CNN to broadcast first live news show from Abu Dhabi with new hub

Following the recent relaunch of its website, broadcaster CNN has created a new ‘newsgathering hub’ based in Abu Dhabi.

The new online and TV production facility will be the central point for seven newsgathering operations in the region: Baghdad, Beirut, Cairo, Dubai, Jerusalem, Kabul and Islamabad.

It will also enable CNN to broadcast its first daily live news show from the Middle East – PRISM, hosted by Stan Grant, pictured below:

More than 24 staff will run the operation, which according to a press announcement includes a four-camera digital studio and fully integrated newsroom.

“This region unquestionably plays an integral part in world affairs, and the new hub in Abu Dhabi gives us the opportunity to get to the heart of the rich and diverse stories across the political, business, social and cultural spectrums.”

“The establishment of a permanent broadcast and production centre in the Middle East by CNN is a significant and unique move by a Western news broadcaster. It gives CNN a powerful base from which to coordinate seven regional bureaus and showcase a new daily news show from the Middle East,” Tony Maddox, managing director and executive vice president of CNN International, said at the launch.

Similar posts:

• The best of the week’s media jobs on Journalism.co.uk
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – Middle East media news feed
• MediaShift: Blogs could help forward peace journalism in Middle East
• Al Jazeera strikes RSS deal with Sony Ericsson
• Northcliffe titles work together for East Midlands business site

Advancing the Story: What CNN expects from ‘all-platform journalists’

Advancing the Story reports on attributes required by CNN for its all-platform journalists (APJs) in the US. Victor Hernandez, director of coverage, said that the organisation has had trouble finding people with the necessary skills.

Speaking to broadcast journalists at an Radio-Television News Directors Association workshop Hernandez said he is looking for people who exemplify four core attributes:

• Strong editorially

• Technically superior

• On-air presence

• Exceptional mindset

Full post and video at this link…

Similar posts:

• Richard Koci Hernandez named multimedia fellow at Berkeley, resurrects Multimediashooter
• Twitter workshop for journalists shared – courtesy of Globe & Mail’s Matthew Ingram
• BBC Editors Blog: ‘The end of Fortress Journalism’
• MediaShift: Journalists should customise social networks
• Mashable: Wikipedia’s new editorial layer

BBC Editors Blog: BBC resumes operations in Zimbabwe (as does CNN)

After eight years of operating undercover, the BBC can report ‘openly and legally’ from Zimbabwe.

Clandestine operations have to be a last resort, says Jon Williams, in this post.

Now the corporation can look at setting up a bureau in Harare.

Full post at this link…

Update: The Zimbabwe Times has reported that CNN’s reporting ban has also been lifted.

Similar posts:

• ‘Super injunctions’ parliamentary debate: kicks off 2.30 pm
• Gawker: CNN names tweet as source in Iranian coverage
• Reasons to be cheerful? Seattle paper, Roanoke Times and magazine publishers turning a profit
• BBC Internet Blog: Seetha Kumar on more social media for BBC sites
• 10,000 Words: ‘How Twitter saved my journalism career’

Gawker: CNN names tweet as source in Iranian coverage

Multiple sources of information feeding in to CNN’s coverage of Iran led to two specific quotes in a report being lifted from individual tweets and attributed to ‘a source’ rather than Twitter.

CNN has admitted it was a mistake, but are there dangers in news stories such as the recent Iranian elections of ‘noise’ drowning out the ’signal’ of verification/corroboration of sources?

Full post at this link…

Similar posts:

• CNN’s iReport attracts nearly 4,000 submissions on Iranian elections
• Demotix photographer arrested in Iran will not face further inquiries
• Publish2 Blog: Introducing ’social journalism’ tools to Publish2
• PC World: The ZDnet/Iran saga is ‘a cautionary Web 2.0 tale’
• Mark Jones: Rolling news coverage – what works for Iran?

CNN’s iReport attracts nearly 4,000 submissions on Iranian elections

The role of amateurs, citizen journalists and non-professional media in the coverage of the Iranian elections and subsequent protests has been significant, both in its provision of material and insight to traditional news organisations, who have had their reporting restricted; and in its use of social media tools.

CNN’s citizen journalism site, iReport, has received 3,866 submissions on Iran since coverage of the elections began, with 1,600 from last Saturday and Sunday alone, according to a press release.

Of these, 131 have been used on air or online by CNN, after producers have carried out verification checks.

It is apparent that the reason for this astonishing increase in iReports is because of the strong views felt towards this specific case. Likewise during the election of Barack Obama CNN also saw an increase in iReports.

Similar posts:

• Press Gazette: Reviewing the UK online coverage of the presidential primaries
• Social and mainstream media join forces to cover Afghanistan election
• US elections: CNN’s ‘magic map’ gets spoofed on Saturday Night Live
• Election 2.0: blogs, video and mobile streaming out in force for local election coverage
• Journalism in Africa: Kenyan news organisations cleared of fuelling post-election violence

Nieman Journalism Lab: How a user gave CNN Twitter success

In this article and video (below), James Cox, the creator of Twitter account @CNNbrk, gives his thoughts on working with big news organisations and what having greater access to news means to the user.

NB: Since the Nieman story was published, @CNNbrk has broken the one million follower mark.

Full article at this link…

Similar posts:

• CNN takes control of CNNbrk Twitter account with nearly 1m followers
• (Probably Not) The Daily Mail: Fake Daily Mail Twitter account renamed as DMGT applies legal pressure
• Nieman Journalism Lab: How NPR maximised its news archive
• Do Twitterers have less of an identity than a newspaper columnist? Oliver James answers
• MediatingConflict: BBC reclaims Twitter account

CNN takes control of CNNbrk Twitter account with nearly 1m followers

CNN has confirmed to Silicon Alley Insider that it has now taken control of @CNNbrk – the Twitter account started independently of the news organisation, which now has close to 1 million followers.

According to the report, CNN has been working with its founder James Cox for more than two years.

“This is no-brainer for CNN, and we hope they paid Cox a lot of money for the account he’s nurtured. By adding more stories to the feed — and links to CNN’s site – CNN.com could generate hundreds of thousands of extra pageviews per day. (CNN isn’t sure if it’s going to add links in the near-term.),” writes Dan Frommer on Silicon Alley Insider.

Similar posts:

• Business Insider: Chart of the Day – 24% of US newspapers don’t use digital delivery platforms
• Guido Fawkes: ‘This blog is more profitable than both the Guardian and Independent combined’
• Real-time job cuts with a live Yhoo from Silicon Alley Insider
• Gawker to pay bloggers based on page views they generate
• BusinessInsider.com: 27 publishers look at advertising banner alternatives

Stinkyjournalism.org: Time Warner comes under fire for Greg Gumbel infomercials

Stinky Journalism has unraveled a tangled web involving CNN, its parent company Time Warner, an anchor for a rival broadcaster and infomercials run without proper identification, as required by the Federal Trade Commission in the US.

Full story at this link…

Similar posts:

• AP: FTC to monitor blogs for ‘tainted reviews’
• Huffington Post: Gannett execs net nearly $2 million in bonuses
• Will Time Warner sell Time magazine?
• New FTC rules: US bloggers must disclose payments for reviews
• NYTimes.com: Could Times sell Boston Globe?

American Prospect: Are reporters reporting or making the news?

Should journalists report, explain, but also ‘make news’, asks American Prospect’s Ezra Klein.

Klein refers to assertions made by CNN’s Ed Henry about a recent Obama press conference, in which Henry said his strategy was to ‘make news on something unexpected’ – a tactic that lead to the story on overturning the policy at Dover Air Force Base preventing media coverage of coffins returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Full article at this link…

Similar posts:

• AP: Pentagon allows photos of war dead
• Anger over army equipment motivated MPs’ expenses leak
• BBCJournalismLabs: A data project with a ‘human face’
• MediaGuardian: Stephen Grey on the MoD’s restriction of war reporting
• Good news for media journalists – clearer Ofcom reports

Microsoft’s Photosynth as a storytelling tool

Speaking at yesterday’s Association of Online Publisher’s (AOP) editorial technologies event, Microsoft executive producer Peter Bale extolled the virtues of Photosynth as a new visual storytelling tool.

The experimental, but publicly available tool, was used by CNN in its coverage of the Obama inauguration to thread 100s of photos together. These create a scenic panorama but can also be drilled into using additional feature Deep Zoom:

Within MSN its being used five or six times a week and the team are learning more about its capabilities with each use, Bale told Journalism.co.uk.

The product is being deployed commercially e.g for motoring sections to show car interiors in high detail. MSN also used PhotoSynth to display professional and user-contributed images during the recent heavy snowfall in the UK.

“What we’d like to do a lot more of is multiple crowd-contributed pictures where you can get several hundred or thousand people contributing a picture of a similar event, stitched together in a communal panorama,” he explained.

Photosynth works in combination with Microsoft’s alternative to Flash, Silverlight, which Bale says is ideally set up to enable map mash-ups and overlaying other content onto the threaded images.

Similar posts:

• Benazir Bhutto assassination: the citizen and pro photojournalist takes
• Citizen experts not citizen journalists?
• ReadWriteWeb: Google allows readers to customise news
• News organisations and images from social networks
• Cit-J site Allvoices adds Twitter info to help verify news stories