Martin Belam is taking a look at the online efforts of the UK’s student newspapers, as part of a series of posts looking at the digital journalism trainees currently in academia and those that have recently graduated.
Some great tips here from a user’s point of view about the design of the newspapers websites – one to watch for student journalists.
Tags: journalism students, Martin Belam, online newspapers, student journalism, student newspapers
Tracking news: Monitoring a website, feed or what for news to break on a website? Use notify.me to send alerts via email, SMS or instant message to let you know as soon as the site is updated. Tipster: Laura Oliver.
To submit a tip to Journalism.co.uk, use this link – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.
The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) has written to Burma’s military junta asking for the release of two Burmese journalists and an end to the repression of journalists working in the country.
According to reports, journalist Ngwe Soe Lin was sentenced to 13 years in prison on 28 January after sending reports to the Norwegian-based broadcaster Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB). Lin’s sentencing follows the 20-year punishment handed out to journalist Hla Hla Win late last year.
Full story and letter sent to the Junta at this link…
Tags: Asia, Burma, Hla Hla Win, myanmar, Ngwe Soe Lin, WAN, World Association of Newspapers
A high court judge yesterday ordered the News of the World to hand over secret evidence to Max Clifford, the celebrity publicist who claims his phone messages were intercepted by reporters at the title.
Under the ruling the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire has been instructed to disclose the names of everyone who instructed him to target Clifford.
More on the phone hacking allegations against the News of the World at this link.
Tags: glenn mulcaire, Max Clifford, News of the World, phone hacking
Telegraph.co.uk will move away from chasing high reader numbers online to focusing on “content, commerce and clubs”, says Edward Roussel, digital editor at the Telegraph, in this interview with PDA.
With the realisation that high web traffic figures does not guarantee a sustainable business model, Roussel says the focus will now be on developing channels. Part of this will be the work of Project Euston, the Telegraph’s new digital entrepreneurial unit led by Will Lewis, which has now been up and running for three weeks.
Euston is not a private club where only certain people can operate. It is designed openly. We have done it so that any one of our over 500 journalists who has a brilliant idea can apply for funding and other resource, and try to make it a reality.
The channel strategy will focus on creating content and commercial opportunities, such as shops and clubs, around niche areas and PDA picks up on the site’s existing gardening section, which carries a shop and drives readers to buy.
While there are opportunities to charge for access to certain areas, such as crosswords, by setting up clubs, Roussel adds that there are no immediate plans in place to go behind a universal paywall.
Tags: Crossword, Edward Roussel, paywall, paywalls, PDA, Telegraph.co.uk
Having set-up a discussion group online and run two successful offline meet-ups, Adam Westbrook’s Future of News initiative has inspired new events in the West Midlands, Brighton and Scotland. The idea: to discuss new tools, new directions and share ideas for the future of UK journalism.
West Midlands
The first ever meeting of the West Midlands branch of the Future of News group will be held at Birmingham City University on Monday 8 February at 6.45pm. To register you’ll need to sign up here. All is explained in a post on the site Journal Local and there’s a short introductory video from organiser Philip John:
Brighton
On the same date Journalism.co.uk’s own Judith Townend has set-up the first meeting of the Brighton group – with scheduled talks from the Brighton Argus’ web editor Jo Wadsworth and the Guardian’s Simon Willison. It’s at The Skiff from 7.15pm – and you can sign up here.
Scotland
Both of which have got digital editor Iain Hepburn wondering what demand there is for a similar meet-up in Scotland. If enough people register an interest, he says he’s happy to get the ball rolling. If you are, let Iain know on this blog post.
Tags: #fong, #futureofnews, brighton, digital editor, discussion group, future of news, Iain Hepburn, Jo Wadsworth, Judith Townend, Scotland, West Midlands
The Orwell Prize has received a record number of entries for the book, blogging and journalism prizes this year.
The journalists Peter Hitchens and Henry Porter, who both featured in last year’s journalism shortlist, become the first entrants to submit for all three prizes, its organisers announced today.
The entries will now be whittled down to long-lists of 12 (and 18 for the book), to be announced in March 2010, followed by shortlists in April, and the final winners in May. A release from the prize said:
The 84 journalism entries (versus 63 in 2009) include some of the year’s biggest scoops, including Robert Winnett on MPs’ expenses (Daily Telegraph), David Leigh on Trafigura, Paul Lewis on policing, Ian Cobain on torture, Iran and British hostages in Iraq (all The Guardian), Cathy Newman on British politics (Channel 4 News) and Jonathan Calvert and Claire Newell on the House of Lords (Sunday Times). There were also entries for campaigning journalism, including Rachel Cooke on library closures (The Observer) and Stefan Simanowitz on the people of the Western Sahara (freelance).
164 bloggers – nearly double last year’s total of 83 – will do battle in the Blog Prize. Professional journalists, including BBC economics editor Stephanie Flanders and Sky News foreign affairs editor Tim Marshall, will compete with blogosphere heavyweights including Iain Dale and Hopi Sen. There appears to be a ‘Nightjack’ effect after last year’s Blog Prize was won by a pseudonymous detective, with a postal worker (‘Roy Mayall’), a teacher (‘Mr Teacher’), a social worker (named after the main character from 1984, ‘Winston Smith’), a police officer (‘PC Bloggs’’) and even a dominatrix (‘sensory regulation’) putting themselves forward anonymously. Joining a number of local councillors are MEPs Dan Hannan and Mary Honeyball, and MPs John Redwood and Douglas Carswell. Legal campaigner Jack of Kent and exiled Jersey senator, Stuart Syvret are among the more campaign-oriented entries.
Tags: henry porter, orwell prize, peter hitchens
At yesterday’s hearing of the Iraq Inquiry, current Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Hilary Benn, who previously served as International Development Secretary and as a minister in the Home Office, described how the BBC World Service Trust had been involved in training journalists in Iraq after the fall of Saddam:
(…) [T]he work we did with the BBC World Service Trust training journalists, because that was a whole new world for them, trying to report on what was happening, so people have information to enable the fledgling Iraqi democracy to function.
The training of journalists on the ground and basing that training within Iraq was as important a part of building a democracy as training judges or building new physical infrastructure, suggested Benn.
I suppose some of the training [could have been done outside of Iraq], but the purpose of it was for them to go out – this was Al Mirbad – to go and report, and for people in Iraq to see what was going on, and that involves going out as a reporter and asking questions and producing programmes and broadcasting them, and you have to do that in Iraq.
More on the BBC World Service Trust’s work in Iraq can be found at this link.
Tags: Al Mirbad, BBC, BBC World Service Trust, Hilary Benn, Iraq, Politics
paidContent:UK has a report from yesterday’s News Corp. conference call in which CEO Rupert Murdoch brushed off a paywall warning made by Alan Rusbridger last week. Murdoch hadn’t read the Guardian editor’s Hugh Cudlipp speech but when asked what he made of its content, said: “I think that sounds like B.S. to me.”
In regards to paywall progression at the Times, Murdoch said:
“We’re looking at various alternatives – and I don’t think we’re ready to announce yet …We’re in the midst of a lot of talks with a lot of people that are coming to a head – and you’ll hear a lot more from us in the next two months.”
Tags: Alan Rusbridger, Newspapers, paywalls, Rupert Murdoch
The UK’s Media Standards Trust is trying to define the principles of journalism, as part of its Value Added News transparency project.
The hNews microformatting system, recently adopted by 200 new sites, requires its users to sign up to journalism principles. “One of the key elements of hNews (…) is rel-principles,” explains MST director Martin Moore. “This is a line of code that embeds a link within each article to the news principles to which it adheres. It doesn’t specify what those principles should be, just that the article should link to some.”
In a blog post for the MediaShift Idea Lab, Moore outlines some of the problems associated with drawing up such a code. He describes the themes identified so far. “These themes are by no means comprehensive – nor are they intended to be,” he says. “They are a starting point for those, be they news organizations or bloggers, who are drawing up their own principles and need a place to start. We’d really like some feedback on whether these are right, if ten is too many, if there are any big themes missing, and which ones have most relevance to the web.”
Full post (and themes) at this link…
Tags: Martin Moore, Media Standards Trust, MediaShift Idea Lab, Value Added News
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