Thomson Reuters Foundation launches Emergency Information Service (EIS)

Very interesting development by the Thomson Reuters Foundation – its Emergency Information Service (EIS), launched today, will send units of journalists to scenes of major natural disasters to “seek out, collate and disseminate life-saving information to disaster-struck populations, filling a critical gap in the chain of crisis information”.

The foundation is working with the Red Cross in the initiative to act as a delivery partner in disaster zones.

Journalism.co.uk will be speaking with Thomson Foundation CEO Monique Villa tomorrow to find out more. But earlier in the year Villa told us that the EIS would address the problem of the vacuum effect that happens in disaster zones: media attention is initially intense but is often rapidly withdrawn as another breaking news event occurs. EIS will seek to fill this gap, she explained.

The foundation and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) have also released a multimedia film to back the launch of EIS – “Surviving the Tsunami: Stories of Hope” – and to mark the fifth anniversary of the Indian Ocean Tsunami. The trailer is below:

Similar posts:

• Thomson Foundation: Making of Oscar-nominated Burma VJ documentary
• Making data work for you: one week till media140′s dataconomy event
• MirrorFootball.co.uk: Bringing Liverpool fans a better result
• Guardian: Thomson Reuters axes 140 journalist jobs
• Beehive City: Facebook and Twitter offer clearer picture of Japanese earthquake

Journalism 2.0: ‘Patience is a virtue when building a local audience’

Mark Briggs shares his jottings from last week’s Interactive Local Media conference in Los Angeles, with some noteworthy nuggets from those behind successful and emerging news models. For example, advice from local community news/review site Yelp (also growing in the UK):

Patience is a virtue when building a local audience. Yelp COO Geoff Donaker said it takes 18-36 months for a new Yelp site to reach critical mass with reviews, even with staff ‘on the street’ in every Yelp market. Yelp has nearly doubled its audience in the past year to about 11 million uniques per month.

Full post at this link…

Similar posts:

• TechCrunch: Google to acquire Yelp – a missed opportunity for local news?
• Newsday hiring to increase coverage after competition arrives
• BusinessInsider.com: 27 publishers look at advertising banner alternatives
• How new Fourwhere maps plotting Foursquare, Yelp and Gowalla could be useful for journalists
• Online Journalism Blog: SE1′s James Hatts on Hyperlocal Voices

How-do.co.uk: Free NHS newspaper re-launches

Big Spark Publishing has re-launched a new public sector newspaper, the NHS News.

The bi-monthly title has an initial print run of 35,000 and bulk deliveries will be made to NHS Trusts “by arrangement,” How-Do reports.

“NHS News, like Big Spark’s only other foray into the the public sector with Police News, existed prior to the Horwich-based firm’s involvement, but has not been published for some time.”

(…)

“MD Stuart Parker told How-Do that the 28-page free title has been written to appeal to NHS staff, procurement professionals and contractors, while ‘advertisers are companies wishing to target the NHS internally.’”

Full story at this link…

Similar posts:

• #followjourn: Lucy Fitzgeorge-Parker/business writer
• #followjourn: @stuartmillar159 – Stuart Millar /journalist
• Two views on the future of blogging UK – granular quantity or ‘quality’ big blogs
• ‘Hostage in Qatar’: jailed for three years with hard labour unless raises appeal money
• #followjourn: @stuartdhughes – BBC world affairs producer

AdAge.com: Huffington Post offers Twitter advertising

“The Huffington Post has started offering marketers the ability to inject their own paid comments among reader comments and place paid Tweets among the live Twitter feeds the site assembles around news subjects and events,” reports Advertising Age.

Full post at this link…

Similar posts:

• AdAge.com: Monetising news tweets
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – RSS on the go with Google Reader
• NY Times: Scribd to pay news sites for content accessed via app
• Mashable: Guardian is first major newspaper to offer full content in RSS feeds
• NYTimes.com: Digital media yet to thrive in Japan

PCC should not regulate Council-run newspapers, says finance board

As part of its industry consultation,  the Press Standards Board of Finance Ltd (PressBoF) has decided that local authority publications should not be brought within the remit of the Press the Press Complaints Commission (PCC).

“It has decided against doing so on the basis that such publications tend to be marketing material,” the board announced today.

PressBoF, independent of the PCC, is responsible for raising a levy on the newspaper and magazine industry to finance the Commission. Its industry consultation also decided that online-only publications – mainly magazine sites – should come under the PCC’s remit.

“It’s one of those things, we’re conscious there are a reasonable number of local authority publications out there,” PressBoF secretary, Jim Raeburn told Journalism.co.uk. “Should they be under umbrella of PCC or not?” The board’s decision, he said, was no.

PressBoF, independent of the PCC, is responsible for raising a levy on the newspaper and magazine industry to finance the Commission.

In late November, Ed Richards, chief executive of Ofcom, told the House of Commons culture media and sport select committee that the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has no remit on authority publications:

“This is a lacuna. If this is a serious issue from the perspective of (a) the use of taxpayers’ money and (b) the consequences for independent journalism in any given locality, I think it is something that Parliament has to decide what it wants to do about.

“Either the government needs to give some guidance, or give somebody else the responsibility to look at it, but at the moment, we [Ofcom] certainly do not, and nor do the OFT.”

Stewart Purvis, content regulation partner for Ofcom, who was also giving evidence, said: “I just feel there is a missing area, which is the regulation, if that is the right word, of what local authorities do and do not do.

“I am reminded of the case of the former Mayor of London who, if I remember, got into trouble with some supervisory body over what he should or should not have said to an Evening Standard reporter.”

Similar posts:

• Media release: PCC remit to include online-only publications
• Media Standards Trust poses questions over Northern & Shell PCC exclusion
• Council news round-up: ad revenue shortage for East End Life and plans for new council TV
• New code for council newspapers being ‘considered’ in review of East End Life
• MediaGuardian: MPs slam council newspapers as councillors defend freesheets

Media release: PCC remit to include online-only publications

After an industry-wide consultation, the Press Standards Board of Finance Ltd (PressBoF) has announced it will extend the remit of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) to include online-only publications. This will mainly apply to online magazines, it said in its release.

Pressbof, independent of the PCC, is responsible for raising a levy on the newspaper and magazine industry to finance the Commission.

The extension has been agreed on these terms:

1. Such publications must be recognisable as UK based newspapers or magazines which, if in printed form, would come within the jurisdiction of the PCC.

2. The publisher and editor must subscribe to the Editors’ Code of Practice.

3. The publisher must agree to pay registration fees to PressBoF.

“The internet is an increasingly important platform for publishers to reach consumers. While online versions of newspapers and magazines available in printed form come within the remit of the PCC, there is a gap to the extent that online-only publications do not,” said Guy Black, chairman of PressBoF.

“This decision is a logical development in self-regulation, recognising the moves in the magazine sector towards online-only titles, and underlines the effectiveness of our system.”

Baroness Buscombe, chairman of the PCC, said she welcomed the decision by the industry:

“The PCC needs this freedom to develop rapidly to meet the challenges and the opportunities presented by media convergence. One clear strength of the self-regulatory system is its flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances, while still providing a service that is free, fast, discreet and which involves the public in its decision-making.”

Full release at this link…

Similar posts:

• PCC should not regulate Council-run newspapers, says finance board
• Media Standards Trust poses questions over Northern & Shell PCC exclusion
• Fifteen mag publishers unite to offer subscription deals online
• Media release: PCC appoints three new public members
• Financial Times: PCC chief demands meetings with national newspaper publishers

#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – social media ideas for blogging

Setting up a new site abroad? Take a look at Graham Holliday’s Rwanda-based site, Kigaliwire, for social media ideas and inspiration. Tipster: Judith Townend.

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

Similar posts:

• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – social media of the future
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – B2B reporting leads
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – projects for ‘citizen watchdogs’
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – ideas for using open APIs
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – don’t forget the forums

Online magazine study calls for participants

Rachel Singh, a student at University College London’s digital anthropology department, has launched an online study into the state of the magazine industry. The Shifting Landscape of Magazines encourages those who are working, or who have worked in the magazine industry to browse the site and post comments:

The aim of the study is to discover the ways magazines can (and are) reinventing themselves. The idea is to compile research to serve as material for a potential dissertation on the shifting landscape of magazines in the 21st century and how it’s shaping a new global medium.

Only comments posted before the 16 December will be used in the study. The study will run into 2010 and is currently asking for the participation of anyone who has, or is, working in magazines.

Similar posts:

• Folio: 115 predictions for the media and magazines in 2010
• Poll: What social media is used by journalists in UK and Europe?
• Growing effect of online advertising in US, OPA study suggests
• Taloussanomat: a case study in online-only newspapers – more from City University study
• PPA’s magazine handbook available online

A Wapping great welcome from Google

A treat for Rupert Murdoch at News International HQ today, as he arrives for the annual Xmas bash: a huge billboard opposite the front gate, advertising none other than his sworn enemy, search giant Google. Does the News Corp CEO use Chrome, we wonder?

Similar posts:

• Google announces new Chrome extension to block ‘content farms’
• Stephen Glover: ‘Attack Google too, if you value privacy’
• Politico: News Corp made second $1m donation to Republican group
• paidContent: News Corp’s ‘iPad paper’ the Daily to launch on 2 Feb
• Mumbrella: Murdoch to remove sites from Google’s index?

NYTimes.com: Two years on at Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal

The New York Times’ David Carr takes a look at the Wall Street Journal, two years after the paper was sold to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. Under Murdoch, it’s ’tilting rightward’ with a broadening array of news content he says.

“[U]nder Mr. Murdoch’s leadership, the newspaper is no longer anchored by those deep dives into the boardrooms of American business with quaint stippled portraits, opting instead for a much broader template of breaking general interest news articles with a particular interest in politics and big splashy photos.”

Full post at this link…

Similar posts:

• 10,000 Words: MSNBC pushing the envelope of design
• Columbia Journalism Review: Identity crisis at the Wall Street Journal?
• Guardian commends Chris Huhne for speaking out over NOTW phone hacking
• Beatblogging.org: Not-for-profit MinnPost news site raises $13,190 in micro-donations
• NYTimes.com: Seattle Post-Intelligencer goes web only