalism schools: give us new heroes

2007-01-17T12:41:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism. Martin Stabe may well be able to add curriculum design to his CV after his latest post, which bemoans the fact that journalism students still seem to be unaware that the 'print-only hack' is not a viable career option any more. "Teach some new heroes," suggests:

"You know, the people out there doing impressive stuff with new technologies right now. The war reporters traveling the world doing solo multimedia reporting; the investigative reporters using sophisticated software to take on the CIA, the laid-off print hacks going it alone to build successful online publications, the people bringing software development skills into journalism.
"Need a recent journalism film to dislodge Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford? Try Shattered Glass — a story where the fraudulent titular hack is found out by an online journalist. The hero there is Adam Penenberg, then of Forbes.com. A key part of the story is Penenberg’s scepticism about the phoney website the technologically-unsophisticated Glass had set up to disguise his made-up stories for the New Republic, er, magazine."

I'll certainly be passing on these examples in my Online Journalism module this coming semester, as well as suggesting that we communicate these career options during Induction Week (the first week of a student's university course).

And as I happen to be speaking at the Association of Journalism Educators conference this Friday on a very similar subject, the timing of Stabe's post couldn't be better. Bring on the new breed of journalists!

PS: Mindy McAdams once had some similar thoughts at her blog.
PPS: Looks like this is a hot topic, with Andrew-Grant Adamson posting on the same topic here.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Promoting computer-assisted reporting in Britain

2007-01-05T09:34:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, CAR]. More from Martin Stabe, this time on the oft-overlooked skill of Computer Assisted Reporting. He and Heather Brooke are talking about setting up an organisation similar to the US's National Institute for Computer Assisted Reporting (NICAR) to promote the development of computer-assisted reporting in Britain.

If you’re a UK-based journalist interested in this, he asks you to join their “BICAR” listserve.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

A wiki for leaking secrets

2007-01-05T09:27:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism]. Martin Stabe reports on Wikileaks:

"A new service which claims to offer “an uncensorable version of WikiPedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis”. The site’s creators told Secrecy News that it is aimed primarily at those working in repressive regimes, but could also be used by those in government or corporations in democratic states."
Stabe notes, however, that this is "a project that carries a high risk of being used irresponsibly and seems to abdicate all responsibility for the actions of its users."

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

The silliest, and most destructive, debate in journalism

2007-01-05T09:24:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. More about the divisive debate about 'mainstream' versus 'citizen' journalism - including an example of a story that would have benefited from a bit of crowdsourcing.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Pocket journalism

2007-01-02T08:17:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Normally in internet journalism, the world looks to the US to see how the medium is likely to take shape, but Clyde Bentley's piece about mobile phone journalism (cellphones to the Americans) on the Online Journalism Review shows one area where European news operations could pioneer:

"We are still installing a 3G network in the United States and it will be some time until it is ubiquitous. Japan and Korea are so far ahead they are looking at 4G and the European cell system upgraded to that level some time ago.
"People here can buy 3G telephones at any of the Orange, Carphone Warehouse, O2 or T-mobile shops that occupy every other doorway on High Street. As you watch the world go by from the second deck of a bus, the people around you check their e-mail or text messages, share photos, find a map to a restaurant or listen to music."

So why hasn't it happened already? In a way, it has, as the public have taken advantage of the multimedia devices in their pockets to film, photograph and text news events. September 11 was the first major news event where those involved were able to use mobile phones to call while it happened; July 7 and Buncefield introduced mobile phone images and video; while the hanging of Saddam Hussein has already thrown up footage apparently filmed by mobile phone. Sadly, news operations have been slow to do the same - really, every journalist should be given a cutting edge mobile phone as part of the job, but how likely is it that that is going to happen?

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

YouTube journalism

2006-12-20T08:57:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. The LA Times paints a colourful picture of what it describes as the 'YouTube effect' of 'YouTube journalism':

"A VIDEO SHOWS a line of people trudging up a snow-covered footpath. A shot is heard; the first person in line falls. A voice-over says, "They are killing them like dogs." Another shot, and another body drops to the ground. A Chinese soldier fires his rifle again. Then a group of soldiers examines the bodies.
"These images were captured in the Himalayas by a member of a mountaineering expedition who claims to have stumbled on the killing. The video first aired on Romanian television, but it only gained worldwide attention when it was posted on YouTube, the video-sharing website. (To view it, go to YouTube.com and type "Tibet, ProTV, China"). Human rights groups say the slain Tibetan refugees included monks, women and children. The Chinese government had claimed the soldiers shot in self-defense after they were attacked by 70 refugees, but the video seems to render that explanation absurd. The U.S. ambassador to China lodged a complaint."

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

BBC starts experimental citizen journalism project

2006-12-20T08:53:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Journalism.co.uk reports on a citizen journalism project by the BBC in collaboration with the University of Brighton, Nokia and mobile and web engagement specialist Ymogen "to explore new multi-media story telling ideas using mobile phones and GPS"

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

How to: find contacts and information about people online

2006-12-18T11:14:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. Useful tips from Journalism.co.uk

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Citizen Journalism conference - now booking online

2006-12-18T10:35:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. As promised, MediaSkills.org now has further details of the Citizen Journalism conference planned for January 26, where the BBC's Vicky Taylor, blogger Tom Reynolds and Trinity Mirror's Michael Hill will all be speaking on how the media and citizen journalists can better work together.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Videos of important people talking

2006-12-12T10:55:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Journalism.co.uk recently held its first Readers' Revolution speaking event with guests Clyde Bentley, associate professor at Missouri School of Journalism, Robin Hamman, BBC blog network producer, and Kevin Anderson, the Guardian's recently appointed blogging guru. Watch all three in glorious pixelated YouTube video at http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/story3104.shtml

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Canadian citizen journalism website

2006-12-11T13:44:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. The editor of Orato.com has emailed me to alert me to their presence. In her own words:

"We are a citizen journalism news Web site based in Vancouver, Canada that aims to put a human face on the news by showcasing vivid, first-person stories from individuals involved in current events.

"We are driven by the belief that writing in the first person is more compelling than traditional journalism because it almost always requires the inclusion of personality. Third-person “he-said-she-said” reporting can mask the truth while making the reporter’s prejudice appear objective.

"We invite ordinary people to tell their stories for free, letting readers vote on their favourites. The highest-rated stories star on the web site’s main pages, netting citizen journalists’ names high ratings and exposure on web search engines."

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

The arrogance of the traditional newspaper

2006-12-11T13:12:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Jen McClure talks about New York Times chairman and publisher Arthur Sulzberger's talk about citizen journalism and its effect on the New York Times and traditional media model:

"While Mr. Sulzberger stated that his newspaper and others are increasingly embracing citizen journalism in some way, he seemed to exhibit what I would characterize as arrogance about the unchallenged role of arbiter for the New York Times and the traditional media model in today's society. He spoke of the NYT pursuing its role the way it has for the last 150 years, and seemed quite comfortable in discounting the knowledge, wisdom and emerging influence of new citizen journalists and the social media movement. This is only a two-minute clip and admittedly his comments could have been taken out of context, but I invite you to check it out and share your thoughts and opinions here. "

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

The rise of community journalism

2006-12-11T13:01:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. The British Journalism Review includes a relatively brief piece by Stephen Kingston on 'community journalism' (a term I would include some citizen journalism under) and the reasons for its rising popularity:

"Welcome to Salford, the epicentre of some of Europe’s biggest regeneration projects – and home of the free, independent Salford Star magazine, which, among other things, aims to ensure that Salfordians living in some of the most deprived areas in Europe get a fair deal. So far, Salfordians aren’t happy with their deal. The Star’s summer issue revealed how more than £15 million of regeneration money is being pumped into the awardwinning Urban Splash “upside-down terraced house” development – bedrooms on the ground floor, living accommodation upstairs – in Salford’s Chimney Pot Park area, for a return to the community of not one single affordable home in its first phase. That’s a scandal. And there’s more. Lots more.

"This particular story was sitting up and begging to be written. The reason why it never broke – despite God knows how many well-paid writers working for the nationals down the road in Manchester – is the reason community journalism is on the rise. The “proper” journalists, who are supposed to be the guardians of democracy, accountability and stuff like that, are swallowing the hype and either can’t be arsed or haven’t got the time to investigate it. They’ve got no personal stake in the place. Instead, Urban Splash riding into a “crap place” – U.S. chairman, Tom Bloxham’s words – and saving the day by making the neighbourhood funky makes a good, quick, cheap feature, alongside all those Harvey Nicks-type ads."

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

A guide to Web 2.0 for newspapers

2006-12-11T09:09:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, web 2.0]. Here's a useful document for any publishers wondering what to do with the opportunities of web 2.0. Strangely, the whole thing is in Flash, and even more strangely, it tries to replicate a traditional magazine (pages turn, complete with rustling sound effect). Hardly web 2.0 (the tag cloud is particularly frustrating, as it's simply an image), but if you can put that aside it's a good beginner's guide.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Review: Convergence Journalism

2006-12-09T14:47:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. The following review of Convergence Journalism by Janet Kolodzy will appear in the journal 'Journalism':

Review: Convergence Journalism

‘Convergence’ is one of many buzzwords currently doing the rounds in the news industry, and like many buzzwords, there is often confusion about what it actually means. For some it represents a new model of mixed-media journalism; for others it represents a change in organisational structure.

For Janet Kolodzy it’s both, and more besides. Kolodzy takes that term ‘convergence’ as her starting point, and spends the whole of the first chapter outlining its different forms – from the convergence of technologies that has taken place with digitisation, to economic convergence in media ownership, through to the journalistic convergence that is seeing both a combination of media forms into one ‘multimedia’ form, and a multiplication of delivery systems.

From there she looks at how newsroom practices have had to change as a result of convergence, and at news values. To her credit she speaks to the people working in converged newsrooms and the book is littered with case studies – essential when looking at a medium that is being made up as we speak – and there are conceptual models for the theorist too.

There is a chapter on gathering and producing a news story in a convergent age, which gives a good insight into the different considerations in gathering video and text material - although more thought could have been given here to audio and interactivity. Indeed, a journalist following the steps outlined here would be guilty of traditional linear storytelling: while interviews are covered, for example, no mention is made of the option to get readers to post questions online, or indeed to arrange a live chat.

These ideas are left instead for the chapters on broadcast, print, and online ‘basics’. To her credit here Kolodzy does not stop at how to write for the web but also outlines non-linear forms from polls and forums to quizzes, timelines, calculators, slideshows, animations, webcasts and podcasts. A traditional journalist could be forgiven for getting dizzy at the raft of options – and that’s even before we’ve covered “Participatory journalism” (citizen journalism, wikis), which is given a chapter of its own under ‘The Next Wave’ section.

It is a sign of how fast things are moving that that particular ‘next wave’ is probably already with us, but in the final chapter Kolodzy quotes media design consultants Bowman and Willis on a trend that may be more significant in the longer term: “While news organisations may see their audiences as readers and viewers,” she notes, “the next wave are increasingly gamers, who like to explore.”

This is an unusual book. Most authors would identify themselves as practitioners or academics, and set out to appeal to an audience in their own image: either the budding journalist, or the student of the craft. Convergence Journalism, however, dares to assume the reader is interested in both the how and the why. Perhaps we are finally seeing a convergence of the two?

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Should citizen journalists be better rewarded?

2006-12-08T13:53:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. More on Citizen Journalism from Graham Holliday, who asks "Should citizen journalists be better rewarded?" after Yahoo! and Reuters joined forces to bring us 'You Witness News' (yep, another CJ ghetto). The catch? "Users will not be paid for images displayed on the Yahoo and Reuters sites. But people whose photos or videos are selected for distribution to Reuters clients will receive a payment." although "the company had not yet figured out how to structure those payments. The basic payment may be relatively small, but [the Reuters president] said Reuters was likely to pay more to people offering exclusive rights to images of major events."

I'll leave Graham the last, very eloquent, word:

"If it's good enough for a hugely profitable company such as Reuters to use, then it's good enough for Reuters to pay a Reuters rate to the person creating that content.
"Despite the incursions of big media, one of the things the social - or people's web - still manages to hold dear is a sense of ethics. Wrongdoers are rapidly banged to rights, rightdoers are a cause celebre.
"Celebrated cases are heavily linked to, and in a world where links rule, companies, decision makers and bloggers all live or die by the thoughts, feelings and analysis of those conversing in the crowd.
"It's all well and good old media bumbling into our media world, but don't come cherry picking without being prepared to cough up the readies. Throw crumbs and you'll find them spat back at you.
"And whatever you do, be straight up with us. If you have no intention of paying us, say so now. Procrastination only breeds suspicion."

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Internet accounts for one in three jailed journalists

2006-12-08T13:48:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Welcome back Press Gazette, which reports "The bulk of internet journalists in jail - 49 in total - shows that "authoritarian states are becoming more determined to control the internet," said Joel Simon, the New York-based group's executive director. "

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Citizen Journalism conference

2006-12-07T15:12:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Anyone interested in the rise of citizen journalism and its take up by mainstream news organisations might want to attend the Citizen Journalism 2007 conference taking place in Birmingham on January 26, which is being organised by yours truly along with my colleague Sue Heseltine.

There are three excellent keynote speakers lined up:

Michael Hill is the newly appointed Head of Multimedia at Trinity Mirror who has already expressed a desire to make the most of citizen journalism.

Tom Reynolds is the blogger behind Random Acts of Reality and the author of 'Blood, Sweat and Tea', a collection of blog posts that reached no.8 on Amazon.

And finally Vicky Taylor, the head of interactivity at the BBC, who recently announced they would start paying for viewer contributed content.

The speakers will be followed by lunch, workshop sessions and end with a panel discussion.

Details should be on mediaskills.org.uk shortly. In the meantime you can book a place for £80+VAT through Sarah Calhaem on 0121 204 9883 or email Sarah.Calhaem@uce.ac.uk

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

How to be a one-man citizen news operation

2006-12-06T15:46:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Jeff Jarvis tells us how he did it.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Unique users to become mandatory metric for ABC

2006-12-06T15:38:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. Journalism.co.uk reports that "the unique user metric will replace page impressions as the mandatory minimum metric to be certified by ABC Electronic" - the only surprising thing being that it wasn't the case before, given that with print publications ABC measures sales and not 'number of pages read'.

UPDATE: Shane Richmond goes into much more detail about the various systems of measurement, and the potential flaws in unique user measurement.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Future plans £6.7m web investment

2006-11-30T09:50:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. That's "more than half of its planned new product development spend," reports Media Week, as the company "seeks to stabilise the business after announcing pre-tax losses of £49m in the last financial year."

Chief executive Stevie Spring is quoted as saying: "Over the past two years, we spent all of our money on acquisitions to fill in gaps, but they didn't deliver. It's clear that our core business needed time and cash and we will be moving staff into our growth areas wherever we can."

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Why multimedia? It forces your competitors to credit you

2006-11-29T14:27:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. Jeff Jarvis has been speaking to Ed Roussel, head of online for the Telegraph, "about the paper-site’s scoop last night on the hiring of BBC Chairman Michael Grade by struggling ITV", providing an insight into the workings of the newly integrated newspaper:

"Roussel said the Grade story was a model for how it should work on a new
platform that can cut across all media and tools: The story went online at 9:50
p.m. and in no time, they put up audio and video and more content, forcing those
competitors listed above to attribute the news to the Telegraph. Roussel said
there is no more debate about putting stories online first. "

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Pulitzer Prize to embrace Web 2.0 elements

2006-11-29T09:56:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism ]. You don't get much more establishment than this: Journalism.co.uk reports that "The Pulitzer Prize Board has established new rules allowing newspapers to submit a full array of online material such as databases, interactive graphics, and streaming video for its journalism awards."

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

The last web news from Press Gazette

2006-11-28T11:34:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Press Gazette published its final issue with plenty of online journalism news - detailed below. Those wanting their fix of news from the excellent Martin Stabe should check out his own blog at http://www.martinstabe.com/blog/ (RSS feed generally only says something like 'links for 2006-11-22" but it's worth clicking through to the site). Here's those stories:

Web of dispute: Telegraph web supremacy claim dismissed by rivals

Telegraph editor Will Lewis has prompted a statistical battle between national papers after... Read More

Red website a likely priority as Hachette joins digital race

Hachette has become the fourth major consumer publisher this year to announce appointments to a... Read More

Dispatches website to challenge NHS postcode lottery

Channel 4's Dispatches, is to launch a unique website designed to help viewers challenge the NHS... Read More

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Newspaper readership was declining before the WWW - and didn't decline any faster after it

2006-11-28T11:01:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. Flicking through Internet Newspapers, a book edited by Xigen Li and collecting a range of articles on the medium I came across an interesting piece of research by Xigen Li and Zhanwei Cao on the 'Effect of Growing Internet Newspapers on Circulation of U.S. Print Newspapers'. Namely:

"First, the study found circulation of print newspapers has been declining since 1990. There was no difference in circulation changes between the two periods 1990 to 1994 and 1995 to 2000. The later period was marked by the popularity of internet newspapers."

Sounds like the internet has been a scapegoat for a decline in readership which predates the World Wide Web...

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

The ghettoisation of citizen journalism

2006-11-28T08:48:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. The ghettoisation of citizen journalism continues, it seems, with the BBC's announcement of a news programme based entirely on user-generated material. "Your News, which began a pilot run on Saturday," reports Journalism.co.uk, "will feature stories, features and video proving most popular with viewers on TV and the internet." This follows the previously reported announcement by Five News that they will pay for viewers' clips - with possible plans to put it in a "special section" of the news. I'm told the advert requesting this viewer content closely resembles the advert at the end of You've Been Framed.

It would be nice to see user content integrated into the newsgathering process. The danger with these devoted sections and programmes is that citizen journalism becomes trivialised as an "And finally" item, or a "Your Views"-style TV letters page. Interestingly, the Five News website has its citizen journalism right on the front page: a sign that online, at least, the viewers are being taken seriously.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

'Social network' for newspapers to launch next month

2006-11-24T11:36:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, social networking]. Journalism.co.uk reports that "A computer platform that allows newspapers to share news and classified advertising will launch early next month.

"US-based CityTools will enable newspaper publishers to create content networks with one another and draw on articles written by members of the public.
"If you spin the CityTools model forward, you can go to your local newspaper website and suddenly, because they have built smart networks and smart relationships with other publishers, you get reliable content. The same kind of
mass but its all relevant to the local readership."

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

The power of crowds

2006-11-24T10:07:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. My latest Stirrer column looks at crowdsourcing. Here's the article in full:

The power of crowds

Some journalists are afraid of their readers. They refuse to publish an email address at the end of their article; the newspaper website does not list their phone number; and as for ‘citizen journalism’, well, we didn’t spend all that time learning shorthand only for Joe Bloggs to get in on the act with no more qualifications than a mobile phone.

Others, however, are starting to realise that their readers are the best weapon they have in tackling a story that would otherwise prove too tough a nut to crack.

Take Ben Goldacre, for instance. Ben writes a regular column in the Saturday Guardian entitled ‘Bad Science’, which looks at science-related stories in the week’s media – you know, the sort of stories that begin “A revolutionary drug-free dyslexia remedy has been hailed a wonder cure by experts”.

For a number of weeks Ben has been writing about Durham Council’s claims to have run a trial of a fish oil food supplement. Durham Council staff he wrote, were “appearing all over the papers and television in news stories to promote a pill called Eye Q made by Equazen, suggesting it is effective at improving concentration and learning in normal children, an assertion that is not supported by published trial data.”

Ben’s attempts to get hold of the trial information have proved unsuccessful – firstly his phonecalls and emails went unanswered, and then his request under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act was rejected on the grounds of cost.

So Ben decided to turn to his readers. Realising that a request for just two or three of the pieces of information he had requested should not be rejected on the grounds of cost, he asked his readers to make those, smaller, requests instead, with the intention of collecting the different pieces of information together afterwards.

The readers have responded in droves: at the time of writing there were 173 comments on Ben’s blog from people who have made the FOI request - and this in a world where most journalists wouldn’t know how to make an FOI request.

But this isn’t an isolated case. It’s called crowdsourcing, and in America newspaper publishers Gannett are already looking to integrate the process into their news operations after some particularly successful campaigns – including one investigation of a local authority’s excessive water connection fees where “retired engineers analyzed blueprints, accountants pored over balance sheets, and an inside whistle-blower leaked documents showing evidence of bid-rigging.”

In a world where the only investigative journalism involves rooting through the rubbish of celebrities, and where people are increasingly cynical of power and those who hold it – both politicians and journalists – crowdsourcing provides a spark of hope that perhaps the people still do have some power, and more importantly: they’re keen to exercise it.

Useful links:

BadScience >> Fish Oil
Something fishy?
Gannett to Crowdsource News

---
Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

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BBC News is 43% in touch with what we're reading (at time of writing)

2006-11-23T16:33:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. Thanks to colleague Dave Harte for pointing this one out: it’s a webpage that tells you how in touch the BBC news agenda is by comparing what the BBC currently has as its running order on its site and what people are actually reading. Actually, 43% is probably a decent result compared to most publications...

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Online newspapers and the 2006 US election

2006-11-14T08:50:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism ]. The OJR provides an overview of online election coverage in the US and "finds that many newspaper websites are not making full use of the Web to inform readers about local candidates."

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The future of newspapers

2006-11-13T08:55:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Article in the Independent, of all places (the least forward-thinking of the broadsheets) with quotes from various industry people. Most of it you've heard before - the usual waffle about 'brands' and 'more people are reading newspapers than ever before' and 'it's a two-way communication with readers', but I like Piers Morgan's to-the-point assessment: "It will be the newspapers who are the most dynamic online who win. "

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‘A few thousand’ blogging professionally

2006-11-10T14:20:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. "Technorati founder Dave Sifry [...] told Frank Barnako of Marketwatch that “a few thousand” people are now blogging for a living. "

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Column: whose content is it anyway?

2006-11-08T11:52:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. Here's my latest Stirrer column:

Andrew Neil is not happy. The BBC broadcaster and former editor of The Sunday Times is the latest news executive to attack Google News, the aggregation service that collects stories from news sources around the world.

Neil opened the Society of Editors conference in Glasgow with a complaint about the service: "We don't charge them a penny for our hard-earned journalism,” he moaned. "It's time for a conversation with Google. They can afford it."

The Google News excuse is fast becoming a cliché in news circles, as newspaper revenues decline and executives cast around for someone to blame. In March journalists from The Times and the World Association of Newspapers used the Online Publishers Association to attack the service. Phillipe Janet, an online news executive with French newspaper Les Echos, said Google News should be banned form “stealing content and revenues from newspapers”.

One Belgian news organisation felt so strongly about the issue that when Google News launched its Belgian service they sued the company, saying "We are asking for Google to pay and seek our authorisation to use our content ... Google sells advertising and makes money on our content".

Now that’s not strictly true: Google News features no advertising. And when the Belgians won the case all they really won was the right not to be listed on Google. This is like suing WHSmiths for stocking your newspaper. I’ve never heard a better definition of ‘cutting off your nose to spite your face’, and the newspaper website ad sales department must have been ringing with the sound of heads hitting desks.

Just as Andrew Neil bemoans the fact that newspapers don't charge Google News for their journalism, Google News could argue “We don’t charge them a penny for sending thousands of readers to their website”.

What newspapers should be doing, of course, is making a deal with Google which allows the search engine giant to start advertising alongside newspaper content, with newspapers taking a cut.

But while the dinosaurs lumber over the pennies, a limber Google is testing out fresh ideas every day that just keep fillings its coffers. And its latest plan? Acting as a broker for people to buy advertising space… in newspapers.

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Google to Try Selling Advertisements for Newspapers

2006-11-07T12:09:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism ]. Attention Andrew Neil: Google is one step ahead of you: "Google will run a three-month test -- set to be announced today -- that is designed to make it easy for newspaper advertisers to come to the popular search-engine site, find a newspaper they want to advertise in, browse ad rates and buy an ad."

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More on the BBC's 'web 2.0' plans

2006-11-07T09:29:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Head of BBC News Interactive Pete Clifton is quoted in Press Gazette on the BBC's plans to relaunch as a web 2.0-based operation next year:

"plans include increased personalisation features for the front page of BBC News Online, an expansion of the site's live statistics tracker and possibly wiki-style pages that would let users contribute to compilations of information. A BBC News API (application programming interface) could let web developers outside the BBC access news content for their own projects."

But perhaps more noteworthy is the (welcome) focus on possible structural changes:

"An important part of the review, he said, would be examining how BBC News needs to be organised to deliver information across platforms.
"We all have to look at our newsrooms and ask ourselves whether they are set up for the challenges ahead. Is it real integration, or is there a bit of lipservice to do it with a token web person sitting at the end of the row," Clifton said, noting that competitors like The Daily Telegraph are working hard to integrate their newsrooms for multimedia publishing."

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Citizen journalism success story hitting the rocks?

2006-11-07T09:26:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism]. OhMyNews is struggling, according to Press Gazette: "According to BusinessWeek, OhmyNews could end its financial year in the red."

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The rise of user generated content

2006-11-07T09:07:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Following my previous posts on US publisher Gannett's move into citizen journalism, and the launch of MySun, Owen Gibson provides a comprehensive look at the rise of user generated content (registration required), as Channel Five launches "a major UGC drive" next Monday:

"I'm hoping people will get to know Five News as the place that really does listen to you about your story and cares enough to give you a credit, pay you and do something about it," says [senior programme controller Chris] Shaw, who insists that it is about "much more" than simply a call for story tips and mobile phone clips. The idea of paying contributors has already been trialled with some success by the mobile network 3, which rewards contributors to its SeeMeTV service every time their clip is downloaded.
"[...] But it will face stiff competition, and the issue was hotly debated at the News Xchange conference in Istanbul last week.
"Pete Clifton, head of BBC News Interactive, said the corporation - which has for some time allowed viewers to send material via its "yourpics" facility - does not pay contributors, but allows them to retain copyright. In contrast ITN deputy editor Jonathan Munro said ITV has and does pay for footage - including "tens of thousands of pounds" for footage of the arrest of some people who attempted a copycat London bombing. "We pay because it's a commercial commodity, a competitive market and has commercial value - and we'd try to recoup that value by selling the footage on to our clients."
"Authenticity is another potential banana skin [...] Safety issues are another consideration with viewer-submitted content. Fran Unsworth, head of newsgathering at the BBC, admitted to being concerned by much of the footage that had been sent in from last year's gas explosion at Buncefield.
"A lot of teenagers were coming to our link on the ground and they provided the best pictures of the day by getting far closer than the BBC's own camera crews would go," she said. "When we said we can't use this because it's too wobbly, they said 'I'll go out and get some more'." She said that as employers, the BBC could be exposed to legal action if they could be shown to have encouraged members of the public to put themselves in danger.
"But even more important than the practicalities, says Shaw, is a shift of mindset. Like many others, he believes that news organisations will have to come down from their lofty perch."

Sadly, Channel Five still seem to be ghettoising user content by putting it in a "specific portion" of the news programme.

Equally interesting are similar moves in the world of TV:

"Celia Taylor, the controller of Trouble, a digital channel aimed at 16-24 year olds, was ahead of the curve in launching Homegrown in May this year and last week the first TV programme culled from its thousands of clips was aired. Now ITV is looking at launching its own UGC site and has commissioned Endemol to make a show derived from viewer-submitted content, Sky has unveiled plans to launch a UK version of Al Gore's Current TV and next year the BBC will embark on a wholesale revamp of its website for the broadband age.
"I wanted it to become an original place for people to play and I'm pleased to say that's happened," says Taylor, relieved that most contributions appear to have been
made specifically for the service rather than merely re-posted from elsewhere.
"What I didn't want was lots of people lighting farts and falling over," she adds. The clips that have made it to the channel include soaps made in people's living rooms, skits and comedy sketches. "It's really funny, incredibly creative and the quality is outstanding," insists Taylor. On one level, sites like Homegrown can act as a massive talent filter, she suggests. Meanwhile, Trouble is also looking at ways of linking the website with the TV channel - Homegrown users were asked to remix a video for an Oasis track that will feature on their new DVD, for example, while the hosts of X-Factor style dance show Bump 'n' Grind encouraged viewers to compete via the website and showed the best clips on air."

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USA Today publisher to bring citizen journalism into mainstream?

2006-11-06T09:49:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Wired News reports on moves by Gannett, the publisher of USA Today as well as 90 other American daily newspapers, to begin

"crowdsourcing many of its newsgathering functions. Starting Friday, Gannett newsrooms were rechristened "information centers," and instead of being organized into separate metro, state or sports departments, staff will now work within one of seven desks with names like "data," "digital" and "community conversation."

"The initiative emphasizes four goals: Prioritize local news over national news; publish more user-generated content; become 24-7 news operations, in which the newspapers do less and the websites do much more; and finally, use crowdsourcing methods to put readers to work as watchdogs, whistle-blowers and researchers in large, investigative features.

A fascinating example comes at the tail of page one of the piece:

"In May, readers from the nearby community of Cape Coral began calling the paper, complaining about the high prices -- as much as $28,000 in some cases -- being charged to connect newly constructed homes to water and sewer lines.
"Maness asked the News-Press to employ a new method of looking into the complaints. "Rather than start a long investigation and come out months later in the paper with our findings we asked our readers to help us find out why the cost was so exorbitant," said Kate Marymont, the News-Press' editor in chief.

"The response overwhelmed the paper, which has a circulation of about 100,000. "We weren't prepared for the volume, and we had to throw a lot more firepower just to handle the phone calls and e-mails," Marymont said.
"Readers spontaneously organized their own investigations: Retired engineers analyzed blueprints, accountants pored over balance sheets, and an inside whistle-blower leaked documents showing evidence of bid-rigging.

""We had people from all over the world helping us," said Marymont. For six weeks the News-Press generated more traffic to its website than "ever before, excepting hurricanes." In the end, the city cut the utility fees by more than 30 percent, one official resigned, and the fees have become the driving issue in an upcoming city council special election."

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Neil to Google: we want our cut

2006-11-06T09:43:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Andrew Neil has a strong opinion on Google's news aggregation service, as Roy Greenslade reports:

"The BBC broadcaster and chief executive of the Barclay brothers' group, Press Holdings, not only launched a by now familiar attack on Google's news aggregation service but, pertinently, castigated the media industry for not clubbing together to demand payment for content just as the music and broadcasting industry was doing to YouTube.

""We don't charge them a penny for our hard-earned journalism, the former Sunday Times editor said in the conference's opening lecture. "It's time for a conversation with Google. They can afford it.""

This is a much more refreshing approach than the Belgian newspaper which sued Google to stop it publishing its articles. 'Cutting off your nose to spite your face' sprang to mind then, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect Google to give a cut of advertising to content providers. Remember the time when "content was king" and wannabe 'portals' were scrambling to pay publishers for feeds that could draw users in?

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Chrysalis Radio latest to jump video bandwagon

2006-11-03T15:59:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. So MediaWeek reports: "The company is currently updating its studios to enable filming to accompany its existing audio content, for broadcast via different platforms such as computers, mobile phones and MP3 players."

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Sun and NOW launch readers' mobile service

2006-11-03T09:41:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Press Gazette reports:

"The Sun and News of the World have both launched new services allowing readers to send in stories, pictures and video for publication via mobile phone text message.

"News of the World online editor Bill Akass said: "We make no bones about paying good money for good content. Now we're just making it easier for our readers to send us their content in either pictures or tips format, and we'll pay them for the material we publish."

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Five reasons why newspaper blogs exist

2006-11-02T12:48:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. The Telegraph's Shane Richmond gives a response to Andrew Grant-Adamson's analysis of newspaper blogs (What is the purpose of newspaper blogs?). He identifies five key reasons for creating newspaper blogs:

Niche publishing

Unlimited space

Experimentation

Interactivity

Personality

Or, to quote at length:

"First of all, blogs are niche offerings. Everything in the print edition of the paper has to work for as many people as possible but that isn't the case with blogs.
"[... S]pace is the second point. It's not that these posts aren't good enough for the paper, it's that they won't fit in the paper. There is only so much space in the print edition each day and competition is strong. The blogs give us an opportunity to focus on stories that the paper hasn't been able to cover, or to look at an angle on a story that there wasn't space to develop in print.
"Then there's stuff that the paper would never attempt. For example, for his recent article about music recommendation software The Filter, David Derbyshire spoke to musician Peter Gabriel. The transcript of his interview ran to around 2,000 words but, as is often the case with news stories, only a handful of quotes from the interview made it into print. In the old world the interview would just disappear but, since he has a blog, David put the full transcript on there.
"Likewise, after Christopher Howse wrote an article for the newspaper about comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat film, he followed-up with a blog post which considered one aspect of the story, anti-semitism, in more detail. The post was the most-read post on the blog site last week.
"That brings me to the third point: experimentation. The blogs allow journalists to try things that are a little different from what they normally do and we can experiment technically as well. The blogs were the first part of the site to offer the option to post articles to social news and social bookmarking sites, a feature that has since been added to all of Telegraph.co.uk.
"[...] The blogs really are a conversation, with readers and with other blogs. This post is an example of the latter.
"And therein lies point four: interactivity. The blogs are steered to a great extent by their readers. Our best bloggers have all, at some point, allowed the readers to dictate what they write about. Of course, the paper is shaped by its readers too but with blogs the connection is more immediate and more personal.
"[...] my fifth point: personality. In a recent post I said that it is important to turn more journalists into 'personalities'. Blogging is the ideal way to do this. In a world that is more fragmented, where reader loyalty is harder to maintain, a journalist who is a personality can be a very valuable figure."

UPDATE: Shane has posted a follow-up post with reactions from his fellow Telegraph bloggers.

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Review: Online News

2006-11-01T15:36:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. This review will be appearing in a forthcoming issue of the journal Journalism.

In 2004 American technology journalist and publisher Dan Gillmor published We The Media, a book that described how journalism in the new media age was changing from a ‘lecture’ to a ‘conversation’. It quickly became the bible of online journalism, while Gillmor was heralded as a guru on citizen journalism in particular.

With Online News Stuart Allan has produced a book of comparable importance, but from a much-needed British – or at least transatlantic – perspective.

The concept is straightforward: an overview of online journalism in its different forms, with a historical perspective focusing on key events. The execution is clear, critical, and thoroughly researched, and even much-repeated stories – such as the ‘Rathergate’ or ‘Memogate’ affair that led to Dan Rather’s resignation – are illuminated with fresh detail.

Allan identifies two key ‘tipping points’ in the development of online news: the tsunami in South East Asia and the importance that that gave to citizen journalism - and the speech by Rupert Murdoch which finally acknowledged the need for newspapers to embrace the web – or be buried by it.

From there he explores a number of other ‘tipping points’: how September 11th “redefined” news when mainstream agencies crashed under excessive demand, and smaller sites took up the strain; how the Iraq war created a demand from readers for alternative voices from abroad; how participatory journalism is creating opportunities for news outside of commercial pressures; and how bloggers have become both news source and news watchdog.

What is laudable here is the rigour with which Allan approaches his subject matter, and his avoidance of the hype that characterises so much writing on online news. While the importance of blogs are acknowledged, for instance, the potential for descent into ‘mob rule mentality’ is outlined – for instance, in the way in which rightwing bloggers targeted what they perceived as the ‘liberal’ CBS and CNN. Likewise, while bloggers can be seen as ‘democratising’ journalism, Allan points out that there is an emerging hierarchy of “celebrity bloggers” that dominate that conversation; and that “bloggers who actively resist pressures to conform – that is, who continues to strive to speak truth to power – will find it that much more difficult to reach a broad audience”.

In his final chapter Allan notes the importance of Google News and its ‘computer editors’ for the future of journalism and news distribution, while also identifying how “notions of ‘authority’, ‘credibility’ and ‘prestige’ are in flux”. The BBC is held up as an example of the genuinely empowering possibilities of new journalism technologies – particularly the organisation’s moves to make both software and archive content available to users – but ultimately “too often the pressures of the marketplace being brought to bear on online news are working to narrow the spectrum of possible viewpoints to those which advertisers are inclined to support”.

Summing up, Allan identifies a worrying trend in online news becoming “aligned with the ‘attractive wrapping’ of commercial television”, a trend which has most recently been reinforced by The Times, Telegraph, Guardian, Sun and Trinity Mirror all making moves towards producing online video. If the promises of online news are to be fulfilled books like this deserve the widest possible readership.
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'Censorship and bias' tracked by news tool

2006-11-01T12:59:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Reasons to love new media #354: Journalism.co.uk reports on NewsSniffer, a web mashup that

"monitors The Independent, Guardian Unlimited and BBC News throughout the day to check for changes made to published stories. Revisions are stored and highlighted for comparison by users, who are then invited to rank the most intriguing differences.

"The site's Revisionista tool illustrates the evolution of articles, including corrections to spelling and grammar mistakes. Its Watch Your Mouth feature stores comments "censored" after publication in BBC News' 'Have Your Say' threads.

""We're looking for systemic bias," Leeds-based software developer John Leach, the man behind the site, told Journalism.co.uk. "I'm of the belief that the corporate media has a pro-corporate agenda so I expect to find bias towards this."

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Easy publishing tools for online journalists

2006-10-27T09:18:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. From blogs to email newsletters, pictures to video, podcasts to audio, and everything in between, this is a great resource from the OJR.

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Guardian CEO's five-point guide to the digital future

2006-10-27T09:06:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Roy Greenslade reports on CEO of the Guardian Media Group Carolyn McCall's blueprint for "newspapers wishing to achieve a successful digital transition." (also at Editor's Weblog):

1. Newspapers must have to have a clear digital vision, for which leadership from the top is vital.
2. Staying close to users is more important than ever before. Newspapers have to listen to readers and make sure they are given what they desire, a reversal of the traditional top-down news model.
3. Innovation must be used for learning purposes. Newspapers can't be afraid to
fail. They must experiment and take risks to see what works. (McCall cited The
Guardian's blog experiment, Comment is Free, which has hundreds of contributing bloggers and dozens of comments on each post).
4. Software developers are now just as important as journalists.
5. Newspapers must drive digital revenue growth.

The most interesting point for me here is about software developers. Journalists need to realise they're not as important as they used to be: news has become more than ever a service, and the power and functionality of that service is increasingly down to developers. Content is still important, but when the readers are producing as much as the paid staff, facilitating the conversation depends on effective technologies.

Mind you, if we paid journalists as much as developers, we might not be in the situation we are now...

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Teaching journalism in the UAE

2006-10-26T08:37:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. As if to demonstrate how blogging can open up an entire new world, I had an email yesterday from the United Arab Emirates. Keith Tomasek is teaching broadcasting at The American University of Sharjah there, and has just launched the Broadcasters of Tomorrow blog featuring his student's work. It's well worth a look.

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MySun makes 'readers the next editors'

2006-10-25T16:34:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. As if to confirm the trend I noted in my previous post, Journalism.co.uk reports on the soft launch of MySun:

"Our idea is to make Sun readers the next editors of the website. One of the key drivers of the Sun is how much the readers get involved. They really respond
to us, they write in, they ring in, they have the attitude that it's their paper
and we are just the staff that look after it for them," Pete Picton, Sun online
editor, told Journalism.co.uk.

"The new feature allows readers [to] start a blog, join debates and contribute their stories, pictures and comments on breaking news.

"MySun has a six-strong team dedicated running the project in which a
community editor, hired specifically to run the feature, oversees a team of
editorial moderators."

There's that 'community editor' role again. Take a look at MySun here.

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Magazines in 2106

2006-10-25T11:02:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Here's a rewritten version of my post from earlier in the week on the future of news media. It's also my latest Stirrer column:

What will magazines look like in a hundred years’ time? A clue this week came in a little story about the planned relaunch of technology news website ZDNet UK.

The relaunch looks to take advantage of the recent popularity of social networking. "We have always let people interact with the website to a degree,” Matt Loney, ZDNet UK site director, told Journalism.co.uk, “but now what we are doing is allowing people to log in and collect all the stuff they need together; it's like a MySpace for geeks."

At first glance, it's easy to dismiss this as another organisation jumping on the MySpace bandwagon, but look a bit deeper and we may be seeing a window into the future of magazines.

To begin with, ZDNet plans to create a new post of community editor: “a hybrid marketing/editorial job - to moderate discussions, grow the community and create a dialogue with the readership."

This role is not a new idea, but it’s an indication of where the ‘Editor’ role in magazines may be heading: not managing the publication, but managing the community.

Why? Because the community has the potential to be the publication. Loney’s intention is “that the community editor will spur further debate and encourage the readership to bring its collective knowledge to the site though comments, forums and blogs."

In other words, journalists are part of the process, but as only one catalyst for discussions among many, rather than as the product itself.

Meanwhile, the previous editorial role of selecting, arranging and prioritising stories begins to pass to the reader, who decides “what they want, [and] how they get it”

Loney outlines features that “list the most-read, discussed and popular items on the site as well as highlighting readers' contributions by drawing attention to the talkback [reader's comment] of the day.”

Of course this is only one, very technology-friendly, publication dipping a toe into the possibilities of social networking, but look a century on, to a world of ubiquitous internet and virtual community, of active consumers and advertisers who expect to know everything about their market, and you can imagine magazines having transformed from an object you read, to online communities of interest you engage in and contribute to.

And you’ll be able to read it in the bath, too.

Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the online journalism blog (http://ojournalism.blogspot.com), interactive pr (http://interactivepr.blogspot.com), and web and new media (http://webandnewmedia.blogspot.com).

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Telegraph TV?

2006-10-24T10:01:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, online tv]. Media Week reports on The Telegraph's plans to launch an online TV channel, "with a view to securing carriage on the Freeview and Sky digital platforms". This sounds like a much smarter use for their online video provision, and a great way to leverage content. It will be interesting to see how viewers respond to a right-of-centre newspaper brand on television, where broadcasters are less conspicuously politically aligned.

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The future of news media

2006-10-24T08:44:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Journalism.co.uk reports on the imminent relaunch of technology news website ZDNet UK which will "put social networking at its core". At first glance, it's easy to dismiss this as another organisation jumping on the MySpace bandwagon, but look a bit deeper and we may be seeing a window into the future of news media, beginning with a new type of editor:

"ZDNet UK plans to create a new post of community editor - a hybrid marketing/editorial job - to moderate discussions, grow the community and create a dialogue with the readership."

But what is also happening here is one outcome of the movement towards reader empowerment, where the reader not only contributes to, but actually makes the publication:

"We will still have our lead stories giving people an overview of what is going on because we have got a dozen people on staff monitoring the industry," Matt Loney, ZDNet UK site director, told Journalism.co.uk.

"But equally a big part of this redesign was to let the reader decide what they want, how they get it and to give them more control over that because if we don't do that someone else will.

"We have always let people interact with the website to a degree, but now what we are doing is allowing people to log in and collect all the stuff they need together; it's like a MySpace for geeks."

"The technology news provider, which currently has more than two million unique users every month, will now have a free subscription feature in which users can blog, track discussions and set up alerts on new postings based on author, subject matter and keywords.

"Features also list the most-read, discussed and popular items on the site as well as highlighting readers' contributions by drawing attention to the talkback [reader's comment] of the day.

"It is intended that the community editor will spur further debate and encourage the readership to bring its collective knowledge to the site though comments, forums and blogs."

Looking (much) further ahead, in 100 years time will newspapers and, more likely, magazines have transformed into online communities of interest? Facilitated by editors and fuelled by specialist journalists, yes - but with the focus on the conversation, not on the articles.

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Leading Innovation: What to Do, How to Do It

2006-10-20T11:21:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. I was sorry to miss the latest Journalism Leaders Forum this week, where a panel comprising Tim Bowdler, Tim Porter, Simon Waldman and Geert-Jan Bogaert discussed "Leading Innovation: What to Do, How to Do It". You can find excerpts on the Journalism Leaders Forum blog, as well as a recording of the live webcast.

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Discuss video journalism

2006-10-20T11:13:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, online video]. Plenty of reaction to my analysis piece on online video being an easy option. I was invited by The Press Gazette to write a 500 word version of the piece (which is, frankly, better) for their /discuss section, published this week, so if you want to discuss the issues raised please do so at http://discuss.pressgazette.co.uk/journalism-article.aspx?id_Content=5575

Across the Atlantic Steve Yelvington added his voice to the sentiments of the piece:

"Like Bradshaw, I was puzzled by a report on journalism.co.uk last week decribing how Trinity Mirror plans to "re-launch all its regional and local newspaper websites by the end of the year to refocus on interactive elements" -- because the article goes on to describe nothing but video plans for the "interactive" website.

"Unless your users are producing it, "interactivity" just isn't the right word. Video is not only linear, watching video is fundamentally passive. At least print requires the consumer to take some sort of action in order to acquire each word."

I was also talking with someone who works for a Johnson paper last night who sees another motivation for the move to video: when you're producing video news, you don't need a subeditor. Good point.

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Better Blogging: 11 Tips

2006-10-16T09:29:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Poynter gives a summary of Vincent Maher's guide to better blogging:

A blog entry is a stub for conversation.
Think about the perspectives of your audience.
Write tight headlines that encourage interest.
Make points or lists and make them scan-friendly.
Link to the context.
Quote indirectly and link.
Format long documents for print.
Never delete anything.
Troll the blogosphere for secondary conversation.
Be active in your own conversations.
Create buzz everywhere.

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Analysis: video journalism is the easy option

2006-10-13T09:58:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, video journalism]. I find it disappointing that as newspapers rush to embrace the online medium, the one recurring theme is 'video journalism'. The Telegraph's move to a new multimedia hub will involve intensive training in video production for print journalists, and the newspaper's Executive Editor (Pictures) sees the future of the editorial photographer's trade as being video (a perspective echoed by the Washington Post); The Guardian have recently announced that original video from the group's production company, Guardian Films, will be edited for use on the web; The Times are sourcing video news from ITN; and Vogue, among many other magazines (including Stuff), are launching their own TV channel. Even The Sun now has a video version of Deirdre's Photo Casebook.

Now Trinity Mirror is reported to be planning to increase the numbers of video journalists working across its regional titles as it relaunches its websites.

Curiously, Trinity's editorial director is quoted as saying "we're basing the new website design on interactivity," and yet video is, if anything, even less interactive than print. You cannot scan-read a video; you cannot skip to the last paragraph, or the curious subheading.

The rush to online is becoming a rush to a form of TV which just happens to be broadcast on the web. And in that rush, newspapers are in danger of not exploiting the real benefits of the web: giving users control; providing extra information and context that wouldn't fit in a print (or video) version of the story; creating communities between readers, or a forum for them to express their knowledge and opinions; communicating complex concepts in a way that can't be done with words alone; engaging the reader through innovative formats, or by connecting them directly with interviewees.

It appears that newspaper executives used to a lecturer-audience relationship are choosing the options that challenge that least: video; podcasts - "we talk, you listen". The most control users have is over where they listen, or watch.

Perhaps the genuine interactivity that the BBC and Guardian have done so well for years represents too much of a paradigm shift for their competitors - a change in thinking about how we tell stories. I only hope that the current changes in print don't stop at filming the sports editor reading out his latest scoop.

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Trinity Mirror to re-launch all regional and local newspaper websites

2006-10-13T09:56:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. "Trinity Mirror will start to re-launch all its regional and local newspaper websites by the end of the year to refocus on interactive elements," reports Journalism.co.uk. "Trinity Mirror also hopes to have as many as 60 video journalists working across its regional titles by next year."

Why this sudden focus on video? I feel an analysis piece coming on...

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Telegraph online: an internal perspective

2006-10-11T09:09:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism ]. More Telegraph perspectives, this time from Shane Richmond, the Daily Telegraph's online editor. His blog contains some essential reading on the issues facing newspapers in the digital age, which Roy Greenslade sums up here:

"Richmond explains the need to serve fragmenting audiences - giving them different material through different channels at different times of the day - and to be humble enough to give them what they want. He points to the importance of journalists who specialise because their knowledge will be sought. Similarly, he acknowledges the pulling power of personalities whose opinions are sought. These will build audiences through their blogs.
"He also points to the need for speed. Breaking news has to go up online asap. Reporters must "work like an agency reporter" by filing copy "in chunks" to get the basics up first and then adding quotes, context and background in subsequent postings. And here's the rub: "If you have an exclusive, you have to be honest about whether it will hold until the print edition tomorrow. If it won't, publish it now and be first. A scoop is a scoop, whatever the medium."
"Turning to the problem of monetising content, Richmond acknowledges that charging people - through subscription or one-off payments (aka micro-payments) - will not work. Advertising remains the best hope of providing an income stream. And this will depend, of course, on winning an audience for the editorial content.
"Finally, he touches on the ownership of content in a world where search engine giants, such as Google, can point people to thousands of sources in an instant. It costs Google nothing to provide and costs the searcher nothing to receive. But he is not keen on the proposal - by Simon Waldman, director of digital publishing at The Guardian - to develop some kind of licensing system for content, arguing that it is "vulnerable" because some search engine might offer such a service and then simply refuse to pay. Instead, Richmond places greater faith in the development of specialist and personality journalism which, he claims, is "harder to break it up." I have to say that that's an interesting approach."

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First images of the Telegraph multimedia hub

2006-10-09T09:33:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism ]. With thanks to Innovations in Newspapers:

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Some insights from the man helping the Telegraph move to an integrated newsroom

2006-10-09T09:03:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. Journalism.co.uk has a lengthy interview with Dr Dietmar Schantin, director of Ifra's Newsplex, who has been advising The Telegraph as it makes the change to a fully integrated newsroom. Some choice quotes:

"you don't copy and paste. You need to add value if you go to a different channel.

"As a newspaper you shouldn't copy the BBC, or you shouldn't copy Channel 4 radio, you should do your own thing with audio and video.

"This is where some newspapers, I think, are making mistakes, they just try to be the BBC but they are a newspaper."

"The whole idea of audience orientation seems to be quite new for some newspapers, in the past it was more 'we know what is good for our readers and so we distribute the content.'

"We are trying more to say 'we are a service company and our service is information, news, this content, and we serve our audience with the things they want to know and on the platform where it is comfortable for them to consume it.'

"You start from the audience, what they want is a very important point but still you are not doing just what the audience says otherwise you are just a mainstream paper, at the same time you keep your core values."

"It's about target groups and the vision I have is that at the next stage you have editors that are responsible for a certain target group. They take the channels and the content they then need to serve that certain target group.

"I think this is far ahead because it is a completely different way of commissioning."

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Bloggers earning more than journalists

2006-10-09T08:59:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. What's the betting this quickly becomes the most-blogged item of the week?

"Robin Hamman has spotted some interesting data from US job site Indeed.com: bloggers are commanding higher salaries than journalists.

"The finding is based on data from 226 advertised jobs for experienced bloggers, from a very diverse range of companies, including US National Public Radio.
"The advertised salary for “bloggers” was $39,000 while “reporters” were offered an average of $36,000 and jobs for “journalists” commanded just $27,000."

Given that columnists have traditionally earned higher salaries than journalists, and bloggers are the new columnists, is this really that surprising?

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Making money from digital content: the Times way

2006-10-06T12:50:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. Read a whole bunch of quotes from Zach Leonard, digital publisher of Times Media, on Journalism.co.uk, on making money from online content. The Baddiel & Skinner podcast was a seminal moment, apparently, and money will comes from a mix of advertising and paid-for content.

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ITV wakes up to citizen journalism - as an end of year novelty

2006-10-06T12:34:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. More from this week's Press Gazette, this time on citizen journalism. ITV - better known for its opinionated news coverage than letting viewers do the reporting - is apparently planning an end of year news review programme that will focus entirely on user-generated content.

"I Was There: the People’s Review 2006, will be presented by ITV News presenter Katie Derham and will include material gathered from mobile phones, camcorders and other personal devices.
"The hour-long special will revisit news stories from 2006 from the viewpoints of the people who experienced them first-hand, and highlights the growing importance of citizen journalism."

The production of the show belies just how little citizen journalism is integrated into ITV: "A nationwide campaign has now begun to encourage viewers to gather and send in material for the review, which will be broadcast later this year."

Call me cynical, but I'm expecting the Lunchtime News meets You've Been Framed.

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Guardian finally follow video trend

2006-10-06T12:22:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: online journalism, online video, video journalism]. As The Telegraph gear up for their multimedia future and The Times sign up ITN to join Fox and Reuters in providing video for 'Times Online TV', Press Gazette reports that The Guardian will finally join the stampede and launch their own online video service. Always wanting to be different, however, Guardian Media Group chief executive Carolyn McCall "said that the Guardian's online video offerings will consist of more than video content from PA or Reuters. Instead, original video from the group's production company, Guardian Films, will be edited for use on the web."

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Video press releases

2006-10-03T08:37:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: online journalism, video]. Here's a fascinating resource for journalists: you may already subscribe to the likes of PR Newswire for regular press releases - but how about a video service? The NewsMarket provides streaming video and other media assets on a range of stories under different categories. Or, in their own words, they provide a:

"video archive and distribution service that enables journalists from around the world to find, preview and download free broadcast-standard video and other multimedia content over the Internet."

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The future of editorial photography? Video

2006-10-02T09:34:00.000+01:00

There are some interesting quotes from Stuart Nicol, the newly appointed London's Daily Telegraph Executive Editor (Pictures) in Innovations in Newspapers about the future of the editorial photographer's trade:

"He tells EPUK that the future of the Telegraph’s photojournalism lies in shooting video.
“Digital stills photography will, when we look back on it, form a very small period of time in the history of photojournalism."
“Telegraph photographers will undoubtably be shooting solely on video in the future, and certainly within a year we hope to be well advanced down that route.”

Online: where the money is

2006-10-02T09:16:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: online journalism]. It seems that Emap is expecting revenues from digital products to continue to rise, according to Journalism.co.uk - due at least in part to significant investment in the medium.

"Digital revenue was expected to be £59 million, up 55%, driven mostly by B2B acquisitions.

"Tom Moloney, group chief executive, said: "Digital revenue has grown by 55 per cent, led by B2B, and is on target to more than double over the next three years, as we continue to migrate resources onto faster growth platforms and reshape the group for growth."

"Emap spent £15 million on new product development in the period, £5 million more than last year, focusing primarily on digital initiatives.

"underlying revenue from its international consumer magazines business is expected to be down 18 per cent"

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Your web readers may not be the same as your print readers

2006-09-29T12:04:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: online journalism ]. Press Gazette reports on a speech from Telegraph online editorial director Edward Roussel that gives an insight into the new challenges facing editors who must manage content consumed by different audiences through different media:

"Roussel said there is only a 13 per cent overlap between the Telegraph's print and online readership.
""Groups like ours that are used to having a one-size-fits-all strategy where you know that the competitor is The Guardian or The Times, now need to think far more carefully about who are the audiences — plural — that they're targeting, and then look at each of those audiences and determine who your competitors are on an audience-by-audience basis.
"He said that Telegraph section heads working in the central news "hub" at the paper's new integrated newsroom in Victoria will have to think more carefully about the different demographics of the audiences of their various products.

"He said: "Certainly in the newspaper industry, over an extended period of time, people haven't had to ask that question and are probably a bit fuzzy about who their audiences are."

"Roussel gave the example of the sports hub, headed by Keith Perry, which will have to hold onto its loyal readership of the printed sports section while also appealing to users of interactive online features such as fantasy football, which he described as having a "more C1 [lower middle class]" demographic than the average 56-year-old Daily Telegraph reader."

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Washingtonpost.com wins Emmy

2006-09-27T09:14:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: online journalism, video journalism]. Journalism.co.uk reports that Washingtonpost.com has won the inaugural broadband video news Emmy for its coverage of Hurricane Katrina:

"The first-ever Emmy for outstanding individual achievement in content for non-traditional delivery platform was presented to Travis Fox, washingtonpost.com's senior video journalist, for his films on the fallout of the disaster that hit Louisiana and Mississippi, in late August last year.

"The award was made at the National Television Academy's 27th Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards ceremony held in New York last night.

"Fox told Journalism.co.uk the films avoided the traditional presenter driven format of TV news.

"They instead adopted a more subtle approach using the voice of the subjects to more effectively drive the individual stories."

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Who is part of the new establishment of online journalism?

2006-09-26T10:55:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Press Gazette are posing the question on their discussion forums of who are the movers and shakers in the new online journalism landscape. A great idea - here are my suggestions:

Number one has to be Simon Waldman, group director of digital strategy and development for Guardian Media Group (GMG), and the new chairman of the UK Association of Online Publishers (AOP).
Colleagues Emily Bell and Georgina Henry at The Guardian both deserve a mention for their involvement in projects like Commentisfree.
The Times' Peter Bale, one of the longest serving online editors and an informed voice on the medium
Guido Fawkes has done a great deal to raise the profile of bloggers in the UK with his breaking of parliamentary stories
Rupert Murdoch deserves a mention in any power list, but his speech about the need for newspapers to grapple with the web was a watershed moment that changed the online strategies of many web-sceptics.
Pete Clifton, Head of BBC News Interactive, a truly international player in setting the standard for online news forms.
Kyle MacRae, head of Scoopt, one of the first agencies to capitalise on the demand for 'citizen journalism' content.
Pete Picton, editor of Sun Online. The tabloid has made a number of online 'firsts' and represents a different approach to online publishing, taking on elements of online gaming, mobile revenues, and video.
And Michael Hill's appointment as Head of Multimedia at Trinity Mirror could be significant given his interest in citizen journalism.

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Tomorrow's newspaper according to the INMA

2006-09-25T08:59:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Some food for thought from the INMA (International Newspaper Marketing Association) European Conference in Barcelona. As reported by Innovations in Newspapers, the last speaker, Earl Wilkinson, the Executive Director of the International Newspaper Maketing Association gave his view about tomorrow´s newspaper as follows:

"1. Core print product will become smaller to fit consumer lifestyles – fewer pages, smaller page size, shorter stories.
"2. Deep, rich journalism will move online and be enhanced in virtual universe.
"3. Core product will be customized, interactive, and on-demand.
4. Miniature versions of the core product will target under-served groups.
"5. Digital options will multiply – get the newspaper anywhere, anytime, anyway.
"6. Newspaper features will be unbundled … iTunes pay-per-click model.
"7. You will buy a multi-media “membership” in the newspaper, not a print subscription.
"8. “Citizen journalism” will become another source for newspapers like Reuters, AP.
"9. Less “voice of God” (monologue), more “mirror of the community” (dialogue)."

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Read my media column

2006-09-22T12:02:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. I've been writing a column about the media for the past five weeks on new website TheStirrer.com. I have been trying to persuade them to not centre-align text, but they seem attached to it. You may want to read it (and email them asking them to change the alignment!)...

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A lesson in computer assisted reporting

2006-09-22T10:38:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: online journalism, computer assisted reporting]. Here's a great piece at Poynter which outlines how one blogger used online resources to investigate the truth behind the LonelyGirl15 controversy (a YouTube video that purported to be an online diary but which actually turned out to be a hoax). Here's the details:

"On Sept. 8 [Mark Glaser] announced a contest to determine the truth behind these videos.
"By Sept. 12, he had a winner: Matt Foremski.
"How did he crack this case? Matt Foremski describes his sleuthing in detail -- and
there are some tricks here that any investigative reporter should know how to use:
"I came across a comment that linked to a private MySpace page that was allegedly that of the actress who plays Lonelygirl15. As the profile was set to 'private,' there was no real info one could glean from the page. However, when I queried Google for that particular MySpace user name, 'jeessss426,' I found a Google cache from the page a few months ago when it was still public."
"Here's that cached MySpace page. (Reporting tip: Know how to pull up a Google cached page. And for that matter, know how to use the Internet Archive.)
"From there, Matt Foremski used Google searches intelligently to query on various angles related to Jessica Rose, the New Zealand-born actress who turned out to be playing LonelyGirl15. And others involved in the project turned up more photos and other information.
"This is a pretty good example of a distributed investigation -- something I think any journalist can occasionally instigate, join, or build upon. This can be a fruitful exercise, if properly focused.
"More details at Silicon Valley Watcher. MSM coverage at the Los Angeles Times. "

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No media territory is safe

2006-09-21T10:09:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. There seems to be a raft of activity at the moment that's seeing publishers spreading into other media and other territories.

Firstly, there's the trend towards using web as a platform to invade new markets. The Guardian and The Times have already used their online brands to target America, and now NME, reports Press Gazette, is reported to be following suit.

Secondly, there's the move, particularly by magazines, into using the web to produce other media. Vogue launching its own TV channel is today's example; while teen magazines are desperately trying to keep their readership by taking advantage of mobile media, online forums, and even dropping the printed publication entirely in favour of a web-only operation. The Telegraph's plans for a multimedia 'hub', meanwhile, will see journalists producing video and audio as well as print, while former picture editors at the Washington Post are now becoming 'videographers' (see this interview with a videographer).

And against all this is the opportunity the web presents for publishers to launch online-only publications. Jeremy Tapp of online publisher Magicalia explains the numbers at Journalism.co.uk:

"Publishing online and having a sturdy technological base has allowed Magicalia to launch titles that would not otherwise survive in print and attract several small audience groups that when combined offer a powerful advertising bait.
"Without the cost of distribution, without the cost of paper, we can reach into a smaller niche, She Cycles for example - I don't think that could ever be supported as a newsstand title in its own right, it's not likely that you could launch a woman only cycling magazine in the UK."

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Citizen journalism = free content?

2006-09-21T10:06:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Following my column in The Stirrer last week about the surge in free newspapers, there was something of an outcry when a Media Guardian article dared to do the maths on what would happen if all newspapers were free.

One line from the article caused particular offence, as it looked at ways to cut the imaginary budget of a typical paid-for paper to break even as a freesheet:

“Will a £5m reduction in budget be catastrophic? Unlikely. With a thriving website it should be possible to make better use of citizen journalism from our readers, thus cutting the editorial freelance bill. This might save another £1m.”

How simple! We just get the readers to create the content, and hey presto! We save a million.

The National Union of Journalists’ new media mailing list was aflame at this. “No need for journos” was the summary – ‘they’re trying to put us out of a job’ was the implication. Indeed, the trend for citizen journalism had previously so frightened the NUJ that, when last year they drew up a code of practice for citizen journalists, they decided not to use that phrase, but instead to refer to these people as “witness contributors”.

That phrase caused much laughter and backlash from writers who saw in the phrase a stubborn resistance to seeing their readers as anything other than passive consumers. But it’s not surprising that industry managers should see the rise of citizen journalism and user-generated content as a source of free content, not to mention a way to be seen to be cutting-edge.

But this perception of users as only a source of free content will ultimately backfire. Indeed, “free” is misleading, because a truly successful project will require substantial investment. The Guardian spent time and money building the technology behind the commentisfree website, while the BBC has a whole department paid to sift through user-generated content. On the other side of things, thelondonpaper has been criticised for setting up a section on its website for people to simply ‘contribute content’, with no apparent investment in giving them reasons for them to do so.

As more and more media organisations compete for users to create their content, citizen journalists may find themselves realising that their content is worth more than just a byline. Already agencies like Scoopt have sprung up to broker fees on behalf of ‘witness contributors’ who are lucky enough to snap something newsworthy.

Ultimately, if the news agencies competing for ‘free’ content increase in number, will it become a sellers’ market?

Related links:
Newspaper free-for-all
Citizen journalism – NUJ launches Code
Comment is free
Scoopt

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If you build it, they will come

2006-09-21T09:56:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: online journalism]. Heartening news for online journalists comes from an unlikely quarter: the previously awful Daily Mail website, reports The Guardian, "has seen massive online readership growth this year since it ... increased resources for the website and put more content from the print edition on the web."

"Web traffic on DailyMail.co.uk has grown from 1.3 million unique users in January to the current 6.6 million."

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Are anti-Google newspapers cutting off their nose to spite their face?

2006-09-20T09:33:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: online journalism]. So a Belgian court has ruled that Google must de-list news stories from French-language newspapers, the latest move in an increasing grumbling from newspaper executives who see the search engine company as profiting from their material. (Agence France-Press brought a similar case last year).

Margaret Boribon, general secretary of Copiepresse, the company who brought the complaint, (and responsible for the copyright interests of French and German-language newspapers in Belgium) is quoted as saying "Google sells advertising and makes money on our content," although Journalism.co.uk helpfully corrects: "Google News sites do not carry any advertising, however Google search results, which can link to news stories, can carry paid for adverts."

However, Jupiter Research analyst Benjamin Lehmann points out that by removing themselves from Google News, publishers may be cutting off their nose to spite their face:

"It is difficult to see what these organizations stand to gain in the long term from suing Google. By cutting themselves out of Google News, the Belgian press is only curtailing traffic to its online properties. Instead they should be competing to attract audience onto their sites via news feed aggregators, and adopting strategies to keep that audience onsite once they have arrived.

"Tactics for pursuing this strategy include:
a. Maintaining homepage-style navigation panels throughout site;
b. Embedding textual hyperlinks to related stories;
c. Selling banner and contextual advertising throughout the site;
d. Deploying audio and video to add value to stories.

In a nutshell, publishers should perhaps see the money that Google make off advertising as a fair 'fee' for the advertising and services that Google in turn provides for publishers' content.

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More about blogger power

2006-09-19T15:25:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Another fascinating piece about the rise of blogger power - The Guardian reports on Bill Clinton meeting with prominent liberal bloggers to give them a 'pat on the back':

"Clinton told the group that over the past two years he had become an avid reader, and that he now included blog posts in his daily news cuttings service. For the bloggers, toiling away in their front rooms, it was heady stuff. "Here I was with a group of my friends and colleagues, meeting with one of our nation's presidents because our small, do-it-yourself political operation had drawn his attention," writes Chris Bowers on the MyDD blog. "I mean, this is largely work I have completed from the bedroom of my apartment in West Philly.""

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Citizen photographers beware

2006-09-19T13:55:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: online journalism, citizen journalism]. Salutary piece on Journalism.co.uk about a snap sold by Scoopt which turned out not to have been taken by the person selling it - but also was already widely available online. Here's some points from the piece:

"'Citizen journalists' - as distinct from professional photographers - don't always appreciate that content can be commercially devalued by dissemination on the web. But nor do they necessarily care. If you capture a breaking news story, you might want to share the story with the widest possible audience as quickly as possible, with financial gain a distant consideration or of no concern at all. But can you do both? Can you share and sell your content? Does a copyrighted picture that's all over the web still have value in print, or a video submitted to YouTube have value when broadcast?
"Perhaps surprisingly, our experience says yes. In the Zidane case, we licensed the images several times over in print despite widespread and simultaneous appearance electronically on blogs and football sites. Picture editors could have lifted them for free but didn't. I find that encouraging. Of course, it's in part because we made their lives easy by pushing the content to them in an industry-standard manner, but also (and I hope I'm not being too naïve in saying this) I think it's because most picture editors, so many of whom are themselves photographers, would rather spend their budgets fairly than exploit amateur snappers."

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Chris Andersen's views on the new publishing landscape

2006-09-11T12:51:00.000+01:00

[Keyword: online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. The latest Press Gazette interview is worth a read: it's with Chris Andersen, author of The Long Tail - and before you groan "not another Long Tail article", this interview actually steers clear of the long over-exposed theory, instead offering some very refreshing thoughts on the media landscape. Here's some choice quotes:

"There are some who require you to log in; there are some that require you to pay for content. Our sense is that if you do that, you will get some revenues, but you will not be part of the conversation. You will not have access to that extraordinary word-of-mouth effect out there in the wide-open world."

And:

"Part of our job is making things better and part of our jobs is predicting demand. And every time we get it wrong. Not entirely wrong, but every month, there's some story that I didn't expect to be popular that turned out to be popular and some story that I thought would be popular that turned out not to be so popular.
"Maybe my hit-rate is better than others, but it's certainly not perfect. The lesson right now of the long-tail world is that you now have increasingly powerful tools to measure what people want. Put it all out there and let the market sort it out.
"Obviously we look at the blogosphere to generate new ideas, to tap into ascendant people and ideas.
"This gives us a fantastic information-gathering exercise. But that's available to all, that's not exclusive to print. The other aspect is whether we can use this technology of dialogue, of conversation with your readers to make your product better."

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