An editor reflects on her use of Twitter October 14, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a comment"Cara Ellen Modisett, editor of Blue Ridge Country, tweets. With two Twitter accounts for business and one for personal use, she tweets with purpose and with creativity.
“The basis of Twitter is conversation,” says Modisett. “Each individual Twitter account has its own voice. When I tweet as an editor, it's more about relationships; when tweeting about the magazine, it's to promote the content of the magazine. I find my instantaneous voice on the web.”
Twitter also serves as her reporter's notebook. “My tweets become my notes. I go back to my Twitter feed to put the story together. Sometimes a tweet becomes a kernel of an idea which can lead to something larger creatively and journalistically.” Recently, Modisett tweeted events and observations live during the Virginia Press Women's conference."
Interesting discussion about professional branding online follows in the comments on the post on Handshake 2.0.
ZDNet retracts story: one unverified source, key player not called October 10, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentSome basic errors in our reporting, admits Larry Dignan, editor in chief of ZDNet:
"Overnight one of our bloggers, Richard Koman, reported that Yahoo handed over user names to the Iranian government. We’re retracting the blog post. Here’s what went wrong.
First, the post was based on a single source who had a clear agenda. That source wasn’t properly filtered and his charges weren’t verifiable by credible sources.
Second, we never called Yahoo to verify the report or get an appropriate response. Blog networks still need to follow journalism 101 and Yahoo should have been called. In summary, our checks and balances went awry. We put a lot of trust in our bloggers to get it right and frankly we let you down with this report.
The chain of events can be found on the post, but we wanted to do a separate item for the record. My apologies again and we will be taking corrective measures to prevent this breakdown."
Three things for newspapers to work on, suggests Google boss Eric Schmidt October 6, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentFrom his Q&A with The Times:
"Personalize the news – at its best, the on-line version of a newspaper should learn from the information I'm giving it – what I've read, who I am and what I like – to automatically send me stories and photos that will interest me.
Make the content available anywhere – as more "smart" or web-enabled phones hit the market there will be even greater access to what can be considered mobile reading platforms. […]
Embrace journalism as a two-way conversation – the advent of real-time reporting […] means micro-blogging and citizen journalism are here to stay. This phenomenon, combined with the potential benefits to the reader of knowing what their friends or others are reading or saying about events, means newspapers now have a chance to be a 21st century community forum. The more this dialog among and between the newspaper and its readers develops, the greater the opportunity newspapers will have to make money from their content."
Are non-profits the future for journalism? October 6, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentMichael Massing highlights the US trend of non-profits for journalism (in NY Review of Books):
"For all the impressive projects out there, their [commercial sector's] economic base seems tenuous, and my encounters with them left me feeling sobered by the obstacles they face.
My inquiries into the nonprofit world, by contrast, left me heartened. Here I found all kinds of excited activity. Much of it, I discovered, had been set in motion by an Op-Ed piece that appeared in the Times in late January. David Swensen, the chief investment officer for Yale's endowment management team, and Michael Schmidt, a financial analyst there, argued that in light of the struggles of newspapers, they should consider turning themselves into nonprofit endowed institutions, like universities.
[…]
The opening won't last forever. Lurking in the wings is a potential new class of media giants. Google, Yahoo, MSNBC, and AOL, all have vast resources that could finance a new oligopolistic push on the Web."
When the lack of comments damages your news brand October 6, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentPaul Bradshaw unpacks an example from the BBC news website, concluding:
"What the discussion around the BBC Education news piece highlights is the risk to a news brand in not publishing comments (as is the case – for now – on most BBC News reports. Indeed, I would add that not having bylines to all reports or contact emails makes the organisation look even more opaque.)
Of course having comments on the story would have allowed this discussion to take place in public, from the start, and provide readers of the article with some critical context, turning a single-source ‘He Said’ article into a ‘He Said-She Said’ piece at the very least. That’s a technical issue that is being addressed, but in the meantime the BBC brand suffers."
US guidelines will require bloggers to disclose links with advertisers October 6, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentInteresting to see how this might work (or not?) — due to come into effect on 1 December. From CJR's The Kicker blog:
"In light of recent scandals involving bloggers, advertisers, and the merging of the two in the ethically precarious practice known as “blogger payola”…the Federal Trade Commission has voted on—and, by a margin of 4 to 0, voted for—new guidelines that will require bloggers to disclose any “material connection” to advertisers, including payments for endorsements and free product samples."
Shifting from mass media to individuated media October 2, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentVin Crosbie highlights the magnitude of the transition he envisages:
"We're now in the early years of this transition from mass media to individuated media, maybe 10 years into a process that will take a generation. The writing is on the wall, but most traditional media companies still think it's only graffiti. Yet the change will come and be sudden and sharp, not gradual. Just ask the newspaper industry, the first to be affected. The radio industry's and the TV industry's affiliate infrastructures will be next. There are pioneers who are ably leading the advertising and public relations industries through the change, but not everyone in those industries will make it to the Promised Land.
If you think you've seen changes in the past 10 to 15 years, you ain't seen nothing yet. […] However, the opportunities to profit and grow careers within individuated media, for those who know how to do it, will be extraordinary. Be one of those people."
Rescuing The Reporters « Clay Shirky October 2, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentIt's the original, local news reporting that counts, says Clay Shirky, after a 'news biopsy' of his old hometown paper. Six news reporters unearthing valuable stories — with 53 other staff in the newsroom. [NB Shirky includes sport and columnists as 'other'.] His conclusion: around a dozen are critical for the good of the town — and so, if necessary, could be transferred to a non-profit employer.
Revamped US Journalism Courses Attract Students September 27, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentFrom the Chronicle of HE (Katherine Mangan):
“Many universities report that journalism enrollments are up this year. Over the past few weeks, a lot of these budding journalists have been blogging, broadcasting, and tweeting their way through introductory courses that have been revamped to embrace the digital age.
Applications to Columbia University’s master-of-science program in journalism rose 44 percent, to 1,181, for the class entering this fall, and an investigative-journalism specialty drew more than twice as many applications this year than last year, up from 54 in 2008 to 121 this year.
Elsewhere, applications to master’s programs were up 30 percent at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 25 percent at the University of Maryland at College Park, and 24 percent at Stanford University.”
Finding a niche: do papers need to focus better on what they do well? September 27, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentJim Brady, web consultant to Guardian America: “You take most newspapers in the U.S., there are a couple things they’re really, really good at, better at probably than anybody else. And then there are a long list of things they’re just no better at—especially if you look at soft sections […]
I don’t think that producing a paper that’s great at 30 percent of the subjects it covers and OK at the other 70 percent really has much of a future on the Web, because it’s just too hard to compete. We’re in this social media world now where if I’m on Twitter or I’m on Facebook and someone sends me an article, three pieces of information come with that: what friend of mine sent me the article, what the headline says, and who produced the article. And I would argue that who produced the article is by far the least important of the three.”