Chinese news site praised for publishing global content gets back online

The editorsweblog.com has a post from Stefanie Churnow looking at the latest developments on a Chinese website called yeeyan.org – a news site made up of content translated from English in an attempt to help pull down the language barrier thrown up by the globalisation of journalism.

The site itself has been running since 2006 and has 150,000 registered users according to Nieman Journalism Lab, inviting translators to enable the movement of news from one language to the next.

Yeeyan focuses on the social aspect of its mission over quality of content. Users are highly encouraged to interact with the site and have their own profile which shows their statistics of their involvement on Yeeyan. People can recommend articles for translation, or they can attempt to translate an article themselves.

Commenting on the site’s success so far, Churnow says the significance is the support it provides to global journalism and offers a model for the future.

With the globalization of journalism, the need to translate different news sources into a variety of language is growing. The Paris based Courrier International is an established leader in this trend, translating articles from all over the world into French. Yet the Yeeyan community is an example of how it is possible to build cultural and language bridges at a cheaper rate than what is offered by conventional translating methods. Yeeyan may be replicated in the future to provide community based translating systems across many different languages. The drawback though is you get what you pay for; the communities are essentially free to sustain, but this social aspect to Yeeyan means that translation is not necessarily to a professional standard.

Last year it was shut down for several months following a partnership venture with the Guardian Media Group and was suffering from server problems earlier today, but these have now been corrected.

See the full post here…

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English PEN director describes ‘careful balancing act’ of libel reform

Jonathan Heawood, director of English PEN, part of a coalition of libel reform campaigners in the UK, has a detailed post on the International Forum for Responsible Media (Inforrm) blog about the NGO and its stance on the public interest defence in libel reform.

He discusses the criticisms the group has faced in relation to its campaign from both sides and the difficulty of finding a balance accepted by everyone.

Nonetheless, both organisations, and our coalition partners at Sense about Science, have been routinely attacked throughout our campaign for libel reform for promoting a ‘defamers’ charter’, that would give the media a licence to print defamatory stories without restraint.

Needless to say, this has never been our intention. As human rights charities, we recognise the need – in the words of Alastair Mullis and Andrew Scott – to ‘strike a fair balance between private reputation and public information.’ Their suggestion that this has never been a ‘motivating factor’ for us seems ungrounded.

I have to report that, when we have attempted to strike this balance too carefully, we have been attacked from the other side for weakening the cause of libel reform. The course of public benefit never has run smooth.

He goes on to outline his hopes for the future government libel bill, discussing the scope of the Reynolds defence and burden of proof for both claimant and defendant.

I would suggest that we begin a new Libel Bill by defining the tort as the publication of inaccurate and damaging material about an identifiable individual or corporate entity. We would then require claimants to show that the publication is inaccurate and damaging. Only if claimants had been able to show this would the court ask respondents to mount a defence, based on one of the three headings of truth, honest opinion or public interest.

See his full post here…

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What makes you an arts journalist? The Stage on a changing profession

Mark Shenton shares his thoughts on the world of arts journalism over on the Stage’s blog today, putting a spotlight on a profession being transformed by amateur critics online and an industry yet to fully accept the opinions of an unpaid commentator.

Of course, no special qualifications are required to be a theatre critic: just the fact that someone employs you to do so makes you one. But in the new online environment, no such appointments are necessary anymore; you can start a blog and call yourself one in the click of a mouse. It’s an increasing challenge amongst theatrical PRs to work out who they should extend the courtesy of free theatre tickets to.

The problem, according to Shenton, is that there are still organisations who put up barriers to those not yet being paid for their work.

The Edinburgh Fringe’s press office runs a media accreditation process to validate the numerous people claiming to be critics, so that there’s at least some kind of filter; but they’ve caused a little bit of a stir this year by denying accreditation to one particular website, The Public Reviews, which as its name suggests, uses members of the public to review shows as opposed to professionals. And being paid for your writing isn’t, of course, a pre-requisite either anymore to call yourself a critic. One of the best reviewing sites out there is theartsdesk.com, set up by a team of established print journalists, and it isn’t paying its contributors at the moment yet, either. (Neither does one of the biggest and most influential news and opinion sites in the US, The Huffington Post). But they’ve all noticed that the market is changing, and are taking a proactive step to be out there with a well-produced site that may, in turn, start making money in due course.

See his full post here…

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World Press Photo 2010 tour comes to Edinburgh and London

Winning images from the World Press Photo 2010 contest will be exhibited at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh from 3 August until 28 August.

The WPP 10 exhibition is touring the the world and will return to the UK for an exhibition at the Royal Festival Hall, London from 12 November until 9 December.

In 2009, Anthony Suau took the top prize in the photography contest for his image of home evictions in Cleveland, Ohio.

See a full list of exhibition dates and locations at this link

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#followjourn: @MarkOgier – online editor/game reviewer

#followjourn: Mark Ogier

Who? Mark is online editor and game reviewer for the Guernsey Press and the Globe.

Contact? @MarkOgier

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 laura at journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.

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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – online journalism how-to guides

The Online Journalism Review has a great resource of how-to guides for any journalist working on the web, from maintaining online communities to dealing with ethical matters. Tipster: Rachel McAthy.

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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#followjourn: @james_randerson – environment editor

#followjourn: James Randerson

Who? Deputy head of environment at the Guardian and editor of environmentguardian.co.uk.

Where? James’ Guardian profile with collected articles is at this link.  He’s also on Journalisted and LinkedIn. He Tweets about the environment and more at…

Contact? @james_randerson

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 laura at journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.

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BBC News redesign architect gets technical about changes

If you are more interested in the cogs and wheels behind the BBC News site’s redesign than the end product, a post by their chief technical architect John O’Donovan this week should be of interest.

The BBC has one of the oldest and largest websites on the internet and one of the goals of the update to the News site was to also update some of the core systems that manage content for all our interactive services.

O’Donovan first outlines the reasoning behind keeping with a Content Production System (CPS), rather than moving over to Content Management System (CMS), before giving a detailed look at the latest model – version 6 – that they have opted for.

The CPS has been constantly evolving and we should say that, when looking at the requirements for the new news site and other services, we did consider whether we should take a trip to the Content Management System (CMS) Showroom and see what shiny new wheels we could get.

However there is an interesting thing about the CPS – most of our users (of which there are over 1,200) think it does a pretty good job [checks inbox for complaints]. Now I’m not saying they have a picture of it next to their kids on the mantelpiece at home, but compared to my experience with many organisations and their CMS, that is something to value highly.

The main improvements afforded by the new version, according to O’Donovan, include a more structured approach, an improved technical quality of content produced and an ability to use semantic data to define content and improve layouts.

See his full post here…

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Facebook on how news organisations can best use the social network

The main man behind media partnerships at Facebook, Justin Osofsky, has posted a blog detailing the social network’s recent analysis of how news sites currently use Facebook.

A Facebook team conducted the independent analysis of the “100 top media sites”, assessing their user engagement through social plugins.

We recently set forth to learn how news organizations can best use Facebook to (1) drive growth in audience and traffic, (2) increase engagement, and (3) gain valuable customer insights.

We also analysed the pages of several top media organizations and the stories they posted, including their content, types of status update, and time of day.

The findings have been shared today on a Facebook and Media page, with an overall aim to improve news organisations’ use of Facebook media in the future.

Examples include the use of Facebook Insights to better understand user interests, and placement of the ‘Activity Feed’ and ‘Recommendations’ social plugins on both the front and content pages to gain up to ten times more clicks per user than on the front page alone.

See the full post here…

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New study catalogues most promising online news start-ups

Finding a model for making money with an online news start-up has been at the centre of many a recent debate within the media industry.

It has also sparked a study by Nieman and Reynolds Journalism Fellow Michele McLellan into those leading the way, in order to understand what it will take to support these organisations.

Working with research partner Adam Maksl, McLellan reviewed more than 1,000 sites before compiling a top 100 list of the most “promising sites”, which all fulfil the criteria of producing original news in a fair and transparent way and “demonstrate effort” in finding a sustainable revenue model.

There is no telling which sprouts will flourish and which will die. But it’s probably far too pessimistic to say flatly that none of today’s sprouts will ever replace any of our trees.

Some of their early findings include the growing working relationship between journalists and community members to create news sites and that most are struggling with sustainability. Revenue sources remain focused on advertising, memberships, syndication, grants and donations, while charging for access is “rarely seen as an option”.

See the full post here…

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