#datajourn: Simon Willison’s ‘hack day’ tools for non-developers

The Guardian’s second (internal) hack day is imminent; the development team, members of the tech department and even journalists get together to play and build.

Read about the first one here. Remember this effort by guest hacker, Matthew Somerville: http://charlian.dracos.co.uk/?

In preparation for the second, Simon Willison (@simonw), the lead developer behind the Guardian’s MPs’ expenses crowdsourcing application, has helpfully put together an (external) list of tools for non-developers: “sites, services and software that could be used for hacking without programming knowledge as a pre-requisite. ”

Full list at this link…

Similar posts:

• UK Future of News gets local
• Nieman Journalism Lab: Four crowdsourcing lessons from the Guardian’s expenses experiment
• Future of News meet-ups in Brighton and Birmingham
• Newsinnovation London: Audio from the event
• #DataJourn part 1: a new conversation (please re-tweet)

RSF: Yemen’s ‘harassment and denigration’ of Al Jazeera

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has issued a statement condemning Yemen’s ‘harassment and denigration’ of  Al Jazeera television, including a threatening telephone call to Sanaa bureau chief, Mourad Hashem, earlier this week.

RSF said that Al Jazeera has been branded by the authorities as the ‘enemy of a united Yemen’ because the channel covered unrest in the south of the country.

“The authorities use and abuse defence of national unity to censor media that try to cover events in southern Yemen,” the press freedom organisation said in the release.

Full statement at this link…

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Journalism Daily: BBC video plans, Trinity Midlands strike and perfecting the press release

Journalism.co.uk is going to trial a new service via the Editors’ Blog: a daily round-up of all the content published on the Journalism.co.uk site.

We hope you’ll find it useful as a quick digest of what’s gone on during the day (similar to our e-newsletter) and to check that you haven’t missed a posting.

We’ll be testing it out for a couple of weeks, so you can subscribe to the feed for the Journalism Daily here.

Let us know what you think – all feedback much appreciated.

News and features

• How to: write the perfect press release for journalists
• BBC offers news video to Guardian, Daily Mail, Telegraph and Independent websites
• MPs back redundancy pay for freelance journalists
• Smart Moves: Peter Waters becomes Eastern Daily Press’ 12th editor

Ed’s Picks

• Nick Denton: Gawker revenues up 45 per cent in first half of 2009
• Press Gazette: Dutch court says tapping of journalist’s phone was illegal
• Common Sense Journalism: Tweets and a news ’story’ – stop confounding the two
• Evening Standard: Andrew Gilligan on council ‘propaganda’ newspapers
• Econsultancy: An A-Z guide to online copywriting
• Publish2 Blog: Introducing ’social journalism’ tools to Publish2

Tip of the Day

• RSS on the go with Google Reader

#FollowJourn

• @marieteather/freelancer

On the Editors’ Blog

• NUJ Release: Strike action halted at Trinity Mirror Birmingham titles
• NewsInnovation videos from @newsmatters: featuring @kevglobal, @currybet, @markng, @simonw, @willperrin

Similar posts:

• Evening Standard: Andrew Gilligan on council ‘propaganda’ newspapers
• Media Release: London Lite to publish last edition on Friday
• Azerbaijan publishes latest media ‘blacklist’
• Another council freesheet bites the dust
• Job cuts at the London Evening Standard?

NUJ Release: Strike action halted at Trinity Mirror Birmingham titles

Earlier this afternoon the National Union of Journalists announced that strike action will no longer take place at Trinity Mirror’s Birmingham-based titles after the NUJ chapels ‘secured an agreement for no compulsory redundancies’.

Twenty-four hour industrial action had originally been planned to take place on Thursday.

Full release at this link…

Background:

NUJ members at the titles had balloted for action earlier this month, following the announcement of  job cuts and closure of weekly titles.

Trinity Mirror responded to a vote of no confidence in the TM management, via a statement, accusing the NUJ of undermining efforts for the two parties to work together.

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• Trinity Mirror Regionals: Vote of no confidence in management is ‘publicity-grabbing stunt’
• TM Birmingham chapels’ motion of no confidence
• NUJ members in Manchester join forces after MEN sale
• More Trinity Mirror cuts: three North West and North Wales weeklies closed
• NUJ Release: NUJ condemns more job cuts at Trinity Mirror regionals

NewsInnovation videos from @newsmatters: featuring @kevglobal, @currybet, @markng, @simonw, @willperrin

The Media Standards Trust has finished uploading content from its NewsInnovation event, held in association with NESTA and the WSRI, earlier this month to its YouTube channel.

[Previous Journalism.co.uk coverage at this link]

We’ll embed the first segment of each session, and for further installments follow the links below each video.

• Martin Moore and Mark Ng of the Media Standards Trust explain the Value Added News project, launched in association with the AP.

Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.

• Kevin Anderson (@kevglobal) Guardian blogs editor talks about news business models.

Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

• Ben Campbell talks about the Media Standards Trust website, Journalisted.

Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

• Will Perrin (@willperrin) on digital possibilities for the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War.

Part 2.

• Simon Willison (@simonw) of The Guardian talks about using the crowd to sift through MPs’ expenses.

Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

• Martin Belam (@currybet) information architect at the Guardian on ‘The tyranny of chronology’.

Part 2, Part 3.

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• Newsinnovation London: Audio from the event
• Martin Moore: #futureofnews is ‘not so bleak, but not so rosy either’
• SoE08: What next for local media?
• #FollowJourn: @martinjemoore / MST director

Nick Denton: Gawker revenues up 45 per cent in first half of 2009

The plunge has already been pretty terrifying for a range of companies from Yahoo and IAC to the newspapers,” writes Gawker founder Nick Denton, referring to his previous prediction that media companies should prepare for a 40 per cent downturn in advertising revenue over the economic cycle.

“But I was wrong in one respect: a few premium internet brands, Gawker’s among them, have withstood the advertising apocalypse.”

Full post at this link…

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• Ad Age: Internet media employment at peak since 2001 despite falls elsewhere
• Jo Wadsworth: Where is advertising moving online?
• Ernst & Young: Online search will help reverse fortunes of display and classified ads
• paidContent.org: CondeNet cuts staff across all departments
• Advertising Age: Why ad networks are surviving

Press Gazette: Dutch court says tapping of journalist’s phone was illegal

Jolande van der Graaf, a De Telegraaf journalist, who had her phone tapped by Holland’s secret service after report using leaked government information, won her case last week.

A Dutch court ruled that the tapping of both van der Graafe and her editor-in-chief’s phones was unlawful.

AIVD, the country’s secret service, is expected to appeal the decision, which provides an interesting contrast to the recently reported ‘phone hacking’ activities of the News of the World.

Full post at this link…

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• NISnews.nl: Dutch newspaper suing state for phone-tapping journalists
• Guardian: Phone-hacking round-up from the papers
• links for 2008-07-14
• Phone hacking: Lib Dem MP raises question of Tessa Jowell’s phone
• MediaGuardian: Phone records suggest 100 accounts hacked by NOTW

Common Sense Journalism: Tweets and a news ‘story’ – stop confounding the two

Doug Fisher illustrates once again why his blog has ‘common sense’ in the title in his reaction to an essay by journalism instructor Melissa Hart on ‘The Trouble with Twitter’.

Journalists need to know when a story is a story; when a tweet is a tweet; and when presenting the factual expositions of a news item is enough, he writes.

Using the right tools for the job is a persisting hang-up in the industry that needs to be overcome:

“Why do we have so much trouble getting our heads around the idea that you use the best tool for the job you need to do? If you want a hole, use a drill, not a screwdriver. Other businesses get it. Why do journalists continue to cling to the idea that all they have is a screwdriver? The problem with that, of course, to continue the metaphor, is that when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Thus, to too many journalists, everything has to look like a ‘story’, instead of acknowledging that much of what they do is not story but factual exposition, and maybe if they stripped those factual expositions down, they’d actually have time to do stories…”

Full post at this link…

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• Tool of the week for journalists – Buffer, for scheduling tweets
• Tool of the week for journalists – WhenToTweet
• Tool of the week for journalists – Trendsmap, for tracking conversations in your area
• 12 hours worth of radio interview tips from @NewsLeader
• How to embed tweets directly from the new Twitter

#FollowJourn: @marieteather/freelancer

#FollowJourn: Marie Teather

Who? Editor and freelance writer

What? Was editor of the Tokyo Weekender; took six months out travelling and blogging her way back west; now back London to join the ranks of journalists seeking a job.

Where? @marieteather

Contact? marieteather [at] gmail [dot] com

Just as we like to supply you with fresh and innovative tips every day, we’re recommending journalists to follow online too. They might be from any sector of the industry: please send suggestions (you can nominate yourself) to judith or laura at journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.

Similar posts:

• #FollowJourn: @rachcolling/freelancer
• #FollowJourn: @iainmhepburn/digital editor
• #FollowJourn: @MSNMoneyJames/editor
• #followjourn: @chriscondron/head of digital strategy
• #FollowJourn: @annajleach/ShinyShiny editor

#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – RSS on the go with Google Reader

RSS: If you’re a subscriber to multiple RSS feeds, using Google Reader means you can access your feeds from any computer you work on. No need to export feeds and resort using a downloaded reader. Tipster: Laura Oliver.

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

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