Journalism.co.uk Editors' Blog » Journalism.co.uk

If you’re a fan, please nominate Journalism.co.uk in the Mashable Open Web Awards 2009

Judith Townend — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:03:57 +0000

If you like the service you get via Journalism.co.uk (@journalismnews) then please consider nominating us in the Mashable Open Web Awards 2009.

It’s really easy, visit the site and put forward @journalismnews / Journalism.co.uk as your favourite site for journalists. You have until November 15 to nominate us, and then the voting for the top candidates begins.

http://mashable.com/owa/

And please re-tweet!
What we do at Journalism.co.uk:

Jobs listings service; also on Twitter: @journalismjobs (All) / @journalism_jobs (UK) @pr_jobs (PR)

News & features on Journalism.co.uk / The Editors’ Blog / RSS feed at this link / @journalismnews

Events coverage: @journalism_live / listings and coverage

Journalists’ Forum: http://www.journalism.co.uk/journalists/

How-To guides

Daily newsletter

Expert comment

Best of the Journalism Blogs mix

Press freedom tracker / @press_freedom

Freelance news and directory

Press release service: listings / @press_releases

Training courses

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Journalism Daily: Candy Box billboards; Chicago Tribune’s new innovators; VentnorBlog reports Vestas

Judith Townend — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:32:48 +0000

Journalism.co.uk is trialling a new service via the Editors’ Blog: a daily round-up of all the content published on the Journalism.co.uk site.

We hope you’ll find it useful as a quick digest of what’s gone on during the day (similar to our e-newsletter) and to check that you haven’t missed a posting.

We’ll be testing it out for a couple of weeks, so you can subscribe to the feed for the Journalism Daily here.

Let us know what you think – all feedback much appreciated.

News and features

Chicago Tribune: Bringing news innovators on board; drawing the audience in. Journalism.co.uk talks to the team behind the Tribune’s new blog network and News Applications Team

Customer demand for fake but funny news billboards at Horsham’s Candy Box, says owner.”I enjoy making people laugh and that’s why I do it,” John O’Sullivan tells Journalism.co.uk

Ed’s Picks

Tip of the Day

Importing tables into a spreadsheet

#FollowJourn

@kmatt/head of web and data

On the Editors’ Blog

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Journalism Daily: BBC video plans, Trinity Midlands strike and perfecting the press release

Laura Oliver — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:46:56 +0000

Journalism.co.uk is going to trial a new service via the Editors’ Blog: a daily round-up of all the content published on the Journalism.co.uk site.

We hope you’ll find it useful as a quick digest of what’s gone on during the day (similar to our e-newsletter) and to check that you haven’t missed a posting.

We’ll be testing it out for a couple of weeks, so you can subscribe to the feed for the Journalism Daily here.

Let us know what you think – all feedback much appreciated.

News and features

Ed’s Picks

Tip of the Day

RSS on the go with Google Reader

#FollowJourn

@marieteather/freelancer

On the Editors’ Blog

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Crowdsourcing the perfect press release – help us out

Laura Oliver — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 09:48:40 +0000

Love them or loathe them, press releases provide the initial spark for a story for many journalists

Whether it’s the launch of a new product, a statement from a campaign group on a hot issue or details of new research, most journalists will be inundated with releases during their career (some more relevant than others, though that’s material for a wholly different blog post…).

For PR professionals and press officers they are one vital tool for publicising events and brands or creating buzz for a client.

Journalism.co.uk has its own service, PressGo, for matching press releases with journalists interested in 37 subject areas, from consumer goods and affairs to fashion, IT or the environment.

But to make this service more efficient for its users (that’s you hopefully), we want feedback on how to write the perfect press release. For example:

What details MUST it include and what’s superfluous?
What are common mistakes that press release writers make that rankle you?
What length/tone/format do you prefer?

We hope to create a guide – focusing on the writing, NOT distribution of releases – featuring comments from individual journalists as a point of reference for the PR community and we’d love your feedback, including your name and publication if possible.

Please leave a comment below, email laura [at] journalism.co.uk or send a tweet to @journalismnews.

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Brighton Argus printing presses could close; 53 jobs threatened

Judith Townend — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:16:43 +0000

Journalism.co.uk has learned that Newsquest is considering closing the printing presses for the Argus in Brighton.

Fifty-three jobs could be lost as a result, Journalism.co.uk was informed by a member of staff at the paper, and a 30-day consultation period will be undertaken.

We will follow up for further information with the concerned parties, although an enquiry to Newsquest Sussex yesterday about proposed subbing job cuts received this response: “We do not comment on our business.”

Update: The company did not wish to comment, when contacted.

(Jon Slattery beat us to it and noted reported closure of the presses on his blog too).

Yesterday we reported:

“There is speculation among staff members that the Argus will move ‘most if not all’ of its production to the Southampton centre in the future.

“‘They’re also proposing to move a subbing job focused on ad features, and six advertising jobs on the Propertynet online system, to Southampton,’ the chapel member said.”

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JEEcamp: Audio from the event

Laura Oliver — Mon, 11 May 2009 15:19:49 +0000

Journalism.co.uk attended the journalism and enterprise unconference, JEEcamp, last Friday.

Reports on the day will follow, including:

Kyle Macrae, founder of Scoopt, on why entrepreunership is the only option for journalists now

James Hatts from London-SE1.co.uk on community and hyperlocal news publishing

There’s already been some great videos, pictures and posts from the event – see Michael Haddon’s round-up, Martin Belam’s posts and John Welsh’s blog to name but a few – but some additional (rough) audio from Sue Greenwood’s presentation on self-publishing platform Sweeble and two panel discussions are below.

Sue Greenwood:

Panel 1 featuring: (to come)

Journalism.co.uk’s own John Thompson (@johncthompson)

Jon Bounds, Birmingham: It’s Not Shit (@bounder)

Sue Heseltine from Birmingham City University

Chaired by Joanna Geary, web development journalist, business, Times Online (@timesjoanna)

Panel 2 featuring:

Dave Harte, economic development manager, Digital Birmingham

Jo Wadsworth, web editor, Brighton Argus (@jowadsworth)

Robin Hamman, Headshift (@cybersoc)

Andy Dickinson, journalism lecturer at UCLAN, (@digidickinson)

Robin Morley, assistant editor new media, BBC English Regions

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JEEcamp: Follow the journalism enterprise ‘unconference’

Laura Oliver — Fri, 08 May 2009 09:42:01 +0000

Journalism.co.uk is attending JEEcamp today – an ‘unconference’ (e.g. any attendees can suggest the topics for discussion) about future models for journalism, focusing on enterprise and experimentation.

“JEEcamp is an opportunity for a range of people to get together to talk about how on earth journalists and publishers can make a living from journalism in the era of free information, what the challenges are, and what we’ve learned so far.”

Organsied by Birmingham City University lecturer and Online Journalism Blog blogger Paul Bradshaw, the event is a sell out – but there are plenty of ways to follow what’s going on.

There’s a liveblog of the event here.

There will be lots of twittering (see the attendees list for a rough guide of who to follow and @journalism_live) under the #jeecamp hashtag. If you tag your tweets in this way they’ll be fed through to the CoverItLive bloggers too.

JEEcamp09

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The $10m lawsuit against the New Yorker – Papua New Guineans challenge Jared Diamond article

Judith Townend — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:35:50 +0000

A curious case is fast-escalating in the US: it involves a $10 million defamation lawsuit, two Papua New Guineans who feel they have been inaccurately portrayed, the New Yorker magazine, the research site StinkyJournalism.org… and Jared Diamond, the well-known UCLA professor and author.

A summary of major events, in brief:

In April 2008, Jared Diamond [linguist, molecular physiologist, bio-geographer] publishes an article in the New Yorker entitled ‘Vengeance Is Ours: What can tribal societies tell us about our need to get even?’

The article, about blood feuds in Papua New Guinea, featured the story of Daniel Wemp and an account of how he spent three years pursuing revenge for his uncle’s death. Allegedly, the feud resulted in six battles and the deaths of 300 pigs.

Diamond reports that Henep Isum Mandingo, the man Daniel Wemp was alleged to hold responsible for his uncle’s murder, was shot by a hired hitman in the back with an arrow, leaving him paralysed and in a wheelchair.

In 2008, the media ethics and research site, StinkyJournalism.org, begin an investigation in Papua New Guinea into the facts of Diamond’s article.

On April 21, 2009, The research team report that The New Yorker fact checkers ‘never contacted any of the indigenous Papua New Guinea people named in Jared Diamond’s article as unrepentant killers, rapists and thieves, before publication’.

The team also reports that Henep Isum Mandingo is not paralysed in a wheelchair with spinal injury, as Diamond claimed.

“He [Henep Isum Mandingo] and Daniel Wemp, Diamond’s World Wildlife Fund driver in 2001-2002, and only source for The New Yorker’s revenge story in Papua New Guinea, as well as dozens of tribal members, police officials, deny Diamond’s entire tale about the bloody Ombal and Handa war, calling it ‘untrue’.”

On April 20 2009, Daniel Wemp and Henep Isum file a summons and sue for $10 million in the Supreme Court of The State of New York. They charge Jared Diamond and Advance Publications (publishers of The New Yorker magazine and Times-Picayune newspaper) with defamation.

Now, news of the law suit is gathering pace:

Reported by the Associated Press here at this link, it has also been picked up by the New York Post and other publications.

The New York Post reports that New Yorker magazine is standing by its story, as does the Associated Press.

StinkyJournalism.org co-founder, Rhonda Roland Shearer believes that while Wemp may have shared his experiences with Diamond, that does not mean Diamond’s report is accurate, she told Journalism.co.uk.

Shearer reports this quote made by Wemp in an interview: ‘The facts are totally wrong in The New Yorker story. I have given all those stories to Diamond and those stories are very true and those names are not fake.’

“In other words, Wemp says he told the true stories to Diamond with real names but Diamond retold them wrongly by jumbling up information,” Shearer reports in her article, co-written with Michael Kigl, Kritoe Keleba and Jeffrey Elapa.

“I wish the circumstance wasn’t true. It’s so ugly,” Shearer told Journalism.co.uk.

A 40,000-word report (’Real Tribes / Fake History: Errors, Failures of Method and the Consequences for Indigenous People in Papua New Guinea’) will be released by StinkyJournalism.org in coming weeks.

Shearer herself has received criticism in a comment from ‘Mi Tasol’ under the research for exaggerating the implications of the original article. “I don’t think I sensationalised the gravity of what Diamond has done. But you are entitled to your opinion,” Shearer responded. While applauding the report, and condemning Diamond’s piece, another commenter, ‘ples223,’ points out the difficulties of ‘getting stories straight’ in Papua New Guinea.

Journalism.co.uk will attempt to contact Jared Diamond and the New Yorker magazine for further comment.

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The budget online: Liveblogging and Twitter dominate news orgs’ coverage

Laura Oliver — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 10:30:17 +0000

Today’s budget announcement is being billed as the most significant of recent times given the UK’s current financial woes.

This is both a breaking news story, but one that requires closer analysis and follow up – and, perhaps most importantly, the ability to make it relevant to the reader.

So how are news organisations covering it online and who’s ticking these boxes?

Telegraph.co.uk
Currently performing well in Google News search for budget, the Telegraph is going in big on online coverage today.

It will be updating throughout the day via its @Telefinance Twitter account (headed up by @hrwaldram). Meanwhile a trio of Telegraph reporters have been liveblogging budget news since 6:30am.

On the subject of Twitter – the Telegraph has reinstated its Twitterfall – an embed aggregating all Twitter updates marked #budget. The feature had to be taken down earlier in the week, because of some mischief, but so far so good with the tweaked (filtered?) version.

In addition there’s a nice ‘What to expect’ guide breaking down the issues that are likely to feature in the budget announcement.

FT.com
Arguably the go-to site for budget coverage given its specialism, the FT is building on tried and trusted features from last year (a budget day podcast, video analysis, a budget calculator) with a new liveblog from 12pm covering Alistair Darling’s speech, editor Robert Shrimsley, who will participate, told Journalism.co.uk.

The format is based on the site’s MarketsLive feature successfully developed and used by its Alphaville blog. As such it will ‘bring people people up to speed, but inform them in an entertaining way’. Financial analysis but entertaining – two styles that rarely meet, said Shrimsley, but that will be key to FT.com’s liveblogging of the budget.

“There’s a premium on getting that information out and telling people what its means. We feel at the FT that we have the right people to pass on that analysis,” explained Shrimsley.

There will be a Twitter feed too, but it’s crucial not spam people with updates, he added. Readers are encouraged to participate in both this stream and the liveblog though.

Alphaville isn’t being used as a lab for experimenting with new ways of coverage, he stressed, but there is potential for more liveblogging across the site. It’s important not to overdose on technology, however, but to use only when applicable, he added.

“Can we offer our audience what is worth reading? There’s lots of innovation on the internet and there’s lots that you can do – that doesn’t mean you have to,” he said.

Channel 4 News website
More use of Twitter by the Channel 4 news team – as introduced by presenter Krishnan Guru-Murphy in the vid below:

There will also be use of CoverItLive (CiL) for a liveblog starting at 12pm, which was similarly used in the site’s coverage of the G20 summit.

Some nice additional touches include the use of FactCheck to test the claims made by the chancellor in the budget; and a wordcloud (or Snowcloud) of Darling’s announcement.

Sky News Online and Times Online
A specially built budget page has been set up including a liveblog, live video streams of the budget speech, and analysis from bloggers, tax experts and taxpayers, the site told us. There’s a good guide to how to use Sky’s online coverage too – one particular highlight, the chance for users to get answers from PKF UK tax accountant Matt Coward.

Meanwhile Times Online will be following up its excellent liveblogging of the G20 summit with a version starting at midday today.

Liveblogging at regional level
Deciphering what the budget means for the average news reader is being tackled head on by the Newcastle Evening Chronicle with a liveblog taking place across a number of Trinity Mirror centres.

“We’ll be mainly trying to digest it for *normal* people with rx [reactions] from experts, rather than the scary £180bn debt figures,” said Colin George, multimedia editor, in a Twitter update.

Wales Online (bringing in a tax expert) and the Birmingham Post – under its dedicated Live! Section – also host budget day liveblogs (using CiL again).

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Who’s a-Twittering at Digital News Affairs 2009 #dna09?

admin — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 08:58:34 +0000

The news team of Journalism.co.uk is currently in Brussels covering the Digital News Affairs 2009 conference
We will have a live updating Twitter stream on this site, but you can also watch a prettier and more inclusive stream here and a special one based on the Twitter hashtag #dna140 for the Twitter panel on Thursday here.

If you are Twittering from DNA200, please remember to add #DNA09 to all your Tweets.

In the meantime, here is a list of Twitterers we’ve clocked if you want to follow them individually. This list is by no means conclusive, so feel free to add your own Twitter handles in comments if you will be at the conference and have been missed out.

@benhammersley
@benteka
@bertiebee
@brewbart
@cybersoc
@darrenwaters
@edial
@ernstpoulsen
@hochstenbach
@jaapstronks
@jacqwess
@Jer00n
@johncthompson
@jtownend
@kjmarsh
@kosmopolit
@lauraoliver
@lyssaslounge
@NEurope
@nmcintosh
@nwalrave
@paulvereijken
@Rosenblumtv
@SanneBrand
@theonehitwonder

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