Discounts for tonight’s freelancers’ networking party at the Frontline

Feel the need for some networking? Contacts book looking a bit bare? The Frontline Club in London is offering Journalism.co.uk readers a half-price ticket offer for its latest networking party, tonight, Wednesday 21 April.

The theme of the evening is original video journalism and the club will be showcasing four unusual, innovative films, including an exclusive preview of a Current TV documentary on South Africa. The event takes place at the club, near Paddington Station at 13 Norfolk Place from 7pm.

The first 10 Journalism.co.uk readers to email events [at] frontlineclub.com with “Journalism.co.uk Frontline networking offer” in the subject heading will receive up to two tickets at £10, a full 50 per cent off the normal price (payment will be accepted on the door but advance booking is essential).

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#followjourn: @hwallop/consumer affairs editor

#followjourn: Harry Wallop

Who? The Telegraph’s consumer affairs editor. Oxford graduate and former Investors Chronicle writer.

Where? Wallop writes for the Telegraph technology video section (he is one of two ‘gadget inspectors’) and has a blog in the paper’s online finance section. As consumer affairs editor he has a broad remit however, and covers “everything from food trends and utility bills to the property market and the latest toys”. His Telegraph profile and collected articles can be found at this link. He also has a LinkedIn page.

Contact? @hwallop

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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Paywalled Rolling Stone brings readers closer to music

Rolling Stone magazine set its relaunched website live on Monday introducing new subscription packages to its ‘Rolling Stone All Access’ section, greater access to the magazine’s archives and new navigation.

The changes to the site are explained in a post on the website, but one feature worth highlighting is the ability to listen to any piece of music that a visitor reads about on the site. Coupled with the option to buy albums reviewed by the mag, this is the kind of one-stop offering that could increase stickiness – the amount of time a reader spends on the site – for the new-look site.

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Currybet.net: Does reality of workplace meet young journalists’ expectations?

Martin Belam is posting a series of Q&As with three young journalists who have recently qualified and moved into work to see if the realities of working match their expectation’s of a job in journalism and whether the skills they learned in training were appropriate.

Today’s post focuses on their experience of using technology and tomorrow’s will look at what the new journalists feel they were not prepared for when it came to starting working life.

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Roy Greenslade: Brighton’s Argus and saving local newspapers

Media commentator Roy Greenslade gives a no-holds-barred review of the local news scene in his home city Brighton, in particular the problems faced by the Newsquest-owned local newspaper, the Argus.

As we all know, regional evenings have been in decline across the country, but the Argus has lost more buyers faster than many similar titles. Is this Newsquest’s fault? Well, a publisher cannot be entirely free of blame.

However, the central difficulty facing any editor of the Argus (and, arguably, all regionals and locals) has been demographic, trying to identify, and then appeal to, a target audience. In plain terms, should it be The Times or The Sun or the Daily Mail?

The paper, again like others, has tried to be all things to all people, without managing to satisfy any sector. Its front pages have tended to be red-toppish, with an accent on crime. Indeed, much of the news follows a tabloid-style agenda.

Comments from former Argus journalists, contributors and some readers make for an interesting anatomy of the difficulties faced by regional and local newspapers across the UK – a worthwhile read for all regional hacks.

Full post at this link…

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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – follow a journalist’s work

Want to follow the work of a particular journalist in the UK? Check out the newly relaunched Journalisted.com, where you can set up alerts for particular journalists and search its archive. Tipster: Judith Townend.

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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Knight Digital Media Center: Mobile news ‘is not internet lite’

The Knight Digital Media Center’s News Leadership 3.0 blog has a post rounding up the best advice from a recent conference on mobile news. Top tips from newsrooms and editors already developing mobile strategies and applications include:

• Remember content AND convenience;
• Don’t treat mobile news as a ‘lite’ version of your website;
• Don’t just cater for high-end handsets – think about how text messaging can be used.

Full story at this link…

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Lost Remote: New journalism programme to mix digital storytelling and business

“Even with the state of journalism today,” claims Lost Remote’s Cory Bergman, “most university professors would be loath to meld a curriculum of storytelling with the business side of the equation”. This is not the case at the University of Washington digital media programme though, which aims to become the ‘Columbia Journalism School of digital media and communication’, and teach “a unique blend of digital storytelling, social media and the business of digital media”.

“The three go together,” says Hanson Hosein, the director of the Masters of Communication in Digital Media program and a former NBC News correspondent who covered the Iraq war as a one-man band. “We’re hearing from our applicants that there’s nothing else like our program.”

Full story at this link…

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Telegraph’s new election database (in beta)

I’m having a play with the Telegraph’s new political database feature, currently in beta. While launched in time for the general election, it will live on afterwards as well, as a useful tool for tracking information about political candidates and constituencies.

The basic search allows you to find information about your candidates, eg. their educational background (private / state school etc.), as well as the background stats on the constituency itself.

If your candidate is an MP, you also get a link to the Telegraph’s expenses file on them, and their parliamentary allowances page. Check out Oldham East and Saddleworth MP Phil Woolas, for example.

Like Paul Bradshaw points out on the OnlineJournalismBlog, the really nice feature is the ‘advanced search’ option.

With this, you can narrow down your search to very specific criteria – by type of school (or even name of school – eg. Eton), age or the category of candidate they are.

It is in beta though, and a lot of information is still missing. Until all the information is complete (e.g every school for each candidate is accurate and complete) you couldn’t begin to make proper analyses of social backgrounds etc.

There’s a how-to guide at this link.

The swingometer feature is fun too (though perhaps needs clearer explanation on the main page – a pop out box, perhaps?):

“[F]ind which seats will change for a given swing. Choose from Labour v Conservative swing, Labour v Liberal Democrat, or Liberal Democrat v Conservative, and push the swingometer up to 20 per cent either way to see which constituencies change hands.”

On constituency search you can see where parties have picked their battlegrounds, which can be further narrowed by retiring or defending MP. So, for example, I can search all Labour target battlegrounds, where they are defending seats. There’s a swing feature here too:

[S]earch by swing required for a change of MP from the 2005 results. This can be organised by party using the drop-down bar and slider – so it is possible to show all the seats that would fall to the Conservatives given a 10 per cent swing from Labour, for instance.

Like Paul Bradshaw says, it’s a shame that there’s no API available or ‘mashable’ data on tap, but definitely a very nice looking tool – which I need some more time to play around with.

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#followjourn: @reversefrasier/freelance

#followjourn: James Lawrenson

Who? Lawrenson is a freelance journalist and self-proclaimed ‘master cakebaker’. He writes mostly about music. He is also a serial blogger.

Where? He seems to have two blogs, The Reverse Frasier, which charts his trip from Seattle to Boston (moving in the opposite direction to television character Frasier apparently, who moved from Boston to Seattle) and Sprawling Reels, which seems to largely about music. Lawrenson also contributes to Drowned In Sound, which has a profile page for him here, and for Spinner, who have one for him here.

Contact? @reversefrasier

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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