Adam Westbrook: Northwestern University’s journalism students and the ‘Innocence Project’

Adam Westbrook looks at an ongoing project at Northwestern University in the US, where students under the leadership of investigative journalist David Protess investigate, fact check and data mine criminal convictions in their region.

Focusing on murder cases where the defendants have been sentence to execution, the group has to date freed 11 men through their work.

“This isn’t so much an idea which has any business revenue potential obviously, although there’s a chance it could get a decent grant here and there. But what a way to get students engaged during their studies! And what a way to teach them the most difficult skill of all: investigation,” writes Westbrook.

Full post at this link…

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FT.com: Journalism could be sold ‘direct to customers’ in new market, says Murdoch

Addressing a conference in Barcelona, James Murdoch suggested a shift in the business model of the industry [what gives him that idea? - Ed] but perhaps more interestingly the emergence of a new market where journalism could be sold direct to customers at wholesale prices, particularly for digital journalism, the FT reports.

Paid-for content and copyright protection, echoing his father’s sentiments, would be crucial parts of this, he added.

Full post at this link…

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PDA: ‘Is local the new social now?’

Good round-up from PDA of a growing buzz surrounding local media and news projects with a look at AOL, Patch and eBay’s moves in the area – as well as how social media is getting in on the local act too.

Full post at this link…

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Consternation online for Times’ use of Edward Woodward blog tribute – Times responds

(via SCI FI Wire, Media Monkey and MTV)

According to reports and a tweet from the author, on Tuesday the Times printed a tribute to late actor Ed Woodward, originally written on his personal blog by director Edgar Wright, without permission:

An edited version of Wright’s blog piece was published with a byline and picture.

Twitter critics drew a comparison with Rupert Murdoch’s recent comments about search engines and aggregators as ‘kleptomaniacs’ when it came to newspapers’ content.

But today the paper has published a clarification online:

“We have been asked to make clear that Edgar Wright’s appreciation of Edward Woodward, which appeared in the paper on Tuesday, November 17, was abridged and the full version can be read here or at www.edgarwrighthere.com/2009/11/edward-woodward-1930-2009/“

Was this a response to online requests or did Wright have to go through the traditional channels? Will be interesting to know how responsive to social media commentary the Times is – we’ll try to find out.

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STL Social Media Guy: Web comment on newspaper site loses man his job

A ‘vulgar’ comment from a man on the St Louis-Post’s Dispatch website, STLtoday.com, resulted in him resigning from his job.

Kurt Greenbaum, online news director and director of social media at the paper, explains how he twice deleted the comment.

“[I then] noticed in the WordPress e-mail that his comment had come from an IP address at a local school. So I called the school. They were happy to have me forward the e-mail, though I wasn’t sure what they’d be able to do with the meager information it included,” explains Greenbaum.

“About six hours later, I heard from the school’s headmaster. The school’s IT director took a shine to the challenge. Long story short: Using the time-frame of the comments, our website location and the IP addresses in the WordPress e-mail, he tracked it back to a specific computer. The headmaster confronted the employee, who resigned on the spot.”

Full post at this link…

But as the site Awful Marketing asks, is this a violation of trust or a newspaper’s privacy policy?

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Freelance Unbound: ‘How the social web has changed the journalist’s working day’

Freelance Unbound has published a video of Reed Business Information editorial development director Karl Schneider talking to journalism students at UCA Farnham about the changes in a journalist’s working day. Schneider said:

“As they [journalists] come across pieces of information, if they think it would be useful for the audience to hear it, it’s trivially easy – you can do it in seconds. If they’ve got a bit of information, why hold on to it – why wait until they’ve got five more bits and constructed it into a complete story? Why not publish the bit of information now?”

Full post at this link…

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Share your views on defamation and the internet

Writetoreply.org, a site which allows users to comment on public reports, has uploaded (unofficially) the Ministry of Justice consultation, Defamation and the internet: the multiple publication rule (see Journalism.co.uk report here).

The consultation was published on the 16 September 2009 and closes on 16 December 2009. WritetoReply will send all the comments received on its site to the Ministry of Justice.

• A ‘Quick Start’ guide: http://writetoreply.org/defamation/quick-start/

• Full post at this link…

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Frontline Blog: 10 ways to make it as a stringer

Foreign bureaux may be shrinking, but that doesn’t mean it’s all bad for journalists, says Rob Crilly, formerly of Nairobi and now working in Jerusalem.

“The days of the linen-suited staff foreign correspondent are gone. That’s sad and probably means foreign coverage is getting patchier. But it means there are more opportunities for motivated, well-organised and professional stringers – reporters who file to multiple outlets.”

Crilly shares ten tips for making it as a stringer, covering how to learn it, bust it, read it, meet it, blog it, slum it, structure it and flog it.

Full post at this link…

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Blogger monitored Belle’s secret for eight years

The story of LinkMachineGo blogger Darren, who deduced Belle de Jour’s identity in 2001, realising her online know-how meant she probably blogged elsewhere too… A post by Brooke Magnanti’s elsewhere (about whiskey) finally convinced him.

Darren didn’t tell Brooke Magnanti he knew who she was till several weeks ago, when he spotted that Associated Newspapers were onto her…

How? Read Darren’s post in full, but here’s a quick extract:

“During this time I published a googlewack hidden in my blog – the words ‘Belle de Jour’ ‘Brooke Magnanti’ and ‘Methylsalicylate’ were published and available in Google’s index on a single page on the internet – my weblog. This ‘coincidental’collection of links could in no way reveal Belle’s identity. But I wondered if anybody else knew the secret and felt that analysing my web traffic might confirm my long-held belief. If someone googled ‘Belle de Jour’ ‘Brooke Magnanti’, I would see it in my referrers for LinkMachineGo.

“I waited five years for somebody to hit that page (I’m patient). Two weeks ago I started getting a couple of search requests a day from an IP address at Associated Newspapers (who publish the Daily Mail) searching for ‘brooke magnanti’ and realised that Belle’s pseudonymity might be coming to an end. I contacted Belle via Twitter and let her know what was happening. I didn’t expect to hear anything back.”

Belle confirms: “FWIW Darren *did* contact me to let me know, I’d already had another heads-up but his message convinced me it was serious.”

Full post at this link…

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DigiDave: Redefining journalism, cit-j and ‘honest communication’

David Cohn, founder of crowd-funded news site spot.us, discusses why it isn’t necessarily journalism and newspapers that we should be saving, but ‘honest communication’:

“Journalism as a word is loaded because of the ministry it invokes. The profession that, since Watergate, has laid claim to it. That ministry is now a diaspora. Much like after the Gutenberg revolution the ministry lost its authority in interpreting the bible. Martin Luther showed us how. In reaction many journalists cling even tighter to that word,” writes Cohn.

“What we need to preserve isn’t newspapers. I’d argue it isn’t even ‘journalism’ as we understand it. What we need to save is something else. Something more fundamental. The ability for communities to be informed with honest information and then to mobilize based on that information.”

Full post at this link…

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