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MediaCulpa: Why ‘Brand You’ is good for SEO

February 25th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted by Judith Townend in Editors' pick, Social media and blogging

“Taking control over Brand You online requires that you are active, otherwise other people will define the image of you,” writes MediaCulpa’s Hans Kullin.

“By using different types of social media you can influence your own brand because many web 2.0 services like blogs and micro blogs rank very high in a Google search. Already back in 2005 I noticed that journalist blogs trump articles in traditional media – an entire career on a newspaper can’t match the high rank of a personal blog.”

Here Kullin takes a look at the positioning of his own name on Google and asks for additional advice from SEO experts.

Full post at this link…

Tags: blogs, brand you, google, hans kullin, journalist, Media Culpa, micro blogs, seo, social media

NiemanJournalismLab: Implications of newspaper bankruptcy

February 25th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted by Judith Townend in Editors' pick, Job losses, Jobs, Journalism

“Four major newspaper firms have now declared bankruptcy. The rest of the industry is on the ropes – sources of credit or equity funding have virtually dried up; there is basically no market into which to sell publishing assets to raise cash; the ability to maintain quality and to innovate is seriously hampered by continual cost-cutting necessary to maintain positive cash flow and meet debt service obligations,” Martin Langeveld writes on the NiemanJournalismLab.

Here, Langeveld gives a list of what will and won’t happen. What kind of changes will bankruptcies force on newspapers he asks?

Full story at this link…

Tags: Bankruptcy, Martin Langeveld, Newspapers

HTFP: Northcliffe editor defends production hub plans

February 25th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted by Judith Townend in Editors' pick, Job losses, Jobs, Journalism

HoldTheFrontPage.co.uk reports that the Hull Daily Mail editor and North-East regional editor John Meehan has said ‘cutting production costs may be the only way the titles can continue to maintain their local content-gathering operations’.

“I genuinely don’t think there is any contradiction. Northcliffe passionately believes in being at the heart of all things local and I don’t think this changes that,” he told HoldTheFrontPage.

Full story at this link…

Tags: editor, HoldtheFrontPage.co.uk, Hull Daily Mail, Hull Daily Mail editor, john meehan, North-East, production hubs, regional editor, the Hull Daily Mail

Editor&Publisher: Obama book to fund new journalism scholarship programme

February 25th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted by Judith Townend in Editors' pick, Journalism, Training

From the Editor&Publisher: “The Poynter Institute has announced a new tuition scholarship program that is funded through proceeds from a new book of front pages about Barack Obama’s election and inauguration.

“The program will make available a limited number of tuition subsidies worth up to $500 for participants of select 2009 on-site seminars, a release stated.”

Full story at this link…

Tags: Barack Obama, editor, Editor&Publisher, journalism scholarship, Poynter Institute, poyntor institute, USD

CCJ: “When real news didn’t come to me, I decided to go get it myself”

February 25th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted by Judith Townend in Editors' pick, Online Journalism

Jon Margolis, the former chief political reporter for the Chicago Tribune discusses what he did when ‘real news didn’t come to him’ anymore. He launched an online journal – vermontnewsguy.com. This is either a ‘How To’ or ‘How Not To’ account, Margolis writes. “Wait until you finish, then choose the option you think more accurate,” he suggests.

Full story at this link….

Tags: Chicago Tribune, chief political reporter, jon margolis, online journal, The Chicago Tribune, vermontnewsguy.com

Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – Search tool for scientific information

February 25th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted by Judith Townend in Handy tools and technology, Top tips for journalists

Research: Try DeepDyve.com for trawling scientific information in academic journals, documents and webpages. You can also search for whole paragraphs. Tipster: Judith Townend.

To submit a tip to Journalism.co.uk, use this link – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

Tags: deepdyve, Journalism.co.uk, Judith Townend, search engine

Archived content and RSS feeds: The NewsNow problem

February 24th, 2009 | 1 Comment | Posted by Laura Oliver in Online Journalism

Interesting issue flagged up by Jon Pratty yesterday – publishers need to be careful when running archived pieces on their sites, because of RSS feeds.

As part of a series on Guardian.co.uk, the site published a piece yesterday from February 23 1972 headlined ‘IRA kills 7 in raid on Paras’ English base’.

On the site we can see it’s from the archive and the date it was first published, but sites such as NewsNow.co.uk, which aggregate news headlines from RSS feeds, don’t make the distinction.

There’s no label in the RSS feed to denote this is archive material, so to readers of the news on NewsNow, it appears like so:

Screenshot of NewsNow.co.uk

We’ve seen in other – non-RSS related, but similar – cases, how things can escalate when old news resurfaces such as the United Airlines story.

A flaw with aggregation or the responsibility of a publisher?

Tags: Guardian.co.uk, Jon Pratty, NewsNow.co.uk, United Airlines

BBC could share more technology with S4C/Trinity Mirror in Wales, says Trust chairman

February 24th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted by Laura Oliver in Broadcasting

In a speech given to Cardiff’s Business Club last night, BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons added more weight to suggest more regional news partnerships between the BBC and competitors are in the pipeline:

More on partnerships: work is ongoing on partnerships in regional media with ITV; and between Channel 4 and BBC Worldwide.
Could BBC enter into an IT-sharing agreement with S4C and ITV in Wales to reduce operational costs?
Revamp of Broadcasting House in Wales could benefit local media with technology sharing arrangements.
“Perhaps even Trinty Mirror could have a role to play too [in partnering the BBC for regional news provision], given their journalistic presence in Wales and their significant online operation.”
And, just in case you doubted it: “The BBC local video project is dead. We have told BBC news that it must come up with a different solution.”

Here’s his comments as a Wordle:

Wordle of Michael Lyons' speech to Cardiff Business Club

But, a note of caution from Lyons on partnerships:

“What we’re not interested in are proposals that simply transfer value from the BBC to other players in the market (…) Let’s make sure that we don’t inadvertently turn the BBC into the Lloyds Bank of the media world.”

Yesterday the Beeb’s Executive announced plans to link out to external news providers from its network of BBC Local sites.

Tags: BBC, BBC Trust, BBC Worldwide, British Broadcasting Corporation, Broadcasting House in Wales, Cardiff, Cardiff's Business Club, chairman, executive, ITV, Lloyds Bank, Local media, media world, Michael Lyons, online operation, Partnership, S4C, technology sharing arrangements, the Beeb, Trinity Mirror, Trust chairman, United Kingdom, Wales

Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – your title’s influence on Twitter

February 24th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted by Laura Oliver in Social media and blogging, Top tips for journalists

Twitter power: Want to gauge what influence your organisation’s Twitter stream has? Try Twitpwr, create Twitter URLs and see how many clicks they generate. Tipster: Laura Oliver.

To submit a tip to Journalism.co.uk, use this link – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

Tags: Journalism.co.uk, Laura Oliver, TwitPwr, Twitter, Twitter stream