Mediabistro carries a memo from the Huffington Post calling on its blogging contributors to ‘think local’ as it prepares to launch a local edition for Los Angeles.
The site has already expanded to cover Chicago and Denver, but, as mediabistro points out, the memo states: “‘As always, there are no deadlines or quotas.’ Or money”
Tags: Huffington Post, us
George Monbiot’s latest Comment is Free contribution is sure to spark debate.
Entitled ‘I, too, mourn good local newspapers. But this lot just aren’t worth saving’, Monbiot, apparently prompted by his local newspaper, writes:
“For many years the local press has been one of Britain’s most potent threats to democracy, championing the overdog, misrepresenting democratic choices, defending business, the police and local elites from those who seek to challenge them. Media commentators lament the death of what might have been. It bears no relationship to what is.”
Tags: local and regional media
#FollowJourn: Oliver Shah
Who? Freelance journalist.
What? Currently based in London covering business, technology and politics. Shortlisted for the Hugh Cudlipp Award in 2009.
Where? Also blogs on his own website focusing on the same topics.
Contact? On Twitter.
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.
Tags: #followjourn, Oliver Shah
FOI: Website WhatDoTheyKnow.com is creating a database of responses to Freedom of Information requests made in the UK – a great way of seeing if your question has already been answered. 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: FOI, Freedom of Information, whatdotheyknow
Associated Newspapers’ freesheet, the London Lite, will publish its last edition on Friday 13 November, according to a release.
The decision follows a consultation with staff.
In August, News International, the UK newspaper division of News Corporation announced that it would close thelondonpaper, its free evening newspaper launched in 2006.
Meanwhile, the Evening Standard, in which Associated still has a minority share, switched from paid-for to free last month.
Tags: freesheet, london lite
Several long-running debates have been added to in a series of blog posts published over the weekend on the coverage on the military shooting at Fort Hood in Texas last week.
Starting with Paul Carr at TechCrunch, who discusses the value that social media and citizen journalism add to such happenings and also what role journalists or indeed cit-j’s should play in such situations – better to capture the moment or offer help?
“For all the sound and fury, citizen journalism once again did nothing but spread misinformation at a time when thousands people with family at the base would have been freaking out already, and breach the privacy of those who had been killed or wounded. We learned not a single new fact, nor was a single life saved,” writes Carr, referring specifically to Twitter updates allegedly coming from one soldier inside the Texas base.
“The discussion about the impact of social media on people’s privacy, behaviour and ethics has been going on for years, and there have been many, many examples of people using social tools in ways that can only be described as foolish.
“This is not, however, a reflection on social tools so much as it is a reflection of human nature: some of what gets done with social media is good and some is bad. This is not news, nor new.
“We do need some proper studies to see just what sort of effect these new social technologies are having, but going off on a moral panic about social tools is neither smart nor helpful.”
It’s worth reading both pieces in full and the comments left (which back up that these are long-standing points for discussion) – in particular, Howard Owens’ response to Charman-Anderson’s post:
Tags: Citizen journalism, Fort Hood
Buried in a report on Trinity Mirror’s decision to close its final pension schemes is news that staff at the Observer will be told which sections of the paper are staying and which are for the chop.
As part of this staff will be briefed on potential job cuts, the Sunday Times reports.
After growing speculation about the title’s future, owners Guardian News & Media announced in September that the Observer would live on, but with a new look and closer integration with the Guardian.
In July, readers’ editor for the Observer, Stephen Pritchard, explained that the title was having to make ‘painful decisions about what it can afford to print’, after the title dropped its weekly, full television guide.
Tags: gnm, Guardian News & Media, observer
Following his comments last month in which he described aggregators as ‘kleptomaniacs’ and ‘plagiarists’, Rupert Murdoch has suggested News Corp could remove its sites from Google’s index.
Speaking in an interview with Australia’s Sky News (video below): “I think we will [remove our content from Google's index]. But that’s when we start charging.”
As Mumbrella explains: “Using the robots.txt protocol on a site indicates to automated web spiders such as Google’s not to index that particular page or to serve up links to it in users’ search results.”
In the interview, Murdoch also discusses what could be put behind potential news site pay walls.
Tags: aggregation, News Corp, pay walls, paywall, paywalls, Rupert Murdoch
A bold promise from The Week to advertisers buying at least 12 pages a year – the magazine will guarantee readers remember their ads.
The title will use a research service, Vista from firm Affinity, to measure ‘recall’ amongst consumer focus groups.
“The Week’s guarantee says it will be in the top one-third of magazines where an ad has run, or The Week will to run free ad pages for the marketer until it gets to that benchmark,” reports the New York Times.
Tags: The Week
#FollowJourn: Caroline Beavon
Who? At time of writing a student on the MA in Online Journalism at Birmingham City University, but previously a journalist at Kerrang.
What? Music lover with passion for music journalism, who tweets regularly about her course, work and events she’s attending.
Where? Also writes a personal blog at this link.
Contact? On Twitter.
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.
Tags: #followjourn, caroline beavon
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“My response to Carr’s piece seems to be quite different than most other people’s – to me, it’s a reminder for journalists to redouble their role as ethicists. It’s no longer enough for journalist to abide by their own code of ethics, they must educate the public on news ethics, avoid falling into their own ethical lapses related to new technology, and guide ‘citizen journalists’ along the way.
“I didn’t see Carr as calling for an end to cit-j, but as a reminder that not everything with democratic media technology is an unalloyed good. We need some guidelines and thought into how these tools are used, when and where. There needs to be a greater ethical awareness among the public at large and it’s the professional journalists role to help with that process.”