Washingtonpost.com: First ever female managing editor at Washington Post

Two new managing editors have been named at the Washington Post: one of them is a the first woman in the role in the paper’s history. Full story…

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ABCe Release: Brand Republic has published its first ABCe enhanced certificate

Brand Republic has published its first ‘site-centric visitor profile data’ via an ABCe Enhanced Certificate, according to a release from ABCe. ABCe said that the website, part of Haymarket Business Media, is the first business-to-business website to do so.

Full release…

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Ten things every journalist should know in 2009

1. How to use Twitter to build communities, cover your beat, instigate and engage in conversations.

2. How to use RSS feeds to gather news and manage them using filtering techniques (basic or advanced).

3. That there is a difference between link journalism and ‘cut and paste’ journalism (aka plagiarism).

4. That your readers are smarter than you think. In fact, many are smarter than you – they know more than you do.

5. That churnalism is much easier to spot online. If you do this regularly, your readers are already on to you – merely re-writing press releases without bringing anything to the table no longer cuts it.

6. Google is your friend. But if you are not using advanced search techniques, you really have no idea what it is capable of.

7. You do not have to own, or even host, the technology to innovate in journalism and engage your readers. There is a plethora of free or cheap tools available online, so there is no excuse for not experimenting with them.

8. Multimedia for multimedia’s sake rarely works, and is often embarrassing. If you are going to do it, either do it well enough so it works as a standalone item or do it to complement your written coverage – for example, add a link to the full sound file of your interview with someone in your article, or a link to the video of someone’s entire speech at an event. The latter will enhance the transparency of your journalism too. Great tips and resources here and some useful tips on doing video on a budget.

9. How to write search engine friendly journalism. Old school thinking about headline writing, story structure etc no longer applies online and there is also more to learn about tagging, linking and categorisation. Sub-editors (if you still have them), editors and reporters all need to know how to do this stuff.

10. Learn more about privacy. You can find a lot of information about people online, especially via social networking sites, but think carefully about the consequences. And bear in mind that it cuts both ways, if you do not do it carefully, your online research could compromise your sources.

Update: see Ten things every journalist should know in 2010

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TechCrunch: @BreakingNewsOn expands Twitter service to online news wire

How the Twitter news alert service is planning to expand online.

Full story…

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Telegraph’s Ed Roussel on outsourcing: Newspapers need to focus on what they do best

Confirming the Telegraph’s plans to outsource some of its sub-editing operation to Australia in comments on Jeff Jarvis’ blog, Ed Roussel, digital editor of Telegraph Media Group, made the following statement:

“Reducing the cost of manufacturing and distribution is an imperative for any newspaper group that is determined to remain profitable, as we are (…) The principle holds true on the digital side. ITN creates our video content, providing quality and value that we would struggle to generate internally; Brightcove handles our video distribution; Google powers our search; Escenic provides our web publishing tool; we use software developers in Bulgaria and India.

“Newspaper-web companies should focus internal resource on what they do best: creating premium editorial content.”

Similar to Jarvis’ own mantra of ‘do what you do best and link to the rest’, Roussel’s ‘outsource the rest’ makes sense in a journalism industry where partnerships and collaboration, especially online, seem to be the way forward.

So, outsourcing – not all bad?

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Launch round-up: USA Today, Daily Record, Economist

Round up of online launches from news sites:

• USA Today has joined 29 other newspapers by launching a version for Amazon’s Kindle e-reader. Accessible for just $11.99 a month, according to Editor&Publisher.

• The Economist has introduce a mobile update service for UK readers. Texting ALERT to 80801 will get you Friday morning round-up highlighting the key issues from the week’s edition.

• The Daily Record has added to its online portfolio with a new motoring website. Car sales site www.roadrecord.co.uk features some very refined search facilities and tag clouds based on the most popular searches, a release from publisher Trinity Mirror says.

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NY Blogger Three: issued press credentials but still pursuing legal action

Three days ago, three bloggers received press accreditation after suing New York City, following the Police Department refusal to give them press credentials because they work for online news outlets.

They have now been issued credentials after the police relented, the bloggers’ lawyer, Norman Siegel, has said (via NY Times City Room blog and Associated Press).

Rafael Martínez Alequin – (Your Free Press), Ralph E. Smith (The Guardian Chronicle) and David Wallis (featurewell.com) lauched the action after being denied credentials in 2007.

Although they have now been issued press cards the bloggers’ lawyer, Norman Siegel told the NYTimes in a phone interview that the trio would still pursue legal action. The NYTimes.com blog reported:

“Mr. Siegel sad [sic] he was delighted with the outcome, but he vowed to continue the lawsuit, saying further reforms were needed.

Siegel told the NYTimes.com:

“This step recognizes that bloggers are 21st-century journalists (…)

“It’s an important first step, but only a first step, because we still need to address the constitutional problem of who gets press credentials in New York City. The Police Department should not be in the business of determining who’s a journalist.”

Though nationally reported there doesn’t seem to have been much discussion in the online journalism world yet (please do add links below, if you’ve picked up any interesting comments).

It’s an interesting case for the ongoing legal definition of journalist/blogger. In the UK, for example, Jack Straw has announced that some family courts will now be opened to the press. But how will press be defined when the changes come in?

As Journalism.co.uk reported on this blog in December, the definition of ‘journalist’ has not yet been clarified…

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Online Journalism Scandinavia: Resolutions for 2009 – Yes, we link

Danish journalists pen link manifesto, which should be an inspiration for journalists everywhere in 2009.

The last quarter of 2008 did not only open our eyes to how flawed the fiscal economy is, in Scandinavia more and more journalists also realised how awkwardly media organisations operate in the link economy.

In Norway, the union chapel at DN.no, the news site of the country’s biggest financial daily, suggested introducing a common link policy for all the country’s news sites to make it profitable to produce good original articles rather than just to copy-paste.

In Denmark, a survey by eJour found just two links to external sites when monitoring seven Danish news sites over a period of two weeks. Blogging journalists in Denmark were also up in arms over a renewed effort by Danish newspaper publishers to stop websites like Google News from linking to individual articles rather than a newspaper’s homepage.

Against this backdrop, Kim Elmose, the blog editor of Politiken.dk, and Lars K. Jensen, a project manager at Ekstrabladet.dk, launched a link manifesto and encouraged news rooms everywhere to write their own link commandments and use their manifesto freely.

Let’s hope this can inspire more and better linking on many a news site in 2009:

First law: We link to the sources for the data we use in our journalistic products. If we have read, seen or heard important new information on an external site – for instance about companies, people or surveys – we will link to it.

Second law: We link directly and precisely to the information we use from external sites. In this way we provide proper service to our readers rather than just linking to the front page of the external site.

Third law: We are precise in our information about where a link leads to; about who has produced the information we link to and when. The readers should know where it takes them when they follow a link.

Fourth law: We recognise that an article consisting of precise links to information that represents different angles on an issue is a journalistic product.

Fifth law: We are open to inbound links to our own news sites because we want to be an integrated part of the web’s ecosystem

Sixth law: We aspire to making it easier to link directly to our articles.

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García Interactive: ‘Death to the free’ – John Duncan on why people should pay

Inspired by three online news items (David Carr on NYTimes.com; Gawker’s Nick Denton / Jonah Bloom of AdAge), John Duncan argues on Garcia International that the ‘recession is (ultimately) good for online publishing.’

“There comes a time for most orthodoxies when they just plain run out of doxy,” he writes…”The biggest mistake newspapers made in the internet era was to devalue content by dishing it out for free.”

His point is perhaps clearest in his final paragraph:

“What we are learning now is that a user of a free product does not have remotely the same value as a customer of a paying one.”

Full story…

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Pat on own back: Councillor says Daily Echo should take responsibility for his online alter ego

Bournemouth’s Daily Echo has revealed the identity of an online user after he praised himself under an anonymous username.

The Echo reports how praise for Councillor Ben Grower on its site turned out to be authored by a certain, erm, Councillor Ben Grower, under the name Omegaman.

• Underneath a story about surf reef Omegaman wrote: “At least two councillors seem to be concerned about this mess. Well done Cllrs Ratcliffe and Grower.”

• Writing about a housing plan in Kinson he wrote: “I have friends who live in the area. They say councillors Ted Taylor and Ben Grower fought hard against the proposals”

• And on the subject of an expanding dentist’s surgery he wrote: “Just shows that the area does have councillors who care about their residents… Well done Ted Taylor, Ben Grower and Beryl Baxter.”

The Echo reports:

“Cllr Grower said responsibility lies with the Daily Echo because people can post under assumed names, and that the comments were only fun that no-one took seriously.”

The Echo says that when Grower was challenged, he initially said that the comments ‘could be anybody’, but later said: “I have done nothing against the law. And probably next time I will just use a different pseudonym.”

And the Echo’s response:

“The Echo does respect its readers’ right to anonymity but we felt that when a councillor pretends to be somebody else to improve his reputation that it is of sufficient public interest to tell people about it.” (Nick Rowe, website editor)

A comment below the article questions the paper’s decision to reveal user information. ‘Silky’ writes:

“Seriously though, I think people feel able to post and air their true opinion safe in the knowledge that they are kept anonymous. I for one don’t appreciate the Echo revealing personal details of posters, especially to create a pretty boring ‘scoop’.”

Bournemouth based blogger, Chris Nee, raises the question of anonymity protection:

“So, should anonymity mean anonymity regardless? Or does the public have a right to know when a public official is acting in a duplicitous way?”

(Hat tip for Echo links: @SamShepherd via Twitter)

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