UK Media regulation – what’s the future?

With the intention of following up with some more comprehensive ideas and suggestions, here’s a start on the regulation debate, following the publication of the Media Standards Trust’s new report (report in full at this link), which has provoked considerable discussion around the web.

Is the PCC in need of reform, and do we need a different kind of media regulatory system in the UK? To kick things off, here are two initial sets of suggestions from two bloggers – we’re aware there are plenty more suggestions out there. Have a look at these and then please do vote in the poll, which asks if you’re happy with UK media regulation. You can also Tweet @journalismnews with the tag ‘#regulation’ or comment on this post below.

So, what’s the future of media regulation in the UK?

• Martin Belam of CurryBet (@currybet). Belam is an internet consultant, information architect and writer.

“Six things I think the PCC should act quickly to change about the way it works:”

1. End the requirement for personal involvement

2. End the requirement for a hard copy

3. Update the code to reflect the reality of online

4. Insist corrections be reported online by newspapers

5. Hold monthly meetings in public

6. Publish data

Visit CurryBet.com to see this points expanded upon.

• Matthew Cain of NewsCounter (@newscounter). Cain is the chief executive of Newscounter and blogs at Bacatu.blogspot.com and blog.matthewcain.co.uk.

“I like Martin’s proposals but would go much further.”

1. Financial recompense for the victim and penalty for the publisher

2. The PCC needs to be citizen led

3. Develop a proactive capacity

Visit Cain’s own blog for full post.

POLL:

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Is the media hiring, thriving or dying? All three @Twitter

Flagged up by Deborah Potter on her Advancing the Story blog, @themediaishirin’ – a new Twitter channel for 140 character CVs, job applications and offers of work.

It’s from the same group behind @themediaisdying – only the baby looks a lot happier in the profile pic.

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Hubdub introducing ads to website

Hubdub – the prediction site where users bet virtual money on news events – is to introduce advertising onto the website.

In an official blog post, Hubdub said it would be trying out Google Adsense as well as display advertising.

The company hopes the advertising will not negatively effect the look or functionality of the site, which recently signed deals with the Independent and Reuters to feature their news stories on the website.

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Ernst & Young: Online search will help reverse fortunes of display and classified ads

Growth in online search will offset the the downturn in online display and classified advertising in 2009, according to new analysis from Ernst & Young.

Less money will be spent on advertising focused on reach with investment in performance-based advertising, such as search, expected to increase, suggested the ‘media and entertainment by numbers’ report.

Internet advertising is likely to overtake TV advertising this year as the largest ad medium, the report said.

“But to assume that a media accounting for a fifth of all advertising budgets could be totally immune to a downturn would be too optimistic,” the report added.

Publishers will be affected most by the move to more interactive ad models, including cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-action (CPA), as this will cause CPM rates for banners and display advertising to fall.

Online classified advertising will be affected more by the general economic climate, for example fewer jobs and properties available, than by changes within the advertising industry itself, the report added.

[Read Journalism.co.uk's full breakdown of the Ernst & Young report]

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Media Release: Dow Jones grants $515,000 in newspaper fund

Money will support six centres for editing excellence, business reporting training centre and 70 journalism training internships.

Full release at this link…

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Flickr and geotagging: Part of the newsgathering model?

After speaking with Matthieu Stefani from cit-j platform Citizenside about how the site mobilises its users to cover local news events, a Flickr development came to mind as a useful tool for tracking/aggregating content around breaking news.

Using Flickr’s map function, you can search by keyword and location. A quick search for bushfire and Australia, for example, brings up a host of images from Flickr users:

A great resource for news organisations looking for new images and on-the-ground witnesses and contributors (just remember to respect Creative Commons licencing and attribution principles).

Flickr announced last week that it has passed the 100 million mark for geotagged images and the site has also introduced a feature, as part of the geotagging process, called ‘nearby’, which allows users to search for other geotagged images located with a 1km radius of their photo.

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Talking to (Shiny)Katie post-Shiny: ‘Shiny can turn things around’

Last week saw co-founder Katie Lee aka ‘ShinyKatie’ leave Shiny Media, a departure she announced on Twitter.

As TechCrunch reported, only one of the three original staff members is left, Chris Price. Shiny Media first launched in 2003, with its site TechDigest and then rapidly expanded and in 2007 received $4.5 million VC funding from Brightstation. By 2008 they had six main Shiny categories which split into different sites – 30 in total.

Things didn’t look so bleak for Lee in September last year when Lee discussed her plans for redesign with Journalism.co.uk. But even without Lee, Shiny is still going ahead with plans. This week saw the launch of TechDigest’s new look -  with a ‘new user friendly format’, Chris Price told Journalism.co.uk.

Last Friday, was Lee’s last day as ShinyKatie. She spoke to Journalism.co.uk about Shiny and her plans for the future.

What is the situation for the company now? It seems the 30 blog titles are being maintained, but is this realistic?
[KL] “Many of the sites in our network are key to the deal we have with Glam, and they certainly won’t be closing. In terms of other sites, all I know is that traffic is Shiny Media’s biggest success story and Chris and his team will be working hard to make sure sites aren’t shut down unless they absolutely have to be.”

How do you feel about it? Did things get resolved amicably? Or will you be speaking out like [other co-founder] Ashley Norris?
“Obviously I’m absolutely gutted not to be working with such a talented, brilliant and (most importantly) funny editorial team. I have no plans on ‘speaking out because’ my team left behind in Shiny Media deserve to do well, deserve my respect and deserve the chance to continue doing their job without hindrance from me.

“It’s important to say that Ashley wasn’t in our office working full time for a very long time before that article was written. In fact, while he was working as a freelancer up until it was announced he’d left, we hadn’t seen in him in the office for months and as far as most of the staff were concerned, he hadn’t been a part of Shiny for some considerable time. I think the impression was that he’d been CEO up until it was announced he’d left, but that isn’t the case.”

It’s obviously sad to read about the plight an independent venture that seemed to be going so well: looking back can you see where some things went wrong?
“It’s still a successful network with some good advertising deals in place – such as the Vodafone Live Guy campaign we recently worked on, and a brilliant partnership with the Gadget Show Live.

“In terms of where we went wrong, we’ve certainly made some pretty big mistakes over the years, but with no model to follow over here, I think Shiny is still a pretty impressive success story. I wish we’d sorted out the commercial side of the business from the beginning rather than relying on advertising agencies to sell what are very bespoke advertising campaigns, but we finally have a sales team in house and they’re already making great strides forward.”

You’re still a shareholder – do you still have hope the company can turn things around?
“I certainly do still hope the company can turn things around, yes! I love Shiny Media, love the sites, and love the people that work there. It’s really important to me that the sites keep going. Shiny Shiny was my site that I started when I was 25, and the thought of it not existing anymore is something I can’t ever imagine. I know that Gemma feels the same about the fashion sites, especially Catwalk Queen. And if there was no TV Scoop I wouldn’t be able to geekout on Being Human reviews and the like!”

What are your plans now?
“I’ve got some ideas that have been bubbling away quietly in the back of my mind for some time now. I’m going to take a bit of time to work out which to focus on and where to take it and while I’m doing that I’ll keep myself ticking over with a bit of freelance consultancy and some journalism. I won’t be looking for venture capital funding – I’m more interested in starting small, keeping things simple and satisfying a few creative urges along the way. One idea in particular I’ve been dying to work on for a while now, so I’ve got plenty to think about!”

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Journalists killed worldwide – an online list from WAN

70 journalists were killed worldwide in 2008, the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), said in a release today. The journalists and other media employees were killed worldwide ‘because of their professional activities in 2008, with the conflict in Iraq continuing to be the most deadly assignment for journalists’ the release said.

• The list for 2009 (nine deaths so far) can be viewed at this link

• The list for 2008 (70 deaths) can be viewed at this link

WAN said that several press freedom organisations track the number of journalists killed each year. “The numbers vary based on the criteria used by different associations. WAN’s figures include all media workers killed in the line of duty or targeted because of their work. It also includes cases where the motive for the killings is unsure or where official investigations have not been completed,” the release explained.

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How to publish Twitter streams on news sites?

As covered earlier on this blog, there are various tools for tracking and engaging in conversations on Twitter, especially where hashtags are used. But how do you publish a themed Twitter stream on your news site or blog, and what other issues are there to consider?

We have experimented with various tools on this blog in order to stream hashtag-themed Tweets (a post on Twitter) into a blog post. The last attempt used a heavily modified WordPress plugin from Monittor. None have been completely satisfactory.

But why would journalists want to do this? Well, imagine if there is an event on your local beat like a football match or other sports game. People are already Twittering from these events. If they could be persuaded to use the same hashtag, then you have the potential of creating a live Twitter stream on your website – a live commentary but from the point of view of several fans, not just one reporter.

Similarly, it could be used to cover breaking news events, basing the Twitter stream on keywords, rather than a hashtag.

For this to work really well though, we decided several functions needed to be in place:

1. The ability to place a stream of Tweets, based on keyword(s) and/or hashtag(s), onto a web page and for that stream to dynamically update (ie not require a page refresh). Ideally the output to be called by <div> tags, rather than a Javascript insert, to cope with content management systems that reject JS in article bodies.

2. Access to legacy Tweets using pagination. The current tools we use only display the last 10 or so Tweets, with no access on our pages to what has been Tweeted before.

3. The ability for administrators to tag certain Tweets within a themed stream and create a new output on another page. The purpose of this is to allow an editor to easily create a summary of the best Tweets for archive purposes.

4. The ability for moderators to manually exclude certain Tweets from a Twitter stream (for moderation purposes).

5. The ability for users to login and post directly to a Twitter stream, from the page on which that Twitter stream is published.

6. Threading based on @replies (probably the most complex proposition in this list).

There did not seem to be any existing tools that covered even half these bases, so we put out a call on a local developer’s email list. Amazingly, it transpired that a local company in Brighton, Inuda, is currently working on a tool that will eventually tick almost all of the above boxes.

Called SocialPlume, the product aims eventually to become a modestly priced subscription service. Jonathan Markwell of Inuda was keen to stress that they are still some way off a public launch, but in the meantime they are keen to hear from publishers and journalists who might be keen to trial the service alongside ourselves. DM @journalismnews or @johncthompson if you are interested.

We would also love to hear other ideas and applications for this service that you might have (please leave a comment).

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BBC Trustees’ expenses: all online for your enjoyment (links and summary)

Now this is an interesting media release to get in your inbox of a morning: a summary report and the full expenses for the BBC trustees 1 April-30 September 2008.

“In line with its commitment to transparency and openness, the BBC Trust decided in April 2008 to publish Trustees’ individual expenses with effect from April 2007. These are published on a six monthly basis,” the release said.

So, here you go: the expenses, in text summary form for the period April 1 to September 30 2008 here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/about/expenses/summary_apr_sept_2008.txt

Or full report in text here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/about/expenses/full_report_apr_sept_2008.txt

Or visit here for the PDFs (much easier to read): http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/about/bbc_trust_members/expenses.html

The full report lets you details a bit more specifically. During April – September 2008 report for example, Sir Michael Lyons had meetings at the Cinnamon Club, the Dorchester and the Wolseley, for example. Personal details, e.g names of hotels stayed in, are removed.

Download at this link

The interesting parts in digestable form:

• Lots of BBC prom boxes for ‘external opinion formers’ = £3836.35

• Wimbledon Tennis Championship – Sir Michael Lyons and Diane Coyle hosted an event for opinion formers = £9,803.99

• The Trustee expenses amounts below include Trustee business entertainment (external and internal) / Subsistence / Mileage / Accommodation / Travel (other) / Travel -
  Driver/ Flights / Cars / Rail / Other (see links above for notes on categories).

• Chairman, Sir Michael Lyons, £35,126.82*

• Vice Chair, Chitra Bharucha, £8,754.01

• Trust Member for Northern Ireland, Rotha Johnston, £7,154.62

• Trust Member for Scotland, Jeremy Peat, £15,050.74

• Trust Member for England, Alison Hastings, £8,341.96

• Trust Member for Wales, Janet Lewis-Jones, £9,872.85

• Trust Member, Patricia Hodgson, £1,546.88

• Trust member, David Liddiment, £856.02

• Trust Member, Mehmuda Mian, £448.62

• Trust Member, Dermot Gleeson, £2,860.78

• Trust Member, Richard Tait, £1,941.07

• Trust Member, Diane Coyle, £1550.59

• TOTAL = £93,504.96

* “Sir Michael Lyons’ expenses total includes half of the annual £25,000 cost for his access to a BBC car and driver. These costs are already reported in the BBC Annual Report and Statement of Accounts and is included here for completeness,” the report says.

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