Journalism.co.uk Editors' Blog » Washington

CJR: The Guardian’s Washington bureau chief on US/UK news models

Judith Townend — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:22:35 +0000

Our second pick from the Columbia Journalism Review today: a lengthy Q&A with the Guardian’s Washington bureau chief, Ewen MacAskill.

There is lots of ground covered; MacAskill’s explanation of the Guardian’s approach in the States and his thoughts on differences between US and UK journalistic technique make particularly interesting reading. An extract:

“[I]n some ways, the American system is more transparent, but because of the more adversarial system in Britain, sometimes more stories come out there. It’s a contradiction: the American system is more transparent, but in spite of that, an awful lot goes on behind the scenes that we never get to hear about.”

Full Q&A at this link…

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WaPo wiki site to focus on US politicians and government officials

Laura Oliver — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:34:45 +0000

The Washington Post has launched a new beta site Whorunsgov.com to build profiles of US politicians, law makers and government officials using a specially created Post editorial team.

The site and its news blog will also feature contributions from external experts, a release from the paper said, and will be expanded into a moderated wiki later this year.

At this stage users will be encouraged to edit and add to profiles on the site with submissions moderated by the editorial team.

Interactivity – in particular allowing users to discuss profiles on the site – is a key part of the project:

“This is the first phase of a new venture to create a uniquely collaborative and rich information resource that demystifies the individuals behind Washington’s policy-making process,” said Rachel Van Dongen, editor of WhoRunsGov.com, in the release, adding that the site is intended as a free-for-all resource.

Those featured on the site will also grow to include think tank members and state officials.

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NPR’s Inauguration Report site goes live

Laura Oliver — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 12:20:19 +0000

After we reblogged NPR’s proposals for inauguration coverage with a social media twist, it’s great to see the plans coming into action.

The broadcaster has created Inauguration Report, which features location-based reports from readers and listeners watching the inauguration events in Washington and elsewhere, submitted by text, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube.

By tagging their entries by location, e.g. L:lincoln for the Lincoln Memorial, NPR will map the accounts. Real-time updates from contributors will feed into this stream.

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Live coverage dominates media’s inauguration plans

Laura Oliver — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 16:47:54 +0000

Following up from last week’s post on CNN and NPR’s plans to get social with their coverage of Barack Obama’s inauguration as US President, the Associated Press (AP), Al Jazeera and Sky News have all announced plans to host their own online broadcast events:

AP
The agency will live stream the inauguration day events from 7am on its online video network, which is syndicated to partner newspaper and broadcaster websites, in a development of its live coverage of election night in November.

“AP Television News will provide unanchored coverage, from morning coffee at the White House, to the swearing-in ceremony, to the multi-camera shots of the inaugural parade. APTN, with access to dozens of pool cameras along with a dozen of its own, will have cameras in the crowds to capture the sounds and emotions of the millions who plan to attend,” says a release.

Al Jazeera English
The broadcaster will make the most of its recent deal with Livestation by hosting a live webchat on the platform between senior Washington editor Rob Reynolds and viewers on Thursday (Jan 15) at 9pm GMT.

Sky News
Sky News made use of plenty of multimedia and some streaming technology in its coverage of election night. On January 20 a news package ‘Obama: The Inauguration’ will be shown in high definition online and live streaming of the inauguration ceremony from 5pm GMT will also feature.

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AP: Seattle Post-Intelligencer faces closure if buyer cannot be found

John Thompson — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 10:56:16 +0000

Seattle’s oldest newspaper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, was put up for sale on Friday by owners Hearst Corp and – if a buyer is not forthcoming in the next 60 days – the paper will close or continue only online. Full story…

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Experiences of using Publish2 to report the Washington flooding

Judith Townend — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 13:54:16 +0000

As reported on the Journalism.co.uk main site, Washington newspaper rivals have joined forces to publish shared links relating to extreme flooding in the Western Washington region, in one of the first examples of ‘networked link journalism’ in action.

Journalism.co.uk contacted Paul Balcerak, assistant editor of dynamic media at Sound Publishing, publisher of the PNWLocalNews.com site.

Further to his comments in the main piece, Balcerak shares here his thoughts on using Publish2, the link journalism site and application:

What does it have over other link applications (e.g Ma.gnolia/Delicious)?
“The big selling point for me is the create-a-widget that lets you bundle links by tag and embed them (via Javascript) on your web page. Sure, if we wanted to build our own Delicious widget we could have done that, but this was already there for us and allowed us to work a lot faster.”

What benefit is it to you to work with your competitors?
“It made our jobs a lot easier, too. Pnwlocalnews is an aggregate site for all the sites under the Sound Publishing umbrella (about 35 of them, which all represent small, community newspapers).

“Our newsroom staffs aren’t huge – some consist of only a couple or few people – and to be frank, there’s just no way for us to have all the breaking news, all the time.”

At the moment a lot of US regional journalists seem to be using it (hasn’t really taken off in UK yet) – do you think it suits that environment particularly?
“I can’t really say, as I’m really not aware of how the environment outside the U.S. differs.

“I think part of it might be that it’s sort of this ‘Delicious for Journalists,’ which appeals to those who are hesitant to embrace ‘citizen journalism,’ or whatever we’re calling it. It’s more exclusive.

“For my part, it’s just another aggregate network that a ton of great journalists are on – why wouldn’t I be there?”

How could Publish2 improve its service for journalists?
“There are a few little things that could be improved (I can’t seem to find a search function to look up other people on the network) but I think the only real downside is that, well, it’s another aggregate network.

“It’s another username/password that you have to remember and log into everyday. If the Publish2 people ‘Who Make Things Happen’ could get it listed in Shareaholic or ShareThis, that might make it a little more convenient.”

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YouTube and Pulitzer announce five Project:Report finalists

Alexander de Vivie — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 15:11:19 +0000

Project Report, the journalism contest organised by YouTube and the Pulitzer Center to reward non-professional journalists producing videos, is drawing to a close.

Until January 9, viewers can vote on videos produced by the five finalists, who have progressed through two previous rounds of the competition, producing a different short film each time.

Entries include videos about Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender (GLBT) groups in the US, sexual abuse by priests and a community of developmentally disabled adults.

Videos can be watched and voted for on the YouTube Project:Report channel and the winner, who will receive a $10,000 grant to report on any topic, from anywhere in the world, and a scholarship at the Pulitzer Center, will be declared on 11 January.

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NYTimes.com: CNN didn’t anticipate live Twitter

Judith Townend — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 11:38:17 +0000

As previously noted on the Journalism.co.uk Editors' Blog, CNN invited several dozen newspaper editors to Atlanta last week for a summit about its forthcoming news wire. 'Gatherings of journalists aren’t usually off-the-record affairs', commented the NY Times after the event, 'but CNN probably didn’t expect each segment of the summit to be shared with the web,' describing how the online director for The Spokesman-Review in Washington, Ryan Pitts, aka @onemoreryan, tweeted his responses throughout.

Mumbai online: the attacks reported live (updating)

Judith Townend — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 12:04:21 +0000

A look at where the news has unfolded. Please post additional links below. Journalism.co.uk will add in more links as they are spotted.

Washington-based blogger and social media expert, Gaurav Mishra talks to Journalism.co.uk in an interview published on the main page.

One of the few on-the-ground user-generated content examples, Vinu’s Flickr stream (screen grab above). Slide show below:

How it has been reported:

NDTV looks at the way it unfolded on the net and promotes its own forums. “Citizens of the World Wide Web have connected to terror-stricken Mumbai in a way never seen before,” it reports. One eyewitness, Dinesh Kumar, used a forum on NDTV.com to share his experiences as he tried to make his way back home from work, the article says.
The Wikipedia current event page is almost filling role of a blog or news service, with its extremely quick updates.

Photography:

A Flickr search such as this one, brings up images from Mumbai, although many are reproduced from a few sources. People have also taken pictures of the television news coverage.
But before you re-publish your finds beware: an advanced search which filters pictures by copyright and only shows up images opened up under Creative Commons, limits the results.

Blogs:

Bloggers, such as Gaurav Mishra are tracking it live, and point out useful links. He has also collected together relevant Tweets.
Other blogs to look out for: Rediff.com; Mumbai.metblogs.com. More to come.
List of blogs, probably from outside, but outside Mumbai: Blogada roundup here.
On the ground blogs: Amit Varma’s India Uncut; Sonia Faleiro; Arun Shanbhag

Breaking news:

The BBC has a good stream of breaking news, with most recent at top; likewise, the Guardian’s is here.
Away from mainstream media, NowPublic are charting it here and Ground Report here.

Social Media:

Facebook doesn’t seem to have that much activity as yet and is not that helpful for finding news, although members of Mumbai related groups are posting comments on the walls.
Update (27/11/08): New Facebook groups formed:‘In memory of all those who died in the 26th-27th november MUMBAI massacre’; ‘26 November 2008 – Terrorist Attacks on Mumbai’.

Microblogging:

This Roomatic page brings together Twitter updates in chatroom format: makes it very easy to follow and updates quicked than you can read.
Lloyd Shepherd blogged that Mumbai ‘tweets’ appear to have been restrained, seemingly by the Indian authorities. (update: however, seems quite unlikely… Anyone know if any truth in this?) Check out Amy Gahran’s post here, which raises some good points about the danger of Twitter rumours…
The Twitter stream can be followed here: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=mumbai
Gaurav Mishra writes, “so far, micro-blogging service Twitter seems to be the best source for real time citizen news on the Mumbai terrorist attacks, and “Mumbai” & “#Mumbai” are both on Twitter trending topics now.”
Summed up here, at Wired.com.

Mapping:

NYTimes.com has linked photos to the attack sites on its interactive map.
The Guardian does a nice job here. Click on the cameras to see what took place.

Video:

The Google video seach is here. YouTube videos are mainly limited to broadcast footage, with one user even filming the TV reports, for those without access to live television coverage. YouTube videos seem to be all second-hand broadcasts from mainstream media.

Timelines:

Mirror.co.uk (Mumbai November 26-7) and Guardian (for past terrorist attacks in India). BBC timeline here (complete with contentious Twitter quote).

Dipity timeline here:

Campaigns / Aid:

In the same vein as Tsunami Help started in 2004/5, MumbaiHelp has been launched, with lists of the dead/injured here: http://tr.im/1kg3 http://tr.im/1kg2 / http://tr.im/1kg1 / http://tr.im/1kg0 / http://tr.im/1kfz

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Editor&Publisher: Carole Feldman to lead convergence at AP’s Washington bureau

Laura Oliver — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 12:47:50 +0000

The assistant chief of bureau for the AP in Washington will be responsible for 'the convergence of text, broadcast and online formats' in the bureau. Prior to her current post, which she has held for five years, Feldman was the AP's Washington news editor.