#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – FOI request ideas

Looking for some inspiration for story leads? Check out this list of 20 example freedom of information request ideas on David Higgerson’s blog, to help get the ball rolling. 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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#jpod: The week’s top news stories from Journalism.co.uk, 7 January 2011

Listen below for this week’s news round-up from Journalism.co.uk news reporter Rachel McAthy and sign up to our iTunes podcast feed for future audio.

Podcast: Download

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10,000 words: Deadline for international photography competition approaching

Photojournalism competition Pictures of the Year international closes next Friday, 14th January, reports 10,000 words.

The competition is open to professional and student photographers who can submit entries in over 40 categories, including subcategories for last year’s major news events.

The competition winners will be announced after two weeks’ of live and public judging at the Missouri journalism school’s campus next month.

For more details on the competition and how to enter, see 10,000 words. 

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lostremote: Newspaper pulls viral ‘homeless voice’ clip from YouTube

The latest online viral video of Ted Williams – the homeless man with the ‘golden voice’ – has been pulled from YouTube today “due to a copyright claim by The Dispatch”.

However, as lostremote.com comments, the original Dispatch-filmed video may not have received such attention had it not reached YouTube:

What’s fascinating about this story is the role YouTube played in making this story viral in the first place. Nearly all of the social media links pointed to the YouTube clip, not to Dispatch.com, and YouTube’s own social community helped amplify the volume. While the content was compelling, the social distribution made it explode. Without it, we wonder if Ted Williams would still be roaming the roadside.

Today Ted Williams was re-united with his 90 year-old mother, The Dispatch reports.

Watch the original video on The Dispatch here.

Read the full post from lostremote.com here.

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#followjourn: @philipjohn – director of thelichfieldblog.co.uk

Who? Philip John, “Lichfield lad, WordPress geek for hire, director of @LichfieldBlog, hyperlocal fan, @Journal_Local founder, lover of curry, tea & cider.”

Where? As well as tweeting avidly and keeping his own website, John shares his knowledge of hyperlocal journalism on journallocal.co.uk and love of Lichfield on thelichfieldblog.co.uk

Twitter? @philipjohn

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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Nieman: ‘The real tablet revolution seems to be upon us’

Ken Doctor, Newsonomics author and regular news business writer for Nieman Journalism Lab, suggests that news reading may be on the rise thanks to predicted high sales of tablets over the next two years.

Ready to trade up? That’s the new question now moving to the forefront of news publishers’ longer-range strategic planning, as the real tablet revolution seems to be upon us …

With tablet sales projected to reach 70 million in the U.S. in 2011 and 2012 (50 million of them iPads), and with early survey results, such as the Reynolds Journalism Institute’s study, showing longer news session times, more-than-snippets-reading, and a renewal of lean-back, pleasurable longer-form reading, publishers have been edging into an age of news reading renewal.

Maybe, people do want to read news and watch news after all, and maybe branded news can find its mojo once again.

Although Doctor shows that digital consumption of news may increase with more people buying iPads and similar tablet technology, he stresses that this could impact dramatically on print sales.

The full post can be read here.

In a feature for Journalism.co.uk published today, Norwegian media blogger Kristine Lowe looks at the reasons behind declining magazine sales figures for tablets, and whether so-called ‘tablet journalism’ for magazines needs to be done differently.

Read the full feature at this link: Tablet journalism: does our newest format need a new approach?

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MediaGuardian: What do the new phone-hacking developments mean for News Corp’s Sky bid?

Dan Sabbagh added a new angle to the News of The World phone-hacking scandal this morning, connecting the scandal to News Corp’s takeover bid for BSkyB. Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt is due to make a decision over the controversial bid this month.

Hunt, whose verdict is due this month, would have to argue that there is no danger of about the media power of an enlarged News Corp/Sky at a time when the tactics of its senior reporters are in the spotlight again.

He may yet do so, but the political risks of him letting the Murdoch deal go through at the first time of asking just multiplied – when he has the easier alternative of asking for the Competition Commission to look at the implications of the deal in more detail.

Sabbagh’s full comment piece can be found here.

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News of the World executive suspended over ‘serious allegation’ of phone-hacking

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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – video editing guides

Video journalism: Vimeo’s new Video School features a handful of beginners guides on the basics of video filming and editing, as well as a series of lessons and tutorials on more specific topics such as lighting and sound. 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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Reporters Without Borders publishes details of 2010 financial aid

At the end of last year Reporters Without Borders published the details of the financial aid it had provided to journalists and the media in 2010.

In total it paid out 226 assistance grants to media workers, which it claims were to assist in areas such as helping journalists in exile, paying medical bills, providing financial support to families, purchasing equipment and paying lawyers fees.

The vast majority of aid, 55.6 per cent, was awarded in Iran, which which with China has the joint highest number of imprisoned journalists at 34, as of last December. Africa and Asia were 2nd and 3rd, with 17.3 and 10.2 per cent respectively.

The grants are made possible in part by the EU’s European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR), of which Reporters Without Borders is a beneficiary.

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BBC News: Hundreds more organisations could be covered by FOI law

Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg will tomorrow announce that hundreds more organisations could be made subject to Freedom of Information laws, the BBC reports today.

According to the broadcaster, the Association of Chief Police Officers and the university admissions service UCAS are two bodies to be included.

Mr Clegg will pledge to “restore British freedoms” in his speech on Friday, as part of “our wider project to resettle the relationship between people and government”.

He will say: “Free citizens must be able to hold big institutions and powerful individuals to account – and not only the government. There are a whole range of organisations who benefit from public money and whose activities have a profound impact on the public good.

The Ministry of Justice had previously confirmed to Journalism.co.uk that it was looking at Freedom of Information Act 2000 “to see where we can further increase the openness and transparency of public affairs whilst ensuring that sensitive information is adequately protected”.

At the time the department said the next steps would be announced “in due course”.

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