#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – online writing tools from Wolfram Alpha

Tools: Wolfram Alpha offers a range of options for journalists looking for dictionary/thesaurus/grammar tools online. Check out this blog post outlining them all. 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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Martin Cloake: Reinventing journalism – trade conservatism and cutting costs with technology

Martin Cloake responds to Liisa Rohumaa’s piece on Journalism.co.uk about the need for journalists to reinvent themselves to deal with the current – and rapidly changing – shape of the industry.

Two factors distort the debate, says Cloake:

“[J]ournalists like their traditions and many don’t respond well to the idea that they might have to change what they’ve been doing. The other, far more important distortion, is that fact the changing technologies are being used primarily by employers to drive down costs.”

Full post at this link…

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Press Gazette: ‘Baldy blogger’ Adrian Sudbury’s education campaign an ‘outstanding success’

The campaign to spread education on the importance of bone marrow donation set up by ‘baldy blogger’ and digital journalist Adrian Sudbury has been hailed as a success by an independent assessor.

Sudbury, who died from leukaemia in August last year, started the campaign – fuelled by his blog – and secured significant funding for a pilot project to train volunteers to deliver seminars in schools and colleges.

Full story at this link…

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Journalism Daily: Guardian Q&A, Wired Journalists’ new look, Google News re-indexing

A daily round-up of all the content published on the Journalism.co.uk site. Additionally, you can sign up to our e-newsletter and subscribe to the feed for the Journalism Daily here.

News and features:

• Wired Journalists community acquired by Publish2
• Event: Guardian hosts live Q&A on careers in online journalism
• Smart Moves: Rich Sutcliffe to edit Brand Republic

Ed’s picks:

• Lost Remote: How WCCO broke a story on Twitter
• Reuters: Independent News&Media likely to agree bond extension, says source
• Search Engine Roundtable: Google News now re-indexing with latest version
• CMLP: Anonymity of online speakers protected in District of Columbia Court of Appeals

Tip of the Day:

• Getting rid of spam followers

#FollowJourn:

• @kristinelowe/media journalist

On the Editors’ Blog:

• Update on Wired Journalists’ new look; Publish2 claims it now has 20 per cent of all journalists in the US
• CUNY New Business Models for News, as seen in Aspen

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Update on Wired Journalists’ new look; Publish2 claims it now has 20 per cent of all journalists in the US

As reported on the main site, the social network Wired Journalists is now looking rather different; it has been incorporated into Publish2, the social journalism venture based on a belief in the link economy. Since no terms of the deal were disclosed in the announcement, Journalism.co.uk was keen to know more. Publish2 CEO Scott Karp didn’t reveal the details of the agreement but added this statement:

“Creating a social network for our journalist community within P2 was always on our roadmap, and WiredJournalists presented an opportunity to buy instead of build. It was a great fit. WiredJournalists grew from nothing to more than 3,000 journalists in 18 months.

“The frontline web producers, reporters, and editors using Wired Journalists are exactly the journalists we’re bringing together at Publish2 to collaborate and share links with each other and their readers.

“With this deal, Publish2 now has the equivalent of 20 per cent of all journalists in the U.S, since launching less than a year ago.”

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Lost Remote: How WCCO broke a story on Twitter

From Lost Remote, a story about how a TV station broke a story via Twitter in the US.

“When a source told WCCO-TV’s Mark Rosen that Brett Favre would join the Minnesota Vikings, he sent out a tweet. Moments later, other reporters re-tweeted the news, and it was piped out to Facebook. Soon, WCCO was one of the top three trending topics on Twitter, reports MinnPost, sending a big traffic burst to WCCO.com. The tweet beat WCCO’s TV coverage, but not by much.”

Full post at this link…

Related article at MinnPost.

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Reuters: Independent News&Media likely to agree bond extension, says source

Independent News & Media ‘will likely agree another extension to a standstill deal with holders of a 200 million euro ($283 million) bond originally due for repayment in May’, an industry source said, according to Reuters. It reported today:

“The Irish publishing group has until Aug. 27 to agree a deal with holders of the senior debt but the industry source, who declined to be named because talks are ongoing, said another rollover was inevitable as this month’s deadline looms.”

INM declined to comment, Reuters said.

Full story at this link…

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CUNY New Business Models for News, as seen in Aspen

Today sees the last day of the Aspen Institute FOCAS (Forum on Communications and Society) event in Colorado. Find the full agenda here.

The City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School of Journalism is one of its key collaborators and the  New Business Models for News project presentation can be found here at this link.

Jeff Jarvis, associate professor of journalism at CUNY and director of the Interactive Program, shares his thoughts from Aspen on his blog.

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Search Engine Roundtable: Google News now re-indexing with latest version

It’s noted on the Search Engine Roundtable blog that Google News is now re-indexing and crawling news sources for the latest version, provided updates are posted within a ‘short period of time’.

In the past, once a story was published and Google News indexed it, Google News would keep the item as it was, even if changes were then made by the publisher.

Full post at this link…

Users in the Google News Help forum discuss the issue here. Google employee Inbal Drukker said:

“We now do have the ability to re-crawl your articles to make sure we have the latest version displayed on our site if these updates are published within a short period of time.”

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CMLP: Anonymity of online speakers protected in District of Columbia Court of Appeals

“Last Thursday, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals weighed in on what procedural safeguards are necessary to protect the rights of internet users to engage in anonymous speech,” reports the Citizen Media Law Project.

“In Solers, Inc. v. Doe, the D.C. high court set out a stringent standard for its lower courts to follow and emphasized that a plaintiff ‘must do more than simply plead his case’ to unmask an anonymous speaker claimed to have violated the law.”

This case involves an anonymous speaker ‘who did not publish the allegedly defamatory statements on a website, blog, or other online platform open to the public’, CMLP outlines. Instead, the claim involves an anonymous tip submitted through a website reporting form.

Full post at this link…

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