Advancing The Story: Why Missouri J-School is asking students to have iPhones

#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – join our ‘Best of Blogs’ mix

May 12th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted by Laura Oliver in About us, Social media and blogging, Top tips for journalists

Journalism blogs: Got a blog about journalism and the media that’s worth shouting about? Drop us
an email to get in on the Journalism.co.uk Best of Blogs mix. 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: Best of the blogs mix, Journalism.co.uk, Laura Oliver

JEEcamp: Kyle Macrae on Scoopt: We’re all entrepreneurs now

May 11th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted by Laura Oliver in Events, Journalism

They don’t make ‘em like Kyle Macrae, the founder of citizen journalism photography site Scoopt, any more – but maybe they should?

Speaking at Friday’s journalism and enterprise ‘unconference’, JEEcamp, Macrae posited that the only option for journalists at the moment is to be entreprenuerial.

Macrae sold Scoopt to Getty Images in March 2007, before the photography giant shuttered the site in February this year.

Macrae outlined some of the issues with the idea behind Scoopt:

every mainstream media organisation that bought into the idea of user-generated content e.g. send us your pictures of snow – took away from Scoopt’s business
Scoopt needed a default route to market for all valuable content e.g. a partnership with Flickr was discussed, where users posting potentially valuable images could click to sell
there isn’t an unlimited market for editorial photography
Scoopt wasn’t sticky enough – “People would register on site and then wait the rest of their lives for something to happen”

It was impossible to scale the business on a regional level

But, says, Macrae, selling the site was always his ‘exit strategy’ – something all entrepreneurs should have from the start and there were some very valuable nuggets of advice for budding independents in his presentation:

try to step outside of the journalism sector before starting a journalism business – you’ll spot more opportunities this way
similarly, get someone to sanity check your business – preferably someone outside the industry
pay less attention to what the ‘usual commentators’ are saying when considering if you’re idea is good
in an ideal world, you’d have the funding in place first, but start as you mean to go on – think about where the money is going to come from from the very beginnning

Tags: Business, citizen journalism photography site, entrepreneurship, Flickr, Getty Images, Kyle Macrae, mainstream media organisation, photography giant, Scoopt

Headlines and Deadlines: Journalist tweets being shot or why Twitter works

May 11th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted by Laura Oliver in Editors' pick, Social media and blogging

Alison Gow gives the back story on deputy business editor of the Liverpool Post and Echo, Tony McDonough, who was caught in the crossfire at a Liverpool pub last weekend.

McDonough tweeted after it had happened and during his hospital visit.

Why?

“People are hardwired to want to share stories; at times of crisis we all want to tell someone (…) Journalists want to get news out too, and they want to get it out fast and first to as wide an audience as possible,” writes Gow.

Full post at this link…

Tags: Alison Gow, deputy business editor, Echo, journalist, Liverpool, Liverpool Post, the Liverpool Post, Tony Donough, Tony McDonough, Twitter

Allvoices’ payment scheme for ‘citizen journalists’

May 11th, 2009 | 1 Comment | Posted by Katarina Witzheller in Citizen journalism, Online Journalism, Social media and blogging

Allvoices has launched an incentive program to reward its citizen journalist contributors for their work.

According to a press release, the scheme is designed as follows:
Contributors will be paid in relation to the quality of their submissions e.g. copyright violations of texts or photos are ineligible.
The amount of money is dependent on the feedback from the community and strength of the user’s profile.
The type of contributor and its rewards are divided into the following three categories:

• Stringer
- New or infrequent contributors, who organise their social network based around their work.
- Has had a minimum of 10,000 views for their contributions and 25 fans.
- Pay scale in this category is $0.25 per 1,000 page views.

• Reporter:
- Minimum total of 25,000 views for their work and 50 fans. For every 1,000 page views they earn $1.00.

• Anchor:
-Anchors are influential contributors beyond their social network and are closely followed by the Allvoices community, says the release.
- The criteria for being an Anchor is at least 100,000 views and 75 fans.
- Potential pay rate is $2.00 per 1,000 page views.

Tags: Allvoices.com, Citizen journalism, incentive program, journalist, reporter, social network, USD

Tomorrow: 12th Journalism Leaders’ Forum in Preston

May 11th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted by Katarina Witzheller in Events, Journalism

Tomorrow, May 12, sees three events – the Digital Editors Network meeting, an exhibition on journalism and the 12th Journalism Leaders’ Forum – take place during the Journalism Leaders Programme’s Spring meeting.

Mike Ward, head of the School of Journalism, Media and Communication at University of Central Lancashire, will chair the evening panel debate at the Journalism Leaders’ Forum, which takes place tomorrow between 18.00 and 19:15 in the Greenbank Lecture Theatre, University of Central Lancashire in Preston.

Panellists including Richard Frediani, head of news at ITV Granada and Joanna Geary, web development editor at The Times, will discuss the future and changing shape of journalism.

For more information on the forum email Debbie Williams or call 01772 894759.

Follow news and updates from the events on @journalism_live and on our main news channel.

Tags: 01772 894759, Debbie Williams, Granada, Greenbank, head, head of news, Ian Bent, ITV, Joanna Geary, Journalism Leaders Programme, Media and Communication, Media and Communication at University of Central Lancashire, Media City, Mike Ward, Paul Newman, Richard Frediani, School of Journalism, the Forum, The Times, University of Central Lancashire, University of Central Lancashire in Preston, web development editor

JEEcamp: Audio from the event

May 11th, 2009 | 1 Comment | Posted by Laura Oliver in Events, Journalism

Journalism.co.uk attended the journalism and enterprise unconference, JEEcamp, last Friday.

Reports on the day will follow, including:

Kyle Macrae, founder of Scoopt, on why entrepreunership is the only option for journalists now

James Hatts from London-SE1.co.uk on community and hyperlocal news publishing

There’s already been some great videos, pictures and posts from the event – see Michael Haddon’s round-up, Martin Belam’s posts and John Welsh’s blog to name but a few – but some additional (rough) audio from Sue Greenwood’s presentation on self-publishing platform Sweeble and two panel discussions are below.

Sue Greenwood:

Panel 1 featuring: (to come)

Journalism.co.uk’s own John Thompson (@johncthompson)

Jon Bounds, Birmingham: It’s Not Shit (@bounder)

Sue Heseltine from Birmingham City University

Chaired by Joanna Geary, web development journalist, business, Times Online (@timesjoanna)

Panel 2 featuring:

Dave Harte, economic development manager, Digital Birmingham

Jo Wadsworth, web editor, Brighton Argus (@jowadsworth)

Robin Hamman, Headshift (@cybersoc)

Andy Dickinson, journalism lecturer at UCLAN, (@digidickinson)

Robin Morley, assistant editor new media, BBC English Regions

Tags: Andy Dickinson, assistant editor, BBC, Birmingham, Brighton Argus, Business, City University, Dave Harte, Digital Birmingham, economic development manager, founder, James Hatts, Jo Wadsworth, Joanna Geary, John Thompson, John Welsh, Jon Bounds, Journalism lecturer, Journalism.co.uk, Kyle Macrae, London-SE1.co.uk, manager, Martin Belam, Michael Haddon, Robin Hamman, Robin Morley, Scoopt, Sue Greenwood, Sue Heseltine, Tom Scotney, web development journalist, web editor

Washington Post: WaPo and Google discussing ‘informal collaboration’

May 11th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted by Laura Oliver in Editors' pick, Online Journalism

The Washington Post’s chief executive, Donald Graham, has confirmed that the title has been holding talks with Google chief executive Eric Schmidt about a possible collaboration on new ways of presenting news.

No more specific details as yet.

Full article at this link…

Tags: chief executive, donald graham, Eric Schmidt, google, The Washington Post, Washington Post

Sydney Morning Herald: Financial and sports news readers will pay online, says survey

May 11th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted by Laura Oliver in Editors' pick, Online Journalism

A new survey from PricewaterhouseCoopers has suggested that readers interested in finance and sport showed a ‘relatively high willingness’ to pay for this type of content online.

“But overall, consumers were not prepared to pay as much for online content as for a traditional paper, and ‘would choose free content when the quality was comparable or sufficient for their purpose’,” says the Herald’s report.

Full story at this link…

Tags: finance, micropayments, online content, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Sydney Morning Herald, The Herald

Event – Voices Online: Blogging Conference today

May 11th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted by Laura Oliver in Events, Online Journalism, Social media and blogging

Journalism.co.uk is attending the Voices Online: Blogging conference today. Speakers at the event include Mark Jones, global community editor at Reuters; Demotix’s Turi Munthe; political blogger Guido Fawkes a.k.a. Paul Staines; and Andrew Sparrow: senior political correspondent for the Guardian and recent Orwell Prize blogging nominee.

The full agenda for the day is available at this link.

Follow updates on Twitter @journalism_live and via the hashtag #voicesconf.

Tags: Andrew Sparrow, Demotix, global community editor, Guido Fawkes, Journalism.co.uk, Mark Jones, Paul Staines, reuters, senior political correspondent, The Guardian, Turi Munthe