Wired for iPad edition set for summer launch

Techology magazine Wired is set to release a digital edition for the iPad by summer. Editor-in-chief Chris Anderson announced the planned launch on Friday at the annual Technology, Entertainment and Design conference (TED) in Long Beach, California. The first iPads are scheduled to go on sale in March.

In a report of the conference on Wired.com, Anderson said: “We have lots of questions about our future. The good news is I think we found part of the answer (…)We think this is a game changer.”

Condé Nast, publisher of Wired announced last year that it would have a digital version of Wired available before the iPad was even official. For the last six months, Wired creative director Scott Dadich has worked with Jeremy Clark from Adobe to design the Wired iPad version.

The conference attendees were given a demonstration by Clark on a supersized iPad using content from the March edition of Wired.

According to Wired coverage, Anderson believes that the iPad “allows periodicals for the first time to do digital content with all of the same values and artistic range that are the hallmark of print magazines”.

Readers would be able to drag left and right to navigate articles; once choosing an article, they would navigate up and down to scroll through the story. By turning the device horizontally the user will also benefit from the rotating display system to view a double-page spread. The device will also have opportunities for interactive advertising.

Anderson did not mention how much the digital edition would cost.

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#followjourn: Andrew Hill/city editor

#followjourn: Andrew Hill

Who? City editor at the Financial Times

What? City editor and also editor of the daily Lombard column on business and finance since September 2006. Previously, he has also been FT’s financial editor and prior to that, the comment & analysis editor. Hill also had a stint as the New York Bureau chief between 1999-2003.

Where? Read a selection of Hill’s columns at Financial Times online.

Contact? Follow @AndrewHill

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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BBC global news director Sambrook joins Edelman PR

Richard Sambrook, who left his post as global news director of the BBC, will become PR agency Edelman’s first chief content officer and vice-president, PR week reports.

Sambrook announced his departure from the BBC in November and announced his departure date as March 2010. He said he was planning to spend more time working as a visiting fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in Oxford, before taking up a new role outside of journalism and broadcasting.

Sambrook recently oversaw the corporation’s coverage of the Iranian post-election protests and spoke to Journalism.co.uk about the BBC’s use of user-generated content in its reports.

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Mobile plans for London Evening Standard announced at Mobile World Congress

The Standard will launch an application for smartphones later this month, an announcement by developers Handmark to coincide with this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

According to the launch release, “content within the London Evening Standard mobile application will be refreshed automatically and available for offline reading”.

Handmark’s mobile publishing platform has already been used by Thomson Reuters, Forbes and the Wall Street Journal.

There are no details about the cost of the app – the Standard’s print edition went free in October.

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NCTJ to make qualification ‘more relevant to digital age’

The National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) has presented plans to make its qualification more relevant to the digital age, as reported by Journalism.co.uk in December last year.

Senior board members discussed the proposals with current students at the third annual NCTJ Student Council, held at the Guardian‘s Kings Cross offices on Friday.

The day also saw the NCTJ preview a sleek new website which they hope to have online by the end of February.

Chief executive Joanne Butcher outlined a vision to broaden the NCTJ into a converged training body providing a ‘gold standard’ multimedia journalism qualification.

She said: “The core skills remain the same as ever, but the new qualification will have more of an emphasis on multimedia.”

The new qualification, which will be taught from September, will see integration of public affairs and media law examinations and the introduction of broadcasting into the qualification.

Shevon Houston, events and website manager for the NCTJ, previewed the new website for the 43 delegates who attended. She said the “fresh, dynamic, easy to navigate” interface would replace the current cluttered design.

The new site includes a searchable database of accredited courses, as well as a student and trainee login area which people enrolled on NCTJ programmes can use to check exam results and find job vacancies.

There is also a forum for students and trainees to debate issues.

Plans to modify the current industry-benchmark shorthand exam were also discussed.

At present, all candidates must be able to take down 100 words per minute for four minutes with a maximum of 10 errors. But, in order to test candidates’ listening skills, from September they will have to identify a quote within a passage and take it down with perfect accuracy to pass the test.

Ciaran Jones is a trainee journalist at Cardiff University. He keeps a blog on travelling and journalism and you can also follow him on Twitter.

Read more from Journalism.co.uk on the NCTJ student council meeting at this link

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Jobseeking advice doled out at NCTJ student council meeting

Journalism students were told that they needed to be “persistent nosey gossips” by Society of Editors’ executive director Bob Satchwell, at the NCTJ’s student council meeting at Guardian News & Media on Friday.

The annual event brings together students from NCTJ-accredited courses, NCTJ staff and board members as well as working professionals.

Students were given the chance to question the panel of experts, who offered advice on becoming employed.

Managing editor of the Sun, Graham Dudman, said not to submit a CV that is more than one page long.

“You’re not that interesting,” he said, “keep it short and to the point. That is where you are going to score.”

Dudman also claimed that if there are any spelling mistakes in an application it will instantly go in the bin.

Editor of Easyjet magazine, Jeroen Bergmans, echoed Dudman’s comments on spelling mistakes, adding that some even spell his name wrong.

Dave King, editor of the Swindon advertiser advised trainees that the one essential quality is shorthand, stating that “without 100wpm you won’t get a look in”.

Other advice given was to avoid looking lazy by addressing a cover letter with the word ‘sir’ instead of the editor’s name. Brien Beharrell, editorial director, Newbury Weekly News Group warned that if the phrase “I have a passion for writing” appeared, the applicant would not hear back from her.

Beharrell said she would rather see a demonstration that students are writing regularly, whether for a local newspaper or a university magazine.

Dominic Ponsford, editor of Press Gazette, said what impressed him most was someone who was “fantastically enthusiastic”. He suggested writing your CV as if it were a news story itself, with the most eye-catching information at the top. Ponsford also said you need to have “lots of good ideas”.

The meeting included an open discussion about how to improve the NCTJ in which the board showed a preview of its new website to be launched at the end of this month.

The new site is aimed at being more user-friendly and will also include a forum for student discussion and login areas for students and trainees.

Other future changes will also be seen in the transformation of the NCTJ into a multimedia qualification. Chief executive of the NCTJ, Joanna Butcher said: “The debate about what the core skills should be for multimedia journalists will intensify this year.” Citing the group’s annual report, Butcher said a new board will be set up to develop a “multimedia accreditation strategy”, as previously reported by Journalism.co.uk from the Society of Editors conference in 2008.

The reaction from students and trainees to this news was mixed. While many students on the three-year courses supported the idea, others on the short-courses were worried that they would be “spread too thin”, adding that there was not enough time to learn it all.

There is already an option to include a video report in a portfolio and multimedia entries are encouraged on all courses.

Rebecca Hughes, Centre for Journalism, University of Kent. Twitter: @beccihughes.

Read more from Journalism.co.uk on the NCTJ student council meeting at this link

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Le Figaro’s new online payment plans

Le Figaro, the French daily newspaper, has unveiled its new payment plan, with three tiers: Connect (free), Select (eight euros/month) and Business (15 euros/month). The focus on charging for additional features and services, rather than the site’s main news content – still outside the paywall.

Mon Figaro payment options at this link…

More detail at paidContent:UK…

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Guardian.co.uk: John Mulholland on the Observer’s relaunch

Writing in the Guardian, Observer editor John Mulholland introduces his relaunched four-section newspaper, out next Sunday. The television listings, dropped last year, will return.

Arts, literature and cultural affairs will be at the centre of our New Review – with additional pages, improved newsprint and an elegant new design – which will further enhance the Observer’s reputation as the premier Sunday destination for discursive and thoughtful analysis of cultural, philosophical and artistic issues. The New Review will also include a new section devoted to ­science and technology, increased space for critics and the return of seven-day TV listings.

Full story at this list…

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New Yahoo app for HuffPost Social News

Google Buzz might be the talk of the social media town right now, but Huffington Post is concentrating on Yahoo, with the launch of its new app for HuffPost Social News. Arianna Huffington writes:

We’ve also made it so you can now use your Yahoo! ID to quickly sign in to HuffPost, and to join HuffPost Social News so you can easily link up with your friends from Yahoo! who are also part of the HuffPost community. Want to check out what they are reading or make sure you see their latest comment? Log onto HuffPost Social News using Yahoo! and that happens automatically. And when you write a comment, you can, with one click, share it with your Yahoo! friends and contacts – just like you can share to Facebook or via Twitter.

Full post at the weekend…

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Owni.fr: The creation-orientated newsroom

Owni.fr, a French language media site, has begun translating some of its posts. This article, by Benoît Raphaël, editor in chief at Le Post, explores what a “Google Newsroom” or “creation-oriented” might look like:

Your 80 journalists are gathered into ten business units, ie in thematic clusters. Just as an independent media (which could be branded in another way) managed (or not) by a cluster manager, around which you can gather eight journalists, bloggers, a community + one marketing + one sales officer (they can work on multiple clusters). Each cluster can also have its copy editor and its associated community manager. (One can also imagine three large clusters of 16 journalists and three clusters of ten journalists etc.).

Full post at this link…

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