All just a bit of fun of course, but satirical news website The Poke has created its own London Underground map of what it considers to be the Daily Mail’s editorial strategy.
It seems Journalism.co.uk gets off at “sun beds” on its trips to the big smoke:
Tags: Daily Mail, The Poke
The Guardian’s Martin Belam has produced a great summary of the panel debate at the launch of Nic Newman’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) paper on social media and the election, on his site currybet.net.
The research document, titled ‘UK Election 2010, mainstream media and the role of the internet’, outlines the significant role social media, in particular Twitter, played in informing the public during the election process.
One of the big questions which emerged from the panel debate was whether this social media engagement would continue now the election is over:
People need something to be engaged with. It remains to be seen whether the major parties will continue with digital campaigning, or whether, rather like leaflets, we will see a lot of them at election time and not much in between.
Outlining the main findings, Newman reportedly told the audience that Twitter became a “political newswire” as well as having a direct impact on the behaviour of politicians.
Reports Belam:
The best of the social media – jokes, spoof posters, reaction on Twitter – was reflected and amplified by the mainstream media. This ultimately influenced the behaviour of the politicians. David Cameron, for example, toned down his habit of citing anecdotal stories of people he met after it was spoofed online.
(…) William Hague announcing he was about to go back into negotiations with the Liberal Democrats via Twitter suggesting the service was beginning to be used as ‘a political newswire’.
See Martin Belam’s full post here…
Tags: election, ge2010, Martin Belam, reuters institute for the study of journalism, RISJ, social media, social media engagement, Twitter, uk election
On the Reynolds Center for Business Journalism site journalist Jodi Schneider from the American Banker, has some tips for financial journalists looking for local banking stories in the aftermath of the credit crisis .
For local publications, community banks are a good source of stories and a way to localise the financial services story playing out on the national and world stage.
While her advice focuses on American processes, the general ideas could be adapted for the UK banking scene.
Story tips include: looking at other areas of a local economy which are suffering and how they may impact on local financial institutions; or investigating banks’ capital levels to predict whether they may be in danger of regulatory action.
More general advice covers what to include in any banking story, from the size of the institution and recent earnings, to capital standings and recent regulatory actions.
Tags: business journalism, financial journalism, Jodi Schneider, local banking stories, Reynolds Center for Business Journalism
The government outlined its plans for structural reform this week, including a timetable for media reform from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMA).
Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for DCMS, writes in the report that he hopes to “roll back media regulation” in order to “encourage investment and create the conditions for sustainable growth”.
Plans for local media include a relaxation of the rules governing cross-media ownership by November this year and for the first of Hunt’s local TV stations to be licensed by summer 2012, with a target of creating 10 to 20 new stations by the end of parliament.
Actions laid out in the plans include changes to the media regulatory regime by reforming Ofcom and deregulating the broadcasting sector. Measures to scale back Ofcom’s duties are planned as part of a Public Bodies Reform Bill and Communications Bill, with the legislative process set to begin by November 2012.
Hunt also plans to agree the terms of a new licence fee settlement between July 2011 and April 2012.
He said these plans aim to give the public an idea of the programme to follow, but that much “broader ambitions” will be set out in the autumn in a spending review.
Tags: Broadcasting, cross-media ownership, DCMS, Jeremy Hunt, Local media, local tv, media regulation, media regulatory regime, Ofcom, structural reform plans
Patrick Meier, Ushahidi’s director of crisis mapping and strategic partnerships, talks to Nieman Journalism about how the crowdsourced mapping technology can be used by media organisations in the video below.
There’s a full transcript of Meier’s comments on the Nieman site too. Ushahidi has previously been used as a crisis management tool with its initial launch used to track and monitor acts of violence and the humanitarian situation during post-election violence in Kenya.
Tags: crisis management, crowdsourcing, Mapping, Patrick Meier, Technology/Internet, ushahidi
Blogging: First time bloggers or short-of-time pros can create a blog in minutes using Posterous. Email posts, images, videos, audio and files to be automatically uploaded. You can now also easily transfer from other platforms. Tipster: Rachel McAthy.
To submit a tip to Journalism.co.uk, use this link – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.
Tags: blogging, Posterous
Writing in the Financial Times earlier this week, former government communications director Alastair Campbell made the following comments when asked if business leaders should be wary of speaking out:
If you are in a senior position in politics or at the very top in business, it is probably as well to assume that life is on the record. When the organisers of any event you are speaking at tell you it is being held under “Chatham House rules”, and that everyone in the room is utterly discreet and trustworthy, it is best to nod and smile. Make a mental note that it is difficult for Chatham House rules to co-exist with Twitter, Facebook and the 24/7 media culture. Part of the art of after-dinner speaking is giving a sense of indiscretion without saying anything that you would not wish to be used against you in a different context. It still leaves lots of scope for revelation, candour, frankness and wit, but it is done on the speaker’s terms, not the terms of someone putting out a garbled or gossipy version afterwards.
But in a letter to the FT published today, Keith Burnet, communications director of Chatham House, says Campbell is wrong in his point about Twitter and Facebook:
The Rule can be used effectively as long as the person tweeting or messaging reports only what was said and does not identify – directly or indirectly – the speaker or another participant.
Perhaps part of Campbell’s point is the use of social media to “broadcast news” by a wider group than trained journalists familiar with Chatham House Rules. While a reporter at an event might not directly or indirectly identify participants is it possible for some kind of “jigsaw identification” to take place with updates from organisers, members of the public and speakers themselves filtering into coverage of the event?
Tags: Alastair Campbell, Chatham House, Chatham House Rules, the Chatham House Rule
One of Brazil’s oldest newspapers is to close its print edition and go online-only, according to a post on the Shaping the Future of the Newspaper blog.
The report says the Jornal do Brasil, which was the first paper in the country on the web when it launched online in 1995, will be discontinued from 1 September.
Readers of the newspaper were apparently informed by a full page advert published yesterday.
The future of the print newspaper was already in question, with readers invited to take part in an online survey in June about possible publishing changes. But with the survey responses due to be released in August, the decision to close the publication came earlier than expected.
According to an report by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, the newspaper, which is 119-years-old, was suffering from a declining circulation.
Tags: closing newspapers, Jornal do Brasil, Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas., print newspaper, Shaping the Future of the Newspaper report
Len De Groot, from the Knight Digital Media Center, has a useful first-hand account of using the iPhone 4 for reporting news.
Having taken his new iPhone out with him at lunch to put its tools to the test, he agreed it would prove a valuable tool for reporters.
Suddenly, the iPhone can be a serviceable web video camera in breaking news situations or unplanned interviews. It allows you to shoot and edit video, add lower thirds and titles and upload directly to the web.
It will not replace professionals and professional equipment, however. It fits into “the best camera is the one you have on you” category.
In his post he discusses his experiences of audio quality, uploading a full HD video to quicktime and then getting the clips onto youtube and vimeo as viewing platforms.
Related reading on Journalism.co.uk: iPhone 4 developments herald a mobile future for news
Tags: iPhone, iphone 4, Knight Digital Media Center, Len De Groot, mobile journalism, video journalism
Ben Goldacre suggests a new website could be set up as “a repository of ingredients” for news stories to improve the media’s transparency when it comes to primary sources and give readers “unmediated/unedited access to full comments from interested parties”.
Such a site would contain, says Goldacre:
Full post on Ben Goldacre’s website…
Related reading on the transparency debate: ‘Should newspapers publish full interview transcripts online?’
Tags: Ben Goldacre, transparency
Download our free iPhone app for the latest news, jobs and releases.
