News agencies suspend Australian cricket coverage over online coverage terms

Reuters, Associated Press (AP) and Agence France Presse (AFP) will not cover matches, training sessions and events for cricket in Australia, because of ‘unacceptable accreditation terms’ set out by Cricket Australia, the sport’s governing body in the country.

According to a release from Reuters:

“No text stories, photos or video of any of the training sessions, matches, press conferences or events will be distributed by the international news agencies to media around the world for the first test against New Zealand later this month, and potentially for the South Africa test coming up in December.”

Reuters partner Getty Images will provide images and ‘fulfil their commercial obligations only’ e.g. not providing any editorial of the matches.

Rights organisation the News Media Coalition said the agencies had been in discussions with Cricket Australia for months before rejecting the terms, which featured several restrictions relating to online coverage including:

• Rules on how newspaper websites can be updated
• Veto power for Cricket Australia over which websites and non-sports magazines the agencies are allowed to syndicate content to
• Restrictions affecting the distribution of content to mobile news services

“As in previous instances, this decision [the accreditation terms] compromises our ability to report independently and objectively, and comes at the expense of global fans and sponsors,” said Christoph Pleitgen, global head of News Agency for Thomson Reuters, in the release.

“We would like to resume our timely, premium coverage as quickly as possible, pending a solution to the current situation. However, freedom of the press and protecting the news interests and coverage rights of our global clients are at the core of both our business and Reuters editorial principles, and these must be upheld.”

Tags: Agence France-Presse, Associated Press, Australia, Christoph Pleitgen, cricket, Cricket Australia, News Media Coalition, reuters

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The Age: New law gives better protection to journalists’ sources

Changes to Australia's Evidence Act mean journalists are no longer legally required to reveal their sources unless a court determines it necessary. The new 'public interest in the publication of news' defence will affect journalists reporting on issues of national security. Previously, if a court found 'any issue of national security involved in information provided for a report', the journalist had to disclose that source or be prosecuted for contempt of court. Full story...

Tags: Australia

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ABC: ABC managing director calls for digital channel

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The Australian: Australian journalism may need government support in wake of Fairfax cuts, says veteran

Former Sydney Morning Herald editor Eric Beecher has said the government may be forced to step in to safeguard 'quality journalism' in Australia, following last week's announcement by Fairfax Media of 550 job cuts. Alternative media outlets, such as websites, will not be sufficient to plug the gap left by traditional outlets unless backing is found, said Beecher. Full story...

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The Australian: Australian print media to release web traffic audits by end of year

Audited data for online traffic to Australia's newspapers and magazines will be produced by the end of the year. Full story...

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AFP: Australia’s Fairfax Media to shed 550 jobs

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The Age: Online audience growth slows for Australian newspapers

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Australian National Library opens newspaper archive

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Innovations in Journalism - Tiinker

We give developers the opportunity to tell us journalists why we should sit up and pay attention to the sites and devices they are working on. Today it’s your news selected and filtered with artificial intelligence from Tiinker.

1) Who are you and what’s it all about?
Hi I’m Alex North. Tiinker has been developed by Deep Grey Labs. We’re a young start-up in Sydney, Australia, focussed on bringing artificial intelligence and machine learning technology out of academia and into products and services people can use.

There’s masses of information published online every day - way too much for any individual to track. Tiinker lifts some of the burden by filtering and exploring to find content that’s interesting to you as an individual, hiding irrelevant or uninteresting stories.

2) Why would this be useful to a journalist?
Tiinker is great for keeping up with news in one or a number of interest areas. It gathers stories from thousands of news sources and picks out the interesting ones based on which articles you have previously found interesting.

Although you could visit all the sources individually, each one probably has only a few stories of real interest. Over time, Tiinker will learn to pick these out for you.

3) Is this it, or is there more to come?
Tiinker has much more to come. We’re working now on some features to help you share stories you’ve found on Tiinker with friends and colleagues, and continually improving the content selection algorithms.

4) Why are you doing this?
From a broad point of view, we want to help apply the amazing research that goes on at our universities into things people can actually use. More narrowly, tiinker addresses the growing problem of information overload - something which affects us all in some way and will continue to do so unless we bring computing to bear on the problem.

5) What does it cost to use it?
Nothing, it’s free.

6) How will you make it pay?
Eventually with targeted advertising running on the site, but right now it’s ad-free as well.

Tags: Australia, content selection algorithms, Deep Grey Labs, Innovations in Journalism, learning technology, machine learning technology, Sydney, targeted advertising, young start-up

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Social Media Journalist: ‘You have to be selective, keeping across all sites dilutes the value of the good ones’ Vicky Taylor, editor BBC Interactivity

Journalism.co.uk talks to journalists across the globe about social media and how they see it changing their industry.

1. Who are you and what do you do?
Vicky Taylor, editor of Interactivity for BBC News. I run the team which produces the Have Your Say section of the website and the UGC hub which takes all the fantastic content the public send us and passes it on to all other BBC programmes and sites - internationally and in UK.

2. Which web or mobile-based social media tools do you use on a daily basis and why?
Apart from Have You Say on BBC news website (on my pc but also on my phone as read only) I get news email alerts on my phone and on my PC about upcoming BBC programmes.

I’m also on Facebook, but use that mainly to contact old friends now in Australia (not from BBC of course), and LinkedIn, which is more useful for business contacts.

Your net worth is your network as the guy who set it up said recently! I started off using del.icio.us to bookmark interesting articles but never have enough time to do it justice. As a team we look at Youtube, Shozu, Seesmic, MySpace and some team members are on twitter so we monitor that too.

3. Of the thousands social media tools available could you single one out as having the most potential for news, either as a publishing or newsgathering tool?
Facebook has been fantastically helpful to our team in finding people with specialist interest.

When the Burma uprising was happening, a colleague found the Friends of Burma group and through them got in touch with many who had recently left the country and had amazing tales to tell.

Journalists now have to know how to seek out information and contact from all sorts of sources and social network sites are key to this.

4. And the most overrated?
I wouldn’t pick out one as overrated as they all have different uses for different audiences. I think though you have to be fairly selective, as keeping across all the sites and emails you may get if you go into everything is just not possible and dilutes the value of the really good ones.

Tags: Australia, BBC, BBC Interactivity Journalism.co.uk, Burma, Digital video, mobile-based social media tools, Moderation, social media, Social Media Journalist, thousands social media, Twitter, United Kingdom, Vicky Taylor, YouTube

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