It's The New York Times turn to do a nice story on "overdraft protection" practices. The Journal had one yesterday and the Washington Post did this weekend. Today, Felix Salmon of Reuters picks up the ball and advances it, too. First, the Times piece. Eric Dash has a snappy take on the issue, rounding up lots...
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Columbia Journalism Review
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Amplifying the Drumbeat on the "Overdraft Protection" Racket
2 Jul 2009 | 3:48 pm -
Gibbs: "I Seem to Have Forgotten My Amex"
2 Jul 2009 | 2:48 pmGuess what came up at today's White House press briefing? Here's a clue: "Was anyone from the White House invited to attend these Washington Post salons that were reported this morning," a reporter asked an obviously-prepared-for-the-question Robert Gibbs--after the crowd got a hearty chuckle out of the suggestion that a reporter would actually... -
Some Optimism for the Future of Science Journalism
2 Jul 2009 | 2:43 pmLONDON — Amidst the gloomy climate in American science journalism, leading British editors have a decidedly upbeat view about coverage. “I have an enormously sunny outlook for the future of science journalism,” said James Harding, editor of London’s The Times. “Science is absolutely essential to what we do.” Harding said that last year he saw predictable spikes when... -
The Tweetest Taboo
2 Jul 2009 | 2:14 pmSo the powers that tweet--Biz Stone, Ev Williams, et al--have applied to trademark one of their contributions to mass culture. Specifically, the word "Tweet" itself. Stone explains the move in more detail: The ecosystem growing around Twitter is something we very much believe in nourishing and supporting. There are lots of really awesome services and applications out... -
More PitneyGate Fallout?
2 Jul 2009 | 1:55 pmWe may, thankfully, be putting Pitneygate behind us. But reading through press coverage of President Obama’s town hall meeting on health care reform yesterday, one could be forgiven for thinking that the episode is still weighing on the minds of the Washington press corps. Nico Pitney, of course, is the national editor of The Huffington Post, who made...
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Poynter Online
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Arab American News Serves Thousands, Turns 25 This Year
16 Jun 2009 | 9:01 pmIf your journalism career has been anything like mine, you're eager to hear inspirational stories about others in the news industry. I found one a few weeks ago, even as announcements were made that colleagues at my own newspaper, the Detroit Free Press, would lose their jobs.I had lunch with Osama Siblani, editor and publisher of the Arab American News, at the Lava Java Cafe in Dearborn, Mich. I asked him to sponsor the Asian American Journalists Association's 2011 national convention in Detroit. A supporter of AAJA, he agreed.He ordered food for us and showed me how to smoke fruit in a… -
New Data Show Ethnic Media Is Growing, but Challenges Remain
9 Jun 2009 | 8:52 amNo doubt, organizers of the New America Media's National Ethnic Media Expo & Awards were heartened when more than 500 attendees, mostly ethnic-media journalists, showed up in Atlanta last week.Encouraging numbers provided a high point for the two-day event when pollster Sergio Bendixen unveiled new data confirming that ethnic newspapers, television, radio and Web sites may be the fastest-growing media sector. The audience for ethnic media grew by 16 percent in the last four years, now totaling more than 57 million. Yet, at the same time, attendees said, anecdotal evidence shows that many… -
Do Minority Journalists Face Additional Challenges When Using Social Media Sites?
27 May 2009 | 10:53 amRELATED "News Organizations Implement New Social Media Ethics Policies," by Will Sullivan"Journalists' Facebook Pages Reveal Struggle with Neutrality, Free Speech," by Steve Myers"Poynter, Newsrooms Develop Social Media Guidelines for Journalists Using Facebook, MySpace and Twitter," by Kelly McBride How much of me is too much?It's a question I consider whenever I hear editors encouraging reporters to more aggressively engage with readers via blogs, online comments or social media Web sites. We're asked to get online, have online profile photos of ourselves, make connections and, of course,… -
Reporting on the Intersection of Race and Gay Marriage
19 May 2009 | 10:57 amThe recent Washington, D.C., Council vote to recognize other states' gay marriages produced no shortage of YouTube moments. Take, for instance, Council Member Marion Barry, who claimed he was "standing on the moral compass of God" as protesters and black pastors sang "We Shall Overcome."Barry stirred up matters further when he told The Washington Post there would be "civil war" if the bill was approved. He noted that -- despite his consistent track record of supporting gay rights -- he had to represent his constituents in "98 percent" black Southeast D.C. This gave "The Daily Show's" Jon… -
Star Tribune's 'Your Voices' Site Features Diverse, Citizen-Driven Content
14 May 2009 | 6:29 amThe Internet, which is often blamed for our industry's undoing, also holds great promise when it comes to tapping into and amplifying the voices of people we struggle to cover well. The (Minneapolis) Star Tribune recently launched a new, interactive feature on our Web site called Your Voices that brings our readers the perspectives of more than 30 thoughtful Minnesotans from a wide variety of backgrounds. The 30 contributors act as community bloggers who help expand the mix of ideas, viewpoints and expertise found in our news and editorial pages.Rhonda Prast, the online editor who recruited…
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Center For Citizen Media
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Citizen Media Business Issues: Traffic Rankings, Search Engines, and Search Engine Optimization
5 Jun 2009 | 1:39 pm(This is the seventeenth in a series of postings about citizen media business issues. See the introduction here. All of these entries are considered to be in “beta” and will be revised and refined as they find a home on a more permanent area of the Center for Citizen Media web site. To that end, your comments, additional examples, and criticisms are welcome and will be invaluable contributions to this process.) In the previous Citizen Media Business Issues post, we took a look at Web statistics as a means to learn more about your site and the people who visit it. Now that you know how… -
Citizen Media Business Issues: Web Statistics
3 Jun 2009 | 11:59 am(This is the sixteenth in a series of postings about citizen media business issues. See the introduction here. All of these entries are considered to be in “beta” and will be revised and refined as they find a home on a more permanent area of the Center for Citizen Media web site. To that end, your comments, additional examples, and criticisms are welcome and will be invaluable contributions to this process.) How many people are reading what you’re writing?Who are they?How did they find you?If applicable, how likely are they to click an ad or buy a t-shirt?And without negatively… -
Investigative Blogger Raising Funds
23 Apr 2009 | 12:13 pmFiredoglake is raising money to pay for investigative blogging. -
Berkman Center Talk Next Tuesday
16 Apr 2009 | 11:11 amI’ll be speaking next Tuesday at lunchtime at the Berkman Center. Topic (and link for RSVP): Mediactive: Why media consumers, not just creators, need to be active users. -
Journalism and Location
15 Apr 2009 | 3:38 pmI’ll be speaking at the Where 2.0 conference next month in San Jose, about journalists are using, and can use, location-related products and services. The talk is called Where Does Journalism Go? You can get a 25 percent discount by using this code — whr09rdr — when registering.
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BuzzMachine
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Eric Schmidt on the new world
2 Jul 2009 | 5:05 pmHere’s video from the Aspen Ideas Festival responding to my question about what follows the industrial age. It’s much better than my limited report on it below: More of Kai Ryssdal’s very good interview with Schmidt here. -
MJ OD
2 Jul 2009 | 6:58 amWhen Michael Jackson died, I wondered how quickly the conversation about him would fade online and how long it would persist on TV “news.” Well, it didn’t take long to see the divergence: TV thinks we’re still buzzing about MJ. But online, we’re not. Here’s Blogpulse on mentions of Michael Jackson: Here’s the dropoff of Michael Jackson searches on Google Trends: Michael Jackson and variants owned Twitter Trends when the news broke; now it is off the home-page list (MJ’s is there, but that appears to be the handiwork of a Twitter spammer [a… -
Google on Google
30 Jun 2009 | 2:12 pmAt the Aspen Ideas Festival, I got up to a mic to ask Eric Schmidt a question. No, it wasn’t, “what would Google do?” I wanted his reaction to a notion I’ve talked about here that has crystallized since I wrote the book: that we are going through something more than a financial crisis and more profound and permanent than a recession. We are shifting from the industrial era – and the age of mass production, distribution, marketing, and media – to what follows, a society built on knowledge and abundance. We are seeing the collapse of the auto, banking, and… -
The need for – and risks of – government transparency
30 Jun 2009 | 7:07 amAt yesterday’s Personal Democracy Forum – where I was in the unfortunate position of speaking inbetween two of my favorite geniuses, danah boyd and David Weinberger – I sang the obvious hymn to the choir, arguing that government in a Google age means transparency. All governments’ actions and information must be searchable and linkable; we need an API to government to enable us to build atop it. I also argue that as newspapers die – and they will – government transparency is a critical element in the new news ecosystem that will fill the void. When… -
China blinks
30 Jun 2009 | 6:50 amI said in What Would Google Do? – and argued the point in a talk at Google in Washington – that Google and other technology companies have more influence than they know – and should use it – in protecting free speech and pressuring censorious governments. I see evidence of the strategy working – or hope I see it – in China’s decision today to delay its noxious Green Dam requirement for all PCs sold there. Government and companies put pressure on; China blinked. Yahoo’s new CEO, Carol Bartz, said in July that it’s not her job to fix…
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Media Matters for America - Latest Items
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O'Reilly fill-in Williams provides platform for global warming misinformation
2 Jul 2009 | 2:57 pmDuring a July 1 O'Reilly Factor discussion about whether "the liberal media" are helping President Obama "advance his energy agenda by spreading global warming propaganda," guest host Juan Williams advanced falsehoods about global warming. Williams did not challenge Fox News contributor Bernie Goldberg when he falsely claimed that if journalists "did some real reporting, they would find out that in the past 10 years, the world temperatures haven't gone up." But climate scientists reject the idea that the fact that, in most datasets, annual global average temperatures have not surpassed their… -
Jamison Foser: Howard Kurtz's wasted opportunity
2 Jul 2009 | 11:27 amHoward Kurtz is almost certainly the nation's best-known and most influential media critic. With a regular Washington Post column, virtually unlimited space on the paper's web site, and his own television show on CNN, all dedicated to covering the media, Kurtz has an unrivaled platform from which he can opine about the Fourth Estate. Unfortunately -- though perhaps not coincidentally -- that opportunity is wasted on Kurtz. Much has been written about Kurtz's (frequently undisclosed) conflicts of interest, his fondness for right-wingers like Michelle Malkin, and his tendency to give their… -
Wash. Times publishes op-ed promoting discredited "global cooling" claim
2 Jul 2009 | 9:23 amOn July 2, The Washington Times published a "commentary" by Cato Institute senior fellow Richard Rahn criticizing Congress for passing "the largest tax increase in American history this past Friday, under the claim it was a vote to save the climate." In the op-ed -- which was referring to the cap-and-trade energy bill recently passed by the House -- Rahn stated that "proponents claim this tax bill will reduce U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, which are purported to cause global warming" and then responded to that claim, in part, by asserting: "None of the climate models predicted the unexpected… -
Hannity ignores CBO to attack cap and trade as regressive
2 Jul 2009 | 6:20 amDuring the July 1 edition of Fox News' Hannity, Ralph Reed, chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, stated that "[t]here's a new study from the Tax Foundation that shows, by a margin of 5-to-1, the cap-and-tax burden falls heaviest on the poor and the lower middle class." Host Sean Hannity added: "Poor, elderly, farmers." But the Tax Foundation's study did not consider the effect of the government's distribution of revenue generated by a cap-and-trade system to lower-income households. Additionally, Hannity and Reed ignored the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) June 19 analysis of the… -
Hannity repeats earmark falsehood to smear Obama
2 Jul 2009 | 5:04 amOn the July 1 edition of his Fox News show, Sean Hannity again falsely claimed that Obama made a campaign promise of "no earmarks." Fox News contributor Karl Rove responded: "And, again, he broke that one." In fact, as Media Matters for America has noted, during his presidential campaign, Obama actually promised to reform the earmark process and cut wasteful spending, not to end all earmarks. Hannity has repeatedly made the false claim that Obama promised to ban all earmarks. On March 6, for instance, Hannity aired a clip of Obama stating, "We are going to ban all earmarks, the process by…
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Topix: Journalism News
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Newspapers get tax break during bad times
2 Jul 2009 | 4:51 pmAs newspapers across the country struggle through a brutal economic climate, papers in Washington state are getting a tax break. -
Attytood: No blood in Washington Post
2 Jul 2009 | 12:20 pmI saw this late last night and was debating whether to post it as part of my ongoing "No blood in ants" series -- a brutally honest account of one of the recent flurry of journalism summits where the sound and fury signifies nothing. -
Ask AP: Debt and interest rates, Afghan poppies
2 Jul 2009 | 8:02 amIn this April 25, 2009 file photo, a Afghan farmer collects resin from poppies in opium poppy fields in Nawa district of Helmand province, south of Kabul, Afghanistan. -
Gannett to cut 1,400 jobs in new round of cuts
2 Jul 2009 | 3:48 amNewspaper publisher Gannett Co. plans to cut 1,400 jobs in the next few weeks, about 3 percent of the work force, as it faces a prolonged slump in advertising revenue. -
Iran reformists stand tall against regime
1 Jul 2009 | 11:32 pmEDITOR'S NOTE: Iranian authorities have barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices.
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Big News Network
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Diplomats, OAS Press for Resolution of Crisis in Honduras
2 Jul 2009 | 3:33 pmDiplomats are pushing for compromise in Honduras to resolve a tense standoff between the deposed president and the interim government. So far, both sides are unwilling to cede ground on the claim to t... -
Hooded man haunts journalists
2 Jul 2009 | 12:07 pmBrian Fallow: Cold turkey for credit addicts The hooded man in Campbell Live's blood red room interview has come back to haunt TV3 - and may yet test the rules for news gathering in this country.The F... -
Newspapers in WA get tax break during bad times
2 Jul 2009 | 12:06 pmBy RACHEL LA CORTEASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER OLYMPIA, Wash. -- As newspapers across the country struggle through a brutal economic climate, papers in Washington state are getting a tax break. A new l... -
Helen Thomas Accuses Obama Of Trying To Manage The Press
2 Jul 2009 | 11:32 amVeteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas, 88, who was ignored by President Bush and relegated to the rear of the White House briefing room during his administration, lashed out at the Obama admi... -
Teleconference invitation for press and analysts
2 Jul 2009 | 9:11 amKISTA, SWEDEN--(Marketwire - July 2, 2009) - Munters AB invites you to a teleconference regarding the Interim Report for the second quarter of 2009. The report will be presented by CEO Lars Engs...
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NYT: Open
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NYT to Release Thesaurus and Enter Linked Data Cloud
26 Jun 2009 | 7:55 amAt last week's Semantic Technology Conference, we announced our intention to publish The New York Times thesaurus under a license that will allow the community to both use it and contribute back to it. The results will, in time, prepare The Times to enter the linked data cloud. Many details remain to be worked out. We welcome your feedback. -
Introducing NYT_Transformer
15 Jun 2009 | 9:32 amToday we're releasing a PHP framework called NYT_Transformer: a flexible data processor that can be customized for various input and output types. -
TimesOpen: Tim O'Reilly Keynote Video
13 May 2009 | 9:07 amFor those of you who were not able to make it to our Times Open event, here's a video of Tim O'Reilly's opening keynote address. -
Times Wire: Clear, Chronological Content
12 May 2009 | 1:36 pmAlthough it was soft-launched and publicly accessible as of last Thursday, today Times Wire is officially live. And the next few days should be very revealing - I'm looking forward to seeing how it's received. -
Announcing the New York Times API Silverlight Toolkit
12 May 2009 | 6:55 amLast week at the Microsoft Enterprise Developer and Solutions Conference, we announced the availability of the New York Times API Silverlight Toolkit. The Toolkit, developed in conjunction with Microsoft, covers the full spectrum of NYT APIs and greatly simplifies development with our APIs and the Silverlight platform. The Toolkit is open source, and we hope [...]
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The Linchpen
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Follow tweets from Personal Democracy Forum 2009
29 Jun 2009 | 9:08 amI’m at it again: Aggregating tweets from a conference I’m not attending or able to follow during work hours (this time Personal Democracy Forum 2009). This one is pulling in all the tweets that include pdf09. Enjoy! Personal Democracy Forum #pdf09 tweets -
June 18 at noon EDT: Poynter live chat about avoiding social media overload
17 Jun 2009 | 9:36 pmUPDATE: The chat is now embedded below. Yet another CoverItLive blog! Yes, on Thursday at 1 p.m. EDT I will help lead a Poynter live chat about avoiding social media overload (during my lunch break): How Do I Help Students Handle Information Overload on Social Media Sites? The URL is simple and easy to remember (and tweet!), so please share the link with others! http://bit.ly/poynterchat Also, please come ready with questions and/or ready to help answer others’ questions. <a… -
Follow tweets related to Knight News Challenge and Future of News and Civic Media conference 2009
17 Jun 2009 | 7:26 amI’m not actually there — I’m at my Web internship at The Dallas Morning News. So, what did I do? I set up this CoverItLive blog to automatically aggregate all the tweets tagged #knc09 #fncm09 #kncmit (translation: Knight News Challenge, Future of News and Civic Media and Knight News Challenge Massachusetts Institute of Technology) so I (and others who can’t follow all the awesomeness minute-by-minute) can read them later. Enjoy! Aggregating #knc09 #kncmit #fncm09 tweets -
Dallas Morning News online internship begins Monday
8 Jun 2009 | 4:15 amI swung by the Dallas Morning News building during my Sunday excursion and snapped this photo at a stop light. I, of course, parked and walked around. In less than an hour I will begin a new adventure as an online intern at the Dallas Morning News. That’s right — as of Saturday afternoon, I’m in Texas! After two stopovers at DFW in the past year, I finally have the chance to explore the state. I left from my parent’s house in Fort Lauderdale and drove the roughly 1,300 miles to Dallas, switching off with my uncle. Along the way we, stopped in Tallahassee and New… -
WATCH LIVE: Bill Couch of USA Today at Poynter Fellowship 2009
26 May 2009 | 8:17 amBill Couch livestream and liveblog. Please check back for archived video, which will be embedded here. Liveblog Bill Couch at Poynter 2009
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PBS: MediaShift
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Edelman's Steve Rubel Switches from Blog to Lifestream
2 Jul 2009 | 2:36 pmThis is one in an occasional series on MediaShift where I discuss issues in-depth with thought leaders in online media. The format has changed to give you a profile of the person, as well as more of our dialogue -- including video clips. If you have suggestions for future Q&As or want to participate yourself, drop me a line via the Feedback Form. Profile Steve Rubel Age: 39 Hometown & Current Location: Long Island, NY Favorite Websites: Gmail, Friendfeed, Posterous, Google Reader, NYTimes.com, Instapaper Online Persona (all the places to find you online): Lifestream site, Facebook… -
Newspapers Try Again with Local Blog Networks
1 Jul 2009 | 6:01 amRecently, those who visited the front page of the Miami Herald's website began seeing a sidebar item labeled simply "Your Blogs." If you clicked on the link it would take you to a page containing a series of headlines and little snippets of opening paragraphs in a news feed format. If you clicked on one of the links, it would take you to an independent blog not affiliated with the Miami Herald, written by someone who lives somewhere in South Florida. Many of the blogs, though not all, have a regional bent. Some of the links would take you to film or music reviews, or commentary on national… -
Brave Citizen Journalists Provide New Images of Iranian Life
30 Jun 2009 | 1:41 pmLike many people, I have been watching this so-called "Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, [Insert New Media Application] Revolution" unfold in Iran from the comfort of my own home. Watching the dizzying and horrifying images that have emerged on the Internet has triggered a whirlwind of emotions and thoughts. I was shocked and outraged by the death of Neda. I felt a sense of awe watching a group of women defiantly walking the streets without head coverings as if they were in a Pantene shampoo commercial. I often felt bewildered watching these videos, for I consider myself to be somewhat worldly, and… -
Zombie Bloggers Create Communal Horror Stories
29 Jun 2009 | 12:55 pmOn June 13, bloggers around the world imagined they were under attack by the living dead, writing short horror narratives for the annual Blog Like It's the End of the World Day (which was especially appropriate for me since it fell on my birthday). But there are some bloggers who blog as if everyday were the end of the world: the zombie bloggers. And while the bloggers involved in BLITEOTW day imagined exotic fantasy and science fiction scenarios, dedicated zombie bloggers strive to keep their stories grounded in reality. This is a community where writers win respect for their ability to spin… -
4 Minute Roundup: Michael Jackson's Death Rocks Web; Guardian Crowdsources
26 Jun 2009 | 6:59 pmHere's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at the way Michael Jackson's death yesterday played out online, going from TMZ to Twitter to the LA Times blog. Yesterday was a record traffic day for Yahoo, and Google News reacted like it was under a hack attack from the huge jump in search queries for Michael Jackson. Also, the Guardian is doing a massive crowdsourcing project to look over hundreds of thousands of documents of expenses from members of parliament. Check it out: 4MR podcast 6-26-09.mp3 Background music is "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson. Here…
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Bob Stepno's Other Journalism Weblog
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Only six months to live! Big surprise for me...
23 Jun 2009 | 2:18 pmWell, I think I've held out longer than most... seven years in Internet time is pretty long! Since April 2002, this blog has been hosted on the "radio.weblogs.com" server run by Userland Software, the company that makes the blogging package "Radio Userland." The hosting has been included in the modest ($40) annual licensing fee for the software since 2002. Today I stumbled on the news that practice will end in December. Too bad. I never did get around to memorizing the number in the address. I think 0106327, means that I was user number 6,327. Or maybe it was number 327? I… -
Summer reading: The save-journalism and save-newspapers debate
30 May 2009 | 10:30 pmFor summer catch-up reading: A collection of news and blog pieces on the "future of news" and "newspaper bailout" debates and related issues... Don't let the title fool you... There's inspiration and a hint of optimism in Barbara Ehrenreich 2009 commencement address at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism: Welcome to a dying industry, journalism gradsNext, from Jane Singer, in an AEJMC discussion of the future of journalism & mass communication: one blue-sky scenario of how the not-too-distant future might look for our graduates. (Updated link & info: Since my original post,… -
Soviet spy story footnotes chapter in 'best blogger' bio
20 May 2009 | 1:21 pmIn "Say It Ain't So, Izzy," the New Haven Independent's Paul Bass reviews a recent controversy over investigative journalist I. F. Stone's contacts with the Soviet Union... back when there was one. Apparently, Stone was someone the Soviet KGB talked to often enough in the 1930s to have a code name for him. Bass's lead: "I.F. Stone, writer of truth to power, hero to generations of independent journalists... and Soviet agent?" The tale starts with a new Yale University Press book, Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America, particularly a handful of pages about Stone, whose career Paul sums…
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E-Media Tidbits
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Tribune Interactive Creates Photo Galleries Using Creative Commons Images from Flickr
2 Jul 2009 | 4:20 am[UPDATE: Tribune Interactive has removed a photo in one of these galleries -- the image we used for our home page illustration -- because it appears to have been altered. Read more here.]Most newspaper Web sites have user-generated photo galleries, for which the organization passively solicits photos from the audience on different topics and local events. Tribune Interactive has taken user-generated content to a more proactive level this year, by seeking out photos posted on Flickr, a popular photo sharing site owned by Yahoo, and then posting them to topical galleries on Tribune Web sites,… -
Why Automated Tweeting Is a Bad Idea
1 Jul 2009 | 2:36 pmEarlier today, The Wall Street Journal posted this bit of breaking news on Twitter: WSJ, via Twitter Posted July 1 by The Wall Street Journal via Twitterfeed. Notice the bad cut-off. The Journal, like some other news organizations, uses a popular service called Twitterfeed to automatically generate tweets based on an RSS feed. Normally, I'm all in favor of automation that saves time and effort, but Twitter is one place where automation usually doesn't work, especially for news. A much better strategy is to manually write or edit your tweets to make sure they'll fit on Twitter. You only have… -
Printcasting, a 2008 Knight News Challenge Winner, Goes National
1 Jul 2009 | 8:54 amDan Pacheco, creator of Printcasting and winner of $837,000 from the 2008 Knight News Challenge, announced last week that the project is going national with new partners from MediaNews Group.Announcing the development, Pacheco said: "'I'll post more soon about our agreement and what it means for the Printcasting.com user, but here's the bottom line. Now people in Denver, Boulder, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area can create locally-focused Printcasts in a way that lets local readers and advertisers find them. Media partners like MediaNews simply seed those markets with content and… -
New Data Released on Latest Supreme Court Term
30 Jun 2009 | 4:38 pmFor any court, but especially the U.S. Supreme Court, no decision truly stands alone. Each helps to weave a tapestry of legal context that informs our understanding of crucial issues. Yesterday the SCOTUS Blog released a super stat pack summarizing its statistics, charts, lists and observations about the Court term which just concluded. If you occasionally follow or cover the Supreme Court, I recommend checking out this information. Here's what it includes: Opinion tallyJustice agreementDecisions by final voteFrequency in the majorityOpinion authors by sittingCircuit scorecardCourt's… -
5 Tips for Building a Successful Hyperlocal Site
30 Jun 2009 | 7:44 amThe official burial for MyTopiaCafe.com will be on July 1, 2009. That's the day the hyperlocal site for the Daytona Beach News-Journal will be defunct, dead, killed or otherwise terminated for future use. It goes the way of several other hyperlocal efforts by legacy media organizations that fielded development teams, grew the technologies, reshuffled employees, then downsized development teams or left the community to run the machinery. The site was launched in the fall of 2007 and had a following of more than 3,000 users. I was part of the development team and as its managing editor helped…
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Eat Sleep Publish
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Subsets (more on Free)
1 Jul 2009 | 9:42 amWith the possible exception of a few kinds of products—maybe toilet paper, shoes, and haircuts—your market is nowhere near “everyone in the US,” and even farther from “everyone in the world.” When you go into business, you ignore the people who are least likely to buy your product. The number of people you ignore is much, much larger than the number of people you have or work to earn as customers. As we move forward, the news business is increasingly a business to serve the news-enthusiast subset of the general population. Social pressures and scarcity of… -
Seth is wrong
30 Jun 2009 | 5:31 pmI thought I’d keep the headline meme from Seth Godin’s post about Free. Malcolm Gladwell recently wrote an incredible intelligent review of Chris Anderson’s new book (and concept), Free, and Godin thinks he got it all wrong, that Free really is the future of business: Free is the name of Chris’s new book, and it’s going to be wildly misunderstood and widely argued about. The first argument that makes no sense is, “should we want free to be the future?” Who cares if we want it? It is. The second argument that makes no sense is, “how will this new… -
Wasting time
29 Jun 2009 | 11:07 amThe internet makes it: 1. really, really easy to waste time 2. crucially important that you stay productive Print cycles meant that you had a rotating deadline. At a daily you had to push something out the door by the end of every day. At a weekly you had a big crunch once a week. The internet has no print cycle. It’s just now. The luxury of non-productive time is disappearing. If you’re not producing something right now, somebody else is, and they’re going to earn the attention of all those online eyeballs. It sucks because it means you can’t get a cushy career in… -
What the Michael Jackson / TMZ news timing teaches us about credibility
25 Jun 2009 | 3:53 pmOver the next few days, I think we’ll see a lot of people claiming that “old media” is irrelevant because it took over half an hour for them to confirm Michael Jackson’s death after it was posted on TMZ. These people are wrong. The fact that Twitter was filled with tweets like this: no one other than TMZ is claiming to have evidence that he’s dead. so either they’ve got a source no one else does, or… something. 42 minutes ago from web Bill Palmer Goes to show how much credibility TMZ has. The public on Twitter, and I’ll wager the public at… -
Everybody else
25 Jun 2009 | 12:07 pmDon’t worry about what everybody else is doing. Pack mentality works great when the pack is thriving, but it’s a terrible idea if you’re a lemming (yes, I know the cliff thing is a myth). If you go your own route, you get to define your own niche, your own audience, and you get to be the best news product in the world for them. Politico rocks the national political scene, and they’re thriving because of it. The best thing you can do right now is something nobody else is doing.
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Editor and Publisher
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'WSJ' Considers Charging for Mobile Edition
1 Jul 2009 | 5:00 pmTaking survey. -
Closings Continue Across the Atlantic
1 Jul 2009 | 5:00 pmBut for a few markets, mostly in Asia and South America, newspapers overseas continue to cut back or close, and July brings more bad news: papers close and press crews shrink in Britain; printing ends at the oldest independent paper in South Africa. -
'Cincinnati Enquirer' Share of Gannett Layoffs: 100
1 Jul 2009 | 5:00 pmOf the 1,400 layoffs Gannett Co. is ordering at its U.S. Community Publishing Division, the Cincinnati Enquirer and its related digital and print products will absorb about 100, Publisher Margaret Buchanan said in a memo Thursday. -
AP Names New Vice President for Newspaper Markets
1 Jul 2009 | 5:00 pmKate Lee Butler, a business development director for sales and marketing at The Associated Press, has been promoted to vice president of newspaper markets, the AP announced. -
Obama Delivers Major Interview With Associated Press
1 Jul 2009 | 5:00 pmOn the eve of a trip to Moscow, President Barack Obama chided Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Thursday for keeping "one foot in the old ways of doing business." By contrast, he said Putin's handpicked successor as president understands that Cold War behavior is outdated.
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contentious.com
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links for 2009-07-02
2 Jul 2009 | 7:00 amGawker – Let's Screw Up the Entire Internet to Save Newspapers – journalismism "You can copyright a news story, but you can't copyright the news. "The news" just means "things that happen in the world." What would it mean, in practice, to make it illegal to paraphrase a copyrighted news story? Summing up, for example, political events, or a sports controversy, or even a fashion trend, could be interpreted as paraphrasing copyrighted material. So let's ban talking about anything. And banning links will help us make our references even more… -
links for 2009-07-01
1 Jul 2009 | 7:00 ampeoplebrowsrquicktour tutorial for a new social media search engine I want to try out (tags: social+media search+engines trythis) 5 Questions: Collecta CEO Gerry Campbell | SearchViews – Daily insights on Search Marketing, Social Media and SEO by Reprise Media. Collecta, a new real-time search engine, went live in beta on June 18th.They intro themselves on their homepage by saying “The web is alive with real-time information. So why search a stale archive? Collecta monitors the update streams of news sites, popular blogs and social media, and Flickr, so we can show you results as they… -
links for 2009-06-30
30 Jun 2009 | 7:00 amWill the Smart Grid Be the Next Tech Bubble? | Inside Green IT on GreenerComputing On the other hand, a bubble isn't always a bad thing. In fact, Internet pioneer, 3COM founder, and Ethernet inventor Robert Metcalfe, believes bubbles are good things. Metcalfe is involved in green tech these days, and he argues that bubbles mean that a particular technology gets all the investment and attention that it needs in order to thrive. Although some people lose money during bubbles, he says ultimately it's good for the technology and the economy as a whole. So will there be a Smart Grid… -
links for 2009-06-27
27 Jun 2009 | 7:00 amAP: Massey Energy chief begins twittering Yes, BUT: AP doesn't mention his twitter ID (@DonBlankenship). D'oh! (tags: twitter mainstream+media environment business energy problems) Welcome! TwitWall – Instant Blogging Companion for Twitter Multimedia microblogging tool that ties in to twitter. Need to see how this really works, I think it just truncates…. (tags: twitter microblogging services) -
links for 2009-06-24
24 Jun 2009 | 7:00 amAP Issues Strict Facebook, Twitter Guidelines to Staff | Threat Level | Wired.com The AP’s social-networking policy comes as the media at large begins adopting Facebook and Twitter guidelines during a time of explosive growth in online social media. The News Media Guild, representing about 1,000 AP journalists, says the AP’s policy is perhaps the most restrictive the union has seen. “I am unaware of anything else like that,” Tony Winton, the guild’s president, said in a telephone interview. “Parts of the policy seem to be snuffing out peoples’ First Amendment rights of…
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DigiDave - Journalism is a Process, Not a Product
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Should You Go To J-School?
16 Jun 2009 | 3:28 pmI make every effort to be as open and available as possible. Occasionally I receive questions about how to start a nonprofit, advice on content management systems, etc and I make an effort to answer every single one. It just so happens that the following question was sent just before I got on a plane. So this individual will get a long and detailed response. And because it is a question I get regularly, I will point people to this blog post in the future when they ask the ever popular question: “Should I go to graduate school for journalism?” My Background: For undergrad I did a… -
Spot.Us: Building a Plan to Release the Kraken!
15 Jun 2009 | 6:05 pmNote: The most important link is this Google Form where we are asking YOU for feedback/goals/etc. As always to stay more current on Spot.Us development check out our blog (recently redesigned). Digidave.org will have occasional updates but otherwise will remain my personal blog to rant and rave. Spot.Us recently had its second community advisory board meeting at Tech Liminal. We experimented with making the meeting more open by invitingnew interns, volunteers and people in the community, so that we could have an open discussion about setting goals. We felt it was important to get as much… -
Citizen Journalism Networks Stepping Up Editorial Standards
10 Jun 2009 | 8:36 pmA post I did for MediaShift’s IdeaLabl blog. I tend to avoid the “professional vs. amateur journalism” debate, saying “I have constructive criticisms for both sides.” As we’ve hit a flash point for traditional news organizations, the evolution of citizen journalism networks like NowPublic, AllVoices and others may shed light on how the media space will resolve. Perhaps the two “opposites” will meet somewhere in the middle or, as I suspect, find out that they are more alike than they ever thought. Recent news in the space has included Orato and… -
On the term “citizen journalism” – from Professional Mind blower Henry Jenkins
4 Jun 2009 | 8:43 amClose followers may have picked up on the fact that I don’t like the term “citizen journalism.” Yesterday professional mind blower Henry Jenkins put it in perfect terms for me. On background from me. Henry Jenkins is now the third in my “Professional Mindblower series” I only wish I had video of his talk. My take on The Rhetoric of Journalism. Stop Gawking at Citizen Journalism. Henry Jenkins said the term “citizen journalism” is as useless as the term “horseless carriage” which was often used to describe cars when they were still a new… -
The Postal Theory of News
1 Jun 2009 | 6:21 pmI bought stamps yesterday and as I left Safeway I had an epiphany which has long since passed. The following is an attempt to recapture it. Stamps are a funny requirement. It is not a tax – but if you want to send anything through the mail it is just as guaranteed as death that you’ll have to pay for it. And while the fees are small, they can add up. A book of 20 stamps is close to $10 now.What is also unique about purchasing 20 stamps is that they represent credits. I can use those stamps however I want. To mail bills, postcards, or store them away as prized possessions. There is…
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Newspaper Death Watch
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Many Views of Journalism’s Future
1 Jul 2009 | 1:16 pmWe’ve been working our way through the social media and journalism sections at OurBlook, a Web venture that seeks to combine some of the best attributes of blogging and in-depth book writing. Editor Gerry Storch and Founder Paul Mongerson, who both have extensive media experience, have posted more than 50 interviews and first-person opinion pieces from people who care about the future of journalism. We haven’t read them all yet, but here are some excerpts we noted from the 35 or so we’ve completed so far. More will follow later. OurBlook is inviting more people to contribute to the… -
Readers Staying Loyal Amid Cutbacks
29 Jun 2009 | 9:34 amFollowing up on last week’s excellent report on the subtle disruptions caused by newspaper frequency changes, Editor & Publisher looks at the link between reduced frequency and online traffic. Its findings, while preliminary, indicate that newspapers that have backed off from a daily schedule are seeing encouraging reader migration to their websites. At Seattlepi.com, the online successor to the shuttered Post-Intelligencer, unique visitors have grown steadily since the paper went online-only in March, according to executive producer Michelle Nicolosi. “We haven’t lost… -
Globe Union Caves; Paper Primed For Sale
24 Jun 2009 | 7:09 amManagement at the Boston Globe finally wore down union leadership last night and won tentative agreement on a revised contract that is substantially similar to the one the union rejected a little over two weeks ago. The new contract slightly reduces the pay cut management had originally sought, although it includes additional benefit reductions. More importantly, the Globe and its parent New York Times Co. emerged victorious on the biggest issue: the right to end lifetime job guarantees for 170 employees. Union members still have to ratify the proposed contract in a vote set for July… -
Redefining the Scoop
23 Jun 2009 | 7:02 amDavid Healey lost his job at a small Maryland daily recently thanks to downsizing. He didn’t like being cut off from his community, so he started The Cecil Observer. “The response has been positive and the hits are growing,” he writes, but he adds, “The experience quickly brought me to the realization that print journalism was over except as a niche or boutique business.” Here is a post David wrote about starting a blog and the role that blogs may come to play in the media world where information is published almost instantaneously. You can find the original… -
New Revenue for News Organizations
23 Jun 2009 | 6:51 amWe had the good fortune this year to get connected to the Knight Digital Media Center at the University of Southern California for a series of seminars that help publishers connect with the new world of social networking. Last week we delivered a brand new presentation on how to diversify revenue sources and get away from the traditional over-reliance on advertising. It turns out there are a lot of ways to monetize a publishing business. See the presentation below.
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The Journalism Iconoclast
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All good things must come to end
22 Jun 2009 | 8:16 amI’m sad to report that funding for BeatBlogging.Org will run out on Sept. 1 of this year. Being the editor of BeatBlogging.Org has been a great ride. I’ve learned a lot about how beat reporters are adapting to the Web, how social media is changing journalism and where journalism is heading. Working with NYU’s Jay Rosen has been a great learning experience. It’s very invigorating to work with someone who is interested in answering, “what’s next?” And in journalism, that’s the No. 1 question we all must answer. What’s next for me? I… -
On reinvesting profits
18 Jun 2009 | 1:54 pmMicrosoft gets a lot of grief for many of the things that it does, but we should at least give Microsoft credit for being willing to reinvest profits into research and development. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said he is willing to invest up to $11 billion in search over the next five years. I have a much better idea for Ballmer. Instead of investing in the future, why doesn’t Microsoft consider buying yesterday’s companies — with yesterday’s business models — instead? That model has been a rousing success for the newspaper industry. The supposed high-minded,… -
Beware of that crazy Internet (and bad advice from professors)
15 Jun 2009 | 12:46 pm“When I was in college, a professor said, ‘Beware of the Internet.’ Everyone and anyone is a ‘journalist’ or ‘writer’ because of it. Six years later, I owe the Internet a big hug, because before my memoir Rattled! there was Storked! on glamour.com. But I do consider myself a real writer, and my stories are genuine.” That quote comes from well-known blogger Christine Coppa. She has been making a living off of her blog and now has a book out based on her blog. She’s very fortunate that she didn’t listen to her professor. I can’t… -
What would you like to see in a new journalism podcast?
10 Jun 2009 | 12:50 pmI have been discussing the idea of starting a new journalism podcast with some people and would appreciate your feedback. This podcast would be different from диваниthe existing podcast series on BeatBlogging.Org. It would involve multiple hosts and would attempt to be newsy, lively and fun. We would also have guests on and interview interesting people in the news business. What kinds of topics would you like to see us cover? What kind of focus would you like to see this show have? Would you even be interested in a new journalism podcast? My model for this… -
Thoughts on charging for news (and succeeding)
29 May 2009 | 9:39 amA group of newspaper execs met this week to discuss the best ways to collude; I mean “support and preserve the traditions of newsgathering that will serve the American public.” Rather than comment on these legally-challenged meetings, I’m here to offer some suggestions for charging for news. Let’s assume that newspaper leaders have committed to charging for news. Here are my suggestions for what to do and what to avoid: You can’t charge for something that has been free for years without drastically improving it — The idea of putting existing journalism…
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Wired Journalists
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SOJRA is assessing a good effort of how the Somalia’s journalism could be helped while the problems affecting the Somalia’s journalism is still exists
Nairobi:: 01 July, 2009 In order the United Nations be helped the Somalia’s journalism the SOJRA Director had a meeting with the UN Special Representative for Somalia Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah he indicated his worry regarding the problems of the Somalia’s journalism during his interview with the V.O.A also he spoke that now how the Somalia’s journalism could be helped upon their problems. Mr. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah has executed the Somali journalists for his interview of that he did not mean to insult the Somali journalists whom are in the problems increasing to them from day to day. He also… -
Short Documentary on Human Right abuse in Puebla, México
A recent documentary published at elchahuistle.com (spanish) http://elchahuistle.com/2009/06/26/maestros-golpeados-en-puebla-cortometraje-documental/ -
Finding local bloggers?
So, I've been asked to find local bloggers in our coverage area for a possible ongoing print feature. I thought that would be relatively easy, but I'm having a crazy hard time. That could be for a number of reasons, but I'm beginning to believe that no one's blogging local affairs in our patch on a regular basis. Why? Most reporters here say their beats aren't being touched by anyone else. Ditto for other general local affairs. (Which is great for leverage in our news coverage, but that's a whole 'nother conversation.) I've used a couple online tools to winnow the field — Blogorama and… -
Social Comunication and intern's experience on ESECtv
In an informal conversation about the course of social comunication in ESEC, reminded me of an assumption that is completely logical in the days running in the area of journalism: "we must take fresh air to the editorial". "We must do things in addition to seeking the education. Do ballet". -
Hello journalists
I'm a young journalist from Portugal. I'm a jazz and twitter addicted. I would like exchange points of view and other things with the wired journalists. Follow me on twitter www.twitter.com/vanessaquiterio. Have a nice night Vanessa
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New Media Bytes
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How To Think About the New News? Listen to Best Buy
9 Jun 2009 | 5:43 amWatch this video, and while you’re doing it, substitute Best Buy’s products for news and it’s brand/stores with a news organization. Everything Best Buy CMO Barry Judge talks about Best Buy doing this or that, think about how a news organization can do or think similarly. What did you think? Related PostsMove around to get the most out of Online News Association conferenceThe Online News Association conference organizers have set up panel tracks for attendees to take dep...Journalism Inspiration: Rafat Ali’s Story of Broke Journalist to… -
The Rumors are True! Shawn Smith Now Unemployed!
5 Jun 2009 | 5:09 amWell, not exactly unemployed. Starting today, I’m self-employed :-P Today is my last day serving as senior producer for MLive.com. My video explainer (turn your volume all the way up – sorry about that) WHERE I’M GOING Since 2007 I’ve been working on my own internet marketing group with three others. We started by building websites for small and medium-sized businesses, and that grew into other things, like search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click marketing (PPC) and social media marketing. This year, we’ve far exceeded our goals, and we have the… -
Dear Journalism Students: Do You See Something the Journalism Industry Doesn’t?
7 Apr 2009 | 4:34 amForbes reports that while news agencies across the U.S. are slashing budgets and payrolls, journalism schools are actually filling up. Who knew? Says Forbes about J-School applications: Columbia, Stanford and NYU applications increased 38%, 20% and 6%, respectively, from the previous year. Same thing at state schools. The University of Colorado (up 11%), University of North Carolina (up 14%) and University of Maryland (up 25%) all saw gains. Hot diggity dee. MY QUESTIONS So this begs a few questions from me to students: 1) Do you believe successful careers in journalism are still possible? 2)… -
Your In-Depths Can’t Keep My Interest – The Real Problem of Long Articles Online and What To Do About It
1 Apr 2009 | 6:47 amEver notice how the most interesting articles online seem to command too much of your time? Have you ever stopped reading a long article online because you saw that it was paginated into 8 clicks? ‘Ugh, 8? That’s just too much,’ you might have thought. If you’re anything like me, this happens to you all the time. THE PROBLEM WITH LONG FORM ARTICLES ONLINE Most of us read longer articles when we don’t have time to do so. For example, a friend might send you an email with a link to a really excellent piece, and you visit the link. ‘Huh, that IS… -
Jon Stewart’s Skewing of CNBC Sends Message You Don’t Need a Journalism Degree or Newspaper Experience to be a Journalist
6 Mar 2009 | 7:15 amAre we there yet? Have we finally arrived at the realization that the world’s journalists don’t need a j-school degree and newspaper experience to be considered a journalists? If you’re still teetering on the edge, start first by watching Jon Stewart’s skewering of CNBC analysts: You can read the play-by-play of the segment as relayed by Columbia Journalism Review, which post-show said Stewart “(with the help of his writers, of course) is the most incisive cultural critic in the land. Period.” Time to Get Journalisty You’re going to read a lot about…
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Holovaty.com
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The definitive, two-part answer to "is data journalism?"
It's a hot topic among journalists right now: Is data journalism? Is it journalism to publish a raw database? Here, at last, is the definitive, two-part answer: 1. Who cares? 2. I hope my competitors waste their time arguing about this as long as possible. -
Django tip: Caching and two-phased template rendering
We've launched user accounts at EveryBlock, and we faced the interesting problem of needing to cache entire pages except for the "You're logged in as [username]" bit at the top of the page. For example, the Chicago homepage takes a nontrivial amount of time to generate and doesn't change often -- which means we want to cache it -- but at the same time, we need to display the dynamic bit in the upper right: One solution would be to pull in the username info dynamically via Ajax. This way, you could cache the entire page and rely on the client to pull in the username bits. The downsides are… -
Looking toward EveryBlock’s future
It's been a year and a half now since I've started working on EveryBlock, and I'm still having the time of my life. Starting from scratch in July 2007, our team of six has built a one-of-a-kind local news site that now serves 11 cities and makes more than a hundred distinct types of local information useful to people. By all measures, from passionate user feedback to press coverage to traffic numbers to influence on other projects, the site is a success, and we're incredibly proud of our work. Thanks to our out-of-the-ordinary funding — a generous grant from Knight Foundation — our team… -
Announcing the Django Book, second edition
I'm excited to announce that I'm working on a second edition of the Django Book. The first edition, which I cowrote with Jacob Kaplan-Moss, was published in print by Apress more than a year ago, and, sadly, it's become out of date. It covers Django version 0.96, and many of the examples don't work with the current version, 1.0. Fortunately, now that Django has reached 1.0 and is committed to backwards compatibility, this book will have a much longer shelf life. :-) At this point, I've rewritten/edited the first three chapters and published the drafts for free online, as we did the first time… -
Goodbye hyperlocal, hello microlocal
What is a "hyperlocal" Web site, precisely? As with the term "Web 2.0," I've given up on defining it. Over the years, I've seen the term used to refer to Web sites that cover a metro area but organize their content by specific town or neighborhood, Web sites that focus on a single city or neighborhood intensely and Web sites that focus on a particular part of a metro area. It appears "hyperlocal" means "city/county-level or deeper" — but wouldn't the term "local" work there, just as well? At EveryBlock, we don't use the term "hyperlocal" to refer to our site, because, frankly, it sells our…
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Innovation in College Media
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links for 2009-06-27
27 Jun 2009 | 8:49 amThe Fundamental Training Need :: The Scoop The real problem is the way that we as journalists manage information, because that determines so much else: the kinds of stories we’re able to envision and construct, the amount of context we’re able to bring to bear in a short amount of time and our ability to connect the dots. In general, and this is my scientific conclusion, we suck at managing information. (tags: data theory journalism) -
Thornburg - fertile failure
25 Jun 2009 | 10:03 amRyan Thornburg makes the case that universities can be the “fertile failure” ground for news organizations. I’m not so sure on some levels. Here’s the college media-specific quote: Campus news organizations should also be a natural place for professional news organizations to test crazy ideas that run the risk of damaging their brand. Not that campus news organizations are all dying to damage their brands, but their transitory audience makes small failures much less costly over the long run — failure artifacts don’t aggregate at campus news organizations the way… -
links for 2009-06-24
24 Jun 2009 | 8:51 amXark!: The betrayal of the Fourth Estate I have attempted to be discreet on the decline and fall of the media empire, mostly because I am still in it. With layoffs and furloughs announced every quarter, the consequences of being brutally honest could be dire. But I… Why A New (And Unusual) Pricing Strategy By A Rhode Island Paper Will Fail | paidContent (tags: future media newspapers businessmodels) 100 Tips about All Adobe CS4 Applications | Layers Magazine Here we are three years later with our Fourth Annual installment of one of our most popular features. -
links for 2009-06-23
23 Jun 2009 | 8:50 amXark!: The betrayal of the Fourth Estate I have attempted to be discreet on the decline and fall of the media empire, mostly because I am still in it. With layoffs and furloughs announced every quarter, the consequences of being brutally honest could be dire. But I… Why A New (And Unusual) Pricing Strategy By A Rhode Island Paper Will Fail | paidContent 100 Tips about All Adobe CS4 Applications | Layers Magazine Here we are three years later with our Fourth Annual installment of one of our most popular features. Complete Community Connection This is the blueprint for a Complete… -
Still questions about revenue, online presence
22 Jun 2009 | 7:47 amAs I mentioned earlier this summer, I was in Iowa this week speaking (along with Steve Buttry) to a group of 8 newspaper journalists (editors and publishers) at the Iowa Newspaper Foundation’s Leadership Seminar series. The topic was “Leadership in a Changing Media Environment.” My part was to talk about how the Internet changes the news equation, and what kind of free tools are available to enhance the news organization’s Web presence. It was a fascinating three hours (even though my luggage was lost and I ended up in a t-shirt and shorts for the discussion), and one…
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Institute for Analytic Journalism
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"The Devil is in the Digits"? No, I'd say they abound in the comments.
22 Jun 2009 | 6:05 pmAn intriguing op-ed in The Washington Post on Saturday (June 20, 2009) claimed to spot fraud in the Iran elections by applying some analytic methods basically drawn from Benford's Law. Yes, read the article, but be sure to drill down into the 140+ comments. Most quite cogent and well argued. The Devil Is in the Digits Since the declaration of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's landslide victory in Iran's presidential election, accusations of fraud have swelled. Against expectations from pollsters and pundits alike, Ahmadinejad did surprisingly well in urban areas, including Tehran -- where he… -
Teaching Spatial Thinking
22 Jun 2009 | 3:40 pmDiscovered a new, online resource for teaching spatial thinking today while attending the UCGIS Summer Assembly here in Santa Fe. Take a lookat teachspatial.org: About TeachSpatial TeachSpatial.org implements suggestions from a multi-disciplinary Symposium on a Curriculum for Spatial Thinking. The symposium, organized by Diana Sinton, Mike Goodchild, and Don Janelle, was hosted by the University of Redlands in June 2008. Its purpose was to discuss the merits and content of a general curriculum course on spatial thinking. One of its recommendations was to establish a wiki site to promote the… -
Some nifty Unemployment Charts from Jorge Camoes
19 Jun 2009 | 2:45 pmJorge Camoes is one of the serious folks when it comes to dataviz. Here's some work he's done recently in U.S. unemployment data. Note especially the good state-by-state dashboard. It quickly shows New Mexico is hangin' in there. Charts: Monthly Unemployment Rates by State 1976-2009 by Jorge Camoes on June 18, 2009 Here are two ways to display a relatively large dataset, montly unemployment rates by state since 1976. The first one is perfect to see the overall patterns, the range from the lowest to the highest, the outliers and the slopes. An interactive version would allow the user to… -
From products to services, services to products
11 Jun 2009 | 9:24 amInteresting discussion of, fundamentally, how the Digital Revolution drives the flow from products to services and services to products. Ergo, touches on much of what is at the core of SFComplex. See.... The New Negroponte Switch -- "Designing things that think they are services, and services that think they are things". Matt Jones presentation gushing with great ideas for the "Web Meets World" change. I love the evolving printed map they made for the British Council at Salone di Mobile. A five course meal with port and insulin shots for thought. -
The JavaScript InfoVis
6 Jun 2009 | 1:10 pmAn interesting beginning for a potentially valuable and interesting tool.... "Javascript Infoviz Toolkit -- Treemaps, Radial Layouts, HyperTrees/Graphs, SpaceTree-like Layouts, and more.in this Javascript suite for building data pretties. Higher-level than processing.js. (via O'Reilly Radar and chrisblizzard on Twitter) Features Multiple Data Representations Treemaps, Radial Layouts, HyperTrees/Graphs, SpaceTree-like Layouts, and more... Major Browsers Support IE6+, Firefox2+, Safari3+, Opera9.5+ Open Source Licensed under the BSD License Library Agnostic You may use the JIT with your…
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the knackered hack
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the lie becomes the truth
26 Jun 2009 | 7:17 amSince I heard about social proof, and more specifically Joshua Bell’s famous busking experiment, I’ve wondered what in fact determines my own musical taste: how independent is it of others? Like anyone, I want to think I’m a free spirit. This may not be helpful, but the only sure example I have where I responded independently to a piece of music was Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean. I really did not like his music in the period up to 1983 for very particular reasons: Off the Wall had been played in our house for several years till it drove me up the wall. From what… -
you get to keep the positives
24 Jun 2009 | 6:55 amIt’s perhaps time to end this maudlin phase on the blog, but before we go up-tempo, here’s an excuse to post another picture of ’80s Soviet rock icon Viktor Tsoi. Nearly forgotten him had you? Newbies can start an excursion here to learn more about my chance encounter with Tsoi nearly a quarter century ago. I may be wrong but I believe this photo was taken on Kodachrome transparency film. I know I used a bit of Ektachrome in those days too, but I suspect this was 200 ASA, out of the red packet. Tuesday saw the demise of this much loved film brand. On a happier note, I… -
friday fractal ix
19 Jun 2009 | 9:12 amThere is now a cloud appreciation society. You may have heard about it on the radio a few weeks ago. They have named a new cloud — undulus asperatus — from the Latin, which roughly translates as “agitated waves“. And the roughness is what matters. They are highly disturbed, heralding a storm, and yet tend to disperse without one. The pictures above are nothing of the sort: just cumulus or perhaps nearer cumulonimbus. I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now, and it is true what they say: that some clouds do have a silver lining, though I’m… -
desert island disservice
10 Jun 2009 | 4:29 amOne of the most unanswerable questions you’re likely to be asked in a job interview is “Do you think you’re tough enough to stand up to Piers Morgan?” Unfortunately, I’ve had that question put to me. Several years ago, by dint of having the two words “managing” and “editor” next to one another on my CV, Trinity Mirror called me in to see them in the possibly mistaken belief that I could help dig them out of a very big hole indeed. I was pretty sure I could help in some way, but I think we had a different view of what type of hole they… -
we are what we lost
6 Jun 2009 | 9:37 amAcross Fleet Street from the Tipperary and up a narrow alley is Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. I’ve been set up in that pub before now too. I’m old enough to remember it as a somewhat run-down labyrinth haunted by the last remaining hacks, before Fleet St was repopulated by accountants and bankers. The Cheese was refurbished. After that it was a principal hang-out for Goldman Sachs, whose European headquarters stands more or less next door. Don’t get me wrong: I still liked it. But my fondest memory of the Cheese is the first time I drank a porter beer: Samuel Smiths’…
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Invisible Inkling
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Announcing: ReportingOn 2.0 is live
2 Jul 2009 | 6:11 amReportingOn 2.0 is live and ready for your questions. And answers. It’s still the backchannel for your beat, but it’s an absolute re-imagining of the network. For those of you who haven’t been keeping score, ReportingOn is a project funded by the Knight News Challenge, and it’s a place for journalists of all stripes to find peers with experience dealing with a particular topic, story, or source. (You can catch up with our progress reports from year one and related concepts at the PBS Idea Lab blog.) The first time out, I built it to be quite Twitter-esque in the hopes… -
Five Keys to Authenticity
29 Jun 2009 | 3:27 pmA few days ago at the annual APSE convention, I led two sessions on Networked Journalism. On the way down to Pittsburgh from Rochester in the car, I tried to work out an idea I’ve been playing with for a while. Authenticity. Not authority, or reliability, or popularity, but a more difficult to quantify metric that I think is crucial for news organizations trying to engage their community in the social media world. Here’s a few links I referenced in the discussion as I flipped back and forth between Keynote and Firefox. I’d post my slides, but as usual, my use of slideware… -
New at IdeaLab: An interview with Baghdad Brian
25 Jun 2009 | 3:33 amOver at IdeaLab, I’ve interviewed Baghdad Brian, who I met in October 2007 at the first Networked Journalism summit Jeff Jarvis threw at CUNY. At the time, Brian was raising money to keep Alive in Baghdad going, and we did everything but pass a hat around the room to try to back him up. The next time I remember hearing about the project was two months later, in December 2007, when one of the citizen journalists working with AIB was killed. At the time, it wasn’t clear whether or not his murder (he was shot 31 times) was related to the story he was working on. Brian popped up… -
Highlights from four days with my head in a blender full of wildly intelligent people
22 Jun 2009 | 7:33 pmWhat follows is intended as a brief personal braindump from the four days I spent in Cambridge, Ma. last week, most of it deeply entrenched in the guts of #KNCMIT, a conference hosted by the MIT Center for Future Civic Media featuring Knight News Challenge winners from 2007-2009, and the announcement of this year’s winners. Tuesday night, Margaret Rosas (of Radio Engage) and I took the train out to Harvard’s end of Cambridge to sit in on a conversation Doc Searls, David Weinberger, Jonathan Zittrain, and a classroom full of brilliant people were having about the 10th birthday (and… -
Why We Link: Your answers to why news organizations should tie the Web together
12 Jun 2009 | 4:27 amLast week, I asked for some on tips on why news organizations should link to external sources. I wanted your best reasons, and you happily provided them. Six of you answered via the Publish Tip Form I embedded in that blog post, and seven of you replied on Twitter. You can find my favorite answers in this guest post published yesterday at BeatBlogging.org. Here’s an excerpt: “4. Because we absolutely do not know everything, but we know where to find out most of what we don’t know. The days of your news organization existing as a monopolistic source of local information are…
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Random Mumblings
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The Internet Age that vanished
1 Jul 2009 | 7:15 amThere are no yellowing, faded newspaper Web sites. Except for the WayBack machine -- the best we have, but admittedly spotty -- the whole dawn of Internet newspapers from the mid-1990s on could vanish, never to appear in a yard sale or a treasure proffered up on the PBS's Antiques Roadshow.A database crash, a decision to shut down some old servers, or even some spirited housecleaning, and, blink, days, months, years of an electronic newspaper could be goneIt's already happening. The Wayback archive does have some early Knoxnews home pages, but many of the graphics and photos are either gone… -
Assateague Island pony
30 Jun 2009 | 6:09 amA wild pony on Assateague Island National Seashore. This foal and its mother were walking along and in the road that leads to the beach on the Virginia end of Assateague Island on Monday evening. Here are a few more photos. -
The future of journalism is in safe hands
29 Jun 2009 | 6:14 amA talented practicum student we had at the Knoxville News Sentinel during the University of Tennessee's spring semester has created an interesting new Web site called sfevent.tvFranck Tabouring, who came to the U.S. from Luxembourg to go to college, received a bachelor's degree in journalism this year from the University of Tennessee and moved on to study film in San Francisco.As a practicum student on the knoxnews.com online staff, he did a variety of maintenance tasks and site updating, but he also had time to do several videos that show his sense of humor.Tabouring has been doing an… -
Birds at the beach
28 Jun 2009 | 7:02 pmThese photos were shot at dusk from the porch of the condo where we're staying in Chincoteague Island, Va. On a nearby pier is a bar where a guy is playing guitar and singing Steve Miler's "The Joker." Cause I'm a picker I'm a grinner I'm a lover And I'm a sinner I play my music in the sun. I'm a joker I'm a smoker I'm a midnight toker I get my loving on the run Wooo Woooo -
Anonymity is not a guarantee for online commenters
24 Jun 2009 | 10:47 amFederal prosecutors who had made a broad request for user information of commenters on the Las Vegas Review-Journal's Web site backed down a bit, but an American Civil Liberties Union attorney representing four anonymous commenters on the newspaper Web site says it's still an important, precedent-setting case.(Maggie) McLetchie said that this case is an important one because it sets a dangerous precedent that would send a message that "if you go on the internet and you criticize the government, the government might start a criminal investigation about you, and we think that's extremely…
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Journalistopia
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Time Hack: Monitor News Sites with iMacros Firefox Plugin
24 Jun 2009 | 12:15 pmMy colleague Mario Starks recently pointed me to a rockin’ new Firefox plugin called iMacros, which lets you automatically run a whole host of repetitive tasks in your browser. My immediate thought was how this tool is perfect for monitoring competitors by loading multiple web sites in one shot. By running a macro (similar to an Office macro or Photoshop action), you can designate a list of news sites, and run a macro to pop them all open. No more clicking your bookmarks one by one. Also, iMacros can also do all sorts of neat stuff, such as web scraping and automating file downloads. -
5 Must-Read Online Media Books
17 Jun 2009 | 10:23 pmAs I stared at my bookshelf this evening, I got to thinking about the books I most often recommend to online journalism colleagues and workshop participants. I figure my pals in the blogosphere might find such a list useful as well. Each of these five books either fundamentally changed my outlook or gave me incredibly useful knowledge in my daily work. And please, tempt me into spending some book money by sharing your favorites in the comments! On to the list: SEO for Dummies by Peter Kent Peter Kent’s book can help any beginner make huge strides in optimizing content for search… -
5 tips on managing insane amounts of e-mail
27 Apr 2009 | 7:49 amYour inbox doesn’t have to be a scary place. These five tips can help you cope with hordes of e-mail. You’ve probably felt that drowning feeling on a Monday morning when you open up Microsoft Outlook and the enormous pile of e-mail from last week is still there, killing your mojo and increasing your anxiety. Instead, imagine opening up your inbox and seeing actual whitespace at the bottom of your screen. It’s a helluva way to start the week with a focus on going forward. So, with a hat tip to David Allen’s life-changing book “Getting Things Done,” here… -
Handouts for today’s FSNE multimedia workshops
21 Mar 2009 | 6:58 amHey folks, just wanted to post the handouts I’ll be giving out at the two FSNE multimedia workshops I’ll be leading this afternoon in Tampa. One session is on blogging and the other is on new online media tools. Here are the handouts, as well as my slideshow for the blogging session. Slideshow Presentation: How to Blog Like a Rock Star Document: Online Media Toolkit Document: Blogger Toolkit Document: Chris Brogans’s 40 Ways to Deliver Killer Blog Content – (Orignal post here) Share: -
Google puts ads on Google News
26 Feb 2009 | 9:51 pmTo those of you who said “Google News isn’t a media competitor! It’s just an aggregator:” I give you AdWords on Google News. I’ve previously written about how Google News was generating more than $100 million in revenue, according to a Google VP. I’ve written about how Google’s Knol is becoming a competitor to media companies by becoming a content creator. I’ve covered how Google News is trying to be a local aggregator of news (rather than your site being the aggregator). I’ve pointed out how Google is circumventing news sites’…
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Journerdism
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EveryBlock Source Code Released
1 Jul 2009 | 4:26 pm"Over the past two years, EveryBlock has been funded by a grant from the Knight Foundation. The purpose of the grant was twofold: to launch this experiment in "micro-local" news, and to release the source code. Today, as our grant period comes to an end, we're fulfilling that second purpose. You can read more about the open-sourcing and download the code at our source code page. (Keep in mind it'll probably make sense only if you're a web developer/programmer.) We hope this extensive code base helps spark lots of great work." -
BeatBlogging.Org’s funding runs out Sept. 1
1 Jul 2009 | 4:08 pm"I regret to inform you that BeatBlogging.Org’s funding will be running out in about two months.... BeatBlogging.Org will not, however, be disappearing. There is still work to be done and innovation to be chronicled. BeatBlogging.Org is too strong of a brand to let die. Unless a journalism non-profit or university steps up to bring BeatBlogging.Org in house, this project will most likely be going volunteer only. If it is the latter, I’ll obviously have a new day job, and if that is the case, I’ll need assistance in carrying out BeatBlogging.Org’s mission. I’m asking for all of you… -
So What Do You Do, Rob Curley, President/Executive Editor, Greenspun Interactive?
1 Jul 2009 | 9:57 am"So you automate all of that stuff, and then the stuff that really matters that's easy to do that gets big traffic, like crime stories and updates on local government and things like that -- stuff that you literally need a human to do, but you know if you cover it, it will get read -- we have humans do that. We now geo-code every story on our site, every piece of content. We either add an exact latitude and longitude to it or, if we don't have that, then we try to at least get it down to the zip code. Soon, if you give your zip code you can have all of those stories now on one page. -
Lifestreaming: Why not a storystreaming platform?
30 Jun 2009 | 9:40 am"Thinking of each story as an individual “life” helps identify the opportunity for developers to create or modify a platform that can meet the needs of news organization, a platform for “storystreaming.” 1. Story-centric: Current lifestream solutions, at least those I’m familiar with, document a person’s life, but every story includes multiple characters, events and plot. A storystream platform needs to document a the events of a story, not a person. 2. Realtime curation: A good news story probably shouldn’t include the many distracting, unrelated actions in that person’s… -
YouTube Launches Reporters' Center to Foster Citizen Journalism
29 Jun 2009 | 2:15 pm"The Reporters' Center launched Monday with about 35 instructional videos from professional journalists on how to handle a range of reporting challenges, including: understanding privacy issues (and staying out of jail), shooting video with your cell phone, fact-checking assertions, conducting a good interview and covering a humanitarian crisis safely. YouTube wants to use the Reporters' Center to develop collaboration between citizen reporters and large news organizations -- to "more effectively report on news and have that content amplified on a bigger platform," said Steve Grove,…
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sans serif
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When my 0.68 is bigger than your 0.68
2 Jul 2009 | 7:19 amAn advertisement for the Hindi news channel, IBN7, owned by Raghav Bahl’s Network 18, appearing in the latest issue of the Brand Reporter. “IBN continues to dominate the Hindi news space in the prime-time slot of 9 pm as its flagship news bulletin Dante ki chot par becomes No. 1 across all Hindi channels, during all the time bands.” TAM rating for IBN 7 in week 22 (May 24-30): 0.68 TAM rating for Aaj Tak in week 22 (May 24-30): 0.68 Also reasd: Never let facts come in the way of a good story Posted in A bit of fun, Television Tagged: afaqs, Agency FAQs, Churumuri, IBN7,… -
Entries invited for 2009 India Press Photo awards
30 Jun 2009 | 12:48 amThe Ramnath Goenka Memorial Foundation, named after the founder of the Indian Express group, is inviting entries for the 2009 India Press Photo awards for excellence in photo journalism. There are five prizes on offer. The picture of the year will get Rs 1.5 lakh, and the best pictures for spot news, general news, sports, and arts and entertainment, will respectively receive Rs 1 lakh each. The last date for submission of entries is 31 August 2009. Log on to www.expressindia.com/ippa for further details. Email: indiapressphoto@expressindia.com Snailmail: Ramnath Goenka Memorial Foundation,… -
An oxymoronic pursuit called Spiritual Journalism
28 Jun 2009 | 11:37 amShooting the messenger is the world’s favourite hobby. So, the media is roundly berated by media consumers as the harbinger of bad news. Media personnel have been termed by critics as the “nattering nabobs of negativism“. We suck the warm, positive air out of this wonderful world the rest of humankind inhabits. We separate the wheat from the chaff, and print the chaff. We lead if it bleeds. We make up, we steal, we distort, we spin, we sin. Etcetera. Well…. Well, it turns out, the criticism is not just not new but a lousy cliche. At a seminar on the “Significance… -
‘People, not the press, are the real fourth estate’
27 Jun 2009 | 11:14 pmThe press in India, like the press elsewhere, holds on to the belief that it is the Fourth Estate of democracy, after the legislature, the executive and the judiciary, although the press in India, as much as the press elsewhere, finds its institutional and individual integrity increasingly under question. In an article on the Open Page of The Hindu, Radheer Mahendrakar uses the results of the recent general elections to argue that the people are the real Fourth Estate, acting as a more effective countervailing force than the press, especially when they perceive a threat to democracy. -
Don’t laugh: Do journos make good politicians?
23 Jun 2009 | 1:17 amPRITAM SENGUPTA in New Delhi and SHARANYA KANVILKAR in Bombay write: The stunning defeat of the BJP in the general elections has been dissected so many times and by so many since May 16 that there is little that has been left unsaid. What has been left unsaid is how the BJP’s defeat also marks the comeuppance of a certain breed of journalists who had chucked all pretence to non-partisanship and made it their mission to tom-tom the party, in print and on air, for a decade and more. The Congress and the Left parties have had more than their share of sympathetic “left-liberal”…
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Adrian Monck
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Newspaper subscription by algorithm
16 Jun 2009 | 2:26 amMy hunch? Not quite there yet… -
The New York Times via the Daily Show
11 Jun 2009 | 9:11 amThe Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c End Times www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Newt Gingrich Unedited Interview -
Media vanity projects…
11 Jun 2009 | 1:29 amThis short paragraph from an obit of Fleur Cowles gives you some idea of why the tastes of media connoisseurs and the general public are not necessarily in synch (and of the source of creative motivation): Flair was a short-lived, loss-making, vanity project, meant to showcase the persona Fleur had invented for herself. Media professionals and students have admired it ever since its 12th and last issue appeared on US newsstands in January 1951. -
The redundant story: math and the future of journalism
1 Jun 2009 | 8:27 amI have long argued the rather unoriginal position that journalism’s mission to inform has its roots in religious ‘infotainment’ both popular and intellectual - moralising editorials replaced moralising sermons, etc. But I’ve been struggling to express why that mission seems such a recurrent trope in history. The use of stories for entertaining and moral purposes is clear as early as Ugaritic, Akkadian and Homeric myths. The replacement of those myths and parables with ‘real’ stories for the purposes of secular instruction begins with the classical… -
Off topic: the language of advertising
21 May 2009 | 10:22 amThe IdeasBrothers blog has uncovered a novel written by an advertising planner. In a penthouse apartment on the right side of town, a 28‐54 year old man called Dan tried to control his breathing. Someone or something was moving about downstairs. He listened intently. There it was again. In the inky dark, the sound had real cut‐through compared to the thousands of messages he was bombarded with through multiple channels each day. My favourite bit? Dan looked around for a weapon. There was nothing heavy but he found his 5.2 megapixel mobile phone in the hall. Even if he…
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Random Mumblings
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The Internet Age that vanished
1 Jul 2009 | 7:15 amThere are no yellowing, faded newspaper Web sites. Except for the WayBack machine -- the best we have, but admittedly spotty -- the whole dawn of Internet newspapers from the mid-1990s on could vanish, never to appear in a yard sale or a treasure proffered up on the PBS's Antiques Roadshow.A database crash, a decision to shut down some old servers, or even some spirited housecleaning, and, blink, days, months, years of an electronic newspaper could be goneIt's already happening. The Wayback archive does have some early Knoxnews home pages, but many of the graphics and photos are either gone… -
Assateague Island pony
30 Jun 2009 | 6:09 amA wild pony on Assateague Island National Seashore. This foal and its mother were walking along and in the road that leads to the beach on the Virginia end of Assateague Island on Monday evening. Here are a few more photos. -
The future of journalism is in safe hands
29 Jun 2009 | 6:14 amA talented practicum student we had at the Knoxville News Sentinel during the University of Tennessee's spring semester has created an interesting new Web site called sfevent.tvFranck Tabouring, who came to the U.S. from Luxembourg to go to college, received a bachelor's degree in journalism this year from the University of Tennessee and moved on to study film in San Francisco.As a practicum student on the knoxnews.com online staff, he did a variety of maintenance tasks and site updating, but he also had time to do several videos that show his sense of humor.Tabouring has been doing an… -
Birds at the beach
28 Jun 2009 | 7:02 pmThese photos were shot at dusk from the porch of the condo where we're staying in Chincoteague Island, Va. On a nearby pier is a bar where a guy is playing guitar and singing Steve Miler's "The Joker." Cause I'm a picker I'm a grinner I'm a lover And I'm a sinner I play my music in the sun. I'm a joker I'm a smoker I'm a midnight toker I get my loving on the run Wooo Woooo -
Anonymity is not a guarantee for online commenters
24 Jun 2009 | 10:47 amFederal prosecutors who had made a broad request for user information of commenters on the Las Vegas Review-Journal's Web site backed down a bit, but an American Civil Liberties Union attorney representing four anonymous commenters on the newspaper Web site says it's still an important, precedent-setting case.(Maggie) McLetchie said that this case is an important one because it sets a dangerous precedent that would send a message that "if you go on the internet and you criticize the government, the government might start a criminal investigation about you, and we think that's extremely…
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Telegraph: Shane Richmond
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New Telegraph Blogs: help!
2 Jul 2009 | 7:17 amThank you very much for your feedback over the last week. A few questions have been raised several times so I thought it would be helpful to address some of them here. In time this will evolve into a more substantial FAQs page but we wanted to give you all the chance to add to it before it was finalised. Please leave your suggestions in the box below. Please note that this information applies to Telegraph Blogs only. At the moment different areas of the site, including My Telegraph, have different sign-up procedures. This is something that we will address in the coming months but as it… -
New age gadgets make about as much sense as a USB Ghost Detector
2 Jul 2009 | 3:44 amWho you gonna call? Ghost Radar will beep when a ghost is near by I know what you’re going to say, you’re going to say that people who make decisions about their eating habits based on pseudo-scientific nutritionist advice probably don’t trouble themselves with the finer details of scientific research. But watching a programme about raw foodists the other week, I couldn’t quite believe the technology that some of them pour their faith into. While they’re insisting that cooked food is polluting our bodies, they’re also strapping battery-powered plastic boxes… -
The first week of the new-look Telegraph blogs
30 Jun 2009 | 11:05 amThank you for your continuing feedback on our new look. The new site has been live in beta for almost a week now and we are continuing to make changes which you will see appear over the next few weeks. The most significant change to date is the addition of an extra column on the blogs home page which displays the latest posts. Many of you missed being able to see which blogs have been updated most recently so this should make that easier. We will also be rolling out some more technical changes in the coming week to further improve the site’s speed. As always, we’re keen to hear… -
Microsoft advertises Internet Explorer 8 with another awful attempt at humour
30 Jun 2009 | 8:06 amSomeone high up at Microsoft hates advertising. Loathes it. Hates it more than they hate iPhones. I’m sure of it. It’s the only possible reason for their decades-long run of awful adverts and cheesy slogans, from ‘Where do you want to go today?’ to ‘The wow starts now.’ They’re at it again, following on from the puzzling dismalness of the Seinfeld/Gates films with these new ads featuring Dean Cain, who used to play Superman. Click here to view the embedded video. Internet Explorer 8 might well be a decent enough browser, but nothing here would make me… -
A standard phone charger? About time too
30 Jun 2009 | 4:02 amIt’s been a bug bear of mine for quite some time now, so the news that manufacturers have agreed to ditch their ridiculous proprietary cables in exchange for a standard Micro USB charger makes me want to leave an offering at the shrine of the gadget gods (presumably, the temple is located in the Apple Store). In fact, I was just having a little rant about this the other day, after finding yet another bag full of miscellaneous chargers that I’ve been hoarding just in case they belong to something important. In 99 per cent of cases the chargers are for obsolete phones made by…
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MediaShift Idea Lab
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ReportingOn 2.0 Launches Next Generation of Backchannel for Your Beat
2 Jul 2009 | 9:38 amReportingOn 2.0 is live and ready for your questions. And answers. It's still the backchannel for your beat, but it's an absolute re-imagining of the network. For those of you who haven't been keeping score, ReportingOn is a project funded by the Knight News Challenge, and it's a place for journalists of all stripes to find peers with experience dealing with a particular topic, story, or source. (You can catch up with our progress reports from year one and related concepts right here at IdeaLab.) The first time out, I built it to be quite Twitter-esque in the hopes that journalists would use… -
Knight Rewards On-the-Spot Competitors at MIT Meetup
1 Jul 2009 | 3:56 pmLast Thursday, I returned to Moscow from the Future of News and Civic Media Conference in Cambridge, Mass. Organized by the MIT Center of Future Civic Media and the Knight Foundation, this is the annual meeting where all the Knight News Challenge Winners discuss the future of civic media and talk about the digital tools to build local communities. This year, nine new exciting projects joined this community of innovators, raising the total of Knight News Challenge projects to 45. The conference was also a good chance for the past Knight News Challenge winners to talk about their progress on… -
EveryBlock Source Code Released
1 Jul 2009 | 9:30 amToday's a big day for us at EveryBlock. We're making our source code available. Over the past two years, EveryBlock has been funded by a grant from the Knight Foundation. The purpose of the grant was twofold: to launch this experiment in "micro-local" news, and to release the source code. Today, as our grant period comes to an end, we're fulfilling that second purpose. You can read more about the open-sourcing and download the code at our source code page. (Keep in mind it'll probably make sense only if you're a web developer/programmer.) We hope this extensive code base helps spark lots of… -
Another Budget Game
29 Jun 2009 | 3:26 pmI like to think that Gotham Gazette's Balance! inspired the folks over at the Washington Post to create an even better budget game of their own but I am open to the possibility that they came up with it all on their own. Take a look at both if you haven't already. The Post's works a lot (a lot!) like our game, but I'd say the layout that they came up with is a far more effective way to display the available information. On the other hand, I really like the way we handled revenue, by creating a menu of real and specific proposals like a bag tax or sales tax changes. Their menu of options is… -
Reflections on a Facebook Birthday
29 Jun 2009 | 10:38 amThis year for my birthday I got three calls. Two people sent cards. And I don't think I ever received so much attention in my life. I have to say, it was fabulous turning 51 years old on Facebook. The well wishes started pouring in on the night before my birthday and they kept coming the day after, too. Friends from junior high, high school, college, past jobs, former neighbors, fellow travelers all weighed in on my Facebook wall. According to a January study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, adults between 45 and 54 make up 19 percent of the population on social networks.
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Meranda Writes
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Awards, external praise don’t motivate me
27 Jun 2009 | 8:23 amSo, today I have resolved to go back through all the stories (or at least the headlines of the stories) I wrote during the past year to see if any of them are worth putting up for my paper to submit to the state press association contest. I usually don’t do this. And this year, as in the past, I had resolved to ignore such contests. But my editor sent about three reminders to local reporters, and then, before I left Friday, he made another pitch to us to get him our suggestions. I figured, whatever. If nothing else, I should pause to reflect on this past years work? My issue with such… -
Indy Star’s ‘info stream’ like friendfeed for its reporters
10 Jun 2009 | 10:28 amI just came across an interesting feature that I think is new, or at least new to me, on the Indy Star site. Scanning the education section of the site, I noticed under the refers to education reporter Andy Gammill’s blog and twitter there was a new link: “Andy’s info stream.” I think it’s new because I look at this page almost daily (Indy is the largest paper in the state and the J&C’s sister paper), and I have never noticed it before. This is what I found when I clicked the link: Pretty cool if you’re interested in what the reporter is writing,… -
A few tips on outlining stories
7 Jun 2009 | 7:45 amFor most daily stories, the time it would take me to outline the article isn’t worth it. I can write about a crash, a fire, a school board meeting without really thinking through the direction I want to head: Start with what happened, and it gets less important from there. But I also write a lot of daily enterprise. When I’m working on these stories, I’ve found having a direction saves me time. It’s worth the five minutes to outline a story if it saves me 20 minutes of trying to just get started. The usefulness of outlining stories is almost directly related to the… -
I am bad at being on furlough
18 May 2009 | 9:27 pmI don’t know about other people, but being on furlough is hard for me. It’s not just the “uh, how will I pay my bills this month?” difficulty you’d expect. What’s harder for me is to be excommunicated from my colleagues and my daily routine. Even leaving town isn’t enough to make cutting off communication easy. Maybe it’s because this is an insanely busy time on the education beat, but it’s hard to walk away, not look back and genuinely not care for five days. Monday was day one of my second five-day furlough this year. See, even though… -
Newspapers report their woes because it is a story
13 May 2009 | 7:55 amI read a story in the New York Times this week that piqued my interest. The basic gist: Even though TV news also is losing audience at a rapid pace, you’re not likely to hear about it. But newspapers? There isn’t a person who pays attention to the news, whether from TV or print or online exclusively, who doesn’t know newspapers are in trouble. The article is based on a University of Pennsylvania study that looked at the issue in some of the top papers and TV news shows. The study found: Looking at print, broadcast and cable news stories over a nine-year span, there were 900…
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MultimediaShooter
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Mountain Workshops » Apply
Mountain Workshops » Apply The Western Kentucky University Photojournalism department is now accepting applications for the 2009 Mountain Workshops which will be held in Murray, KY Oct. 27-31. Once again we are offering three concurrent workshops; Photojournalism, Multimedia and Picture Editing. The application for MWS '09 is posted at... http://www.mountainworkshops.org/how-to-apply-for-the-mountain-workshops/ There is no application deadline but ... -
Barefoot Workshops - Documentary Workshops and Media Training for NGOs
UPCOMING WORKSHOPS Documentary Workshops Barefoot Workshops offers short, intensive workshops in documentary filmmaking to individuals with beginner through advanced levels of training. Barefoot Workshops - Documentary Workshops and Media Training for NGOs -
Visa pour l’Image Perpignan 2009 - FRANCE24-RFI web documentary award
The international news channel, FRANCE 24, and the international news radio station, RFI, are launching the first Web Documentary Award at the 21st Visa pour l’Image International Festival of Photojournalism to be held in Perpignan in September 2009.Visa pour l'Image Perpignan 2009 - FRANCE24-RFI web documentary award. -
Freedom Forum Offers Multimedia Boot Camp Aug. 9-14 in Nashville
Freedom Forum Diversity Institute » Freedom Forum Offers Multimedia Boot Camp Aug. 9-14 in Nashville. Click to download the registration form. DI Multimedia Training Registration Form Journalism educators, professionals and students can develop and hone their skills in audio, photo and video storytelling at a Multimedia Boot Camp taught by the Freedom ... -
Learn-gasm! Some great multimedia links here for all!
100 Best Blogs for Journalism Students - Learn-gasm.
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News Videographer
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Last request for survey participants
1 Jul 2009 | 8:03 amOver the past month or so I’ve been collecting results for a short survey I created about solo videojournalist pay. I have about 28 responses right now, which isn’t too shabby. Still, I’d like to get more before I release the results. Could you take the survey? Only 10 questions, and a couple minutes time tops. a Last request for survey participants -
What are you doing to cover sports with video?
29 Jun 2009 | 5:08 amInnovative Interactivity has a great guest post today by Brian Vernellis about covering sports with online video. The Times produces three weekly high school shows – a game of the week, a city game of the week and an area game of the week. The goal was to create a SportsCenter style of show for readers – two talking heads (asst. SE, high school writer), a couple of coaches’ interviews and b-roll. Voila. The trick is keeping those videos under four minutes. Talking heads have a tendency to ramble, so any insight has got to be quick and precise. It’s amazing the response those videos… -
Heads up!
26 Jun 2009 | 5:43 amFun times for your Friday. a Heads up! -
Why close ups are so cool
25 Jun 2009 | 5:15 amSteve Mort had a nice post last week about his love affair with close-up shots (compared to wide). This is something I preach a lot, and Steve has some great practical advice about why tight shots are so important for your story. When a story is rich in color, which this one is, tight-shots take the viewer much closer to what you’re trying to show. It adds character to the story. People’s faces are expressive – you get a much better feeling for who the people are that you’re shooting than you would if you simply used a series of wide-shots. I think it makes it… -
What would we hear of Iran without online video?
24 Jun 2009 | 5:12 amMashable has a collection of 10 citizen videos from the Iran protests that show how important online video has become for showing things the government would prefer to hide. Social media in general has been indispensable for the protesters who want the world to know what’s happening to them. But online video: This is how they can make the video CARE about what’s happening to them. Years ago, this wouldn’t have been possible. First, we needed wide-spread access to affordable camcorders that are easy enough to carry anywhere (smart phones, anyone?). Next, we needed wide-spread…
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paulconley
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New-Wave News
26 Jun 2009 | 9:24 amI'm having one of those moments where I need to blog as a way to organize my thoughts. Longtime readers know that much of what I write here is less than perfectly organized. In a sense, blogging has become part of the act of thinking. This blog is less a place to share my opinions than it is a place to explore them.So with that said -- bear with me.I have no idea where this blog post is heading.Earlier this week I found myself obsessing over a single line in a lengthy post by fellow B2B blogger Dan Blank. Dan was writing about how his company, Reed Business, was using Twitter. It's a good… -
Layoffs at IDG
1 May 2009 | 11:33 amI'm hearing word that there have been a number of layoffs today at IDG.I don't have an exact number. Nor do I have any official confirmation from the company.But what I'm hearing is that number of folks being cut is substantial.And I'm hearing that many of the folks being let go are multimedia journalists, not just old-time print folks.Even more disconcerting is that some of the bigger names in B2B journalism are said to be among those let go. Although I have not confirmed this yet, I'm told that one of discharged journalists is Don Tennant, a winner of the Timothy White award for editorial… -
The Nanny Diary
29 Apr 2009 | 7:44 amI've been running an ad in recent weeks for a live-in nanny for my toddler. It's a part-time gig in exchange for room, board and a small stipend. And it seemed to me it was a nice job for someone enrolled in college.I've posted the ad in a number of places ... particularly on college campuses near our home in lower Manhattan.As the resumes have come in, I've been saddened to see that the most common applicant is someone who is about to graduate with a media degree of one kind of another.I've been saddened. But I have not been surprised.Long time comingA year ago this month I wrote what is the… -
Penton goes to four-day workweek to cut costs
27 Apr 2009 | 6:53 pmPenton is moving to a four-day workweek through the summer in an effort to cut costs.According to a memo sent to employees this afternoon by Penton CEO Sharon Rowlands, the move effectively translates into a 20 percent pay cut. However, the memo also says the company "we will spread the pay reduction in smaller increments throughout the end of the year to reduce the immediate financial stress on you and your families." (Clarification: a comment on this post correctly points out that it's misleading for me to call this a 20 percent cut. If Penton does, in fact, return to a five-day week after… -
Journalism by any other word would smell as sweet
30 Mar 2009 | 9:45 amMarch is academia month for me.Each year at this time I visit with college journalists and their teachers. And each year it is both a rewarding and frustrating experience.This year was somewhat unusual in that I did less college-focused stuff than usual. I had too much work to do much travel. And some academic events were canceled. But I did get to spend a few days at the annual College Media Advisers convention in New York.I saw many of the same disheartening things this year that I've written about before -- journalism departments that have not converged; students just weeks from graduating…
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Photojournalism From A Student's Eye
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Creating a free, searchable photo archive in Flickr
1 Jul 2009 | 9:12 pmRecently I began the task of scanning in all of my family’s old photographs. Digitizing decades worth of photographs is a daunting task for anyone, but then what does one do with all of these digital images once they have been ingested? Do you scan them in only to have them sit in a folder on a hard drive, just as inaccessible as when they were in a box in the closet? For my purposes, I decided to used Flickr to create and manage my family’s photo archive. Now, as you know, one downside of Flickr is that users are only allowed to display the 200 most recent images/videos if they… -
Venice Japanese Community Center Festival 2009
30 Jun 2009 | 11:47 pmAs any of my high school friends can tell you, I have never been the most connected person to the Japanese American community. While I did intern at the Rafu Shimpo, I didn’t go to the local temple or church, join the asian Boy Scout troop, or do other things that would put me in touch with many other Japanese Americans. My only strong connections with the community were through asian basketball leagues and the yearly Venice Japanese Community Center festival (I’ve only made it to the WLA obon once and the Venice obon twice). Each year that I go back I run into someone from my… -
Camping in Mammoth
29 Jun 2009 | 11:39 pmOn the road between Mammoth Lakes and French Camp. Trout for dinner. June Lake -
Gradution 2009
20 Jun 2009 | 11:30 pmViews from graduations in the San Jose area. I had the pleasure of going up north and shooting for SVCN before taking in Diana Diroy’s first gallery show up at the Manilatown I-Hotel. -
Eyes on the Prize
14 Jun 2009 | 9:44 pm
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PJNet
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News Superstars Give Reporting Tips at New YouTube Site
29 Jun 2009 | 9:46 amYouTube launches YouTube Reporters’ Center, a new video site where news superstars like Katie Couric provide reporting tips for citizen journalists. Here are just some of the interviewees and their subject matter: Katie Couric on how to conduct a good interview Tips from Bob Woodward on Investigative Journalism Nicholas Kristof on Covering a Global Crisis - … NPR’s Scott Simon: How to Tell a Story YouTube is also looking for other partners as noted in the full press release below. Here is a key paragraph from the press release: “For the first time on YouTube, veteran… -
Densmore, Others Unveil CircLabs; Aim to Sustain Journalism
23 Jun 2009 | 7:31 pmMartin Langeveld, Jeff Vander Clute, Joe Bergeron, and Bill Densmore unveil CircLabs Inc., a concept to help sustain journalism. They will be exploring paid-content models for newspaper Web sites. Written details are here or you might want to hear Densmore in a Nieman Journalism Lab interview. -
Excellent Journalism: Neda and New York Times’ The Lede
22 Jun 2009 | 8:10 pmI am now sure that no one understands the power of this new digital era better than Robert Mackey, head writer of The Lede blog at the New York Times. Watch this video of the death of Neda in Iran to see what journalism of the future will be. It is chilling, heartbreaking and informative; it is pro-am journalism combined and it is everything high impact and high quality journalism should be. Also praise must go to the producer Jigar Mehta and to the daring people in Iran who posted it for the world to see. -
New York Times’ The Lede Demonstrates New Media’s Power
18 Jun 2009 | 9:16 amThe Lede, The New York Times news blog, via its Iran protest coverage, demonstrates the extreme power of new media forms working in conjunction with traditional media. The main traditional stories are the anchors, and the Lede is the minute-by-minute conversation with an interactive audience. I love sections like this one: Update | 11:12 a.m. A reader points out that Iran’s Press TV reports that Thursday’s rally was attended by “hundreds of thousands” of opposition supporters: Supporters of defeated presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Moussavi have organized rallies across Iran to… -
Understanding Why Twitter Excels in Iran Protest Coverage
17 Jun 2009 | 1:17 pmSo why is the so unlikely Twitter such a blockbuster medium in exposing what’s happening in Ira? Here is what Time says: So what exactly makes Twitter the medium of the moment? It’s free, highly mobile, very personal and very quick. It’s also built to spread, and fast. Twitterers like to append notes called hashtags — #theylooklikethis — to their tweets, so that they can be grouped and searched for by topic; especially interesting or urgent tweets tend to get picked up and retransmitted by other Twitterers, a practice known as retweeting, or just RT. And Twitter is…
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Publishing 2.0
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Wordpress & SocialVibe: Blogging Gone Good
15 Jun 2009 | 11:05 amNew York venture capitalist Fred Wilson is one of the most prolific and renown bloggers on the web. And if you go his blog, avc.com, you’ll notice that (like most blogs) he runs advertising to generate revenues. But what many of you may not know is that all the proceeds Fred generates through his blog goes to charity. What a concept!! You blog for a few minutes each day, and presto! You’re supporting your favorite charity! Now, imagine if millions of people did this… imagine the impact we could have on the world. Starting today, if you’re a blogger who uses… -
Why we link: A brief rundown of the reasons your news organization needs to tie the Web together
11 Jun 2009 | 10:24 amOriginally posted at BeatBlogging.org, a resource for journalists using social networks, blogs, and other Web tools to improve beat reporting. Whenever I talk with news organizations of any size about linking to sources, resources and journalism that originated outside the walls of their newsroom, two questions come up: How and Why. Well, conveniently enough, I work for Publish2, and we build tools that help answer the question of How. If your problem is that systems make adding links directly in the text of your story a difficult task, let’s solve that by adding links in widgets, sidebars,… -
Retraining Wire and Feature Editors to Be Web Curators
2 May 2009 | 10:22 amIf the wire editor and feature editor roles are becoming obsolete for print newspapers, as Steve Yelvington persuasively argues, then those editors should be retrained — or retrain themselves — as web curators. Rather than become obsolete, these editors could become essential to their news organization’s future on the web. Steve observes: On the Internet, we have no need of wire editors; if we wish to have wire content on our websites, we can plug in AP Hosted News, or run a full feed of AP Online or some similar product from another service. But with everything on the… -
Collaboration can’t cure #swineflu, but it can fight filter failure
29 Apr 2009 | 6:41 amPerhaps you’ve noticed a bit of activity online the last few days related to a certain not-quite-pandemic bug that’s going around. Swine Flu. Or, to put it in microblogging terms, #swineflu. The wonderful thing about the ease of communication online is that anyone can start a discussion, carry it on, pass along information, retweet it, forward an e-mail, leave a comment on a blog post, or bookmark a page in a social way. The problem, of course, is that when millions of people are desperately looking for solid, clear information, that’s when it can be the most difficult to… -
Joining Publish2: Ryan Sholin, Greg Linch and Howard Weaver
23 Apr 2009 | 2:25 pmToday we’re announcing three major additions to the Publish2 team — journalists whose stellar reputations speak for themselves: Ryan Sholin joins us next week as Director of News Innovation. Greg Linch is the winner of the Publish2 Future of Journalism Contest and will join us in the fall as our Producer. Howard Weaver has joined our Board of Directors. Get the full scoop at the Publish2 Blog.
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Recovering Journalist
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"Aged" News Indeed
24 Jun 2009 | 5:17 pmDavid Kurtz in political blog Talking Points Memo makes a very good point:If you read only the print edition of the New York Times, you would still not know anything about the Mark Sanford saga, according to my search of the paper's archives. Yet, right now it's the lead story on the paper's website, and has been, for better or worse, the dominant news story this week since The State first broke news late Monday afternoon that the governor was missing. Presumably, The Times will have a story in tomorrow's print edition, by which time the story will have bubbled, built,… -
A Crossed-Up Acrostic Fan
22 Jun 2009 | 8:10 pmIt's a dirty little secret that what journalists think is important in a newspaper isn't always the same sorts of things that readers find essential. Transfer the city hall reporter or lose an investigative star to another paper, and readers may barely notice. But try messing with the TV grid or the comics, and angry readers will storm the building with pitchforks and torches. Sorry, journalists. Those are the things a lot of readers really care about. This reader is sharpening his pitchfork for an assault on the glitzy new New York Times headquarters building after the Times… -
How Sick is Gannett?
22 Jun 2009 | 12:53 pmTribune Co. is in bankruptcy. So are the owners of the Chicago Sun-Times, Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, Minneapolis Star Tribune, New Haven Register and many smaller newspapers. McClatchy is trying to refinance its debt. The New York Times Co. is struggling with its financial obligations.And now it looks like industry giant Gannett may be in trouble. TheDeal.com, crunching Gannett's numbers, suggests that the company is facing a $400 million debt payment within two years that it may have trouble paying. "Gannett as we know it will be lucky to last through June 2011,"… -
The People Have Spoken
19 Jun 2009 | 10:42 amNothing really new here, except that the numbers are becoming overwhelming: a new Zogby poll finds that most Americans prefer the Internet as a news source—more so than newspapers, TV and radio combined. Oh, and they consider the Internet more reliable than those other media, as well.As if that wasn't bad enough news for the traditionalists, get this: only 1 in 200 of those surveyed—you read that right, 1 in 200, or one half of 1 percent—believe that newspapers will be a "dominant source" of news within five years. Would somebody please remember to turn out the lights in… -
Upwardly Mobile, Pt. 2: What Works
11 Jun 2009 | 8:18 pmJust as it was stupid to paste a newspaper onto a computer screen, it's dumb to assume that what works on the Web works on a cellphone screen. They're very different.In the first part of this two-part post, I described the explosive growth in the delivery of news and information to mobile devices such as cellphones and smartphones—and why newspapers and other local news organizations need to jump quickly into the mobile fray with sophisticated products that have real potential for advertising and even subscription revenue. In this part, I look at what works (and doesn't) in…
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Reflections of a Newsosaur
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Can grassroots journalism do the job?
22 Jun 2009 | 12:01 amMy doubts are growing about whether we can rely on volunteers to produce credible journalism for a sustainable period of time.Although a number of do-it-yourself ventures have embraced modern technology to attempt to fill the void created by the retrenchment of the mainstream media, there is scant evidence to date that any have succeeded to the point that they will support the sustained efforts -
Now Twittering, if you happen to care
10 Jun 2009 | 6:17 pmThere is a new Twitter feed here to alert you to every future post on Newsosaur, if you happen to care.But there is strong evidence that you may not, according to a new Harvard Business School study of 300,542 inviduals. The research found that “most people” only tweet once in their lifetimes. Among the precious few who stick with it, “half of all the people using Twitter updated their pages -
Sarah Snyder, spunk you could love
9 Jun 2009 | 8:12 pm“You got spunk,” barked Lou Grant at Mary Richards on the old Mary Tyler Moore show. “I hate spunk.”The quote came to mind today when I read the obit of Sarah Snyder, a much beloved and talented editor at the Boston Globe who died Sunday well before her time at the age of 51.Sarah had tons of spunk as a newly minted reporter working at the Chicago Sun-Times in the early 1980s. But we loved her -
Facing up to life after print for newspapers
8 Jun 2009 | 4:25 amThere are many unsettling parallels between newspapers and General Motors, the iconic American corporation struggling to regain its financial health and vigor as a consumer brand.But there is a major difference between the opportunity that lies ahead for publishers and the continuing challenges facing America’s No. 1 disgraced automaker. Publishers have a far better chance at re-inventing their -
Can you still trust me?
5 Jun 2009 | 6:04 amNow that I have offered newspaper publishers a potential solution to building revenues and improving their strategic position in the interactive age, some commentators have raised the legitimate question of whether this blog can be trusted.Sidestepping the obvious issue of whether anyone should have trusted me in the first place, my response is this: Once you know where I am coming from, you can
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Ricochet by Chrys Wu
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Have Reporting Work You’re Proud Of? Enter the Online Journalism Awards
26 Jun 2009 | 10:44 amWant to be recognized for the online news you’ve reported, no matter your outlet’s size or affiliation? Then be sure to submit your work to Online News Association’s Online Journalism Awards competition. Deadline is Tuesday, June 30, so best send this in today. Update: The deadline’s been extended to July 8, so send your entries in, stat. There are several categories you can enter; four get a share of $30,000 in total prize money: The Gannett Foundation Award for Technical Innovation in the Service of Digital Journalism Community Collaboration Award Outstanding Use of… -
Learning from Young Journalists – The Livingston Awards
4 May 2009 | 9:35 pmNominees for the Livingston Awards for Young Journalists were announced today. The annual prizes recognize reporting by reporters under 35. This year’s list is pretty big. Unfortunately, the website didn’t include links to the entries, so I spent my evening digging around. After all, one of the best ways to learn any craft is to study what others do. Winners of the $10,000 prizes for local, national and international reporting will be announced June 3, 2009. If you find better links to content that should be included on this list, leave a comment and I’ll update the list. -
Links for My Revenue 2.0 Talk at BCNIPhilly
25 Apr 2009 | 11:00 amRevenue 2.0 homepage -
Revenue 2.0: Ideas for Making Money on News Sites
22 Mar 2009 | 9:09 pm“News is the stuff we put around the advertising.”—Quoted by so many people in news and advertising no one remembers who said it first Yesterday a group of journalists of varying experience and expertise got together to do something about advertising. That’s right: News people were proposing ideas for making money. The one-day sprint, Revenue 2.0, took a “less chat, more splat” approach to revenue solutions for mobile, classified ads, ads for small- and medium-sized business, and display ads used (or not) on the homepage. The classified ads proposal is up… -
One Last Look at the Rocky Mountain News Newsroom
28 Feb 2009 | 1:32 pmBy now you’ve probably read about the shuttering of the Rocky Mountain News, which foundered under rising costs and falling revenues. The Denver Post put together a photo tribute to is scrappy rival. Staff at The Rocky produced their own thoughtful wrap video. Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo. The Rocky’s closure means Denver now has just one newspaper (with a website) that covers the city. But there are still several TV news stations (with websites) and lots of blogs. People will miss The Rocky’s particular editorial mix, the stories and the bond that comes from…
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20 headlines from the reading list
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Edelman's Steve Rubel Switches from Blog to Lifestream
2 Jul 2009 | 8:36 amThis is one in an occasional series on MediaShift where I discuss issues in-depth with thought leaders in online media. The format has changed to give you a profile of the person, as well as more of our dialogue -- including video clips. If you have suggestions for future Q&As or want to participate yourself, drop me a line via the Feedback Form. Profile Steve Rubel Age: 39 Hometown & Current Location: Long Island, NY Favorite Websites: Gmail, Friendfeed, Posterous, Google Reader, NYTimes.com, Instapaper Online Persona (all the places to find you online): Lifestream site, Facebook page,… -
Online Journalism Awards entry deadline extended to July 8
2 Jul 2009 | 6:09 amThe deadline to enter the Online Journalism Awards has been extended to Wednesday, July 8. The 2009 categories are: The Knight Award for Public Service General Excellence in Online Journalism General Excellence in Online Journalism, Non-English The Gannett Foundation Award for Technical Innovation in the Service of Digital Journalism Breaking News Specialty Site Journalism Investigative Journalism Multimedia Feature Presentation Online Topical Reporting/Blogging Online Commentary/Blogging Community Collaboration [...] -
Announcing: ReportingOn 2.0 is live
2 Jul 2009 | 12:11 amReportingOn 2.0 is live and ready for your questions. And answers. It's still the backchannel for your beat, but it's an absolute re-imagining of the network. For those of you who haven't been keeping score, ReportingOn is a project funded by the Knight News Challenge, and it's a place for journalists of all stripes to find peers with experience dealing with a particular topic, story, or source. (You can catch up with our progress reports from year one and related concepts at the PBS Idea Lab blog.) The first time out, I built it to be quite Twitter-esque in the hopes that journalists would… -
Let there be light: SNDScandinavia's annual workshop
1 Jul 2009 | 9:21 pmOulu Finland was the site of SNDScandinavia's annual workshop - Oulu24 from May 14 to 16. Why the 24? A whole lot of sun! It was light almost around the clock. Oulu is located in the northern part of Finland, about 75 miles south of the polar Circle. Oulu is also the northern biggest town in the Nordic Countries with 140,000 inhabitants. The town is well known as a Technology Center, with a well reputed Technical University, and Nokia has a also a big developing center in the town. Photo by Lars Pryds In mid-May the sun is up almost 20 hours a day, lending a strange feeling with bright light… -
Pro Football Talk site and NBC partner up
1 Jul 2009 | 8:00 pmNBC Sports/msnbc.com has scooped up Pro Football Talk and the partnership debuted this week. The first-day traffic was double PFT's previous best for the date. PFT - author Mike Florio's gossipy news feed on the NFL - has been around since 2001 but this certainly puts him in the mainstream (and allows him to quit his lawyer job). Florio says he retains editorial control.We’re the first to admit that we don’t always adhere to pure journalistic standards. We don’t seek reactions from players, coaches, and/or agents before posting controversial stories. However, we’ll give anyone who…
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Robb Montgomery
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A lighter moment at the U.S. Senate press room
30 Jun 2009 | 6:26 pmSometimes it is fun to be a journalist, after all. Last week I helped lead a jam-packed U.S. study tour for foreign... { Robb Montgomery } -
Flash graphics, Berlin style: 60 years of German art
23 Jun 2009 | 5:54 amBerlin: These photos show the very cool touch tables at the recent gallery exhibition in Berlin held at the Martin... { Robb Montgomery } -
How to redesign the Society for News Design
18 Jun 2009 | 3:55 amFour ideas to help the Society for News Design redesign itself. Contribute your ideas to this list. { Robb Montgomery } -
Twitter for Journalists: World Editors Forum Webinar
10 Jun 2009 | 4:45 amTwitter Webinar for Journalists 1. How to use Twitter to find stories 2. How to use Twitter to virally spread... { Robb Montgomery } -
Obama speech in Cairo forces me to work from home
4 Jun 2009 | 2:56 amLike a lot of Cairo workers today, I have been asked by my boss to “work from home.” Road closures,... { Robb Montgomery }
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robcurley.com
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Our new billboard campaign: When marketing is more than just marketing
10 Jun 2009 | 4:11 pmLike most newspapers and local news websites, the Las Vegas Sun and lasvegassun.com are more than a little challenged when it comes to marketing. And because of our unique JOA here in Las Vegas, running lots of “house ads” in our print product isn’t the best option for us. (Not that it would be our best option even if we weren’t in a JOA.) So, as former Greenspun Interactive publisher Chris Jennewein and I were putting together our 2009 budget last year, we worked hard to keep some marketing dollars in there. About three months ago, the first part of our marketing… -
Metro columnist or great local blogger?
14 May 2009 | 1:47 pmOne of the coolest things about building a website for the Las Vegas Sun is that the Sun’s print edition is unlike any other newspaper in the country. (I’ve gone into some detail about the uniqueness of the Sun’s print edition in this blog post, if you want more specifics.) Each morning, typically, an eight-page Las Vegas Sun with no ads lands on driveways throughout this very sparkly part of the Mojave Desert. Because of that limited amount of space in the print edition, think for a second about what’s not in our newspaper. Let me answer that for you — lots of… -
Sun’s Pulitzer-winning journalism was part of bigger vision
27 Apr 2009 | 6:20 pmMany baseball players dream of hitting a walk-off home run to win the World Series. Some doctors dream of curing cancer. And my guess is there are at least few journalists who dream of winning a Pulitzer Prize. Certainly journalists at the Las Vegas Sun shared those dreams, though they wouldn’t dare whisper it. Those dreams were realized last week when it was announced that the Sun’s amazing investigative journalism into the construction deaths on the Las Vegas Strip had earned the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. But what made the award even more significant to me was that it… -
Want an internship that might actually help you get a journalism job, even in this rotten economy?
23 Mar 2009 | 11:54 amUPDATE: We are no longer accepting applications for these positions. We are very grateful for the almost overwhelming interest/response. I know I am more than a little biased in regards to this subject, but I don’t think I’m going too far out on a limb when I say the Las Vegas Sun is easily one of the most interesting and innovative news operations in the United States. Maybe even the world. So, how would you like to be a part of it? Even if just for the summer? Our team at Greenspun Interactive is getting ready to staff up one of our “legendary” intern crews, and… -
Are you in Las Vegas this week for the NAA’s mediaXchange?
8 Mar 2009 | 9:39 amThis is basically identical to an entry I posted back in September when the SND conference was in town, but here goes … If you are coming to Las Vegas this week for the NAA’s mediaXchange conference and would like to come see what we’re up to over at the Las Vegas Sun and Greenspun Interactive, please drop me a line. We’re more than happy to show you around our new building and video studios, talk a little about our workflow and strategies, and have you meet some of the folks who really make all of this happen. Send me e-mail. Facebook me.
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Romenesko
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"The most powerful woman in Boston" leaves the Globe
2 Jul 2009 | 12:48 pmBoston Globe Globe editorial page editor Renee Loth, who has been with the paper for 24 years, says "I was once described in a magazine profile as 'the most powerful woman in Boston.' This was cause for much hilarity among my family and friends. But of course it's not the power of any one individual, but only this institution, the Boston Globe, that gives the editorial page its influence." > John Kelly: "People are on the move here at the Post" -
The good news is they're paying more than HuffPost
2 Jul 2009 | 12:18 pmChicagoReader.com The Chicago Tribune is paying its Chicago Now bloggers $5 per 1,000 hits. Michael Miner is told that the operation has 65 bloggers and last month recorded 700,000 pageviews. That works out to $3,500 split 65 ways, or about $54 a blogger for the month. -
WP ombud: "This comes pretty close to a PR disaster"
2 Jul 2009 | 12:09 pmWP Ombudsman's Blog Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander says reaction to the story about the Post's off-the-record salons "was immediate and ranged from anger to disappointment to disbelief." The promotional flier came out of the office of Charles Pelton, who recently joined the paper to find ways to generate business through conferences and events. Pelton says newsroom leaders had been involved in discussions about the salons. "This was well developed with the newsroom. What was not developed was the marketing message to potential sponsors." > WH spokesman Gibbs discusses the controversy -
"Kurtz knows the minefield upon which he ventures" with First Lady/reporters story
2 Jul 2009 | 9:18 amTrue/Slant It's fair for a media writer like Howard Kurtz to point out the sudden presence of female faces of color among the press in the White House, says Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, but "what I dont think is fair is the implication, careful and nuanced as it is, that their work ought to be specially inspected for bias. ...Don't tarnish their professionalism by prematurely alleging bias." || Related from TheRoot.com. -
Colbert, Stewart praised for "impressive" foreign coverage
2 Jul 2009 | 8:36 amGlobalPost.com "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" had plenty of laughs in their reports from Iran and Iraq, says Thomas Mucha, "but they also produced some insightful -- and certainly entertaining -- coverage of these two complex and important global stories. If Wolf Blitzer isn't quaking in his beard, he should be."
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SeanBlanda.com
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I got a job + Technically Philly update
10 Jun 2009 | 9:18 amI swear there is a reason why I have been so quiet. Well, actually make that “reasons.” One, TechnicallyPhilly is doing as well as any of us could hope when it comes to traffic and community response, so we are making our first moves towards monetization with the slow rollout of our advertising infrastructure. This has been both an exciting and frightening prospect as it is now time to see if we are all as smart as we hope we are. Of course, as we surmised at BCNI, ads are just the first and easiest baby step, and there are many more ideas in the pipeline that I will be certain to… -
BCNIPhilly rocked.
30 Apr 2009 | 4:19 pmBrian James Kirk, Christopher Wink and I presenting about TechnicallyPhilly.com. Picture taken by Adam Hemphill. Before I comment at all about BCNIPhilly I’d like to thank the countless people involved. The people who manned the desk, floated around the floors, helped handle food, helped run the schedule and all of the hundred other tasks. You all rock. Thank You. It was just as the event was closing down that I was approached by one of the participants. “Sean, I just want to say that I’ve really enjoyed this event. And, most of this year, I have been feeling a… -
6 people I’d like to see at BarCamp NewsInnovation Philadelphia
10 Mar 2009 | 7:31 amBCNI Philly is a little over a month away and planning has been kicking into high gear. My friend and programming whiz Major Highfield has been on the look out for sponsors (know somebody? drop him a line), I’ve been all around Philadelphia passing out flyers, and the planned attendance is nearly over 100. I thank everyone who has shown support or offered to volunteer so far, but as I have been trolling the Web I’ve come across a few names I don’t see on my registered attendees list. Below are 6 people I’d like to see attend who haven’t registered. If you know… -
Introducing TechnicallyPhilly.com, a blog covering technology in Philadelphia
25 Feb 2009 | 7:00 amI remember it pretty distinctly. It was last summer, and I was just getting off of work at the City Paper. Along with a few friends I rushed a few neighborhoods over to attend Ignite Philly. Ignite was an event that gave a series of speakers five minutes on stage to say whatever they wanted. The speakers had 20 Powerpoint slides that rotated automatically every 15 seconds. A simple enough concept, and I thought that a few dozen people would show up at most. When I showed up an hour late to the bar, something seemed funny. As I walked down the sidewalk I had to step over bikes that were thrown… -
Why do romantic comedies always involve a Journalist?
9 Feb 2009 | 8:02 pmValentine’s Day is but a few days away, so that means that cable TV is running every romantic comedy ever. In watching 13 going on 30 for the fifth time (don’t ask) I noticed a strange trend in romantic comedies: one of the lead characters is usually a journalist. For some reason, the very same people who want to save democracy and give voice to the voiceless are most prone to falling dramatically in love with a complete stranger. Naturally, someone had to point out this tired Hollywood plot device that seems to go unnoticed by the general public. Unfortunately for my freelance…
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Megan Taylor: Web Journalist
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New York City addressing data availability, uses
30 Jun 2009 | 6:29 amI feel almost as if Mayor Bloomberg saw my previous post about NYC data. we.gov PDF09 by stevegarfield The Sixth Annual Personal Democracy Forum (PDF) began yesterday. (Recap) The forum is examining the convergence of new media and politics, and includes speakers such as Craig’s List’s Craig Newmark, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, venture capitalist Esther Dyson, new media evangelist Jeff Jarvis, and FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver. Among the topics being discussed are: State-of-the-art online politics and advocacy Designing .gov for participation Twitter as a platform for… -
Data in New York City
25 Jun 2009 | 7:01 amOn top of the Empire State Building, Manhattan, New York City, by meironke. One of the things that makes doing web journalism in New York City absolutely frustrating is the lack of online data. I’m not looking for anything strange. The first data set I wanted was crime reports that include individual crimes and locations. NYPD publishes weekly crime statistics, but not data that could easily be plotted on a map. It absolutely stuns me that one of the biggest, most famous cities in the world is so backward. And why hasn’t the police department been slammed with FOIAs from every… -
Toast to Dads / Handstand Kids Cookbook Company
3 Jun 2009 | 11:51 pmToast to Dads Developed Handstand Kids Toast to Dads site using Wordpress. Launched 6/2/2009. Skills: CSS, Design, PHP Medium: Web CMS: Wordpress Feedback: “Having a children’s cookbook company, it’s essential for me to work with someone pleasant, efficient, and timely. Megan has surpassed all my expectations, while working within my budget. She is an asset to my company and I hope to continue our work relationship for years to come.” – Yvette Garfield, Owner of Handstand Kids Cookbook Company Post from: Megan Taylor: Web Journalist Toast to Dads / Handstand Kids… -
Small community newspapers and the future of journalism
3 Jun 2009 | 1:53 pmI live in the West Bronx area of New York City. The neighborhoods in this area are diverse, the history is complicated, and the stigma of the Bronx is strong. There is no metro paper that covers these neighborhoods. The New York Times, Daily News, New York Post and Gothamist occasionally cover political and crime issues in the area, but no major paper is giving this group of communities a voice. Instead, residents are given a voice in the small local papers that are part of the Bronx News Network. Rather than focusing on breaking news items and fighting over scoops, these papers work… -
The Government, the Internet and Data
22 May 2009 | 5:24 amThe launch of Data.gov yesterday was accompanied by a lot of fanfare on Twitter and blogs. I think it’s fantastic that Obama is following through on his promise to make government more transparent, and looking forward to Data.gov being a very useful tool. Right now though, it’s a bit wimpy. While there is a lot of data available in machine-readable formats, it hasn’t been translated into visualizations that humans can easily understand. I should mention that US Government Web Services and XML Data Sources, a non-government site, has been collecting data released by the…
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SteveOuting.com
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Paying for news content: The continuum spreads wider
26 Jun 2009 | 9:35 amThe debate rages on about whether news publishers — especially newspapers — should charge for news on their websites. Meanwhile, new technology solutions keep popping up to facilitate paid online content, though the decision on what to charge for and what to offer free remains with individual publishers. These new vendors merely enable charging for more things online (and on mobile platforms), and in different ways, though sometimes they make their recommendations known (such as is the case with Steven Brill’s Journalism Online, which clearly has an agenda). This week we… -
‘Voluntary won’t work!’ reminds me of ‘Craig who?’
20 Jun 2009 | 8:59 pmAlmost forgot to plug my latest Editor & Publisher Online column here: “Readers Want to Pay for News Online — So Let Them.” It’s a summary of the growing number of solutions to allow online users to voluntarily financially support the websites and blogs they visit, or like, or individual stories (and other content). A growing number of Internet entrepreneurs have concluded that asking people to pay for web content rather than demanding them to do so; utilizing networks to make voluntary support of many online publishers easy; and making the barriers or… -
The modern coupon (simple version)
15 Jun 2009 | 5:23 pmI can’t imagine this is new, but it’s the first time I’ve gone to a restaurant and received a coupon at the table prompting me to use my cell phone to get a free item. Last night when my family and I went to Beau Jo’s Pizza in Boulder, we each got the coupon above. Send a text message to the address printed with the special code, and you get back a text message showing you what you’ve won, which you show to your waiter/waitress. With our two phones between us, we had two chances and both got free salsa and chips. (To go with pizza? We passed on our… -
RSS madness (please resubscribe)
12 Jun 2009 | 4:09 pmToday I finally got around to fixing this blog’s RSS feeds, which got messed up some time ago when I stopped using another domain name and fouled up my Feedburner settings. In repairing the damage, I seem to have lost lots of people who subscribed to this blog’s feed. Ugh. If you’d like to be alerted to new blog items posted by me, please click the “Subscribe in a reader” link in the left column. If you prefer e-mail alerts, type in your address in the “Receive new posts by e-mail” box and click “Subscribe.” Thanks, and apologies for the… -
The high cost of charging pennies rather than free
12 Jun 2009 | 10:35 amMy friend Pete Welter passed along some fascinating research about consumer behavior when it comes to free vs. paid products and services. There are some lessons for the newspaper industry as it debates things like micropayments vs. free news content on the web, and how it will handle charging for news (or not) on mobile devices. “I’ve been reading Predictably Irrational by behavioral economist Dan Ariely — I’m really enjoying his stuff lately — and he has an interesting chapter on the psychological weight of ‘free’ vs. ‘not free’ that…
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Strange Attractor
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links for 2009-07-02
2 Jul 2009 | 4:30 amAustralian News Corp chief attacks Google, bloggers Kevin: "John Hartigan, the Chief Executive of News Ltd, the Australian arm of News Corp has joined in with his colleagues in the United States today in bashing Google and bloggers." He says of bloggers, "Almost anyone can start one of these sites, with very little capital, no training or qualifications. Then there are the bloggers. In return for their free content, we pretty much get what we’ve paid for - something of such limited intellectual value as to be barely discernible from massive ignorance." (tags: journalism… -
How do we spread social technology skills?
2 Jul 2009 | 3:23 amSo part of my report for Carnegie has to include recommendations for organisations, policymakers, government and anyone else who we think could do things a little differently. Kevin and I had a bit of a brainstorm and came up with a list, which is going to need whittling down. However, one of the points I have become increasingly unhappy with: “Provide basic digital literacy training for staff that need it.” The more I look at the phrase ‘digital literacy’, and the baggage that comes with it, the less happy I am using it in a recommendation. There is no doubt in my… -
links for 2009-07-01
1 Jul 2009 | 4:30 amStanford Knight Fellowship: In Search of Innovative Ideas Kevin: "With the industry roiled with challenges, the Knight program is changing its focus. Instead of having mid-career fellows choose a subject to follow during the academic year, the new strategy centers on innovation." (tags: fellowships knightfoundation innovation) Online newspaper experiment in Seattle fails Kevin: "The Seattle Courant, an experiment in building an online-only newspaper in Seattle, has shut down. Keith Vance, who founded it, said it failed because he wasn’t able to get the project the funding it… -
Myths of age and digital capability
1 Jul 2009 | 2:21 amThis is my section on the dual myths of ‘digital natives’ and ’silver surfers’. It’s a pretty solid first draft, I think, although it’s a little long and will need cutting for length. I’m also short of references as I got some of the info from other people’s presentations and need to dig out the original references for those. Although frankly, I haven’t had to academically reference anything since I was at university, and the whole endeavour fills me with cold fear! Any help on that front, whether comments on this piece or advice in… -
links for 2009-06-30
30 Jun 2009 | 4:30 amMediaPost Publications McClatchy Debt Exchange Doesn't Reach Goal 06/29/2009 Kevin: Erik Sass at MediaPost says: "The lack of interest among creditors could be a good thing or a bad thing. On one hand, it may signal that creditors don't believe there is an immediate threat of McClatchy defaulting on its debt — a rare vote of confidence in the beleaguered newspaper business. On the other hand, they may have quietly arranged insurance for their debts in the form of credit swap defaults, in which case, it would mean the opposite — that they believe a default to be…
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Teaching Online Journalism
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Visual journalism: Many ways to tell the story
29 Jun 2009 | 4:30 amPhotojournalists have stood at the center of the transformation in most newspaper newsrooms during the past 10 years. That’s not to say they always had a voice in how changes were made — but much of the new workload fell onto their shoulders. As a staff photographer at The Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat & Chronicle for more than eight years, Will Yurman has added audio gathering and editing, slideshow production, and video shooting and editing to his skill set. One of the (many) things he does for the newspaper’s Web site is a weekly panorama about a local topic; the… -
The reality for journalists to face, squarely, now
27 Jun 2009 | 6:57 amFound via Delicious — David Schlesinger, editor in chief for Reuters News, said this in a speech to the International Olympics Committee Press Commission on June 23, 2009: We in the traditional media … must concentrate our efforts on defining and developing that which really adds value. That means understanding what really can be exclusive and what really is insightful. It means truly exploiting real expertise. It means, to my earlier point, using all the multimedia tools available and all the smart multimedia journalists to provide a package so much stronger than any one… -
Teaching students to integrate multimedia tools, storytelling
25 Jun 2009 | 11:40 amToday I took questions in a live chat hosted at Poynter.org on this topic. According to an in-line poll, 36 percent of those attending were college educators, and 33 percent were full-time journalists. More than 50 people logged in. The questions were really good! You can read a complete transcript of the archived chat. You can leave comments here if you have additional questions. I’m sorry we didn’t have time to answer all the questions that were posted, but we only had an hour for the chat. -
The new visual journalist
24 Jun 2009 | 6:24 amTo find out what’s needed in today’s newsrooms, in mid-June I asked photo editors and multimedia producers at four newspapers which skills are still in short supply. Video editing, storytelling and audio skills led the list. Even though his newspaper, The Spokesman-Review, has pulled back from its earlier online ambitions, Colin Mulvany said today’s visual journalism students must be prepared for an online future. That includes both gathering and editing audio, as well as posting stories and photo galleries from the field. Video remains important even though it’s time-intensive;… -
Multimedia training for journalism educators
22 Jun 2009 | 12:19 pmTwo different opportunities: Who: Freedom Forum Diversity Institute Where: Nashville, Tenn. When: Aug. 9 – 14, 2009 Cost: $850 (some meals included) Housing: “Reduced-rate lodging at additional cost” Registration: here The other one is not hands-on; it will focus on how projects are produced: Who: MediaStorm Where: Brooklyn, N.Y. When: July 27 – 31, 2009 Cost: $2,500 Housing: “Participants are responsible for their own room and board” Registration: here Note: I’m not associated with either one of these.
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The Evolving Newsroom
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Chris Anderson talks about Free
30 Jun 2009 | 4:42 pm -
Anderson votes for ‘free’, Gladwell unconvinced
30 Jun 2009 | 4:37 pmIn the New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell has written a response to Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson’s new book Free: The Future of a Radical Price. I haven’t read Anderson’s book yet and don’t have any excerpts from it to post here other than these quotes from Wired. There’s also a video below of him talking about his ideas at a Wired conference. You could call it Anderson’s Law: Digital drives the prices of content down to zero. Don’t agree? It’s like arguing with gravity. “This law of gravity is un-fightable,” Wired Magazine editor-in-chief Chris… -
How to publish Reuters stories on your blog
22 Jun 2009 | 3:23 amHow to publish Reuters stories on your blog (legally) Follow this link for Silicon Alley Insider’s step-by-step pictorial tutorial on adding Reuters stories to your blog. They come free with ads, or paid without ads. (I haven’t tried it.) Silicon Alley Insider -
Google News has added bylines to stories
22 Jun 2009 | 2:55 amGoogle News has added bylines to stories If Google News revolutionized search results on the Internet for journalism, it left one vital fact out of the story, organization and abstract of the search — who wrote it. Now it has added reporter bylines to stories in the search result. The addition means it’s now possible to set up feeds of particular reporter’s work or an alert when someone publishes something. From Kirk LaPointe, TheMediaManager.com -
The ups and downs of Fieldays Exhibitor 2009
22 Jun 2009 | 2:35 amSo the Fieldays Exhibitor is done and dusted for another year. Phew. Here are the front pages: You can see some of the stories at our new website, mediarts.net.nz, which aims to showcase the work of students of Wintec’s School of Media Arts along with school events and some of the inspiring work our staff exhibit (more about that in a later post). My intention this year was to get our stories and images online each day as we went - in true web-first publishing style. It didn’t happen. The downside of being a school trying to make a daily newspaper for four days of the year is that…
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Local Onliner
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AutoTrader Lays off Some Field Reps; Vows Reinvestment
2 Jul 2009 | 11:40 amWith many auto dealers closing their doors or cutting back on advertising, AutoTrader has announced that it has laid off a “modest percentage” of its field representatives to keep the company stable. In a video addressed to the AutoTrader community, CEO Chip Perry and Sr. VP of Dealer Sales Alan Smith emphasized that the Cox-owned company is “rock solid” and is “very bullish on the future.” They noted that traffic to the site hit a record 16 million visitors last month and they believe there is “pentup demand” in the marketplace. AutoTrader is beefing up its on advertising, as… -
Some Perspective on High Churn Rates
1 Jul 2009 | 4:34 pmAre small businesses really churning from search packages in droves surpassing 60 percent per year? That’s the contention of a recent report, and has important implications (i.e. that the value added reseller industry isn’t sustainable). To learn more, we talked with leaders from G5 Search Marketing, Marchex, Matchcraft, WebVisible and Yodle. Highlights from our discussions have been issued in a client report for Kelsey’s Interactive Local Media program. But all agree that the industry has been given a black eye by overly aggressive sales tactics, and poor follow up. But they also… -
Great Idea for IAC’s New Sidewalk.com? Enter Contest
1 Jul 2009 | 11:20 amCitysearch Publishing head Kara Nortman reminded us today that Citysearch and IAC are set to do great things with the Sidewalk.com brand that it acquired from Microsoft in 1999. In the best spirit of Web 2.0, the company has announced a contest to get ideas from the public. The winner will receive $10K, a piece of the new company, and the possibility of a full time job. The entrants will be judged by an all-star crew from IAC and other places. The winner will illustrate how the new Sidewalk will let people “live life on the go” on the Web and on mobile. The solution will also integrate… -
MerchantCircle Adds Local Coupons on Twitter
30 Jun 2009 | 4:17 pmCoinciding with its high showing in the Quantcast analysis, MerchantCircle today announced that it has added a local city coupon feed for Twitter. Merchant coupons will now be fed to city-specific Twitter feeds (i.e. @MCircleNY) so that local consumers can find local coupons and events in real-time. MerchantCircle reports that more than 50,000 coupons and events are built on its system every month by local merchants. -
Quantcast Publishes ‘Top 10′ Online Directories
30 Jun 2009 | 4:11 pmFiguring out who is on top of the heap in the online directory business is a complex task: on one hand, a “directory” category is kind of an oxymoron, given that so much of what is quantified is based on search engine optimization. Only 25 percent of Citysearch’s traffic, for instance, comes from its destination URLs. Some sites, such as MerchantCircle, barely have a directory - they’re mostly about being discovered by a search engine. Yet we have still attempt to label “top directories.” Obviously, these leaders are going to be the masters at both…
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The Scoop
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The Fundamental Training Need
25 Jun 2009 | 6:45 pmIt’s good to see recent writings on the importance of training and skill development for journalists. One of the common responses to such entreaties is exemplified in this comment, which includes this plea: “I understand the need to bolster one’s skill set. But what happened to the days when we actually, you know, worried about reporting rather than slavishly trying to master every piece of technology?” If only that was the real problem. The real problem is the way that we as journalists manage information, because that determines so much else: the kinds of stories… -
The Case Against Teaching Access
2 Jun 2009 | 4:26 pmI’ve been at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University since last week, talking to faculty members about using data management and analysis tools (spreadsheets, databases, mapping) in their courses. When they asked me to provide some training on Excel and Access, I agreed, but asked for the chance to make a case for teaching any database but Access to students. Specifically, I suggested that universities and training organizations like IRE teach SQLite, which has the advantages of being cross-platform and accessible via a Firefox add-on. My class this semester at George… -
No, Really, Show Us The Data
25 Mar 2009 | 6:55 pmWhen it first appeared I was really excited to see Show Us The Data, which gave visitors a chance to list and vote for their “Most Requested Documents” that should be more readily available from the federal government. Sure enough, there were plenty of strong choices for the top 10 list. And then people starting voting, and the results were not quite what I had hoped to see. Yes, the items that comprise the Top 10 List (irony alert! it’s a PDF) are worthy documents, but some of them (the Supreme Court website?) reflect a lack of familiarity with the government information… -
Come Join Django-District!
18 Mar 2009 | 3:02 pmThanks to the tireless efforts of Rich Leland, there’s now a django-district user group and mail list. Django users in the DC-area, please sign up and participate as we start to set a schedule for meetings and other events. Rich’s employer, Discovery Communications in Silver Spring, MD, will be hosting group meetings, which is fantastic news. The first meeting should be sometime after PyCon, perhaps in mid-April. -
Announcing Python-NYTCongressAPI
1 Mar 2009 | 1:15 pmSo we’ve got this Congress API at The Times, which already has spawned a Ruby shell by Patrick Ewing (a shell being a really neat idea, as well as useful in building apps). I decided to try and get my feet wet with writing a Python library to interact with the API, too, and the initial result is now on Github. It’s very basic, and owes much to the example put forth by James Turk’s python wrapper for the Sunlight API. At the suggestion of Sean Gillies, I’ve made the calls more in the style of Django’s ORM by using get() and filter() functions. So far, I’ve…
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VideoJournalism
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High times in the high Sierra…
1 Jul 2009 | 5:04 pmCyndy at Carson Pass on Hiway 88 (courtesy Kathleen Newell) Kathy Newell at Carson Pass on Hiway 88 And this is what Newell was shooting when I shot her. Buddy Kathy Newell and I just spend four hours wandering the woods and videotaping nature at its most pristine. She took the high road and hiked up the Woods Lake Trail while I took and low road and hung out hear the stream and lake. Then we headed to Carson Pass and decided – what the heck – let’s get some serious shots of each other to post on our blogs and other sites. So we grabbed her Olympus Evolt 300 and started… -
Thank you Amanda Emily…
30 Jun 2009 | 1:57 pm…for stating the obvious. The Internet abounds in contests and other such opportunities to make a name for yourself. And that is about all you get for entering…a few moments of fleeting fame, a handshake, and whatever you created belongs to someone else. Take a read of this posting the articulate Amanda wrote. And her target is none less than Microsoft. Let me think here…aren’t they one of the biggest, richest…… -
100 best sites for J-students…
30 Jun 2009 | 1:01 pmGot some incoming hits from a new site this morning and when I checked my email, it was revealed. A site called Learn-gasm, part of this site, made up a list of what are supposed to be the 100 best sites for journalism students to keep up with trends and learn. Somehow I made (the very end) of the list. Wow. If you’re interested take a gander here. There are some old friends and some interesting sites I plan to look into. Gonna be offline for a few days. Buddy Newell and I head for the hills early tomorrow to catch some fresh air, fresh views, and some yummy (over the campfire)… -
And here’s what the studio looks like!
29 Jun 2009 | 9:09 amGot the anchor desk hauled into the studio this weekend (love you Ron and Lexi for working in 100+ degree heat to haul that monolith) and went in this morning to snap some shots. If you want a closer view, just click on the individual photos. Word of explanation – for the past three years I’ve taught broadcasting in “almost a studio.” It had the configuration, but I was also teaching English – which mean more than half of the room had desks, blocking off any ability to really do studio work. This year my English class is moving to another room, so the studio for… -
Digital Video Camp/take 2…
29 Jun 2009 | 6:33 amAll scenes are reduced to both Quicktime and .avi files. The movie is edited (meaning cleaned up) and I’m adding music today. Will burn DVDs tonight and most likely mail out Tuesday or Wednesday…the latter at the latest since I’m going camping Wednesday. Hope your summer is going great!
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Virtual Economics
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What I've been working on - Local People launches today
2 Jul 2009 | 4:17 amSo, not a lot of blog posts this year, you may have noticed. That's cos I've been Busy - but today I get to talk about what I've been doing this year, because today we've launched our new Local People sites.First things first - go and check out the Local People site for my beloved home town of Otley in Wharfedale, West Yorkshire - Otleypeople. If you're from Otley or know anyone from Otley do sign up or pass it on - the site is for anyone with an interest in what's going on in Otley to network, write the news, find out what's going on in town and create and join… -
Britain's search for a government...continues
4 Jun 2009 | 1:15 amI idly wonder how deliberate was the BBC's juxtaposition last night of the penultimate episode of The Apprentice with a Ten O'Clock News on the fall of Gordon Brown's government. Side by side, the two look of roughly equal gravity and magnitude; an arbitrary decision must be made by some people we know only from occasional appearances on the television as to who now gets an important-sounding job that pays extravagently well but we rather suspect will turn out to be the merest sinecure. If Margaret, Nick and the four interviewers from last night's episode were somehow… -
Excercising the right not to walk
4 Jun 2009 | 1:12 amI'm grateful for my rights, truly. I appreciate that my forebears fought and in some cases died for some of them. I'm glad to have freedom of expression and I use it most days. Freedom of association I find a use for most days too. Freedom of assembly I find less regularly valuable but I'm glad it's there when I need it. Freedom of worship is of no practical benefit to an antitheist, but I'm still in favour of it being available to me. The right to a trial by a jury of my peers...well, I'm very happy to say I've never needed it, but again it's nice to know… -
M&S wastes our time, their money
21 May 2009 | 2:49 amApparently M&S was selling 20 different product lines for a penny each yesterday to mark the company's 125th anniversary. Queues were out the door and down the street. Well of course they were. If you sell something that's worth a fiver for a penny, the back of the queue for it will be populated by people who value the time they expect to spend queuing at £4.98, gaining almost nothing. (Only the imperfect dissemination of information and travel costs prevent this from happening instantly.) It is of merely academic curiosity whether you'll run out of cut-price items before… -
News Corp (finally!) taps the newsgathering potential of MySpace
21 Apr 2009 | 1:09 amIf you were a news company and you bought one of the biggest social networks in the world, you'd probably start thinking about synergies between news and social networking and exploring ways of tying them together. Oddly, though, News Corp's first attempt to combine MySpace with news was just a news aggregator, launched a couple of years ago and then (as far as I know) never mentioned again. In fact, it's taken them a staggeringly long time to realise that tens of millions of people talking every day about the things they've seen might just produce the odd bit of news…
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Waitin' On a Moment - by Tim Gruber | NYC Photographer
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Creative blocks
1 Jul 2009 | 6:18 amWhat happens as a photographer when you find yourself facing a creative block? We all face them at some point in our careers. What’s most interesting perhaps is how we as creatives choose to individually fight our way through. One of my professors would stress the importance of shooting your way out of it. Others would stress just putting the camera down for awhile until the passion resurfaces. Below are a few choice quotes from a writer’s perspective on dealing with ideas and blocks: the hard fact is that words are emotional things, and emotions shift. They grow. They grow… -
Stephen King: On Writing (or in our case photography)
16 Jun 2009 | 9:45 pmHere are a few choice quotes from Stephen King’s book called On Writing: Talent renders the whole idea of rehearsal meaningless; when you find something at which you are talented, you do it (whatever it is) until your fingers bleed or your eyes are ready to fall out of your head. Even when no one is listening (or reading, or watching), every outing is a bravura performance, because you as the creator are happy. Perhaps even ecstatic. I also recently finished reading Malcolm Gladwell’s book called the Outliers(read it if you haven’t it’s worth your time) where he breaks… -
Why are you a photograher?
10 Jun 2009 | 12:00 pmIf people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all. -Michelangelo As Jenn and I were making the move to NYC last week I spent most of the ride here questioning if I’m cut out for this. After all the education, time, and money invested in becoming a photographer would I have been better off becoming a 9-5 cubicle monkey? We all know the answer to that. Yet I still have those days where I question if I have what it takes and if my pictures are any good? We all know we don’t do this for money, fame or our sanity. So why do I do this? The… -
A Few Things about your Photography Portfolio
4 Jun 2009 | 9:51 amAfter a lot of editing, toning, retoning, printing, reprinting, reordering(repeat a few more times for good measure) my print portfolio is finally finished. The beautiful or perhaps the ugly thing with a portfolio is that it’s never truly done. Your portfolio just like your mind will continue to grow and evolve. There’s a good chance the work you like today you’ll hate tomorrow. I thought I’d share a few things about the process. Here are 11 random thoughts about the experience in no order. Anything I miss? 11 – Edit tight. This should be a no-brainer, but… -
Latest Personal Project: American Singer(Karaoke)
2 Jun 2009 | 1:36 pmTake a local dive bar with a cast of characters mix in a few Morgan Cokes for good measure and let the karaoke singers take the stage and what do you end up with? A fun little personal project I call American Singer. Jenn and I spent our free time when we were living in Dallas working on it and hope to continue it here in NYC. Jenn shot video and I shot stills. Look for a multimedia piece to follow. We’re working on a few other exciting things, which I’ll hopefully be able to share at a later date. If you can’t tell by looking at the other projects on my website(American…
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yelvington.com
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Death to the 'death of journalism' meme
20 Jun 2009 | 7:47 amThe wailing, the gnashing of teeth, and the rending of garments is getting tiresome. The "death of journalism" / "death of newspapers" meme has been useful, but it's time for it to die. It's not true, and it's outlived its usefulness. Useful? Yes, useful. Five years ago American newsrooms were dominated by denyers who refused to face the facts about changes in the media landscape, and curmudgeons dedicated to the proposition that all change is inherently bad. That is no longer true. When Bruce Sherman's financial maneuvering brought Knight-Ridder crashing to the ground, the scales fell from… -
Innovation studios and newspaper factories
16 Jun 2009 | 3:04 pmMy trip to Minneapolis has reminded me of how much the newspaper world lost when the McClatchy Company acquired the Star Tribune in 1998. While it was never McClatchy's goal to do so, it snuffed out one of the few bright spots where innovation critically important to the future of newspapers might have happened. McClatchy turned out to be very good at what it had set out to do: run newspapers profitably. In the following decade, the Star Tribune threw off vast quantities of cash. McClatchy used to that cash to pay down its considerable debt and position itself for its acquisition of… -
What I'll be telling journalists in Minnesota
14 Jun 2009 | 5:19 pmTuesday I'll be at a University of Minnesota conference titled "New Economic Models for News." The conference is cosponsored by the Newspaper Guild, so I'm focusing my brief presentation on some things working journalists need to understand about their own business, and I'll be speaking from an inside-the-mainstream perspective. I'll be joined in my session by Joel Kramer, who was my uberboss at the Star Tribune in the 1990s, and now runs the nonprofit startup Minnpost.com. Here are some of the points I'm going to make: We need to look backward to understand how we got here -- not to waste… -
Been-dones and am-doings
11 Jun 2009 | 6:13 pmMy friend Steve Outing has what he calls a "blog rant" listing a number of ways to "save" the newspaper industry, but says, "No longer do I have much confidence that newspaper CEOs and publishers will do the right thing." While I often share that lack of confidence and while I'm perfectly aware that there are, indeed, morons scattered throughout the hierarchies of newspaper companies, I'm struck that his to-do list includes quite a few been-dones and am-doings. As businesses, newspapers have done a terrible job of telling their own stories, allowing those pesky reporters to paint a… -
When, how, and why did you go online?
6 Jun 2009 | 2:00 pmI used to ask new hires: When, how, and why did you "go online?" The question seems quaint now, and it's been more than a decade since I asked it. After all, many of today's job prospects grew up with home broadband access to the World Wide Web, text messaging on their phones, and possibly a laptop in their bags. But maybe it still applies. I "went online" years before there was a Web. In the mid-1980s, I got a computer and a 300-bps modem. I discovered a whole world of online conversation. Before long, I was hooked, and within a year I was running my own Citadel bulletin board. I learned the…
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The Innovation Journalism Blog
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Keynote at the Innovation @ Creative Industries Conference in Berlin
29 Jun 2009 | 4:17 amProjekt Zukunft Berlin - the futurist initiative of the city of Berlin organized the conference "Innovation @ Creative Industries", and invited me to make the opening keynote. The conference website is here.Here is the short description of the event:Creativity and innovation are of key importance for the economic and social well-being of Europe’s cities. At this, creative industries play an important role due to many reasons: They are a major source of innovative ideas. They offer services and products which contribute to the innovative activities of other entrepreneurs within and outside… -
Nordic Conference on Innovation Journalism
1 Jun 2009 | 7:27 amThe Finnish Innovation Journalism research initiative is organizing a Nordic Conference on Innovation Journalism, taking place on Sep 25 at the University of Helsinki.The conference is named "Weather Casters of the Future? - The Role of Journalism in Understanding Technological and Social Innovations". The conference is sponsored by the Helsingin Sanomat Foundation. I will be attending the conference as a keynote speaker.The Finnish Injo initiative was started in 2005 by media entrepreneur Seppo Sisätto, and has in recent years been spearheaded by Turo Uskali. The Finnish initiative, backed… -
IJ-6 Conference Sum-Up
30 May 2009 | 10:39 amIJ-6 The Sixth Conference on Innovation Journalism took place at Stanford on May 18-20 2009. The conference carried the title "Task: Journalism succeeding with innovation". It was the most successful IJ-conference so far. For details about what was going on, check out the conference website.IJ-6 hosted 241 people from 15 countries. This is our record so far, last year we had around 180 participants. The conference had a new format this year - instead of lots of panel discussion following each other, we arranged massively parallel workshops, so that all participants could take part in… -
Location-Awareness Story Wins Stanford InJo Pick Contest
20 May 2009 | 10:54 pmWired Magazine’s Contributing Editor Mathew Honan’s story ”I Am Here: One Man’s Experiment With the Location-Aware Lifestyle” has been chosen as Stanford InJo Pick 2009: The Best Innovation Journalism Story & Journalist of the Year. Honans’ story described his experiences after starting to share his iPhone’s location with everyone in San Francisco.The choice was made by over 200 attendees of IJ-6 The Sixth Conference on Innovation Journalism at Stanford University. Sixteen stories were nominated by Stanford Innovation Journalism 2009 Fellows from five different countries and… -
OPENING ADDRESS, IJ-6 THE SIXTH CONFERENCE ON INNOVATION JOURNALISM
18 May 2009 | 8:27 pmOPENING ADDRESS, IJ-6 THE SIXTH CONFERENCE ON INNOVATION JOURNALISMDavid NordforsFounding Executive Director,Tthe VINNOVA-Stanford Research Center of Innovation JournalismH-STAR InstituteStanford University18 May 2009, Stanford UniversityWelcome to IJ-6, the Sixth Conference on Innovation Journalism.Thank you all for coming here, especially you who have travelled all the way from Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Slovenia, Pakistan, Israel, France, Chile, Mexico, UK, Korea and Kenya.Thank you also to the funding organizations that are making the Innovation Journalism Initiative and IJ-6 possible.
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Reporters Committee News
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Tweeting from the jury box soon to be banned in Michigan
Starting in September, Michigan jurors will no longer be allowed to send text messages, "tweet" or engage in other forms of electronic communication during trials. The Michigan . . . -
Court upholds dismissal of libel claims in Hawaii case
A state appellate court in Hawaii has upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by a suspected serial killer against two publications. Waldorf Roy Wilson sued Honolulu Magazine and The Garden . . . -
Louisville newspaper sues over anti-litter ordinance
The Louisville Courier-Journal is suing the Louisville city government over an anti-litter ordinance the paper says violates its constitutional rights. The ordinance, which was approved in June, . . . -
Hawaiian filmmaker looks to invoke reporter's privilege
A documentary filmmaker in Hawaii who has covered native burial practices might be the first person to assert the state's new shield law, The Associated Press reported Wednesday. Land developer . . . -
Florida governor vetoes exemptions to public records law
Florida Governor Charlie Crist last week barred two new exemptions from being added to the state's public records law when he vetoed a pair of bills approved by state lawmakers. The first would have . . .
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Journalism.org:
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The Deaths of Michael Jackson and “Neda” Grip the Blogosphere
2 Jul 2009 | 11:06 am -
The still-growing NPR "torture" controversy
2 Jul 2009 | 7:48 am -
Was the NYT wrong to conceal David Rohde’s kidnapping? Yes.
2 Jul 2009 | 6:19 am -
PEJ New Media Index - Top Five Most Linked-To Stories: June 22 - 26, 2009
2 Jul 2009 | 6:18 am -
Screening Journalists at the Border
2 Jul 2009 | 6:15 am
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Lost Remote
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YouTube offers publishers links in overlays: If you’re a...
1 Jul 2009 | 12:03 pmYouTube offers publishers links in overlays: If you’re a publisher who buys search ads on YouTube, you qualify to create overlays on your clips (like the one above) that are designed to drive traffic back to your site. “All you have to do is include a short headline, ad text, a destination url, and upload an optional image, and the overlay will appear whenever someone watches your video,” YouTube explains. It’s tearing a page from the Google playbook: provide unique incentives for publishers who buy search ads. Details here. -
"WNBC.com or WNBC4.com is an extension of the television station, it’s not a real scaled game. We..."
1 Jul 2009 | 9:43 am““WNBC.com or WNBC4.com is an extension of the television station, it’s not a real scaled game. We don’t want to play just in that game. We want to play in the entire New York or Chicago or Los Angeles or whatever city you want to call it online media space and we can’t do that by just limiting ourselves to the call letters of our traditional analog TV station.”” - NBCU chief Jeff Zucker explaining why NBC stations abandoned call letters in online branding. When WNBC.com relaunched last year, it rebranded to NBCNewYork.com. -
Joost scaling back, to offer white label video service: Joost...
1 Jul 2009 | 8:58 amJoost scaling back, to offer white label video service: Joost had high hopes of become the premium video destination on the web, a space that’s now largely occupied by Hulu. So now CEO Mike Volpi is out, massive layoffs are on the way, and the company announced it’s shifting from a consumer focus to offering a white label technology and distribution service. -
Msnbc.com’s iPhone app debuts: We’ve launched apps...
30 Jun 2009 | 9:20 amMsnbc.com’s iPhone app debuts: We’ve launched apps for Today Show and Rachel Maddow, and now our mobile team has debuted a msnbc.com iPhone app, in collaboration with Zumobi. Beyond the clean interface and Best Buy as a launch sponsor, it’s worth noting that users can share stories via Twitter as well as browse some of msnbc and NBC News’ popular Twitter accounts. -
Fake local TV site promotes get rich scheme
30 Jun 2009 | 8:49 amFake local TV site promotes get rich scheme: It looks like a local TV site, KLMT News 3, complete with the smiling anchors across the masthead and the weather report down the side. But the “story,” written by a “35-year-old news veteran,” is a glowing report on a scheme to profit from Google. And clicking on any of the navigation items will take you to Google-Money-Master.com. Update: As you’ve pointed out in comments, there’s also News3News.com.
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National Press Photographers Assoc.
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Dart Center Ochberg Fellowships In Journalism And Trauma
1 Jul 2009 | 11:16 amApplications are now being accepted for the 2009 Dart Center Ochberg Fellowships, a unique seminar program for mid-career journalists who want to deepen their knowledge of emotional trauma and improve coverage of violence, conflict, and tragedy. The deadline for applications is July 24, 2009. For more information please visit the Web site, www.dartcenter.org/fellowships. -
As Troops Withdraw, A Photographer's Reflections On Iraq
30 Jun 2009 | 4:22 amPhotojournalist Moises Saman, who has been covering the war in Iraq since 2002 for Newsday and The New York Times, reflects on how things have changed in the country as American troops withdraw this week in an installment of the Times' blog, Lens, which is accompanied by a slideshow of his black-and-white reportage. -
PhotoShelter Launches SEO Cookbook For Photography Web Sites
24 Jun 2009 | 11:03 amPhotoShelter has launched a free online "cookbook" to let photographers know how to optimize their photography Web sites to take advantage of today's search engine technology and analytical tools. -
Kodachrome Fades Into The Sunset
23 Jun 2009 | 5:35 amAt one time Kodak's most popular film, a strip of celluloid that help to launch the careers of a generation of famous magazine photographers, Kodachrome has been "retired" by its maker after 74 years, leaving behind a chorus of melancholy voices humming Paul Simon's lyrics, " ... Mama don't take my Kodachrome away." -
Kodachrome Retires Today
22 Jun 2009 | 8:32 amEastman Kodak announced the news today: Kodachrome, its oldest film and a central player in its portfolio for 74 years, officially retires today.
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Online Journalism Blog
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More crowdsourcing from the Guardian and NYT - this time on Iran
2 Jul 2009 | 1:18 pmIran election: faces of the dead and detained | World news | guardian.co.uk via kwout They’re at it again. Following the very domestic issue of MPs’ expenses, The Guardian’s latest experiment with crowdsourcing goes international: Iran. “We want to put a face to each of those hundreds - possibly thousands - killed or arrested since the Iranian election. “Where we have a picture we have used it. However, our information is incomplete. If you have a picture of any one of these individuals or information we do not have please click below.” Simple. (Oh, and… -
BBC Free: Help us persuade the BBC to open their RSS feeds up
2 Jul 2009 | 5:50 amThe internet blows my mind. Ryan Carson opened my eyes to the power of it a few months ago. We can sit down and create a blog or web application and have it instantly accessible to the world. That’s unique, and it’s exciting. We’re asking the BBC to join us in this creativity. Today, we’re launching BBC Free - it’s a campaign to convince the BBC to offer full article RSS feeds. Currently, their feeds are just a single line or two and this hurts your RSS experience, and it also hinders creativity in online news. RSS feeds are machine readable and a ton of great… -
Newspapers: turn off your RSS feeds
1 Jul 2009 | 3:32 amThe latest subscriber figures (see table below, and first published in my blog’s newspapers category) show that, apart from a couple of exceptions, it’s time for newspapers to turn off their RSS feeds - and hand over the server space, technical support and webpage real estate to an alternative, such as their Twitter accounts. (You can read some of the defences of RSS here and here) The table below shows that only 3 of the 9 national newspapers have an RSS feed with more than 10,000 subscribers in Google Reader. And most newspaper RSS feeds have readerships in the 00s, if that. -
St Petersburg Times: cautiously embracing the web, assiduously reporting Scientology
27 Jun 2009 | 2:23 pmScientology has long been a tricky subject for journalists to cover; the corporate-structured religious movement has a reputation for litigation, against government agencies, news organisations and individuals. Given this it is all the more interesting to consider the recent series of articles about Scientology in Florida’s St Petersburg Times, which focus on the behaviour of its leader David Miscavige and offer a counterpoint to the Church’s own line that “since the founding of the first Church of Scientology in 1954, Scientology has become the fastest-growing religion in the world.”… -
Daily express website relaunching
26 Jun 2009 | 6:21 amExpress.co.uk is about to undergo a redesign (and there’s a good review of the new look, still currently in beta, at econsultancy). To me, the new site isn’t that impressive (screenshot below, or you can compare the old front page or new front page) - it looks like a poor mashup of the BBC and Yahoo in the existing colour scheme. Even worse, it’s not very accessible as there is literally no content on the new home page with javascript turned off. The agency behind it is Netro42 who say here about the old version that “Netro42 working in partnership with Northern and…
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Common Sense Journalism
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New convergence newsletters
2 Jul 2009 | 11:17 amI have been remiss in reminding you that new issues of The Convergence Newsletter are out;May-June: Our convergence and communities issue has two articles about creating online communities - one is a Q&A with Pegasus News founder Mike Orren, and I wade in with some obsrvations on what it takes to create online community through what we've learned at Hartsville Today.June: Our international issue features an eye-opening piece by Fulbright scholar Alice Klement on the challenges of teaching convergent journalism in Ethiopia where power outages have to be figured into all the other… -
New internships for a new generation
2 Jul 2009 | 11:10 amBet these job requirements weren't in the job or internship you originally applied for:- At least 150 followers on Twitter- At least 200 Facebook friends- Administrator or creator of at least one Facebook group- A blog with a Google Page Rank of 2 or higherBut they are the requirements for a social media intern at the Phnom Penh Post. The entire description and details are on thomascrampton.com.He's got a similar skills set up for an Asian internship with Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide.So, how many journalism/communications schools are teaching these kinds of skills? -
Quick hits
2 Jul 2009 | 9:33 amTwo quick things to read as we approach the holiday weekend:Just had a chance to read Malcolm Gladwell's review/critique in the New Yorker of Chris Anderson's newest book "Free," due out next week. Obviously, I haven't read the book yet, but I have read a lot of the buzz and some of what Anderson has written in advance, and I think Gladwell does a good job of grounding this discussion in reality. As Gladwell writes:Anderson wants to take “too cheap to meter” seriously, because he believes that we are on the cusp of our own “too cheap to meter” revolution with computer processing,… -
Unleash the copyright beast against the 'Beast'?
30 Jun 2009 | 12:04 amYesterday, I pointed to the misguided comments by Judge Richard Posner, who suggested we ban linking -- and -- paraphrasing without the rights-owner's consent.Now, from Cleveland comes a suggestion that is a tad more reasonable, but still troubling. Under the headline "Tighter copyright law could save newspapers," columnist Connie Schultz is promoting the work of the brothers Marburger who suggest resurrecting the old AP v. International News Service case and using the concept of "parasitic agcregators" to deny the ability of sites like the Daily Beast and Newser to rewrite and aggregate… -
New views of plagiarism in a new age
29 Jun 2009 | 11:39 amIf you want a good give and take -- and some eye-opening comments on how some folks view plagiarism in a completely different light in the social media age -- check out this from early last week about Chris Anderson's upcoming "Free" and its apparent liberal use of Wikipedia entries and some other sources without credit:http://www.vqronline.org/blog/2009/06/23/chris-anderson-free/The comments are the most interesting.
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CyberJournalist.net
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Online Journalism Awards entry deadline extended to July 8
The deadline to enter the Online Journalism Awards has been extended to Wednesday, July 8. The 2009 categories are: The Knight Award for Public Service General Excellence in Online Journalism General Excellence in Online Journalism, Non-English The Gannett Foundation Award for Technical Innovation in the Service of Digital Journalism Breaking News Specialty Site Journalism Investigative Journalism Multimedia Feature Presentation Online Topical Reporting/Blogging Online Commentary/Blogging Community Collaboration [...] -
Wired Editor: Newspapers can learn from Club Penguin
Wired editor and “Free” book author Chris Anderson said, in a talk to the Guardian newspaper, that newspapers need to find a “pet for their penguin” – “freemium” things that they can charge for to support journalism. “When he talks about pets for penguins, he is referring to the Disney’s online game Club Penguin. This is [...] -
The Daily Show visits The New York Times
In case you missed… The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c End Times www.thedailyshow.com -
New Twitter site designed for journalists
JournoTwit was created by Andrew “Spode” Miller, a technology journalist, “to suit the fast paced, nomadic lifestyle of a journalist - but may well suit others.” He says: JournoTwit is a lot like TweetDeck, but web-based. It stores all your settings, and your last read tweet, remotely, allowing you to move from machine to machine to mobile [...] -
Colbert pokes fun at Twitter and Goldblum death rumors
Watch here: The Colbert Report Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Jeff Goldblum Will Be Missed www.colbertnation.com Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Jeff Goldblum
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Editors Weblog
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Circulate: a user-centric solution to help publishers monetise online content
2 Jul 2009 | 8:31 amOne of the latest products to appear on the market for newspaper publishers looking to improve their revenue is Circulate, from new start-up CircLabs. The Editors Weblog spoke to co-founder and executive vice president Martin Langeveld, former newspaper editor and executive who now also writes for Nieman Journalism Lab, about the project. The CircLabs team decided to look for a user-centric solution to monetise online content through improving the user news experience, as opposed to what Langeveld sees as publisher-centric solutions that focus on how to charge users for content. Charging… -
UPDATE: WaPo newsroom refuses to participate in paid-for dinners with lobbyists
2 Jul 2009 | 7:41 amIn a bizarre new venture, the Washington Post had promised lobbyists a chance for off-the-record meetings with policy makers and newsroom staff for the price of a $25,000 sponsorship, according to a flier shown to Politico by a health care lobbyist. These "Washington Post Salons" would consist of dinners at the home of WaPo CEO and publisher Katharine Weymouth. A WaPo spokeperson has responded to Politico, stating, "As written, the newsroom could not participate in an event like this." Apparently the event planning division of the company sent out the flier advertising reporters'… -
Printcasting to "democratise" print in more US cities through collaboration with newspaper publisher
2 Jul 2009 | 7:23 amThe Printcasting model is on its way to "democratise" print publishing in more cities in the US, it was announced last week. The initiative, financed by the winnings of the 2008 Knight News Challenge, has made its first newspaper partnership with Denver-based MediaNews Group. The publishing group controls 54 daily newspapers in 11 states, including The Denver Post and San Jose Mercury News.The project originated out of the newspaper, the Bakersfield Californian and first went public in March to cater for the town of Bakersfield, California. Printcasting enables any would-be-publisher to… -
UK: 50 hyperlocal citizen journalism sites to launch in southwest
2 Jul 2009 | 6:17 amA new initiative by Associated Northcliffe Digital aimed at small towns in the southwest will introduce 50 hyperlocal sites where community members can write and upload content. The sites are targeted at towns with fewer than 50,000 inhabitants who don't yet have an online news portal to call their own. Twenty-three of the sites have already launched, including those for Bideford and Redland, while the rest will be up and running by the end of the summer. With a community manager at the helm to organize and produce content, each site will consist of news stories and discussion groups under… -
RIA Novosti says improving training key to surviving crisis
2 Jul 2009 | 5:35 amRussian news agency, RIA Novosti, is investing in training programmes to improve staff skills as an anti-crisis measure, it was announced in a press release. In January and June of this year, the news agency ran a series of lectures and seminars to train staff in multimedia technology for video recording and photo imaging, infographics, Internet search engines, "black PR" and legal risks in the media. The training culminated in two-week multimedia courses held at a summer school in the Moscow region. The classes, which started on June 20, are being held in the form of business games.
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Media news, UK and world media comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk
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INM reduces stake in Indian media group
2 Jul 2009 | 8:26 amIndependent News & Media sells down its stake in Jagran Prakashan, owner of Indian daily newspaper Dainik JagranIndependent News & Media has reduced its stake in Jagran Prakashan, owner of Indian daily newspaper Dainik Jagran, to 13.5% to pay off debts while the beleaguered publisher continues to negotiate the refinancing of a €200m (£178m) bond.INM, which has negotiated a "standstill" agreement over its bond renegotiation with its investors until 24 July, today sold down its 20.8% stake in media group JPL to 13.5%.The company said the sale would raise €22m (£19m), which will be used to… -
Freeview launches bid to challenge Sky
2 Jul 2009 | 6:52 amFreeview pledges to roll out high definition to more than 60% of UK households by Christmas next yearFreeview has today outlined its blueprint to take on BSkyB with next generation digital TV services, pledging to roll out high definition to more than 60% of UK households by Christmas next year.Ilse Howling, managing director of Freeview, the free-to-air digital terrestrial TV offering, said that for the business to cement its position in UK households it requires a clear "reach out and reach up" strategy focused on delivering HDTV, on-demand and enhanced personal video recorder… -
BBC axes Robin Hood
2 Jul 2009 | 8:08 amDecision to end struggling Saturday teatime drama Robin Hood ends months of speculation about the show's futureThe BBC has axed struggling Saturday teatime drama Robin Hood, ending months of speculation about the show's future.Robin Hood ended its third series on Saturday with just 1.7 million viewers at 6.45pm after it was bumped from BBC1 to BBC2 to make way for live coverage of Andy Murray at Wimbledon.The BBC announced in August last year that lead actor Jonas Armstrong would be leaving the Tiger Aspect-produced drama at the end of the third series, but said at the time that his departure… -
Reporter 'to be released' by Iran
2 Jul 2009 | 9:50 amReporter detained for more than a week by Iranian authorities is to be released within hours, say reportsA Washington Times reporter detained for more than a week by Iranian authorities is to be released within hours, according to a Greek politician.Iason Athanasiadis-Fowden, a journalist with joint British and Greek nationality also known as Jason Fowden, was arrested as he was attempting to leave the country last Tuesday, 23 June.The head of a small rightwing Greek party said today he has received assurances that the Iranian government will soon release Athanasiadis-Fowden.Giorgos… -
Dublin freesheets to merge
2 Jul 2009 | 2:51 amNew title Metro Herald to be jointly owned by Associated Newspapers, the Irish Times, and Independent News & MediaThe owners of Dublin freesheets Herald AM and Metro Ireland have today confirmed the titles will merge into a single new title, Metro Herald, following a costly circulation battle.Associated Newspapers, the Daily Mail & General Trust subsidiary, and the Irish Times, joint owners of Metro Ireland, will each take a third share of the new merged Dublin freesheet business, with Independent News & Media, publisher of Herald AM, holding the remaining stake.The new deal leaves out…
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Depth Reporting
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#depth on Twitter
27 Jun 2009 | 9:05 amYou can find links I used to share more often on this blog by searching for the #depth hashtag on Twitter. -
Follow me on Twitter, Delicious and Google Reader
20 Jun 2009 | 9:03 amIf you’re interested in the kinds of things that interest me on this blog, you can follow me on Twitter, Delicious and Google Reader. I serve an unsteady stream of links that often never make it here. All have RSS feeds you can subscribe to independent of Depth Reporting. My latest updates to those services are also available on Depth Reporting’s right rail. There’s some cross-posting going on, so forgive me for the dupes. -
Visualizing U.S. Supreme Court ideology
18 Jun 2009 | 7:28 amThe Ideological History of the Supreme Court, 1937-2007, is a nice visualization designed by Alex Lundry that uses scores developed by two political scientists to measure where the justices have stood on an “ideological continuum” from liberal to conservative. You can download the visualization in spreadsheet form, play with it and see how it was done. Boiling a judge’s judicial philosophy down to a score is a tricky business, and not everyone likes it. You can get a flavor of that by reading The Distorting Slant of Quantitative Studies of Judging, by a law professor. [via… -
“100 Awesome Open Source Tools for Writers, Journalists, and Bloggers”
17 Jun 2009 | 7:21 pm…. from OnlineCourses.org. Actually, some are just so-so (and at least one, Evernote, isn’t open source), but at least they’re free. -
Temporarily laid off, again
7 Jun 2009 | 6:50 amTomorrow begins my second mandatory exile from the Gannett Company. I’ll return June 15.
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mymediamusings
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Nudes Still No-Go For iPhone but Booze Apps No Problem
2 Jul 2009 | 12:34 pmSince Apple has decided, wrongly, to play moral gate-keeper over the App Store, banning any iPhone App they deem “inappropriate” for a score of muddy reasons, I think it is fair to ask why they are banning nude women but happily allowing booze brands like Absolut to promote drinking through sponsored applications. Absolute’s new iPhone App, “Drinkspiration” is free to all and simply requires that the downloader click a box promising that they are over the age of 17. Now, let’s forget about how worthless this is as an effective age barrier, how about the… -
“Catcher in the Rye” Sequel Banned but Readily Available in US
2 Jul 2009 | 10:14 amAdding to the absurdity of the recent court decision to ban “60 Years Later: Coming Through The Rye” from being sold in the US is the fact that the book has already been published in the UK and, thus, it is readily available to anyone willing to shop online. TechDirt has pretty good dismantling of Judge Betts’ dangerous and ill-conceived ruling. For those looking to pick up their own copy of this “banned” book try here, here or here -
Judge Indefinitely Bans “Coming Through The Rye”
2 Jul 2009 | 9:15 amImage via Wikipedia If there is one thing I learned during almost ten years developing feature film scripts, is that there is no such thing as a completely original idea. Every script I read (well into the thousands) could be seen as being derivative of a pre-existing work. In fact, if one eliminated every script from Hollywood that was derivative of a pre-existing work there wouldn’t be any screenplays left. The same can be said for the world of novels. Unfortunately, one Judge Betts disagrees and has indefinitely banned the wholly original novel “60 Years Later: Coming Through… -
Michael Jackson SELLS 2.6 Million Digital Downloads
1 Jul 2009 | 3:14 pmMichael Jackson via last.fm I’ve never really given much value to the absurd figures thrown around by the RIAA when it comes to revenue lost due to piracy. Aside from being based on guesses and estimates, it always fails to take into account revenue generated due to the same piracy (increased sales for concerts, etc). Most importantly, with iTunes going DRM-free and the general accessibility of legally accessible music on the rise, I just don’t believe that piracy is the real problem at all. One good example of this is: …based on preliminary sales numbers from Nielsen… -
Citizen Journalist Blow Lid Off Fake Vegan Restaurants
1 Jul 2009 | 12:36 pmThe newspaper people will tell you that if they are obliterated by the evil internets one of the big loses will be investigative journalism. If it hadn’t been for those gritty investigative journalists the newspaper hires there’d be no Watergate, no Whitewater Gate, no ‘Gates of any kind. Of course, that’s just plain silly. Newspapers didn’t invent investigative journalism any more than they invented news or reporting news. In fact, in this digital age where anyone willing to do the work can spill the beans to a massive audience, there is more reason than…
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JOUR M02
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Is Twitter the News Outlet for the 21st Century?
1 Jul 2009 | 5:56 pm[AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill]Photographers line up in front of the Jackson family residence.Cassy Hayes and Jasmine Coleman were among the first fans to arrive outside the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles where Michael Jackson was brought and later pronounced dead.How had Hayes, 25, and Coleman, 21, heard the news so quickly?Twitter. [Click for MORE] -
Online Newspaper Folds
1 Jul 2009 | 2:17 am"This experiment in building a narrowly focused online daily newspaper in Seattle is over. Why? The short answer is money. But there's more to it than that, and I'd like to take a few minutes to explain some of what I learned about publishing an online daily, so that others may succeed where I have not." [Click for MORE] -
100 Best Blogs for Journalism Students
1 Jul 2009 | 1:45 amToday’s journalism students are entering an industry that’s facing a crossroads. These days, newspapers and media in general are adapting and growing at a rapid pace, and it’s essential that students keep up, or they’ll be left in the dust. By reading these blogs, you can keep an ear to the ground on the latest developments that matter the most to journalism students. [Click for MORE]We are included. We're honored. -
Another Big Round of Layoffs Imminent at Gannett
1 Jul 2009 | 1:28 amThe Gannett Company, owner of the nation’s largest newspaper chain, will go through another round of layoffs soon, with an announcement possible in the next few days, executives said Tuesday.The company’s United States and British newspaper divisions eliminated more than 10,000 jobs in 2007 and 2008, including about 2,000 layoffs last fall, and Gannett executives have said repeatedly that they expect more downsizing, including layoffs. The company, which also owns a chain of television stations and Internet ventures, ended last year with 41,500 employees, including 35,800 in its newspaper… -
A Fired Reporter Spirals Into the Unknown
29 Jun 2009 | 5:09 pmBy Steve PersallSt. Petersburg Times Staff Writer She wanted to be a dancer or an actor and was lovely enough to be either. Instead, she became a newspaper reporter and a damn fine one.But she looked nothing like the woman I once knew as shesat next to me the other evening at the Hub, the inveterate bar in downtown Tampa; puffier, sadder, disheveled, speaking in jumbled threads of thought that only another drug addict or a patiently sympathetic ear can understand. She fumbled in her purse for lord knows what, knocking over the rum and Coke.I had yet to recognize her when she proudly declared…
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OUPblog » Media
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Michael Jackson, Nostalgia, and the 1980s
30 Jun 2009 | 10:29 amElvin Lim is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency, which draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents’ ability to communicate with the public. He also blogs at www.elvinlim.com. In the article below he reflects on nostalgia for the 80’s. See his previous OUPblogs here. Journalists are not usually in the habit of looking back. They are charged to deliver “breaking news” to us. Novelty is… -
American War Propaganda Top Ten
30 Jun 2009 | 5:36 amSusan A. Brewer is Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Her new book, Why America Fights: Patriotism and War Propaganda from the Philippines to Iraq, is a fascinating history of how successive presidents have conducted what Donald Rumsfeld called “perception management”. In the original post below she looks at the top ten American propaganda messages of the last century. Propaganda sells wars. Emotionally powerful and instantly recognizable, propaganda messages serve to simplify complex international crises for public consumption. A persuasive blend… -
OUP USA on The AAP/ Authors Guild Settlement With Google
29 Jun 2009 | 7:41 amOUP USA President Tim Barton has published a detailed overview and position statement regarding the AAP/Authors Guild Settlement with Google which can be found here. Below is a brief excerpt from the piece. “…What once seemed at least debatable has now become irrefutable: If it’s not online, it’s invisible. While increasing numbers of long-out-of-date, public-domain books are now fully and freely available to anyone with a browser, the vast majority of the scholarship published in book form over the last 80 years is today largely overlooked by students, who limit their… -
Dancing With A Cockatoo
24 Jun 2009 | 8:37 amAniruddh D. Patel’s research focuses on how the brain processes music and language, especially what the similarities and differences between the two reveal about each other and about the brain itself. Patel has served on the Executive Committee of the Society for Music Perception and Cognition and is currently the Esther J. Burnham Senior Fellow at The Neurosciences Institute. Patel’s book, Music, Language, and the Brain, challenges the widespread belief that music and language are processed independently. This fabulous book won a Deem-Taylor Award From ASCAP and its ideas are… -
Friday Procrastination: Link Love
19 Jun 2009 | 5:32 amby Cassie, Publicity Hey everyone, happy Friday! For those of you who are, like me, stuck in the office this Friday, I have some links to help keep you occupied. Hope all is quiet and you have a chance to catch up on everything you’re behind on - I’m certainly going to try! The Daily Dish’s Andrew Sullivan has been doing a great job following the news out of Iran. Here’s a list of his posts on what’s happening over there. Speaking of Iran, Twitter has been huge in helping Iranians get reports out of the country as the government cracked down. Twitter even delayed…
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Principled Profit
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Hey, Guys–Are You Macho Enough to Wear Pink?
2 Jul 2009 | 3:09 pmI love this! Troy White writes about a 97-year-old macho cowboy event, the Calgary Stampede, and how organizers got these touch cowboys to benefit breast cancer research by wearing pink. Be edgy and/or challenge them – “Are you tough enough to wear pink?” This was the campaign they ran this year – everyone who bought a pink western shirt (yes – for the guys) was donating a percentage of the shirt price to breast cancer research. This was a HUGE success for them … in the parades – everything was pink … at the bars – half the guys were wearing pink … at the midway… -
Every Vote Really Does Count
1 Jul 2009 | 5:44 amYesterday, the fate of Minnesota’s Senate seat, undecided since the November election, was finally decided; the margin, out of 2.9 million votes cast, all of 312. Congratulations to Senator Al Franken. In 2000, George W. Bush’s winning margin in Florida (and thus the presidency of the United States), was 537 votes, in an election whose legitimacy is still hotly debated (and to me, will never be legitimate). The hanging-chads issue alone could have swung the election to Gore by thousands of votes–just one among many irregularities. But in any case, it was close enough that it… -
Amory Lovins: How to Solve the Energy Crisis
30 Jun 2009 | 7:09 amVisionary futurist Amory Lovins recently spoke at the Virtual Energy Forum about how to make cars, planes, buildings, power transmission, etc. so much more efficient that we can actually lower carbon impact and reverse climate change. His delivery is not exciting–but his material is life-changing. (You probably have to register to watch it.) A lot of this is stuff that is feasible to do RIGHT NOW. We could save 3/4 of US electricity for 1 cent per kilowatt, and building new power plants can’t touch that cost. He has 1000 ways to do it. If the presentation is too technical or dry,… -
Bernard Madoff Sentenced to 150 Years
29 Jun 2009 | 8:51 amBreaking news: Bernard Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison for his $50 billion fraud/Ponzi scheme. Proving, yet again, that crime really doesn’t pay. He may have lived high on the hog, but he’ll spend the rest of his life and rather less comfortable circumstances. My heart goes out to all those scammed by him, and especially the many philanthropy and social change organizations that invested with him, whose missions are substantially compromised by Madoff’s evil deeds. Want a better way? My award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People… -
#FreeIran Campaign Turns to the Blogosphere
29 Jun 2009 | 3:55 amLike many others, I am appalled both by the apparently stolen election in Iran and by the repressive, violent response of the government to the mass protests. And like many bloggers today who want to be cheerleaders for democracy and (to use Martin Luther King’s wonderful phrase) “drum majors for justice,” I’m joining in a worldwide campaign today to call attention to the problems with the Iran vote and its bloody aftermath. Click the link to see a long list of grievances and solidarity actions. Thanks to @engagejoe on Twitter for calling this solidarity action to my…
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Global Features
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Listen to Radio Liberada, from somewhere in Honduras, after the military coup
29 Jun 2009 | 10:27 pm -
Climate Emergency: Thousands march for Climate Action
15 Jun 2009 | 12:20 pm -
Massacre in Peru
11 Jun 2009 | 11:55 pm -
June 2009 Indymedia Newsreal Released
11 Jun 2009 | 1:32 pm -
The Angola Three: Torture in Our Own Backyard
11 May 2009 | 10:55 am
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Robert Cox's blog
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FTC information: Guides on Endorsements and Testimonials
22 Jun 2009 | 12:26 pmThe AP has a story up today which is getting a great deal of attention in the blogosphere today: FTC plans to monitor blogs for claims, payments I was interviewed for the article and quoted here: "It would always be better for bloggers to self-police," said Robert Cox, president of Media Bloggers Association in New Rochelle, N.Y. "We have laws on the books. They apply to everybody, not just people who write blogs." The FTC provided the following information about their proposed guidelines regarding endorsements and testimonials to the Associated Press who, in turn, provided them to me so that… -
Newsvision 2009 at Newseum DC #nvision
30 Mar 2009 | 9:56 amPanel on "News in Transition," talking about trends in Internet journalism. Left to right, Jeff Birnbaum of The Washington Times, me, Kinsey Wilson of NPR and Ju-Don Roberts of washingtonpost.com, Lou Ferrara of the Associated Press/Sports. Event sponsors are Newspaper Guild, Knight Center for Specialized Journalism, Knight Foundation, Online News Organization, Merrill College of Journalism -UMD. Trend among people here--Jeff Birnbaum hired to run washingtonpost.com, John Harris running Politico, Vivisn Schiller running NPR, Kinsie Wilson running NPR.com--all arguably fish out of water… -
People Never "Paid for News"; They "Paid To Be Informed in the Most Efficient Manner"
7 Mar 2009 | 2:05 pmI was reading Maurreen Skowran's article on E-Media Tidbits, NYT Readers Brainstorm Business Models, Paying for Online News, and it got me thinking again about the "death of journalism" issue and, in particular, the strange idea of "paying for news". Maurreen wrote: Two of the Times essays focused on paying for news. The one by Steven Brill (founder of The American Lawyer magazine, Court TV, and Brill's Content) was headlined "Culture of Free" Is Suicide. With newspaper fortunes sliding as they are, the question of whether and how to ask readers to pay for online news has recently gained… -
Floodgates Open in Federal Courts as Twitter Comes to Kansas Trial
7 Mar 2009 | 8:56 amThe Associated Press reports on a Kansas report getting permission to cover a federal criminal trial using Twitter from his cell phone: In a victory for news technology in federal courts, a judge is allowing a reporter to use the microblogging service Twitter to provide constant updates from a racketeering gang trial this week. It's not the first time online streaming has been allowed in courtrooms, but the practice is still rare in the federal system, especially in criminal cases. We first began discussing blogger credentialing for federal trials in 2005. It took two years before we were… -
Words of Wisdom from Seth Godin on Leadership
27 Feb 2009 | 7:17 amCopyblogger has a good interview with Seth Godin who operates out of my old hometown of Irvington, NY. The interview is getting heavily re-tweeted right now. Asked to share some universal principles on leadership from his new book "Tribes", Seth offers these pearls: People want to belong, they want to be missed when they don’t show up. Charisma doesn’t make you a leader, leading gives you charisma. Most of all, people care about themselves. Faith is belief in the future and it is critical. Religion is a set of rules designed to amplify faith at the same time it guarantees the status quo.
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Media: Greenslade | guardian.co.uk
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Roy Greenslade: Washington Post cancels daft cash-for-access proposal
2 Jul 2009 | 2:17 pmThat daft proposal by a Washington Post marketing guy to sell company chief executives access to politicians and reporters (see posting below this) has been stamped on. After the story emerged in public, the paper's publisher, Katharine Weymouth, announced that she was cancelling the whole dodgy plan.A circular to lobbyists from the Post's marketing department had previously promised that company chiefs could pay $25,000 for one visit – or $250,000 for a series of visits – to an exclusive "salon" at Weymouth's home.Executives were supposedly to enjoy off-the-record access to "those… -
Roy Greenslade: Washington Post offers cash-for-access at $25,000 a go
2 Jul 2009 | 9:01 amCan you believe this? I know all American newspapers are strapped for cash but The Washington Post has shown just how desperate things are by offering lobbyists and company executives access to senior politicians - plus its own reporters - in return for eye-popping sums, from $25,000 up to $250,000.The astonishing offer, which turns a news organisation into a political and commercial broker, may well be regarded as a sign of the times as advertising revenue continues to dry up for US papers.But it could also be viewed as hugely compromising for the paper's editorial credibility and integrity. -
Roy Greenslade: Rebekah Wade may end London's costly freesheet war
2 Jul 2009 | 5:40 amNow that a sensible compromise has been reached by three newspaper publishers in Ireland over competing wasteful freesheets - Rival Dublin freesheets Herald AM and Metro Ireland to merge - can we hope for a similar deal in London?After all, that Irish trio includes the Daily Mail & General Trust (DMGT), publisher of the loss-making London Lite, which would dearly like to agree a deal with News International (NI), publisher of the even greater loss-making thelondonpaper, in order to staunch the huge waste of money by both companies.I had hopes that some kind of pact between the rivals might… -
Roy Greenslade: No alternative to Trinity Mirror's Midlands cutbacks
2 Jul 2009 | 4:40 amWe have surely reached the stage where it is a waste of breath to decry every cutback made by newspaper publishers. Some may be more culpable than others, of course, but none can shelter from the economic storm (though, arguably, the redoubtable Ray Tindle may be a singular exception).Across the United States – as the latest news of 1,400 job cuts by Gannett illustrates - there is no respite. Titles are closing. Journalists are vanishing.In Britain, the picture is similar. Trinity Mirror has now confirmed roughly what the National Union of Journalists revealed last week: it is to close nine… -
Roy Greenslade: PCC right to issue guidelines over teenage father story
2 Jul 2009 | 1:46 amThe Press Complaints Commission's statement today over the Alfie Patten case is replete with ironies. Three offending newspapers have escaped censure because of the legal restrictions their own actions engendered.The law that has inhibited the papers from exercising press freedom has therefore saved them from public disgrace. Nevertheless, the PCC has managed to produce guidelines that will surely prevent a similar occurrence in future.I would also hope that the editors' code committee find some way of codifying the guidelines to ensure that editors do not think of getting up to such tricks…
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blog maverick
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Free vs Freely Distributed
30 Jun 2009 | 5:21 pmWith the publication of Chris Anderson’s new book Free, the discussion about the role of free, today and in the future has expanded. Articles from Malcom Gladwell in New Yorker, and Seth Godin discuss the various merits and challenges of Free. Is Free inevitable ? Is Free the beginning of the end ? Let me answer the question. First of all, what we are experiencing right now is “Better Than Free”. The videos on Youtube, magazine articles, newspapers reports, anything that used to be analog that now is digital have a perceived value that is based on their legacy… -
2 Quick Hits On Sports Media and The Stock Market
19 Jun 2009 | 8:36 am1. Has anyone noticed that its impossible to trust a single word uttered about coaching changes, the draft, trades and even celebration parties these days ? Bloggers, sports websites and even the print media have gotten so desperate they seem to have come to the conclusion that fabricated stories, passed off as rumors, are a better way to drive traffic and create awareness of a website or blog than actual reporting. Unfortunately, ESPN and local newspapers, radio and TV media have become the patsies of bloggers. If some random blogger reports that “he has heard that a trade of Joe for… -
Success & Motivation – 2009
9 Jun 2009 | 1:44 pmThis is the year of WTF. Yep, What the F&&&. It doesn’t matter what got you to the point of saying it. Maybe you got fired/layed off. Maybe your company went out of business. Maybe you quit because you couldn’t take it any longer. Maybe you are just graduating from school and the prospects of living at home are far worse than cramming in with 12 roommates in a beater house or apartment you call “The Hotel”. Whatever the reason, the question is how do you turn this time into the start of something good ? I’m here to give you your WTF To Do List. 1. -
The Google – Youtube – Conundrum
2 Jun 2009 | 6:51 amYou have a video that you want to post on the web. It may be just for you. It could be for friends. It could be for family. It could be for a company or a political campaign. It could a video that you want seen by as many people as possible. Regardless of your audience expectations, do you have any expectation of paying for that video to be hosted ? Of course you don’t. Neither does anyone else. The reality is that all of us have the expectation of being able to post any and every video on sites like Youtube for free, with no limitation on audience size or location. We have… -
Who Cares What People Write ?
31 May 2009 | 5:46 pmIn this day and age of blogs, aggregation sites, personal recommendation sites, link publishing, twitter and more, its not unusual to get a news alert email, or to wake up and google a person, place or thing and find hundreds of references originated in just the past 24 hours. Does it matter ? Could something be published hundreds, if not thousands of times on the net and be read by no one ? Fewer than 100 people ? Fewer than 100 people that you care about ? The answer is yes. When should you care if something is published on the net about you, your company, or someone you care about ?
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JOURNALISM.CO.UK
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Science journalism: a row
2 Jul 2009 | 8:57 amThis week is the World Conference of Science Journalists (#WCSJ). This is what the Independent’s Steve Connor had to say in an article entitled ‘Lofty medics should stick to their day jobs.’ “The sixth World Conference of Science Journalists is underway in London. I can’t say it’s going to change my life, as I missed out on the previous five, but I did notice that it has attracted the attention of a bunch of medics with strong views on the state of science journalism today.” Connor picked up on a gathering advertised by Ben Goldacre (a post-event… -
Nieman Journalism Lab: Why the NYT was wrong to keep quiet about Rohde’s kidnap
2 Jul 2009 | 6:33 amMatthew Ingram believes the cover-up of David Rohde’s kidnap made ‘things harder not just for future kidnapping victims such as Rohde, but for newspapers and other mainstream media outlets as a whole.’ Ingram responds to criticism in the comments below the post. Full post at this link… Also see: NYTimes.com: ‘Keeping News of Kidnapping Off Wikipedia’ Similar Posts: Nieman Journalism Lab: Matthew Ingram on the WSJ’s social media policy Roy Greenslade: Response to criticisms of sub-editor comments BeatBlogging.Org: Editors are not liable for changing… -
Everyone is writing articles about celebrity death hoaxes
2 Jul 2009 | 6:10 amWill the next hoo-hah be: ‘papers miss out obit because no-one believed he/she had really died’? Countless articles about celebrity death hoaxes to choose from over the last day or so. Among them: This round-up from MSN Entertainment ends with: “The old adage rings true: don’t believe everything you read! Unless you see it on MSN, of course..” John Skelton on how he created the Goldblum hoax. There’s mixed reaction in the comments so far. CNN: “Despite what you may have read, Jeff Goldblum, Natalie Portman, George Clooney, Britney Spears, Harrison Ford… -
#Celebtips: Entertainment journalism tips all day
2 Jul 2009 | 4:06 amJustin Kings (@newsleader) and Karen Krizanovich (@krizanovich – protected updates) are sharing entertainment journalism tips today – all day. Follow the #celebtips tag, or the stream below. Similar Posts: 12 hours worth of radio interview tips from @NewsLeader All-day interview tips from @NewsLeader – Wednesday 27th May @newsleader posting radio journalism tips of the day in February #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – interviewing for broadcast Inside the Guardian’s new newsroom -
PageSuite lands 40 title publishing deal with bizjournals
2 Jul 2009 | 3:48 amUK based digital publishers PageSuite have landed a deal with America’s largest publisher of metropolitan business newspapers, American City Business Journals. The company will launch of all 40 of their bizjournal titles online, using PageSuite as their provider. Bizjournals cover 40 industries, distributed across 41 cities and their websites have more than eight million unique visitors per month. “Our production teams have found the software to be very flexible and user friendly,” commented Eric Mick from bizjournals, in a release. PageSuite already publishes digital editions…
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One Man & His Blog
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RBI PPA Winnahs!
1 Jul 2009 | 3:18 amTwo RBI titles picked up awards at the PPA (Periodical Publisher's Association) awards last night.The XpertHR team bagged the business media brand of the year award and the FWi team grabbed business website of the year. It's nice to have such talented colleagues. :) -
Scenes from Tweetcamp
1 Jul 2009 | 12:21 amAs mentioned previously, I was at Tweetcamp last Saturday and, for once, I've actually got all my photos up on Flickr before I've had the chance to write up my thoughts on the event.Here's a Flickr slideshow of them: -
Devolving Ownership for Better Blogging
30 Jun 2009 | 4:57 amA couple of conversations I've had recently have brought forth a revelation in my holiday-deprived brain. One of the big challenges for media organisations looking to get good journalistic blogging going is ownership.Now, I'm not talking ownership in the traditional "who owns the copyright" sense - because in most cases it's pretty clear that the employer does. I'm talking about the feeling that most good bloggers I know have that the blog is theirs - their space, hosted by them. Certainly we've found that group blogs rarely work, unless the team has a close-knit identity and a clue about… -
links for 2009-06-30
30 Jun 2009 | 1:30 amI studied print journalism: Now what? | Salon Life Amusing, especially for long-term journalists. (tags: journalism media internet reporting writing jobs) Malcolm Gladwell reviews Free by Chris Anderson Not so much a review, as a counter-argument to some of the key points behind Anderson's arguments about free. (tags: media free chrisanderson technology economics malcolmgladwell newyorker business internet books) Saturday Post: If You Are In The Path Of A Disruptive Technology You Are Toast - Goodbye Newspaper Companies A suggestion that the internet is so dispruptive as a technology… -
The QH Evacuees
29 Jun 2009 | 7:19 amDownload now or watch on posterous IMG_0698.MOV (2453 KB) Just testing if I can post iPhone video to my blog directly via posterous. Posted via email from adders's posterous
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Beat the Press
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Morgan Stanley Profits: The Story on Risk Goes Both Ways
1 Jul 2009 | 11:23 pmThe NYT noted that one factor depressing Morgan Stanley's profit last quarter was its improved credit standing, which increased the market value of its debt. The NYT implied that this was a peculiar accounting rule. The rule may be peculiar, but it goes both wars. In prior quarters, Morgan Stanley increased its profits (or lowered its losses) by writing down the market vale of its debt as its credit quality deteriorated. --Dean Baker -
Thomas Friedman is Right!
1 Jul 2009 | 6:03 amI just wanted to see if my computer could type those words. His assessment of the Waxman-Markey bill looks right on the money to me. It's worth reading. --Dean Baker -
Political Philosophers Take Over Congress
29 Jun 2009 | 10:08 pmThat would seem to be the case based on a front page Washington Post article with a subhead: "Diverse Ideology Cuts Democratic Edge." The piece is referring to a number of Democrats in the House and Senate who tend to side with the Republicans on many issues. It could be the case that these Democrats side with Republicans on issues like health care because they have carefully contemplated issues and concluded that the Republicans were right. Of course it is also possible that they side with Republicans on issues like health care because they get lots of campaign contributions from special… -
Now the Media Are Calling Other Governments "Socialists"
29 Jun 2009 | 8:32 amThe Republicans are fond of calling any Obama administration policy that they don't like "socialist." Apparently focus groups show that it can be effective rhetoric with at least some segment of public, but it's not a terribly serious way to discuss policy. Therefore it was surprising to see the NYT refer to some of the policies of the Argentine government as "socialist." Unless the government itself describes the policies this way, the NYT would be providing more information to readers if simply described the content of the policies without an adjective that will likely be viewed by many as… -
What Does "Free Trade" Have to Do With Taxing Greenhouse Gas Emissions
29 Jun 2009 | 8:09 amThat is the question that the NYT should have been asking in an article that reported President Obama's opposition to taxing imported items from countries that have not taken steps to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The point of his cap and trade program is to make items that require large amounts of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions more expensive, thereby discouraging their consumption. If goods can just be imported from countries that have no tax on GHG, then the point of cap and trade is undermined, as goods that require large amounts of fossil fuels will just be produced abroad. It is…
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College Media Matters
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Daily Nexus Editor: Print Newspaper Still in Play on Campus
1 Jul 2009 | 6:52 amI received an excellent comment recently from Mackenzie Weinger, editor in chief of the esteemed Daily Nexus at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She further confirms a truth I’ve fought hard to get recognized over the past year (through this blog and via a chat with CICM’s Bryan Murley): College students are still reading print newspapers. – Here’s Weigner’s brief, well-written treatise on the subject: – As someone who fought hard this past year to get a lock-in fee passed to bring back our Friday paper, I’ve got to say that trying to save… -
Michael Jackson Death Coverage NOT a New Media Triumph
29 Jun 2009 | 5:32 pmEvery major breaking story nowadays comes with a seemingly instant meta-analysis of how new media have fared while impacting the story’s coverage. Case in point: a CNN piece about the Michael Jackson death gossip-mongering news coverage. – My take: This is NOT a story that symbolizes new media’s shining greatness. In fact, they are hardly helping matters at all. Now, in fairness, there are some positives. Some of the more visual career timelines and discographies have caught my eye and are serving as stellar complements to the basic news pieces, especially impressive… -
Alternative Student Press Strong, Growing, Especially Online
27 Jun 2009 | 4:10 pmA great new piece by Kate Maternowski in the most recent Student Press Law Center Report documents the continued strength of alternative student publications at campuses across the U.S. (Full disclosure: I’m quoted in the piece.) – In her words: ”As mainstream student media across the country fight censorship battles with their school administrations, alternative publications are popping up in steady numbers in response to their own disfavored symbols of authority— official student newspapers. Often utilizing the newest and most innovative means to broadcast their… -
Michigan Daily, Time to Step Up, Due to the (Lack of) Competition
25 Jun 2009 | 12:59 amThe Ann Arbor News will cease being a daily newspaper starting in late July, according to a new Poynter report. It will reemerge as a more svelte online-only operation publishing a print paper twice a week. The reason this latest newspaper-bad-news headline stands out amid the predicted print reckoning is that it will leave Ann Arbor, Mich., home to the University of Michigan, as the first at least somewhat major metropolitan area in the states without a daily print newspaper. Or does it? – Cue The Michigan Daily, the student-produced newspaper in the university town, and soon to… -
J-Student Spotlight: Katelyn Polantz, Univ. of Pittsburgh, UWIRE 100
22 Jun 2009 | 6:23 pmKatelyn Polantz once went on a liquid diet as a college freshman. It lasted a week. She fell in love with journalism as a sophomore. It appears this love will last a lifetime. – As editor in chief of The Pitt News over the past year, Polantz led a staff of roughly 120 student reporters and editors, oversaw the formation of a multimedia department for PittNews.com, and collected a ton of devotees. For example, The Pitt News managing editor: “Katelyn has worked tirelessly to improve The Pitt News, both as a publication and an educational experience. . . . Thanks to…
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Old Media, New Tricks
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New Tricks: How to use Posterous
2 Jul 2009 | 5:35 amI’ve recently signed up for Posterous, a lifestreaming site that may very well be the next shiny Web 2.0 tool. What is lifestreaming, you ask? It’s a way of aggregating your life — photos, videos, articles and blog posts — in one place. In a recent post, I say lifestreaming can be thought of as a linear, time-based scrapbook. A Web 2.0 version of “Being John Malkovich,” sort of. It’s simple enough to sign up for Posterous: 1. First, go to the Posterous registration page. Select your URL — e.g. YourNameHere.Posterous.com is the default, but you… -
Old Media vs. New Media: Battle to the death?
1 Jul 2009 | 4:47 amThe media landscape continues to change, but that doesn’t mean it’s a fight-to-the-death between Old Media and New Media. TechCrunch’s Robin Wauters took Old Media to task for not being quick enough to report the Michael Jackson’s death, saying new media entities TMZ and Twitter get it, and Old Media essentially is too slow to be relevant anymore. In the comments, there is a mini-war going on, with some people siding with the Chicago Tribune, which says Old Media did the “heavy lifting” in confirming Jackson’s death, and others saying that Twitter and… -
Lifestreaming: Is the era of live-tweeting over?
30 Jun 2009 | 6:09 amLive-tweeting is so 2009. At your newsroom or company, you’re probably either the one being pressured — or doing the pressuring — to start getting social. Right? You may start by creating a Facebook fan page, or a Twitter stream. But something is missing. Facebook may seem like great place to promote what you’re doing, and Twitter is an easy way to interact with your customers in real time, but neither are as visceral as you’d like. Farewell, status updates. Hello, lifestream. Most of the information we consume in this new media age is either presented in a… -
OMNT Links of the Week #14
26 Jun 2009 | 7:11 amBy far the most compelling journalism read this week, I think. Here’s a quick take by John Gruber on the leak, and there are some great notes on the speed vs. accuracy debate. Read this one thoroughly, folks. over at Daring Fireball about the Wall Street Journal report about Steve Jobs’ liver transplant. The MinnPost is aggregating from various places — tweets, RSS feeds, etc. — and posting them as “real-time ads.” Minn thinks it’s a way to move beyond banner ads, though it may be optimistic. In any case, it’s a good, though very late, answer to… -
New Tricks: Does a re-tweet equal an endorsement?
23 Jun 2009 | 6:55 amI was just reading this post by Julie Posetti over at PBS’ Mediashift blog, and this section jumped out at me: When I raised concerns this week about the practice of tweeters who openly identify as professional journalists re-tweeting without verification, in the context of the indiscriminate dissemination of tweets claiming to emanate from Iran, I found myself engaged in a lively discussion on Twitter. I asserted that when Patrick LaForge, an editor at the New York Times, re-tweeted (without acknowledgement of verification or absence thereof) a list of Iranian tweeters sourced from…
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Reportr.net
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links for 2009-07-01
1 Jul 2009 | 5:12 pmA free-lance prototype: multimedia and entrepreneurial Multimedia journalist has a "huge advantage over freelance foreign correspondents working in a single medium." (tags: journalism news multimediajournalism multimedia) JournoTwit – The Twitter client that's not just for journalists… An alternative to Tweetdeck that is web-based (tags: journalism web socialmedia blog twitter tool) Chris Anderson: Newspapers Need To Find The ‘Pet For Their Penguin’ | paidContent “Can we become more conversation starters rather than lecturers?" (tags: journalism newspapers… -
links for 2009-06-30
30 Jun 2009 | 5:17 pmMichael Nielsen » Is scientific publishing about to be disrupted? A must read on innovation, citing the troubles of the newspaper industry: "The last people to know an industry is dead are the people in it." (tags: newspapers web innovation research) -
Essential reading online for journalism students
30 Jun 2009 | 1:04 pmThis blog is among a comprehensive list of the 100 best blogs for journalism students. The list covers everything from general blogs on journalism such as PoynterOnline to those by educators such as Mindy McAdams to blogs by journalists such as Matthew Ingram. One site absent from the list is the UK-based Journalism.co.uk. It has created its own list blogs and sites also missing from the list which it considers as important reading for any (particularly UK-based) journalism students. -
links for 2009-06-29
29 Jun 2009 | 5:15 pm50 Free Resources That Will Improve Your Writing Skills | Developer's Toolbox | Smashing Magazine Everything a journalism student needs to know to improve their writing skills is here. (tags: blogging web education resources tools tutorial writing) Web Ecology Project Berkman, MIT and Harvard researchers find the top 10% of users in our study account for 65.5% of total tweets on the Iranian elections. (tags: iran iranelection elections twitter research resources) -
Michael Jackson’s death makes journalists of all of us
29 Jun 2009 | 8:14 amMichael Jackson via last.fm The Iranian protests and the death of Michael Jackson signal a shift in the flow of news and the role of the audience. In both cases, much of news and information trickled online in fragments, via Twitter, blogs, Flickr and YouTube. In the past, only the journalist would have access to these fragments. Their role would be to contact sources, assess and verify the information, and put together a definite account of what happened to be delivered as a package to the audience, in print or in a broadcast. This process would take place over the course of a day. In the…
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News After Newspapers
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Could strategic bankruptcies be needed to transform newspapers?
29 Jun 2009 | 2:38 pmContinuing on a theme: I’ve been discussing the apparent disconnect between the quality of a news site’s design (as perceived and rated by professionals) and how much time people spend there; as well as the kinds of things that count more than design: reader engagement, interaction, community, personality — real life behind and around the content. In a comment on the second post, Phil Buckley, whose commentary I had quoted and linked to, asked: “If you were starting a news organization today, where would put your initial efforts?” I like this, because it’s the key question that… -
Yet another “What if you go online-only?” scenario
29 Jun 2009 | 2:36 pmThis question keeps getting asked in various ways: “What if you just stopped printing the newspaper and went online-only? How many people would you need, what would your costs be, and could you earn enough revenue to make a profit?” It’s not necessarily the right question, because there’s still life left in print. An online-print hybrid, with one or two days a week of printed distribution tied to a strong digital publishing operation, is probably a much better solution than online-only. In any case, Peter Kafka of All Things Digital is the latest to noodle the online-only version and… -
What counts more than design in attracting an online news audience?
26 Jun 2009 | 8:14 amAs I laid out on Wednesday, there seems to be no discernible correlation between the overall quality of a web site and how much time readers spend there. In the heydays of printed newspapers, we had some similar anomalies: newspapers with terrible designs (as judged by the designer elite) would have market penetrations equally strong as those following the latest design trends and gimmicks. So what keeps eyeballs on sites, once they’ve landed there? Here are some recent views of interest: Phil at 1918.com has a nice post building on Dave Brubeck’s breakout “Take Five”, raking over the… -
Time-spent on newspaper sites: not predictable from rated quality
24 Jun 2009 | 1:22 pmMuch buzz last week about the release, via E&P, of Nielsen’s May time-spent ratings of the top US 30 newspaper sites, and the fact that 17 of them — more than half — showed a decline from year-earlier levels. Now, any statistician will tell you not to read too much into one month’s data. It’s like drawing conclusions from one day’s fluctuation in the stock market. I’d bet the ratings were up, big time, in November and January on Presidential election and inauguration news. In May 2008, among other things, there was a lot of attention being paid to the final primaries and… -
Circulate enters the fray: holistic, user-centric content discovery tool
21 Jun 2009 | 6:14 pmAgain with full disclosure up front: this is a venture in which I am personally involved:A few weeks ago in Washington DC, my partners and I announced the formation of CircLabs and the intent to develop a product "code-named" Circulate, incubated at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri. But the announcement stopped short of an explicit description. We've now unveiled the CircLabs Inc. website with more details about our plans for Circulate on the About Us/FAQ page.Circulate is a holistic, user-centric solution aimed broadly at sustaining journalism in a…
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Recovering Journalist
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"Aged" News Indeed
24 Jun 2009 | 5:17 pmDavid Kurtz in political blog Talking Points Memo makes a very good point:If you read only the print edition of the New York Times, you would still not know anything about the Mark Sanford saga, according to my search of the paper's archives. Yet, right now it's the lead story on the paper's website, and has been, for better or worse, the dominant news story this week since The State first broke news late Monday afternoon that the governor was missing. Presumably, The Times will have a story in tomorrow's print edition, by which time the story will have bubbled, built,… -
A Crossed-Up Acrostic Fan
22 Jun 2009 | 8:10 pmIt's a dirty little secret that what journalists think is important in a newspaper isn't always the same sorts of things that readers find essential. Transfer the city hall reporter or lose an investigative star to another paper, and readers may barely notice. But try messing with the TV grid or the comics, and angry readers will storm the building with pitchforks and torches. Sorry, journalists. Those are the things a lot of readers really care about. This reader is sharpening his pitchfork for an assault on the glitzy new New York Times headquarters building after the Times screwed… -
How Sick is Gannett?
22 Jun 2009 | 12:53 pmTribune Co. is in bankruptcy. So are the owners of the Chicago Sun-Times, Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, Minneapolis Star Tribune, New Haven Register and many smaller newspapers. McClatchy is trying to refinance its debt. The New York Times Co. is struggling with its financial obligations.And now it looks like industry giant Gannett may be in trouble. TheDeal.com, crunching Gannett's numbers, suggests that the company is facing a $400 million debt payment within two years that it may have trouble paying. "Gannett as we know it will be lucky to last through… -
The People Have Spoken
19 Jun 2009 | 10:42 amNothing really new here, except that the numbers are becoming overwhelming: a new Zogby poll finds that most Americans prefer the Internet as a news source—more so than newspapers, TV and radio combined. Oh, and they consider the Internet more reliable than those other media, as well.As if that wasn't bad enough news for the traditionalists, get this: only 1 in 200 of those surveyed—you read that right, 1 in 200, or one half of 1 percent—believe that newspapers will be a "dominant source" of news within five years. Would somebody please remember to turn out the lights in… -
Upwardly Mobile, Pt. 2: What Works
11 Jun 2009 | 8:18 pmJust as it was stupid to paste a newspaper onto a computer screen, it's dumb to assume that what works on the Web works on a cellphone screen. They're very different.In the first part of this two-part post, I described the explosive growth in the delivery of news and information to mobile devices such as cellphones and smartphones—and why newspapers and other local news organizations need to jump quickly into the mobile fray with sophisticated products that have real potential for advertising and even subscription revenue. In this part, I look at what works (and doesn't) in…
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Mark Coughlan
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The Uptake’s Tips on Covering Events
29 Jun 2009 | 12:27 pm -
‘Commentariat vs. Bloggertariat’
25 Jun 2009 | 4:21 amStrange to put a ‘verus’ in the middle but anyway… good debate. Fealty makes great points about networks and sources… -
The Media Coverage on Iran: When More means Less
17 Jun 2009 | 4:14 pmMousavi Supporters: ABC News Some people who read this blog know where I’m working at the minute, it won’t surprise many of those to hear I spent my day trawling the internet for the best content from Iran. There’s a lot of it. However, people are getting carried away. It’s not a Twitter Revolution, as some people are saying, a revolution maybe, but not one that developed on Twitter – or any other social media platform for that matter. I was watching Twitter searches for #Iran, #Iranelections, #gr88, ‘Iran’, ‘elections’,… -
The [L]Ink Pen 10/6/09
10 Jun 2009 | 3:08 pmShattered and very busy as of late. Doing a lot of work over on Irish Election in the last few days. I’m particularly happy that I managed to be the first person to publish a comment from Christy Burke after his resignation – the Irish Times and such just cobbled together articles from the SF press release. And they say blogs don’t do original reporting… Anyway, quick [L]Ink Pen… Can newspapers reassert their dominance? Are our political institutions fit for purpose? The University Blog is amazing. Always insightful. Andrew Spittle is fast becoming one of my… -
Elections 2009 – From the RDS
6 Jun 2009 | 5:43 amIrishelection.com is down (probably due to traffic! Shite!) this is due to be cross-posted over there once it returns. – Rather subdued around the count centre in the RDS at present. The media room is yet to fill up – heads from all the main outlets are kicking about though, sticking their noses into the tally centres and such. It’s a time for mingling for the press corps, get the pulse and such. I was present at a group interview with Shay Brennan earlier, he looked shell-shocked, the picture above says it all. ConorLenihan arrived as the press gang dispersed, he put one…
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Topix.net Weblog
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Keep Cutting: Online Hard Going for Newspapers
24 Jun 2009 | 3:07 pmPeter Kafka of AllthingsD, got Mark Josephson, CEO of Outside.in to project what the "online newspaper for tomorrow" might look like. Mark posited that with 40MM monthly pageviews, and $560k of revenue (half is which is from a network of... -
Topix is going shopping
10 Jun 2009 | 1:26 pmYou know what the Internet is good for? Shopping. Researching the best deal. Sleuthing quality through reviews. And shopping. And I'm not talking about e-commerce (although I'm as big a fan of Zappos as anyone). I'm talking about finding out... -
Best Press Release Ever
29 May 2009 | 3:14 pmHere at Topix, we receive a lot of press releases. Since we post our news by aggregation or volunteer editors, these releases usually end up in the circular file. But this press release caught my eye today, when it came... -
Topix Wins 2009 "Webware 100" Award
18 May 2009 | 2:18 pmMany thanks to the Topix community and CNET Webware editors for voting Topix a Webware 100 Winner in the Location-Based Services category. The 2009 Webware 100 Awards recognize the best Web 2.0 sites, services, and applications that are leading... -
NY Times Declares Comment King Through Clenched Teeth
27 Apr 2009 | 2:33 pmVirginia Heffernan's article Comment is King in yesterday's Sunday NY Times magazine was an insightful piece around the role of commentary on news sites like the Washington Post, Salte and others -- although perhaps more insightful than she intended.. For...
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Emily Ingram
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Week 3: Write first blog post and About page
This post is the third in a weekly series that will take journalists through how to set up a professional-looking portfolio Web site. Find out more about the series and read the first and second posts if you missed them. Check back next week for more. This week you're going to ... -
Week 2: Find a theme, install it and customize it
This post is the second in a weekly series that will take journalists through how to set up a professional-looking portfolio Web site. Find out more about the series and read the kickoff post if you missed it. Check back next week for more. So, now that you've done everything that's ... -
Week 1: Buy a domain and install Wordpress
This post is the first in a weekly series that will take journalists through how to set up a professional-looking portfolio Web site. Check back next week for more. First things first: If you know anything about me and how-to guides, you know that I'm a bit of a screen cap ... -
How to build a portfolio Web site: A new blog series
For a while now, I've been toying with the idea of doing a series of blog posts that takes my blog readers, who are mostly journalists, step by step through the process of setting up a personal Web site with Wordpress on their own server space. But I didn't know if ... -
Chat: How can students use the summer to set themselves apart?
I just wrapped up a great chat with the folks over at Poynter. (If you're not already devouring all the news and tidbits Poynter has to offer, I'd recommend starting now.) Poynter faculty member Sara Quinn, along with a handful of Poynter College Fellows, joined in for a lively discussion centering ...
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Metaprinter
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“Content is King” – Not so Says Dr. Joe Webb
25 Jun 2009 | 6:38 amHow many times have you heard the phrase “content is king”? Perhaps hundreds or thousands of times in the last 10 to 15 years. This has been uttered all those times as a justification for the dominance of publishers of all types—audio, video, text, and images—in the digital age. If it were true, the content kings would not always be whining about profits, downsizing, or restructuring. They’d be riding a wave of successes that emanate from their kingly dominance. Read the entire article here -
Game Changer – HP Introduces World’s First Web-connected Home Printer
25 Jun 2009 | 6:28 am(from yesterday) HP today unveiled the world’s first web-connected home printer: The HP Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart Web. HP is bringing the power of the web directly to the printer and combining it with HP’s TouchSmart technology to give people quick, easy, touchscreen access to popular digital content. Designed for the digital generation and connected households, the HP Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart Web features an entirely new web-based printing platform with HP applications (apps). Similar to other Internet-connected devices, these apps, which are viewable on an… -
Dave Eggers is Enthusiastic About Print
3 Jun 2009 | 8:04 pmDave Eggers, philanthropist, teacher-at-large, and author of You Shall Know Our Velocity among other things is pretty confident about the future of print. So much so that he will return anyone’s email if they have doubts about print media’s viability. Here is an Excerpt from an email Gawker published: “As long as newspapers offer less each day- less news, less great writing, less graphic innovation, fewer photos- then they’re giving readers few reasons to pay for the paper itself. With our prototype, we aim to make the physical object so beautiful and luxurious… -
Bing “Decision Engine” Review
31 May 2009 | 9:27 pmBing.com is a new search engine that advertises itself as a “decision engine” becuase it helps you make decisions I guess. The site is not up and running yet but they have a video you can watch to see what they’re offering. I always like to try new offerings which may make my web experience more enjoyable, like Wolfram Alpha’s comparison feature, anyway so I sat through the Bing video. …they need to redo the video. Why? Because right as the following is being said, “…instead of spitting out search results by popularity we break them into… -
Most Redditors Find Newspaper Website Page Jumps Annoying
26 May 2009 | 11:03 pmDear Washington Post and every other internet newspaper: if you have a long article, PUT IT ON ONE PAGE. My browser isn’t paper, you don’t need to break it up into 6 pages As the title of above Reddit thread implies many newspaper news sites spread their longer articles over several pages. It’s my opinion that they do it to drive up pageviews and advertising impressions, but in the process annoy the hell out of the reader. While the Newspaper Association of America continues to triumphantly announce record pageviews on newspaper sites, the newspapers themselves are going…
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Metaprinter
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“Content is King” – Not so Says Dr. Joe Webb
25 Jun 2009 | 6:38 amHow many times have you heard the phrase “content is king”? Perhaps hundreds or thousands of times in the last 10 to 15 years. This has been uttered all those times as a justification for the dominance of publishers of all types—audio, video, text, and images—in the digital age. If it were true, the content kings would not always be whining about profits, downsizing, or restructuring. They’d be riding a wave of successes that emanate from their kingly dominance. Read the entire article here -
Game Changer – HP Introduces World’s First Web-connected Home Printer
25 Jun 2009 | 6:28 am(from yesterday) HP today unveiled the world’s first web-connected home printer: The HP Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart Web. HP is bringing the power of the web directly to the printer and combining it with HP’s TouchSmart technology to give people quick, easy, touchscreen access to popular digital content. Designed for the digital generation and connected households, the HP Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart Web features an entirely new web-based printing platform with HP applications (apps). Similar to other Internet-connected devices, these apps, which are viewable on an… -
Dave Eggers is Enthusiastic About Print
3 Jun 2009 | 8:04 pmDave Eggers, philanthropist, teacher-at-large, and author of You Shall Know Our Velocity among other things is pretty confident about the future of print. So much so that he will return anyone’s email if they have doubts about print media’s viability. Here is an Excerpt from an email Gawker published: “As long as newspapers offer less each day- less news, less great writing, less graphic innovation, fewer photos- then they’re giving readers few reasons to pay for the paper itself. With our prototype, we aim to make the physical object so beautiful and luxurious… -
Bing “Decision Engine” Review
31 May 2009 | 9:27 pmBing.com is a new search engine that advertises itself as a “decision engine” becuase it helps you make decisions I guess. The site is not up and running yet but they have a video you can watch to see what they’re offering. I always like to try new offerings which may make my web experience more enjoyable, like Wolfram Alpha’s comparison feature, anyway so I sat through the Bing video. …they need to redo the video. Why? Because right as the following is being said, “…instead of spitting out search results by popularity we break them into… -
Most Redditors Find Newspaper Website Page Jumps Annoying
26 May 2009 | 11:03 pmDear Washington Post and every other internet newspaper: if you have a long article, PUT IT ON ONE PAGE. My browser isn’t paper, you don’t need to break it up into 6 pages As the title of above Reddit thread implies many newspaper news sites spread their longer articles over several pages. It’s my opinion that they do it to drive up pageviews and advertising impressions, but in the process annoy the hell out of the reader. While the Newspaper Association of America continues to triumphantly announce record pageviews on newspaper sites, the newspapers themselves are going…
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Themediaisdying
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themediaisdying: Online content + printing press = customised newspapers FTW : http://bit.ly/15P5Cj (via @techcrunchuk)
2 Jul 2009 | 3:54 pmthemediaisdying: Online content + printing press = customised newspapers FTW : http://bit.ly/15P5Cj (via @techcrunchuk) -
themediaisdying: Interviewed @Danzarrella on blog : (Future of marketing is) "understanding human behavior and how to manipulate it" : http://bit.ly/I1TIr
2 Jul 2009 | 2:13 pmthemediaisdying: Interviewed @Danzarrella on blog : (Future of marketing is) "understanding human behavior and how to manipulate it" : http://bit.ly/I1TIr -
themediaisdying: Media General shuts down Skirt Birmingham, staff vows to continue: http://bit.ly/uZdmm (via @WadeOnTweets)
2 Jul 2009 | 12:35 pmthemediaisdying: Media General shuts down Skirt Birmingham, staff vows to continue: http://bit.ly/uZdmm (via @WadeOnTweets) -
themediaisdying: UPDATE : Grammar tweet incorrect - co. gave me bad stats - grammar is more like 20%...we're saved. Sorry 4 misinfo : http://bit.ly/zxcuY
2 Jul 2009 | 10:30 amthemediaisdying: UPDATE : Grammar tweet incorrect - co. gave me bad stats - grammar is more like 20%...we're saved. Sorry 4 misinfo : http://bit.ly/zxcuY -
themediaisdying: Report: 279 magazine closures in first half http://bit.ly/xwRTS (via @crainsnewyork / @ghoggard)
2 Jul 2009 | 10:03 amthemediaisdying: Report: 279 magazine closures in first half http://bit.ly/xwRTS (via @crainsnewyork / @ghoggard)
