Journalism Daily: Q&A with Growthspur, no Guardian pay walls and tools for news numeracy

Journalism.co.uk is trialling 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:

• Guardian will not introduce a pay wall, says digital director
• IPC Ignite signs up to six-monthly ABCe web traffic report
• Growthspur Q&A: Supporting local media through networks

Ed’s picks of the day:

• BBC NEWS: Edinburgh Fringe organisers ask audience for Twitter reviews
• RNW: Dutch journalist takes Russia to ECHR
• Monday Note: Why paid news on mobile could work
• Currybet.net: The issue of scarcity and news

Tip of the day:

• Blogging for photojournalists

#FollowJourn:

• @willmathieson/freelance journalist

On the Editors’ Blog:

• News numeracy: online tools for reporting numbers
• GNM abandons the distribution of bulks
• Reasons to be cheerful? Seattle paper, Roanoke Times and magazine publishers turning a profit

Similar posts:

• BBC NEWS: Edinburgh Fringe organisers ask audience for Twitter reviews
• #DataJourn part 3: Useful and recent links looking at use of data in journalism
• #FollowJourn: @currybet/information architect
• The Stage maps Edinburgh Fringe reviews
• Eat Sleep Publish: Why the future of news brands hinges on net neutrality

GNM abandons the distribution of bulks

Guardian News and Media announced today that it will abandon the distribution of ‘bulks’.

GNM sold ‘bulk’ bundles of its papers to hotels and airlines for a nominal fee per copy to the businesses, but free to the readers. This sampling method was a way of tempting new readers towards the publications.

But bulk sales only contributed to a fraction of the Guardian and Observer’s overall sales figures compared to other newspaper groups, said a release from GNM.

“To a greater or lesser degree bulk sales are used by newspaper groups to prop up their ABC [Audit Bureau of Circulations] figure.  Yet their credibility in the ad community is low and for those affected by the recent investigation into airline bulks that credibility has been undermined further,” Joe Clark, GNM director and general manager, newspapers, said in the release.

“We are abandoning this practice in order to present a clearer, more honest picture of our sales performance to advertisers and to reinforce the quality of our product to readers.  The success of our subscription scheme has proved the value of rewarding loyal readers and prompted us to question the merit of subsidising a free copy for an occasional reader.

“In short dropping this traditional, and in our view, outmoded practice is a win-win move.  We hope that others will follow our lead.”

On Guardian.co.uk, Roy Greenslade celebrated the decision after a 10-year battle to convince the papers to drop the bulks.

“This so-called ‘sampling exercise’ was anything other than a way to ensure that, in a declining market, headline sales figures remained artificially high,” he wrote.

Over the past 10 years publishers have become increasingly aware that sampling had little effect on their sales.

As Greenslade reports: Trinity Mirror and Express Mirrors were the first to give up the practice, while News International never used bulks for its main titles, The Sun and News of the World, but did for The Times and The Sunday Times.

The Financial Times has also begun to lessen its use of bulks; whereas The Telegraph Media Group continues to use bulks to attract new readers, he adds. In addition The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday have increased their reliance on bulks.

Similar posts:

• Lone Star defies downward trend in revised ABC results
• James Harding: Times paywall is a revolution for its journalism
• Radio 4′s Today programme on Metro’s 10th birthday
• ABC continues to verify airline copies for national newspaper circulation audit
• Should we ‘pay the wall’ to maintain quality journalism?

News numeracy: online tools for reporting numbers

Following on from Steve Harrison’s excellent two-part guide on news numeracy, ‘How to: get to grips with numbers as a journalist’, here’s a round-up of some of the best online tools and sites for journalists when reporting figures and stats:

• ManyEyes

1. By uploading text or tables you can create simple piecharts to more complex maps or bubble charts. There are also options for text-based visualisations.

• For creating charts try:

1. Using a spreadsheet in Google Docs – you can highlight a table of data and select from a range of simple 2d and 3d graphs and charts.
2. Online spreadsheet service Zoho Sheet (looks similar to Google Docs and requires registration, but claims to allow integration with Microsoft Powerpoint and Excel)
3. Fusion Charts – for creating interactive, flash charts

• Mr Excel

1. Everything you could ever want to know – and more – about using Excel spreadsheets for data analysis and number crunching.

• Daytum

1. Can be used to track multiple sets of data and present them in a combination of charts, lists and graphics.

• Helpful lists

1. Journalism trainer Mindy McAdams has a great round-up of data visualisation resources, including this list of 175+ data and information visualization examples and resources.
2. 10,000 words offers some inspirational infographics and a ‘how to’ on creating charts.

Any other tools that you use? Let us know and we’ll add them to the list.

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• Tool of the week for journalists – Batchgeo, for mapping data
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• OJB: Bella Hurrell on data journalism and the BBC News Specials Team
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – simple graphs for stats stories using Google Docs

Reasons to be cheerful? Seattle paper, Roanoke Times and magazine publishers turning a profit

In addition to reporting on plummeting profits for some newspaper groups, Journalism.co.uk thought it was about time we shared some better news or at least some examples of titles that aren’t making a loss.

1. As the city’s only surviving daily newspaper since the decline of the Post-Intelligencer, the Seattle Times posted a rise in daily circulation of around 30 per cent for June. According to the New York Times, publisher Frank Blethen says the title is operating ‘in the black’ on a month-to-month basis now.
2. “We are a profitable, debt-free enterprise,” says Debbi Meade, publisher of the US’ Roanoke Times, in this letter to readers.
3. New figures from the US’ Publishers Information Bureau (PIB) suggest that 12 titles managed to attract more ad pages in the first six months of this year than in comparison to the same period in 2008. Newsweek looks at which titles are managing to buck the trend in this way.

Similar posts:

• Guardian debuts six-monthly ABCe figures for regional websites
• ABCes: Independent.co.uk records biggest increase in daily browsers
• Lone Star defies downward trend in revised ABC results
• NOTW website sees record traffic after Stephen Gately report
• New figures suggest continued growth for US magazine advertising

#FollowJourn: @willmathieson/freelance journalist

#FollowJourn: William Mathieson

Who? Freelance journalist/copywriter.

What? Working across a range of mediums to produce written, video and audio media content upon request.

Where? @willmathieson

Contact? www.williammathieson.co.uk 07738 162447 to discuss potential projects.

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.

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• #FollowJourn: @rebeccats/reporter
• #followjourn: @chriscondron/head of digital strategy
• #FollowJourn: @andyoakes/publisher
• #FollowJourn: @severincarrell/Scotland correspondent
• #FollowJourn: @JaneBradley88/trainee journalist

BBC NEWS: Edinburgh Fringe organisers ask audience for Twitter reviews

Story from Friday, but it raises some interesting points as review writing meets microblogging.

Venue directors at this month’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival are asking audience members to tweet their thoughts on shows ‘to try to combat a cut in the number of reviewers’.

With instantaneous reviews available from audience members, how does a journalist reviewer set themselves apart? (Examples welcome of critics using Twitter well – already following @yasmin_sul and @flumcake)

There’s an opportunity here around aggregating reviews – already picked up on by two sites: EdTwinge and Festbuzz, which has received backing from Channel 4′s investment fund 4ip. Crowdsourced reviews, clever technology and no need for hashtags.

A quick scan of the local and specialist Fringe media and there’s no aggregation of Twitter/social media buzz – they’d do well to team up with EdTwinge or Festbuzz to offer a more rounded reviews section.

Full story at this link…

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RNW: Dutch journalist takes Russia to ECHR

TV reporter Jeroen Akkermans is taking Russia to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) over the country’s attach on the Georgian city of Gori last August.

Akkermans joins a number of complainants in the case, which was originally brought by relatives of those killed in the attack.

Akkermans’ colleague Stan Storimans was killed while reporting from the Russian-Georgian border for RTL television.

via Dutch journalist takes Moscow to court | Radio Netherlands Worldwide.

Similar posts:

• Death toll rises for journalists killed in Georgia
• Index on Censorship: Russian journalist defeats libel claim
• BBC announces special swansong for Russian-language broadcasts
• Independent.co.uk: Russian journalist crippled by attack now fined for defamation
• Fake news report of Russian invasion causes panic in Georgia

Monday Note: Why paid news on mobile could work

Frederic Filoux looks at the success of iPhone apps from news organisations – the fastest growing segment of iPhone apps, according to recent research – and the Associated Press’ Mobile News Network, which also makes use of smartphone technology.

What is more, argues Filoux, while none of the media apps are paid-for, the relatively new App Purchase feature allows transactions (e.g. buying books, music) from within an application.

“In theory, with Apple’s infrastructure (and cash register) at the ready, the App Purchase is the tool of choice for a subscription based system. With the current (and durable) collapse of the advertising on the internet, and the difficulty to push ads on a mobile, paid-for mobile content is undoubtedly a key component of new business models,” he writes.

Full post at this link…

Similar posts:

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• RSS feeds beat any branded iPhone or iPad news app
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• iPhone apps compared – how do news publishers shape up?

Currybet.net: The issue of scarcity and news

Martin Belam neatly illustrates the scarceness of scarcity when it comes to news online.

If in the charging for online news debate an ‘iTunes for news’ model is introduced, what are the factors that will push up the price and make people pay, he asks.

Full post at this link…

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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – blogging for photojournalists

Check out photojournalist’s Marc Vallee’s blog, and those featured on his blogroll, for examples of how to use blogging to complement professional photojournalism. Tipster: Judith Townend.

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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