#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – SEO tips for bloggers

Take a look at this post on Blog Herald outlining eight search engine optimisation tips for bloggers looking to appear top in search results and draw in more traffic. 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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Media Release: IPC Media unveils 24 mobile-optimised sites

IPC Media, which owns Marie Claire, NME and Nuts magazines, has unveiled 24 new mobile-optimised sites.

In a release, IPC said consumers can now browse content on the following sites: Country Life, Cycling Weekly, Decanter, Golf Monthly, GoodToKnow, House to Home, Marie Claire , Motor Boats Monthly, MotorBoat & Yachting, NME, Nuts, Now, Practical Boat Owner, Shooting Gazette, Shooting Times, Shooting UK, Sporting Gun, The Field, Volksworld, What Digital Camera, Woman & Home, YBW, Yachting Monthly and Yachting World.

IPC Media head of mobile Miles Ross said: “The mobile platform is a vital channel through which consumers can discover and consume our titles and content. The launch of 24 new mobile-optimised sites illustrates both the level of commitment and the speed with which IPC is moving into the mobile space, thanks to some great work from our technology group, IPC Digital. Mobile advertising is growing rapidly and these new sites will enable IPC to offer a unique audience across this medium.”

IPC Digital programme director Tara Hamilton-Whitaker added: “Consumption of IPC websites through smart phones is already significant, but through an optimised web experience, targeted at a 3.5″ screen, engagement levels sky rocket.

“This means IPC brands are closer than ever in ensuring consumers can choose where and when they enjoy our content. You can expect more content, more mobile sites, more great mobile functionality and more mobile-related announcements over the coming months.”

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Diane Coyle ‘preferred candidate’ for vice chairman of the BBC Trust

Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has agreed to appoint Diane Coyle as vice chairman of the BBC Trust, the department for culture, media and sport said today,

According to a release this followed an open recruitment process and Hunt has now submitted his recommendation to Privy Council to seek the Queen’s formal approval of the appointment.

Coyle, a former economics editor of the Independent, is already a serving member of the BBC Trust.

In a statement, outgoing BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons said he welcomed the confirmation that Coyle had been put forward for the role.

“Diane has made an important contribution to the work of the Trust in its first four years, particularly in leading the Trust’s work on public value. I’m sure that in this expanded role Diane will be looking forward to the opportunity to bring her wisdom, insight and consistent good humour to even more of the Trust’s work.”

Earlier this month Lord Patten was approved by the Culture, Media and Sport select committee as a “suitable candidate” for the role of chairman of the BBC Trust after being named as the government’s preferred candidate in February.

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BBC announces special swansong for Russian-language broadcasts

As the BBC puts an end to its 65 years of traditional radio broadcasting in Russian, it is hosting a series of special programmes this week looking back at its journalism over the years.

This will include speaking to key members of the Russian media to share their views on the broadcaster, including the owner of the Independent, Alexander Lebedev and leading Russian journalists and writers.

The final programme will take place on Saturday (26 March) with the BBC Russian live weekend programme, Pyatiy Etazh (Fifth Floor).

The BBC started regular Russian-language broadcasts to the Soviet Union on 24 March 1946. Throughout the years, the BBC radio brought independent news and analysis to Russian-speaking audiences. In its special programming, BBC Russian looks again at the key stories it has covered – reporting the cold war and the perestroika, the attempted putsch of August 1991 and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the two Chechen wars and Beslan, the Russia-Georgia conflict and everything else that has mattered to its audiences in the region.

The BBC’s Russian output will continue on bbcrussian.com, where two radio programmes will be broadcast every Monday to Friday and one will be broadcast on Saturdays and Sundays.

Russian is one of seven radio programming languages which were proposed for closure as part of cuts to the World Service, along with Azeri, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish for Cuba, Turkish, Vietnamese and Ukrainian, and Russian.

Read more about the BBC’s special Russian programming here…

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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – better FOI requests

David Higgerson has used Twitter to crowdsource some advice from local authority staff on what journalists can do to improve their freedom of information requests pulling together some of the responses on his ever-useful blog. 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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BBC Blog: IPTV is ‘arguably the platform of the future’

The BBC wants to build a prototype and pilot Internet Protocol Television (IPTV).

Speaking at the IPTV World Forum yesterday, Fearnley, who is general manager news and knowledge of BBC Future Media, said IPTV – which allows content from the internet is displayed on a connected TV – is “arguably the platform of the future”.

Writing on the BBC Internet Blog after delivering the speech, Fearnley says there are opportunities for BBC News Online in IPTV.

Screen Digest reports that by 2014 90 per cent of TV sets sold in Europe will be internet enabled. And of course, connected TVs are only part of the story; around three quarters of major brand consoles purchased in 2011 will be browser enabled so this is a huge area of growth.

That said, the IPTV market is in its infancy and we don’t know what mainstream audience reaction will be. An agreed editorial strategy and defined product roadmap from the BBC are still a way off, but in the meantime we’re keen to prototype and pilot within the market, glean audience feedback, and iterate quickly.

Fearnley goes on to imagine how IPTV could develop.

By looking at the strengths of BBC News on the web we can start to see how the service could be re-imagined for IPTV. When BBC News Online was refreshed last year we introduced ‘live pages’, housing up-to-the-minute AV content and real-time updates. Major events continue to demonstrate that traditional, ‘lean-back’ consumption isn’t enough for audiences. During the recent disaster in Japan over 79,996 users ‘shared’ the live page; the live event experience on the web is strong.

Imagine a browser-based BBC News experience on your TV. With closer proximity between the live broadcast and BBC Online you can envisage users dipping out of a London 2012 linear broadcast to access details of an athlete, event, or location online – a context enriched by our advances in dynamic semantic publishing, which my colleague Jem Rayfield blogged about last year.

In comparison, apps optimised to a platform standard could deliver a more focused type of utility. You can imagine a BBC News app for connected TV that unites digital journalism with the AV of the BBC News Channel, improved by on-demand, allowing users to navigate through bulletins and to drive their own consumption. There’s huge potential here, and the BBC’s role is the same as ever: expressing the full, creative potential of the medium.

Feanley’s post says IPTV is in its infancy and appeals to the industry to develop technologies in a way that are easy to use -  just as Ceefax was.

“A simple, intuitive navigational platform standard – seamlessly integrating linear and on-demand worlds – is what we ask of industry.”

Full blog post on the BBC site at this link

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Independent: BBC savings have to come from somewhere

An opinion piece in today’s Independent recognises that the BBC has some tough decisions to make when it comes to finding ways to save money, but says that the corporation shouldn’t be immune to budget cuts.

No one could dispute that such reporting [of global news] is at the very core of the BBC’s public-service broadcasting remit. But savings are going to have to come from somewhere, and the BBC should be no more immune from the need to prioritise than any other organisation.

The BBC is currently undergoing the Delivering Quality First review to try to find ways of coping with no increase in the licence fee for the next five years.

Several ideas are on the table, including cutting programming on BBC local radio stations between the breakfast shows and drivetime shows when the stations would broadcast Radio 5 Live. The NUJ has warned this could see 700 jobs axed. The Guardian is reporting today that overnight programming could be scrapped as another cost saving measure.

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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – investigative journalism

The Independent blog features some useful advice from Neela Debnath, for aspiring investigative journalists looking to hone their skills. In her post she offers tips on narrowing down a topic of interest, keeping track of sources and also highlights the importance of patience in this field. 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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Journalisted Weekly: Fukushima, Libya no-fly zone, and Six Nations

Journalisted is an independent, not-for-profit website built to make it easier for you, the public, to find out more about journalists and what they write about.

It is run by the Media Standards Trust, a registered charity set up to foster high standards in news on behalf of the public, and funded by donations from charitable foundations.

Each week Journalisted produces a summary of the most covered news stories, most active journalists and those topics falling off the news agenda, using its database of UK journalists and news sources.

for the week ending Sunday 20 March

• National news outlets gripped by fate of Fukushima nuclear plant
• The UN resolution for a no-fly zone over Libya, covered lots
• Other international, Middle East and and UK news struggles to get a look in

Covered lots

• Fears of Japan’s quake-damaged Fukushima nuclear plant going into meltdown, with expats advised to leave Tokyo, 831 articles
• Gaddafi, declaring a ceasefire and then sending his forces to attack rebels in the city of Benghazi, 662 articles
• The UN passes a resolution for a no-fly zone over Libya, with western allies striking Gaddafi’s air bases over the weekend, 543 articles
• In rugby union, England loses to Ireland but wins this year’s Six Nations championship, 422 articles

Covered little

• The world’s largest paedophile ring, centred around Dutch website ‘boylover.net’, is uncovered by police, with international arrests underway, 13 articles
• US state department spokesman, Philip Crowley, resigns in protest at the treatment of Bradley Manning, 9 articles
• The body of missing 25-year-old, Jia Ashton, found in woods in Derbyshire, with her family now appealing to witnesses, 8 articles
• Anglesey County Council, stripped of its executive powers, a first in the UK, 7 articles
• Tens of thousands rally in the streets of Gaza and the West Bank, calling for unity between the two Palestinian parties Hamas and Al-Fatah, 5 articles
• Israel seizes a weapons ship headed for Egypt, the Israeli navy suspecting Syria and Iran of smuggling arms into Gaza, 4 articles

Political ups and downs (top ten by number of articles)

• David Cameron: 587 articles (+6 per cent on previous week)
• George Osborne: 242 articles (+6 per cent on previous week)
• William Hague: 176 articles (-35 per cent on previous week)
• Ed Miliband: 165 articles (+114 per cent on previous week)
• Nick Clegg: 153 articles (-18 per cent on previous week)
• Tony Blair: 112 articles (+14 per cent on previous week)
• Gordon Brown: 104 articles (+18 per cent on previous week)
• Ed Balls: 83 articles (+63 per cent on previous week)
• Andrew Lansley: 80 articles (0 per cent on previous week)
• Vince Cable: 49 articles (-42 per cent on previous week)
• Liam Fox: 48 articles (-2 per cent on previous week)

Celebrity vs serious

• Kate Middleton, with the dress she modelled at university selling for £78,000 at auction, 151 articles vs. 1,000 Saudi troops invited into Bahrain by the kingdom as it declares a 3 month ‘state of emergency’, 51 articles
• ‘The Only Way is Essex’, the new series, 35 articles vs. two accomplices of killer Raoul Moat, jailed for life, 13 articles
• Charlie Sheen, with his love life still interesting the press, 34 articles, vs. the killing of over 50 protesters in Sana’a, Yemen, President Saleh then sacking his entire cabinet, 10 articles
• Singer Nicole Scherzinger, pitched against Cheryl Cole for judge position on US X Factor, 21 articles vs. anti-regime demonstrations across cities in Syria, leaving 4 dead and hundreds wounded, 12 articles

Who wrote a lot about…’Fukushima’

Leo Lewis – 19 articles (The Times), Justin McCurry – (The Guardian), Nick Allen – 11 articles (Telegraph), Michiyo Nakamoto – 10 articles (Financial Times), Tania Branigan – 10 articles (The Guardian), Gordon Rayner – 9 articles (Telegraph), Robert Cookson – 8 articles (Financial Times), David McNeil – 7 articles (The Independent), Martyn McLaughlin – 7 articles (The Scotsman)

Long form journalism

• 4,332 words: ‘Martine Wright: 7/7, survival – and a whole new life of opportunities’ – Carole Cadwalladr, The Observer, 20th March 2011
• 3,734 words: ‘OJ’s last stand’ – Chris Ayres, Sunday Times, 20th March 2011
• 3,404 words: ‘Rare earths: why China is cutting exports crucial to Western technologies’ – Peter Foster, Daily Telegraph, 19th March 2011

More from the Media Standards Trust

Visit the Media Standards Trust’s new site Churnalism.com – a public service for distinguishing journalism from churnalism

The Media Standards Trust’s unofficial database of PCC complaints is available for browsing at www.complaints.pccwatch.co.uk

For the latest instalment of Tobias Grubbe, journalisted’s 18th century jobbing journalist, go to journalisted.com/tobias-grubbe

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Budget coverage: what to expect

Tomorrow Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne will make his budget statement to the House of Commons, with media outlets busy preparing to cover in detail its contents tomorrow. So what have broadcasters got planned?

A brainstorming session at Channel 4 along with the help of Ben Marsh, the developer behind #uksnow map, has resulted in Cutsmap, a crowdsourced map to track spending cuts as part of Channel 4′s coverage of the budget. The map launched today, and you can read more about it here.

Meanwhile, Sky News Online is planning to offer a budget calculator to allow people to enter details such as their salary, age and fuel usage, to see how much better or worse off they will be following the announcement.

The ITV News website will host a live web chat starting at 12.20pm, featuring a panel of experts who users can question and interact with online.

BBC Radio 5 Live will cover the budget by ‘adopting’ two towns and following how the announcements will impact on residents’ lives over the coming year.

“We chose Chorley and Falmouth so we can look at how two places, 350 miles apart and with very different economies, are affected by the same policies. Who’s struggling and who’s doing well?” Stephen Mawhinney, Radio 5 Live’s head of news said in a release.

Mawhinney added: “We’ll be in regular contact with the people of Chorley and Falmouth, asking for their thoughts and experiences on everything from interest rates and jobs to the price of food, the prices of fuel, and the price of a university education – everything which affects how they live and how much money they have in their back pocket.”

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