#jpod in depth: Strikers on BBC picket lines

This week’s #jpod looks at the BBC strikes which have been held by members of the National Union of Journalists in recent weeks. Staff performed their second 24-hour walk-out in protest at compulsory redundancies at the broadcaster, this week.

According to the union, more than 100 people are at risk of losing their jobs at the BBC World Service and jobs are also said to be at risk in divisions including BBC Monitoring, BBC Scotland and potentially BBC Wales, BBC 4, BBC Sport and TV Current Affairs.

In this podcast we visit the picket lines to speak to journalists striking at a regional BBC outlet and hear their concerns, as well as Jonathan Lovett, father of the chapel for the NUJ at Tindle Newspapers in Enfield, to discuss the power of industrial action and how him and his colleagues won concessions from management.

Podcast: Download

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Similar posts:

• Debate: Will other reporters follow Tindle’s and strike over quality?
• NUJ: Ray Tindle to meet with Parlimentary representatives over Enfield dispute
• Motions from Manchester: “This chapel declares it has no confidence in the Scott Trust”
• Brighton Argus: Twitter account and strike blog boost picket line protests
• Letter to GMG Regional Media’s Mark Dodson from MEN NUJ chapel

Johnston Press strike breakers brag about newsroom antics on Facebook

Johnston Press journalists picket the offices of the South Yorkshire Times

Johnston Press in South Yorkshire are out on indefinite strike over planned redundancies at five titles in the region. (See more from Journalism.co.uk about the strike action at this link).

Management have come in for a lot of flak from the unions over their handling of the strike, which included asking a 16-year-old schoolboy on work experience to stay on an extra week and help cover the newsdesk.

Further embarrassment for the company comes in the form of Tom Bills and friend Jack Reed. Tom – the son of Johnston Press managing director John Bills – and Jack were drafted in to help out on the newsdesk of the Doncaster Free Press, according to NUJ deputy organiser for the region Lawrence Shaw, despite having no journalistic experience.

But rather than hide their faces away like strike breakers might normally do, ferried through a picket line on a bus with wire mesh on the windows, Tom and Jack publicised their newsroom antics on Facebook, for the world to see.

Shaw spotted the Facebook status updates and reposted them on his blog.

They include such gems from Tom as:

workin in a newsroom in doncaster, av been for a couple of weeks! Its reaaaaalllly goood!:) x

is it bad that I found the word ‘erection’ funny at work in a story about a building being built?!!:)

sooooo bored at work I’ve actually started look at the clock more than my computer screen.

Bored, but managing to get though it:

just thinkin of the dollar atm!

As, I’m sure, are the journalists out on strike with no pay.

And from Tom’s equally eloquent friend Jack:

nothing get a man erect like doncaster editorial. lets toss each other off.

And:

can u listen to ur ipod in a newsroom wen ur sposed to be workin?

Humorous yes, but as Shaw points out, the move raises questions about John Bills’ judgement:

Why did he employ his own son and his friend to work in editorial when neither appear to have any journalistic training or experience, then allow them to sarcastically spout forth on facebook belittling the newspapers he runs? It reinforces the belief held by the NUJ that John Bills cares not a jot about the editorial coverage in the newspaper, or even the reputation of the papers.

Had any ordinary NUJ member been caught mouthing off on facebook in the same way, they would have almost certainly been sacked for bringing the company into disrepute. So seeing as John Bills is ultimately responsible for employing his son to sit in the office and mouth off about how crap it is working at the Doncaster Free Press, surely Johnston Press directors should be seriously questioning his suitability for running a newspaper group.

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• ‘Embarrassed bosses’ stop strike breaking with work experience, NUJ claims
• NUJ: Bolton strike on, Sheffield strike off
• The Today programme’s Adam Shaw: tackling the UK’s ‘massive financial illiteracy’
• Another council freesheet bites the dust
• NUJ: Johnston Press blocks staff strike with legal action

The top 10 most-read stories on Journalism.co.uk, 30 July-5 August

The top 10 most-read news stories and blog posts this week on Journalism.co.uk were:

1. Al Jazeera English hits US screens after New York cable deal

2. BBC news programmes disrupted by second 24-hour strike

3. How to: get to grips with SEO as a journalist

4. Can FOI requests be submitted on Twitter? Yes, says ICO

5. App of the week for journalists: Evernote – A must-have app ‘like having a second brain’

6. Alleged hacker’s bail hearing divides news outlets over reporting restrictions

7. Guardian Media Group reports £25m drop in revenue

8. Twentieth journalist killed in Latin America this year

9. Ofcom report: 30 stats on smartphones and internet use

10. BuzzData, a ‘social network for people who work with data’

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• British journalist rescued from Taliban but interpreter died; reports suggest British soldier also killed
• Reporting restrictions: who can access them?
• Media Post: NAA reports shows online newspaper ad revenue down 13 per cent in first quarter
• AFP: Two journalists murdered in Philippines
• Advertising: Newspapers sign up with Zillow.com and Politico; UK radio station launches motor ads site

LinkedIn growing by two new members every second

LinkedIn is growing by two new members every second, according to figures released yesterday (4 August).

Around 14 million people joined the business social network in the three months to 30 June.

That equates to an average of:

• 156,000 new users every day (new social network Google+ has been growing at a rate of one million new members a day);
• 6,500 every hour;
• 108 new members every minute;
• 1.8 new users every second.

LinkedIn has also released impressive web traffic figures and financial results:

• Unique visitors of 81.8 million per month, an increase of 83 per cent from the second quarter of 2010;
• Page views of 7.1 billion, an increase of 80 per cent from the second quarter of 2010;
• Revenue for the second quarter was $121.0 million, an increase of 120 per cent compared to $54.9 million for the second quarter of 2010.

The results represent LinkedIn’s first quarter as a public company.

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• Nielsen Online release: Web traffic to top 10 US newspapers grew 16 per cent last year
• ABCes: Independent.co.uk records biggest increase in daily browsers
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• Guardian most popular newspaper website in UK, according to Nielsen Online

How not to fall for a hoax like ‘IE6 users are dumb’

First journalists fell for made-up stories sent out by a fake PR to highlight to practice of churnalism, now news outlets – including the BBC, Daily Mail and Telegraph – have published a hoax story that users of Internet Explorer 6 are dumb.

Here are five questions journalists should ask themselves in order to avoid falling for a hoax.

1. Does the story sounds possible? Journalists ask questions and should look at data with a critical eye. If presented with a press release saying the IE6 users are dumb, ask yourself how likely that really is.

Why do people use the an old version of Internet Explorer? Because they work for firms that do not grant them administrator rights to update software? Because they are less experienced web users and don’t know how to? Because they are older users who are less likely to trust updates and downloads?

2. When was the web domain of the PR company registered? A website such as who.is will give you a date of registration, the address where the site is registered, a company number and server details. (You can click the image below to see the results.)

3. Are the photos ripped from another website?  The hoaxer who wrote the “IE6 users are dumb” press release included employee photographs on the fake company website ripped from a legitimate French business.

You can run an image search – or even a reverse image search – by using Google Image Search or TinEye.

4. Does the phone number given on the press release appear elsewhere on the web? Google the phone number on the site or press release.

5. Does the address listed on the website, press release and domain registration exist? Enter the postcode into the Royal Mail address finder.

The hoaxer – a developer called Tarandeep Gill who set up the hoax to highlight his frustrations of people using IE6 – has published the tell-tale signs that should have uncovered the hoax in five minutes

1.The domain was registered on 14 July 2011;

2. The test that was mentioned in the report, “Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (IV) test” is a copyrighted test and cannot be administered online;

3. The phone number listed on the report and the press release is the same listed on the press releases/whois of my other websites. A google search reveals this;

4. The address listed on the report does not exist;

5. I copy/pasted most of the material from “Central Test” [the legitimate Paris-based firm] and got lazy to even change the pictures;

6. The website is made in WordPress. Come on now!

7. I am sure, my haphazardly put together report had more than one grammatical mistakes [sic];

6. There is a link to our website AtCheap.com in the footer.

Journalists should also be aware of the “churn engine to distinguish journalism from churnalism“, launched by the Media Standards Trust in February. Click the photo below to go to the churnalism tool, paste the contents of a press release and in cases where more than 20 per cent of an article and press release overlap, the search engine will highlight it as a potential example of ‘churn’ and give you overlap as a percentage.

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The Economist’s Twitter followers click links, Al Jazeera’s retweet, study finds

A new study has looked at how six news sites’ Twitter followers engage and react to tweets. Twitter content publishing platform SocialFlow has assessed the Twitter audiences of Al-Jazeera English, BBC News, CNN, the Economist, Fox News and the New York Times.

The study is based on bit.ly and Twitter data from more than 20 million tweets posted by the seven million users who follow these accounts on Twitter.

It has revealed some interesting facts:

• Engagement can be read in clicks. The Economist has a highly active and engaged audience in terms of both clicks per tweet and retweets per tweet, suggesting a high level of alignment between content posted and attention users are willing to provide.
• Audiences differ in their willingness to consume and share information on Twitter. Al-Jazeera’s audience is the most active in terms of publishing and retweeting content on Twitter, while the Fox News audience generates substantially more clicks from its audience.
• A large number of followers doesn’t necessarily translate into action. Despite being the largest account, the New York Times garners the fewest clicks per tweet when audience size is normalised and earns many fewer retweets when compared to accounts that are much smaller.
• Timing and topical interest matter when seeking attention. By arranging audience tweets into topic maps, we were able to visualise the flow of attention between topics of interest, across the different audiences.

It is worth being aware that this is what SocialFlow does: it offers solutions to businesses wanting to maximise the effectiveness of their tweets by timing them to get the most reaction.

Click throughs

One of the points the study draws out is that where the Economist’s highly engaged Twitter audience clicks on links to the associated news article, Al Jazeera’s audience behaves differently. The study finds Al Jazeera English has the most retweets per tweet but followers are not necessarily clicking links – an all important goal for web publishers.

The takeaway for publishers is one of topics, network and timing, as the report states.

Knowing when an addressable audience is available and what topics they’d like to engage in is key to earning their attention.

The study also points out that a Twitter audience is measurable and this should be analysed and used “to inform content development strategies and marketing planning”.

While clicks bring immediate returns, retweets and other forms of audience participation raise trust and brand awareness, both imperatives for maintaining sustained growth. A high number of followers is not indicative of an engaged audience; a high click-through rate doesn’t necessarily yield other engagement metrics such as retweets and new followers.

By paying attention to long established demographics, collective audience behavior and the mercurial and fickle moment-to-moment signals, we step away from conjectures, generalisations, and assumptions, and leverage the audience itself in determining how best to interact.

SocialFlow has also created a Twitter visualisation looking at engagement with @AJEnglish. Topics have been mapped using over the period of an hour. The larger the topic node, the more it was discussed on Twitter during that hour. Click on the visualisation to download SocialFlow’s diagram as a PDF and explore it.

The full report is at this link…

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• Twitter to send users emails about RTs and favourites
• Mashable: Monday is the worst time to post and tweet
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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – simplifying investigations

Over on the HelpMeInvestigate blog Paul Bradshaw has compiled an incredibly useful list of five ways to simplify investigations. The tips include writing a hypothesis, breaking down the process into more manageable tasks and keeping a record. He also offers plenty of tools and resources to help put these tips into action.

Tipster: Rachel McAthy

If you have a tip you would like to submit to us at Journalism.co.uk email us using this link – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

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#followjourn: @BBCNormanS – Norman Smith/journalist

Who? Norman Smith

Where? Norman is BBC News chief political correspondent.

Twitter? @BBCNormanS

Just as we like to supply you with fresh and innovative tips every day, we are recommending journalists to follow online too. Recommended journalists can be from any sector of the industry: please send suggestions (you can nominate yourself) to sarah.booker at journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.

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• #followjourn: @niallpaterson – Niall Paterson/journalist
• #followjourn @sophyridge – Sophy Ridge/journalist
• #followjourn: @stevenowottny – Steve Nowottny/journalist
• #followjourn: @glenoglaza – Glen Oglaza/journalist
• #followjourn: @owen_ed – Ed Owen/journalist/editor

David Higgerson: Tweeting FOI requests? ICO got this wrong

Last week we blogged about how the Information Commissioners Office’s had clarified where it stood on the use of Twitter to submit freedom of information requests, confirming that such requests may be valid.

But head of multimedia for Trinity Mirror Regionals David Higgerson wasn’t convinced that this was such a great idea. In a post on his blog he explains why, including the character limit imposed on Twitter, having to make a public request and the chances of a request not going direct to an FOI officer.

So when the ICO says that ‘Twitter is not the most effective channel for submitting or responding to freedom of information requests’ what it should actually be saying is: “Twitter is never a good way to deal with FOI requests.”

Read his post in full here…

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Ofcom report: 30 stats on smartphones and internet use

Ofcom today (4 August) released its TV, radio, broadband, telecoms and mobile industries report, noting significant changes over the “digital decade” since 2001.

Here is the 341 page Communications Market Report boiled down to a list of 30 facts and figures that are relevant to publishers.

Smartphones

1. More than a quarter of adults (27 per cent) own a smartphone;

2. Almost half of teenagers (47 per cent) own a smartphone;

3. Nine out of 10 people (91 per cent) own a mobile phone;

4. Three in 10 mobile phones are smartphones;

5. Most people with smartphones (59 per cent) acquired their device in the past year.

Internet use

6. More than a quarter of people use their mobile phones for internet access. In the first quarter (Q1) of 2011, 28 per cent of UK adults claimed to do so;

7. Those aged 16-24 are more than 10 times more likely to go online via a mobile than those aged 55+;

8. More than three quarters (76 per cent) of homes are now connected to the internet;

9. For the first time household internet take-up (78 per cent) exceeded computer ownership (77 per cent) as a small proportion of households went online using mobile phones only;

10. More than two-thirds (67 per cent) of households have a fixed broadband connection and 17 per cent have a mobile broadband (dongle) connection. In Q1 2011, 26 per cent of over-75s had home internet access, as did 55 per cent of 64-74 year-olds;

11. Consumers use a wide range of devices to access the internet at home. In 2010, 69 per cent said they accessed the internet at home via a laptop or PC, 31 per cent via a mobile phone;

12. Wifi routers were used by 75 per cent of broadband using households in Q1 2011;

13. More than half of all UK households are passed by super-fast broadband;

14. Google has more than three times the user base of any other search engine;

15. The leading blogging site is Google’s Blogger, which reached 8.2 million users in April 2011.

Facebook and other social networking

16. Social networking accounts for more than a fifth of all time spent on the internet;

17. People spend more than five times as much time on Facebook than on any other site;

18. More than 90 per cent of social networking time is spent on Facebook;

19. The most popular claimed use of the internet on mobile phones was social networking services (used by 57 per cent of mobile phone internet users);

20. Mobile users of Facebook spent an average of 5.6 hours on the site in December 2010 (11 minutes a day);

21. In Q1 2011, 46 per cent of UK adults claimed to use social networking services on a home internet connection. There are signs that the growth of social networking may be reaching saturation point: total time spent on social networking sites was just 1.3 per cent higher in April 2011 than in April 2010.

Smartphone brands

22. The Apple iPhone is the most popular brand of smartphone, but BlackBerry handsets are a favourite choice among younger consumers;

23. Apple’s iPhone has a 32 per cent share among adults. This is the brand of choice among ABC1s (37 per cent) and is even higher among ABs alone (44 per cent). But BlackBerry handsets have also taken a significant share of the market (24 per cent) and are particularly popular among younger adults and teens (37 per cent each).

Advertising and commercial

24. More than a quarter of all UK advertising spend is on the internet. Advertising spend on the internet grew by 16 per cent in 2010, to more than £4 billion, accounting for 26 per cent of total advertising spend in the UK, marginally ahead of television;

25. Mobile advertising increased by 121 per cent in 2010 to reach £83 million;

26. In 2010, the mobile advertising market was only 2 per cent the size of the internet ad market. However, driven by increasing use of internet services on mobile phones, together with more sophisticated business models (for example, fully or partially advertising-funded mobile applications), mobile advertising revenue more than doubled during 2010. Search-based advertising increased by the greatest amount (172 per cent) and increased its share of mobile advertising from 54 per cent to 66 per cent;

27. Nearly three-quarters of internet users shop online. Visitors to coupon and reward sites increased by 25 per cent in the year to April 2011, when nearly 40 per cent of internet users visited at least one such site.

Apps

28. Just under half (47 per cent) of adult smartphone users have ever downloaded an app, with one in five (20 per cent) doing so regularly;

29. Regular apps downloaders are skewed male and age 25-34. Just over half (54 per cent) of apps downloaders have paid for an app – with their mean average maximum spend on a single app being £3 – £3.99;

30. Apps downloading is higher among teens than adults; around two-thirds (63 per cent) of teen smartphone users have ever downloaded an app, with one in four (28 per cent) doing so regularly. Six in ten (60 per cent) have paid for an app. The average maximum amount of spend among teens is £3.70 and the median is £3 – £3.99.

See a further 10 facts on mobile media.

All graphs taken from the Ofcom report.

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