A comparison of journalism education in China and USA January 16, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentFrom a translation at Asia Sentinel:
"It seems like a bad joke to watch tens of thousands of students newly graduated from China’s thousands of journalism colleges and to find that most of them are either unable to find jobs or incapable of producing articles in the format and timeline required by the media."
Profile of a backpacker: Inside Mara Schiavocampo’s toolkit » Nieman Journalism Lab » Pushing to the Future of Journalism January 16, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentShe takes a bit more than an N95 — but then it needs to be broadcast quality:
"The total weight of her kit runs about 30 pounds, and it’s tight enough to carry on flights when she travels — she relegates her clothing and other necessities to the vicissitudes of the luggage crew. And the total cost is about $10,000 — a fraction of the cost of one of NBC’s high-end broadcast HD cameras."
Need for sustainable developers-slash-journalists « Computing for Sustainability January 16, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentA take on the Journalist-Programmer discussion from a computing prof at Otago (NZ):
"There’s no way a bit of database understanding will produce journalists capable of the development on the Times site (Casualties of War for example). However, it is probably equally “no way” that a bit of journalism bolted on to a Computer Science degree will produce the depth of understanding and craft of a journalist."
Comment Central – Times Online – WBLG: Cristiano Ronaldo and Paris Hilton to sing Elvis songs on Celebrity Big Brother January 15, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentDaniel Finkelstein gets to grips with SEO: ??"Recently I posted on an deeply unnecessary BBC programme. The post was headed "Lindsay Lohan, the porn star and the BBC." A fellow blogger accused me of "Google whoring". I had to look up this phrase on the internet."
Scobleizer — Tech geek blogger » Blog Archive If you are laid off, here’s how to socially network « January 15, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , 1 comment so farAdvice on using social media to get work — Robert Scoble offers 19 points, starting with these three (more in comments, too):??"1. Your blog is your resume. You need one and it needs to have 100 posts on it about what you want to be known for.?
2. Remove all LOLCats from your blog.
?3. Remove all friends from your facebook and twitter accounts that will embarrass you. We do look. If we see photos of people getting drunk with you that is a bad sign. Get rid of them. They will NOT help you get a job."
About the Repository | Al Jazeera Creative Commons Repository January 15, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a comment"Select Al Jazeera video footage – at this time footage of the War on Gaza – is available for free to be downloaded, shared, remixed, subtitled and eventually rebroadcasted by users and TV stations across the world with acknowledgement to Al Jazeera.
This is the first time that video footage produced by a news broadcaster is released under the ‘Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution’ license which allows for commercial and non-commercial use."
Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev to buy London Evening Standard | Media | guardian.co.uk January 14, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentInteresting times. We can probably expect lots of predictions of what this might mean for the Standard:??"The billionaire and former KGB agent Alexander Lebedev is to buy London's Evening Standard tomorrow, in a dramatic move that would see him become the first Russian oligarch to own a major British newspaper, MediaGuardian.co.uk can reveal."
Jeff Jarvis: History in the making the LA Times's online ads hit target | Media | The Guardian January 12, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentJeff Jarvis heralds the prospect of major papers going online-only as online revenue makes the grade:
” …the editor of the Los Angeles Times, Russ Stanton, said the paper’s online advertising revenue is now sufficient to cover the Times’s entire editorial payroll, print and online. “Given where we were five years ago, I don’t think anyone thought that would ever happen,” he said in email. “But that day is here.” The same day has arrived for at least one more major US newspaper. What this tells me is that we are on the cusp of the moment when online revenue could sustain a substantial digital journalistic enterprise without the onerous cost of printing and distribution. Hallelujah.
There are caveats aplenty…”
Not the time for journalists to write their misery memoirs January 12, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentToby Young, who reckons four national newspapers will disappear during 2009:
“I conservatively estimate that by the end of the year 25% of my colleagues will have left the profession [journalism].
How will all these people earn a living? Some will go into PR – the traditional retirement home for ex-journalists – and those who are still young will retrain in the few areas of the economy that are expanding, such as debt collection. But the most attractive choice, by far, will be to become full-time authors. […]
My own contingency plan for when the axe falls has always been to write a misery memoir. […] However, it looks as though I will have to abandon this dream.
“The market for misery memoirs has tailed off,” says Liz Thomson, the ex-editor of Publishing News and founder of BookBrunch.co.uk. “The wisdom is that in a fairly miserable climate people don’t want to be made more miserable.” ”
Diane Tucker: Could Twitter Have Saved The New York Times? January 9, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentA pertinent point about the need for online advertising to avoid annoying readers:
"if the Huffington Post had a Little Black Dress Big Sales Page, I'd click on it every day because the perfect LBD has become my white whale. Unfortunately, the next time I read the Times online, I'll get hit in the face with an ad for a lawn mower. What am I going to do with a lawn mower in downtown D.C.?"
?This is a minor point in a piece that closes with a now-familiar theme:?
"Newspapers have great capital: talented reporters with superb rolodexes. But if the bigshots at the top don't join the rest of us in the 21st century soon, those writers will be out of work and you'll be getting most of your news from bloggers like me. I'm not convinced that's a good thing."