Editors' Blog | Journalism.co.uk » Al Jazeera

New York Times: Arab Spring reshapes market for TV news

Rachel McAthy — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 12:13:57 +0000

The New York Times published an interesting article yesterday (30 October) on potential changes facing the Arab television news market, looking at the impact of both the Arab Spring and the impending influx of new providers, national and local.

As author Eric Pfanner writes, the area is “poised for a shot of new competition” with two 24-hour news channels in the pipeline: Alarab from media company Rotana, to be run in partnership with Bloomberg and Sky Arabia, to be launched by BSkyB in spring next year.

As well as this, following the uprisings across the Arab world, the industry may start to see more local media and new channels opening up, he adds.

One reason that news providers like Al Jazeera attracted such a large following was that they were beyond the control of authoritarian regimes in countries like Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, where governments kept the local media on a tight leash.

Now that those regimes have fallen, the local news media are moving toward greater openness, and new channels providing news and commentary on current events have sprung up.

This could eventually undermine the audience for so-called pan-Arab channels beamed in from outside via satellite, analysts say.

Read more on how the Arab Spring is reshaping the market for TV news.

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#jpod in depth: How some news outlets are going it alone in the world of WikiLeaks

Rachel McAthy — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 14:55:37 +0000

In this week’s #jpod news editor Rachel McAthy looks at the issue of document leaks in light of WikiLeak’s announcement earlier this week that the “financial blockade” has forced it to temporarily suspend publishing operations. At the beginning of the year news outlets started to launch their own internal WikiLeaks-style platforms to enable anonymous submissions.

In this podcast we speak to the head of Al Jazeera’s Transparency Unit Clayton Swisher about the broadcaster’s decision to set up the platform and how it is to re-launch in the ‘coming weeks’, and El Pais journalist Joseba Elola about why he values a relationship with WikiLeaks and the difficulties of going it alone.

You can also hear more about OpenLeaks (referred to in the podcast) in the below audio, in an interview with co-founder Daniel Domscheit-Berg who spoke to Journalism.co.uk at the World Editors Forum in Vienna earlier this month:

You can sign up to our iTunes podcast feed for future audio.

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#followjourn – @AlanFisher Alan Fisher/journalist

Rachel McAthy — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 12:00:42 +0000

Who? Alan Fisher

Where? Alan is senior correspondent for Al Jazeera English.

Twitter? @AlanFisher

Just as we like to supply you with fresh and innovative tips, we are recommending journalists to follow online too. Recommended journalists can be from any sector of the industry: please send suggestions (you can nominate yourself) to rachel at journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.Similar Posts:

Al Jazeera calls for answers on whereabouts of journalist Dorothy Parvaz

Rachel McAthy — Tue, 17 May 2011 12:10:06 +0000

Questions about the whereabouts of Al Jazeera English journalist Dorothy Parvaz remain unanswered this week, after going missing upon her arrival in Syria in April. Earlier this month Journalism.co.uk reported that Al Jazeera claimed to have been given information that Parvaz had been deported to Iran.

But on Saturday Al Jazeera reported that Iran’s foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi said he had no information about her whereabouts.

Asked on Saturday whether Syria had handed over the journalist, Salehi said: “I have no information.” Salehi, speaking to Al Jazeera, had previously urged Syria to investigate Parvaz’s case.

In a statement Al Jazeera said it is continuing to call for information about the journalist’s whereabouts, access to her, and for her immediate release.

Though Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran’s Foreign Minister, has said he has no information about her whereabouts, Al Jazeera has requested information from a number of ministries in Tehran in order to secure Dorothy’s release.

Yesterday, according to reports today such as this article by the Financial Times, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told reporters in a press conference that finding information on the “condition” of Parvaz is “important” for the country, but “stopped short of admitting that Ms Parvaz was in Iran”.

Mr Mehmanparast said that Ms Parvaz had attempted to enter Syria on “an expired Iranian visa” and “without a journalist visa” to report “clandestinely” to cover protests on behalf the Qatar-based broadcaster.

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Al Jazeera: Reports missing journalist Dorothy Parvaz has been deported to Iran

Rachel McAthy — Wed, 11 May 2011 14:16:47 +0000

Al Jazeera reported today it has been given information that journalist Dorothy Parvaz, who was reportedly detained in Syria upon her arrival last month, has been deported from to Iran.

This information has come from Syrian officials, who had previously told Al Jazeera they were holding Dorothy in Damascus, and that they would be releasing her. Ms Parvaz was initially detained in Damascus 12 days ago.

Last month Al Jazeera confirmed its Arabic bureau in Syria had been suspended for safety reasons.Similar Posts:

How to: Create a Tumblr blog for your news organisation

Sarah Marshall — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 09:57:06 +0000

What is Tumblr?

Tumblr is a very visual way of blogging. One of the many beauties of Tumblr is its simplicity and easy interface. You can create an account, choose a URL, select a design theme and create your first post in under five minutes.

It is free and it is social: users can reblog, flag up things they like and engage by asking questions and commenting. Since each Tumblr blog has its own URL, you don’t need to be a member to view posts.

Although it has been around since 2007, over the past year it has been growing at an incredible rate.

“Right now Tumblr serves up 5.7 billion pages each month; this is growing by 400 million more pages every week,” Mark Coatney from Tumblr told Journalism.co.uk.

Almost half the Tumblr pages viewed are from the US, but the UK Tumblr community is growing fast and it now has 4.5 million unique users and 8 per cent of page views making it the third largest country on Tumblr.

The US is first, with 32 million people visiting the site; Brazil second with 5.6 million.

News organisations are joining Tumblr.

The Guardian launched its Tumblr blog earlier this year, with a notable experiment of live reporting from the SXSW conference;
Washington Post’s technology blog is the best example so far of a news organisation integrating Tumblr into its main site;
Since it’s difficult to view Al Jazeera TV in America Al Jazeera’s Tumblr has become a source of news;
The New York Times T Magazine officially joined earlier this month following the controversial axing of an unofficial Tumblr blog.

Five of the best Tumblr news blogs are at this link.

Tumblr, which was started in New York in 2007, by David Karp when he was just 20, almost became too popular for its own good. In December, rapid expansion led to it being down for eight hours. It has since opened another data centre to cope with capacity.

How does it work?

There are seven post types: text, photo, quote, link, chat, video, plus you can ask or answer questions.

You can post from the web-based dashboard or by downloading the free iPhone, Android or BlackBerry app.

There are also other options including posting links from Bookmarklet, publishing via email and other third party applications (find out more via the Goodies tab on the dashboard).

You can decide to follow people or organisations, much as you do on Twitter. You can reblog (similar to retweet) and “like” a story. Followers can also ask questions or leave messages. You can create a group blog so several members of a team can contribute (go to the dashboard and members).

Who should consider Tumblr?

News organisations and individuals.

There are some great examples of news organisations getting to grips with Tumblr with the Guardian leading the way in the UK. There are some great examples from the worlds of fashion and art.

Tumblr’s Mark Coatney pointed us in the direction of this Short Form Blog, a really nice independent site that does news analysis and curation.

Why use Tumblr?

To engage with the 4.5 million UK Tumblr users.

“Our use of Tumblr is neither a marketing exercise nor a means by which to generate simple click-throughs,” Stephen Abbott, executive producer at Guardian.co.uk told Journalism.co.uk.

“We launched the Tumblr because we wanted to engage with the Tumblr community and we’re always on the lookout for new communication tools which might help to improve or augment our editorial coverage.”

First things first

Get a feel for Tumblr and decide whether it is suitable for you or your news site.

“I would advise any journalists thinking about using Tumblr for their organisation to first get to grips with the nature of the platform and become familiar with the practices and tone used on Tumblr.

“Then they’ll be in a much better position to decide whether they could find a opening or niche on Tumblr which could be filled by their journalistic output,” Abbott explained.

Think about how you can engage without the Tumblr community and what you want to blog.

Perhaps you can use it for fashion and lifestyle, the best photography from your publication or as a way to connect readers with your newsroom. The Economist’s Tumblr blog includes its cartoons and front pages.

News organisations can use Tumblr “as a way into specific niches” of the organisations, Tumblr’s Mark Coatney advises.

“For instance, Washington Post does a very nice Tumblr blog just for their style section; this allows a specific kind of post reader another entry into the paper tailored just for them.”

The second piece of advice Coatney has is for organisations to use Tumblr “as a way to foster peer-to-peer communication between news organisation and reader”: GQ’s Tumblr, for instance, does an excellent job of using Tumblr’s “ask” feature (every Tumblr blog as an ask me a question page) to bring readers inside the GQ’s office.

His third piece of guidance is to use Tumblr “as a way to bring the intelligence of the newsroom to the public: CNN Money Tech has a group Tumblr that replicates the chatter that goes on in newsrooms every day; a cast of seven CNN reporters regularly dash off short notes and observations about stories they’re following throughout the day”.

Think visually. And also in terms of video and audio as Coatney explains.

Tumblr is a very visual platform; of the 25 million posts done every day on Tumblr, half of them are photos.

Posts with striking visuals tend to be reblogged more by other users as well, helping to spread the content quickly throughout Tumblr’s network.

The Guardian’s Stephen Abbott said: “We will often strive to post stories which have striking pictures or video to accompany the text of the post.

“But this doesn’t mean that we only post picture-led stories. As you can see from the variety of posts at guardian.tumblr.com, we like to try to post stories picked from a wide variety of sections on guardian.co.uk to showcase the breadth of content on our site.”

Along with receiving much attention for its use of Tumblr at SXSW, the Guardian has carried out two other experiments as part of its editorial coverage: this Glastonbury 2010 scrapbook and this one on untangling the web.

Think about who will manage it. Large news organisations use community editors.

“The Guardian Tumblr account is managed by our news community coordinators Laura Oliver and James Walsh,” Abbot explained.

“Laura and James work closely with our news desk editors on a wide variety of our coverage – from breaking news to long-form features – and they pick a variety of stories that they feel will be appropriate for Tumblr.”

Ready…

Now you have got a feel for Tumblr blogs you can create your account, which takes a few minutes. All you need is an email address, a password and a username, which will become part of your URL (thenews.tumblr.com)

Upload a picture/avatar. This is probably going to be your logo, perhaps the same as your Twitter thumbnail.

Now choose a design. You can opt for a free theme, pay for a premium one (costing between $9 and $49) or you can customise your own (perhaps with the help of a developer).

Look around at other examples and see what is most effective.

“We looked at many Tumblr accounts before creating the Guardian Tumblr in order to survey the enormous variety of designs and layouts available – but we didn’t copy any of these.

“Our designers came up with a look and feel for the Tumblr which was distinct to the Guardian but which capitalises on the strengths of Tumblr,” Abbott said.

Download the free smartphone app if you want to post from away from your desk/laptop.

Connect with Facebook and/or Twitter if you want your posts to be automatically added to your Facebook and Twitter news feeds (via customise on the dashboard). Bear in mind it will indicate that the post is via Tumblr.

Steady…

Consider other add ons. Tumblr supports short comments but you can also add your Disqus account you can also take advantage of Tumblr’s own back up tool. You can decide whether or not you want to embed the blog into your own website (via Goodies).

Get ready to analyse. Paste your Google Analytics code into your site description in the customize menu.

You’ll also be checking the notes section to see what has been reblogged.

You don’t necessarily have to heavily promote your Tumblr blog.

“We have alerted Guardian readers to the presence of the Guardian Tumblr via our main @Guardian Twitter account but, at present, we don’t promote the Guardian on Tumblr across our other platforms.” Abbott told us.

Go!

Start posting.

Go visual
Be conversational
Keep it short. One, two or three paragraphs and link additional background content
Don’t just promote your own content. For example, the LA Times has linked to an Economist article on California; Al Jazeera has posted third party content of a time lapse map of uprisings and protests
Tag tag tag. Tumblr is powered by tags
Reblog
Ask and answer

How did you get on? Let us know when your news organisation has set up a Tumblr account.Similar Posts:

Five stories to inspire you to try Storify – which anyone can now join

Sarah Marshall — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 08:47:27 +0000

Anyone can now join multimedia storytelling platform Storify.

The site, which allows users to drag and drop elements such as tweets, audioboo recordings, photographs from Flickr and YouTube videos to tell a dynamic story, which can then be embedded on a news website or blog, was previously in private beta and an invitation was required. As of this week Storify is now in public beta.

Since its launch in September, private beta users have created more than 21,000 stories, according to this post.

Storify stories have been viewed more than 13 million times, 4.2 million views were in March. The stories generated have been embedded on more than 5,000 sites, including news sites from the New York Times, to the Guardian and BBC.

Here are five stories to inspire you to have a go:

1. The Stream, the daily television show powered by social media and citizen journalism on Al Jazeera English, has created this Storify story on Blogging from “Between the Bars”.

[View the story Blogging from "Between the Bars" on Storify]

2. The Wall Street Journal embedded this Storify story which asks where should New York place QR codes?
[View the story QR codes in New York City on Storify]

3. Storify received record views after March’s earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
[View the story Latest on Japan earthquake and tsunami on Storify]

4. BBC London curated the London marathon with Storify.
[View the story Your Story of Marathon 2011 on Storify]

5. And whether you love of hate the hype, the Royal Wedding will no doubt inspire more Storify stories, such as this one from ABC News.
[View the story UK gears up for royal wedding on Storify]

Do you have any useful tips for people using Storify? Please share them with Journalism.co.uk readers.

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Media release: Al Jazeera launches new social media show The Stream

Rachel McAthy — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 09:02:51 +0000

Al Jazeera this week confirmed the launched its new social media show The Stream, which will aggregate stories from online sources and discussions.

The broadcaster claims the show is “the first of its kind” and demonstrates its “commitment to using new media as a key source for news and information”.

At the media140 conference last week, Al Jazeera’s head of social media Riyaad Minty spoke about the value of online sources such as bloggers within the country before and during the revolutions. He said that at its peak Al Jazeera’s citizen media platform Sharek was receiving up to 1,600 videos per day, prompting the broadcaster to work on building its resources to dealing with, and verifying, this material.

The Stream, which launched this week in beta form with broadcasting due to begin in May, will monitor activity on the web and use live breaking accounts to present its viewers “with real-time development from around the world” a release said.

There is also a microsite for the show which “will allow the conversation to continue 24-hours per day”.

Visitors are encouraged to take part in the editorial direction of the show by adding comments and links and will have the opportunity to watch the final programming preparations in the five minutes before the show goes live on air.

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London protest planned in support of journalists imprisoned in Libya

Sarah Marshall — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 10:49:23 +0000

A protest will take place on Thursday in support of three Al Jazeera journalists captured in Libya in March.

A video on Al Jazeera English’s YouTube channel says Ahmad val ould Eddin and cameramen Ammar Al-Hamdan and Kamel Al Tallou are being held illegally.

According to this article on Al Jazeera’s website, the three were held near Zintan in the northwest of the country and then imprisoned in Tripoli. The broadcaster says it has no information on why the trio are being held.

The National Union of Journalists is joining the protest, which will take place between noon and 4pm in front of the Libyan Embassy in Knightsbridge, London.

“We are demonstrating in support of our Al Jazeera colleagues because it is vital to their safety that attention is focused on their plight at a time when the enormity of events in Libya might cause them to be forgotten,” NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear said in a statement.Similar Posts:

Al Jazeera launches Twitter dashboard to track uprisings

Sarah Marshall — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 13:56:27 +0000

Al Jazeera has launched a Twitter dashboard of the Arab uprisings to show what is being tweeted about and where.

One section shows the daily total of tweets mentioning hashtags for Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and Egypt and the average number of tweets per minute. These are also shown in a graph.

Another graphic shows the hashtag distribution for each country getting the most attention in the Twittersphere. Hashtags for Libya include various spellings of Libya and Gaddafi, plus #feb17

A Twitter feed is also included.

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Washington Post: Al Jazeera saw the Arab revolutions coming, why didn’t the West?

Sarah Marshall — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 14:13:21 +0000

The Washington Post has an article by the director general of the Al Jazeera network, Wadah Khanfar, who says the uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa were no surprise for Al Jazeera due to the network’s focus on grass roots journalism.

These unfolding transformations have been less of a surprise for us at al-Jazeera. Since our launch nearly 15 years ago, we have chosen to keep close to the Arab street, gauging its pulse and reflecting its aspirations. It was clear to us that a revolution was in the making, and it was happening far from the gaze of a tame and superficial establishment media that allied itself with the powerful center – on the assumption that the center is always safer and more important. Many media outlets in the region failed to recognize what was happening among the Arab grass roots. Keen to conduct interviews with high-level officials and ever willing to cover repetitious news conferences, they remained oblivious to what was happening on the ground.

Full post on the WashingtonPost.com at this link.Similar Posts:

Libya could relax ban on foreign journalists on Friday

Paul McNally — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 17:28:57 +0000

Libya is reportedly planning to allow some Western journalists to report from the capital, Tripoli, tomorrow, but has warned those who have already entered without proper government accreditation that they face immediate arrest and will be considered al-Qaeda collaborators.

Foreign media have been trying to gain access for the past week to cover the violent protests that have gripped the country, as protestors call for the end of Colonel Gaddafi’s 42-year rule.

Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya have been relying on user-generated content sent in from around the country to keep on top of the story. The Independent’s Robert Fisk managed to file a report from Tripoli following a brief visit there.

Gaddafi’s son said in an interview with Libyan state television that some journalists would be allowed into the capital Tripoli on Friday. The Washington Post says Libya will do this “so [journalists] can corroborate the government’s claim that the country remains under Gaddafi’s control”.

According to the US state department, Libyan officials say they will grant access to CNN, BBC Arabic and Al-Arabiya.

It said, however, that any reporters who have entered without government permission to cover the violent unrest sweeping the country risked “immediate arrest on the full range of possible immigration charges” and considered al-Qaeda “collaborators”.

The warning to news organisations from the US state department says: “Be advised, entering Libya to report on the events unfolding there is additionally hazardous with the government labeling unauthorized media as terrorist collaborators and claiming they will be arrested if caught.”

The government appears to have lost control of parts of eastern Libya, including the second biggest city Benghazi. As a result, some reporters have managed to get into the country by crossing the border from Egypt.

The Daily Mail says crowds in Benghazi “cheered as international journalists drove through the city – and the only shooting that could be heard was celebratory gunfire”.

CNN’s Ben Wedeman tweeted from the city yesterday: “As first western TV crew to make it to Benghazi we were greeted like liberators, pelted with candy, cheers and thanks. Very humbling.”

The Guardian’s Martin Chulov is there and has been posting updates on Audioboo. ITV News also has a team in the east of the country.Similar Posts:

Al Jazeera gives the public a chance to ask the questions for Cameron interview

Rachel McAthy — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 11:30:44 +0000

A series of monthly interviews with leaders across the world that gives the public the chance to ask the questions will feature David Cameron on 25 February.

World View, an Al Jazeera series, asks for questions to be sent in either by video or text.

More information on Al Jazeera’s YouTube channel at this link.Similar Posts:

Blood and Dust: Vaughan Smith on the rescue teams saving lives in Afghanistan

Joel Gunter — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 12:05:42 +0000

Frontline Club founder and freelance filmmaker Vaughan Smith has produced a new film following two weeks embedded with the US Army’s 214th Aviation Regiment in Afghanistan.

The film, produced for Al Jazeera’s People & Power series, follows the trials of a US military air ambulance crew as they attempt to save the lives of soldiers, local nationals and Taliban fighters alike.

“I have done a fair number of military embeds in Afghanistan over the last few years,” says Smith, “but was concerned that I hadn’t filmed the suffering of war, just its machinery.”

“I have worked with Al Jazeera on this because I couldn’t find another news broadcaster in Britain that would show the film without cutting out the stronger images. I have huge respect for the way Al Jazeera as a broadcaster engages the world while so many others appear to retreat from it,” he adds.

Media Briefing editor Patrick Smith says: “What I enjoy about Vaughan’s work is its absence of politics. A BBC, Sky or CNN journalist may frame a report around whether the troops should be at war or not. This is just a document of professionals at work, doing their job, stitching people up in the most unimaginable heat and horror.”

More information on the Frontline Club site at this link.Similar Posts:

OJR: Promoted tweets – the AdWords for live news?

Caroline White — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 12:50:18 +0000

Al Jazeera has started paying for tweets to promote its English-language Egypt coverage in the US.

Paul Bradshaw’s Online Journalism Blog compares the move to newspapers using Google Adwords to drive traffic to their sites – except that the sponsored tweets can be replied to and re-tweeted just like any other.

Twitter’s media team says Riyaad Minty, head of social media at Al Jazeera English, is operating the campaign like a news desk.

It also claims that Twitter has helped drive Al Jazeera site traffic up by 2,500 per cent in the last month and that the English language version is on course to triple its number of followers.

See the full story on Online Journalism Blog at this link.Similar Posts: