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US elections: the best of the rest on the web

November 4th, 2008 | 7 Comments | Posted by Laura Oliver in Online Journalism

For those that have been under a rock/on Mars for the last year, the next President of the United States will be decided tonight, giving news organisations another opportunity to flaunt their interactive, live reporting and user-generated wares as the votes unfold.

We’ve already covered Sky News’ election coverage and BBC News’ live online plans, but here’s our round-up of some of the best projects out there - open up twenty browser tabs, sit back and enjoy:

  • NYTimes.com: the paper has set up a political ‘word train’ visualising how readers are feeling. It’ll update with new answers every 30 minutes (thanks to @matthewbuckland for the link). Elsewhere the site’s homepage is dominated by election coverage, with plenty of images and video - making use of the new video player - and a pop-up results widget.
  • Twitter Vote Report: the microblogging tool has been harnessed by a network of volunteers to map voters’ experiences at the polls. Tweets tagged with waiting times (e.g. #wait 120 for a 120 minute delay) are plotted creating a rapidly updating map of problems. Could be a great service for local newspapers in the states to provide:

  • Yahoo: created a one-stop shop, US election microsite drawing together all of its features, including forums, Yahoo Answers, AP and Politico stories and aggregated content from external news sites, a Flickr stream of photos and options to set up news alerts on the candidates.
  • Hubdub: the just-for-fun news prediction site is carrying an election forecast map, which it claims is based on ‘51 underlying prediction markets that respond in real-time to breaking news’. Users can view forecasts state-by-state to help them decided where to place their Hubdub dollars when predicting the outcome of questions such as ‘Who will win the 2008 US Presidential Election?’ and ‘What will be the margin of victory in the state of Ohio?’

That’s not enough, I hear you cry. You want more? Well, over at paidContent:UK, Robert Andrews has wrapped up the online coverage from the UK’s newspapers, while Online Journalism Blog chieftain Paul Bradshaw has an extensive list of online activities.

This is only the tip of the iceberg - any other great coverage, tools or websites that need a mention, let us know below.

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Press Gazette: Round-up of UK media’s Olympic plans

August 4th, 2008 | No Comments | Posted by Laura Oliver in Editors' pick, Online Journalism
Cross-media will be key to covering the Beijing Olympics. Organisations will need to make the most of online to keep up with the games - particularly because of the eight hour time difference. To handle this, News International is pooling its reporters from Times Online and News.com.au to offer rolling online coverage. Full story...

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Evening Star breaks Steve Wright trial verdict on new SMS service

February 22nd, 2008 | No Comments | Posted by Laura Oliver in Mobile, Newspapers

A new SMS news alert system from Ipswich’s Evening Star newspaper marked its launch yesterday by delivering the verdict in the Steve Wright prostitute murder trial.

Wright, who was yesterday found guilty of the murders of five prostitutes in the Ipswich area in 2006, is expected to be sentenced this morning.

Yesterday’s alert added another layer to the online coverage of the trial by the paper, which has featured live news updates, video and interactive maps relating to the case.

“We think using it [the SMS service] we were the first media outlet to deliver the verdict. We were also the first to deliver police-supplied footage of Wright being interviewed,” James Goffin, web editor at Archant Suffolk, told Journalism.co.uk.

The text message service, which is being trialled by the Archant title, will be used to cover large breaking news stories in the area and enables newsroom staff to send a message directly to subscribers from any computer or device connected to the internet.

To access the alerts, which will cost 25p to receive, users should text ESTAR ALERTS NEWS to 84070.

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Guardian removes suicide bomb video after 550 complaints

February 18th, 2008 | No Comments | Posted by Laura Oliver in Newspapers, Online Journalism

The Guardian has removed a video from its website showing a suicide bomb attack in Israel after more than 550 complaints were made about the footage.

The piece, which was selected from a package of footage and text supplied to the paper by Reuters, showed the wounded being taken to hospital, as well as statements from the Palestinian agriculture minister and a Hamas spokesman. It was removed four days after being posted to the site.

Writing about the decision to remove the video from the site, Siobhain Butterworth, readers’ editor, says most traffic to the video came from the site Honest Reporting, which criticised the lack of an Israeli spokesperson in the footage.

In response Butterworth points out that at the time no Israeli sources featured in the Reuters package.

She also directs complainants, readers and Honest Reporting to the paper’s other online coverage of the event:

“Honest Reporting linked only to the video; it ignored the rest of the Guardian’s coverage. It didn’t mention that the story published on the day of the bombing (and which the video accompanied) began with comments from the Israeli prime minister and included statements from an eyewitness, a doctor at the scene and a police spokesman. Stories about the event in the following days also included statements from Israeli sources.”

However, with regards to the video in question, Butterworth admits there was ‘an editing error’, which may have lead to a perceived Palestinian bias. While this was the reason the piece was removed, this was not ‘a deliberate attempt to give a one-sided response to the event’, she adds.

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Press Gazette: Reviewing the UK online coverage of the presidential primaries

January 18th, 2008 | No Comments | Posted by Oliver Luft in Editors' pick

Timesonline dedicated most time to looking at issues of race in the primaries although in a timely and sensitive way, according to Marty Karlon, Sunday editor at the Telegraph of Nashua, New Hampshire.

“But while the big picture was there, none of the coverage really captured the chaos,” said Ms Karlon, who reviews the coverage of the presidential election primary by UK online media for the Press Gazette.

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