Journalism.co.uk Editors' Blog » Online Journalism

Andrew Keen: ‘The internet will devour newspapers’

Judith Townend — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 09:27:31 +0000

Andrew Keen, writing on Telegraph.co.uk, reminds newspapers that they could be made redundant by the internet. Picking up a recent argument made by the author and academic Clay Shirky, Keen writes:

“The core reality of the internet is its absence of a centre. The distributed internet, all edge and no heart, has done away with the centralised structures of power of the old industrial world. And without a core, the news can’t be controlled by a central power. It can no longer be owned.

“The internet is like a blob, a centreless yet all powerful monster, impossible to destroy and yet able to devour everything in its path.”

Full post at this link…

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Reporter’s guide to multimedia proficiency – now available for download in PDF

Helen Quinn — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:29:46 +0000

Mindy McAdams’ comprehensive guide to multimedia proficiency is now available to download in PDF from her website.

The 42-page document is fully linked and usable online in most web browsers, Adobe Reader, or in Preview on the Mac OS, so there’s no need to waste trees in order to read it.

McAdams has licenced the entire document under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License so users are free to share, distribute, reuse and even remix it, in line with the CC conditions.

The booklet comes straight from a series of 15 blog posts, written as guidance to those who want to transform themselves into multimedia journalists. Her succinct guide includes tips on blogging, audio interviews, podcasts, photography, and video.

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Advice from Guardian.co.uk’s online journalism Q&A

Danielle Colyer — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 10:17:36 +0000

On Friday Journalism.co.uk took part in a live Q&A hosted by the The Guardian’s careers section, allowing new and experienced journalists the opportunity to ask industry professionals for advice on conquering the world of online journalism.

The multimedia panel on hand to answer questions were:

Paul Gallagher, head of online editorial, Manchester Evening News
Laura-Jane Filotrani, site editor, Guardian Careers
Sarah Hartley, digital editor, The Guardian
Alison Gow, executive editor, digital, Liverpool Echo and Liverpool Daily Post
Laura Oliver, senior reporter, Journalism. co.uk
Madeline Bennett, editor of technology news sites V3.co.uk and The Inquirer
Paul Bradshaw, senior lecturer in online journalism, Birmingham City University
John Hand, duty editor, UK desk BBC News website
Alison White, community moderator, The Guardian

Here’s our round-up of the best advice from Friday’s event on how to make it as a successful online journalist in the digital age. You can also read the panel’s responses in full on the online journalism Q&A page on Guardian.co.uk.

Jump to:

What is the best subject to study to help me break into journalism?
But what if I can’t afford to go to university?
What skills do I need to be an online journalist?
How can I make the transition to online?”

What is the best subject to study to help me break into journalism?

[asked by Matt, who is studying English literature and language at college and asked if going on to study an English degree would help him prepare for a career in journalism]

John Hand: “I’m often asked which is the best subject to study at university and the answer is really that there is no particularly bad choice. The best newsroom has a good mix of people with different knowledge areas – for example, I think every editor in the country would love to have someone with the in-depth health knowledge of a medical degree on their team. Of course, any degree course that allows you to develop your writing and analytical skills (I always think history is a clever choice) would be better than most.

“The most important thing is to get some vocational training. Many editors themselves initially came through NCTJ courses (http://www.nctj.com/) so would respect those, but there are also many media organisations that offer their own in-house (or even external) training. If you want to get into news journalism, the key question to ask of any training scheme is how good their law course is.”

Sarah Hartley: “Grab as much work experience as you can throughout your uni years. Who knows what the economic climate will be like when you graduate but it may well be that you can find an employer who will put you through a block release course or similar. New schemes for apprenticeships, internships and such are bound to come through in that time.”

Madeline Bennett: “Has your college got a student newspaper or website? If so, volunteering to write for that would be a good starting point and showcase for your work. If not, why not start one? This is also the case for when you go to uni, student papers can be a great place to launch your journalism career.”

But what if I can’t afford to go to university?

[Forum user Dan Holloway asked: how does someone who has no choice but carry on a full-time job to make ends meet go about switching careers to online journalism?]

Alison White: “My advice would be to perhaps take some evening classes in journalism if possible – while I was at uni I did a 10-week course, one evening a week, about freelancing and a two-day course about getting into journalism. Or how about some work experience? Newspapers and other organisations are less well-staffed at weekends, I’m sure they’d appreciate some help with uploading content or other duties. Once you’ve got to know some people you can always keep in touch in the hope they might point you towards job opportunities or further work experience.”

Madeline Bennett: “Look for courses that focus on online journalism or multimedia skills, there might be some weekend or evening classes available that you can do to support your NCTJ. Also these courses are a good place to meet people who can help you get your first job in journalism, as they’ll often be run by current working journalists.”

Laura Oliver: “Start experimenting – if you can find the time outside of work to run a blog, contribute to other websites, you’ll learn a great deal about the basics of online publishing. Contact sites and other blogs that interest you and offer postings. Look at successful bloggers and think about what they are doing that makes them influential/profitable. Here are a couple of posts that might help too regarding building an online brand as a journalist:

“http://blogs.journalism.co.uk/editors/2009/08/17/adam-westbrook-6×6-branding-for-freelance-journalists/

“http://www.journalism.co.uk/5/articles/534896.php“

What skills do I need to be an online journalist?

[Forum user Dean Best asked: what are the top online-specific skills I should attain to improve my online skills and better my chances of moving up the ladder?]

Laura-Jane Filotrani: “To be able to demonstrate a passion for digital – by this I mean that you are active online; you use the net; you have a profile online; you use and understand community; you are excited by being able to reach people using the internet; you want to find out the latest developments.”

Alison White: “A good knowledge of SEO and the importance of linking to others and providing ‘added value’ to the reader; i.e. give them the story but perhaps with a link to a video, an online petition, a Facebook page etc. News to me seems more of a package now rather than a traditional delivery.”

Paul Bradshaw:

“1. Understand how RSS works and how that can improve your newsgathering, production and distribution. I cover a little of that in this post:

“http://onlinejournalismblog.com/2008/04/21/rss-social-media-passive-aggressive-newsgathering-a-model-for-the-21st-century-newsroom-part-2-addendum/

“2. Engage with online communities around your specialist area, help them, provide valuable information and contacts, and then when you need help on something, they’ll be there for you in return. It will also build a distribution network for your content.

“3. Possibly hardest, but force yourself to experiment and make mistakes with all sorts of media. If you can make yourself entertaining as well as informative then that can really work very well.”

How can I make the transition to online journalism?

['Malini' asked: how do I go about breaking into the field of online journalism? And why would anyone pay and retain a writer when they can easily get so much content for free?]

Paul Bradshaw: “Use free writing to build a reputation and contacts; and sell the valuable stuff that you generate from that. Ultimately you should aim to become reliable enough for them to want to hire you when they are hiring.”

Sarah Hartley: “Writers have always provided free content – be it letters to the editor, local band reviews, poetry or whatever, so being online will only further the opportunity for that sort of exposure and that can only be a good thing for diversity and choice.”

Paul Gallagher: “I have taught myself some coding skills like HTML and I believe it does help a lot to have some technical knowledge, not necessarily because you will need them in the job but because it really helps to be able to communicate well with the programmers and developers in your company.”

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#followjourn: @kristinelowe/media journalist

Judith Townend — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 08:30:13 +0000

#FollowJourn: Kristine Lowe

Who? Blogger and journalist currently based in Norway covering the media industry – for the media industry

What? She writes for numerous titles in Scandinavia and the UK/US, and founded The Norwegian Online News Association (NONA)

Where? @kristinelowe

Contact? Take a look at her blog or email kristine_lowe [at] yahoo.co.uk.

Just as we like to supply you with fresh and innovative tips every day, we’re recommending journalists to follow online too. They might be from any sector of the industry: please send suggestions (you can nominate yourself) to judith or laura at journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.

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Freelance Unbound: Print and online differences – a view from Belgium

Judith Townend — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:45:20 +0000

A nice round-up from the Freelance Unbound blog on a post by a Belgian linguistic researcher, Tom Van Hout, about the differences between print and online journalism.

“I like its academic slant (something which often puts me off), as it actually helps to illuminate the murky way that news journalism is constructed and then passed off as something whole and authoritative.”

This quote by Van Hout is picked out: “Online, ‘readers’ can see how the sausage is being made and promptly start making sausages themselves. This inevitably leads to discussions about sausage making.”

The summary and the original post are worth a visit.

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AdAge.com: ‘Digital bigger chunk of revenue than print’ for the Onion

Judith Townend — Fri, 08 May 2009 11:09:58 +0000

“Digital is becoming a bigger chunk of our revenue than print. Print is still very strong for us. Digital, it’s not much more than half, but it’s more than half,” Onlon President-CEO, Steve Hannah, told Ad Age, in the last question of a Q&A this week.

Hannah also denied rumours that the Onion’s weekly print edition is to be shut down, although Ad Age reports that the Onlon’s San Francisco and Los Angeles print editions have been closed.

Full post at this link…

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WindowOnTheMedia: Database journalism defined

Judith Townend — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 10:09:09 +0000

An interesting day to flag this one up (given that the Guardian is actively calling for people to play with the Swine Flu data today): Nicolas Kayser-Brill has written an entry on Wikipedia for ‘database journalism’.

Full story at this link…

Also see: #DataJourn Part 1: a new conversation (Journalism.co.uk Editors’ Blog)

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NYTimes.com: Seattle Post-Intelligencer goes web only

Judith Townend — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:00:10 +0000

“The Seattle Post-Intelligencer will produce its last printed edition on Tuesday and become an internet-only news source, the Hearst Corporation said on Monday, making it by far the largest American newspaper to take that leap,” reports the New York Times.

Full story at this link…

(Also: Seattle PI’s Bill Virgin on ‘How to kill an American newspaper’ at this link)

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Comment is free: Can links kill?

Laura Oliver — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 19:34:24 +0000

Dan Kennedy on how the dispute over online linking between New York Times and GateHouse Media could determine online journalism's future. "What makes this battle especially dangerous is that the Times and GateHouse are struggling not just for advantage, but for their very survival."

AndyDickinson.net: A timeline of online media landmarks

Judith Townend — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 12:00:37 +0000

A Dipity timeline tracking significant developments in online journalism.