Editors' Blog | Journalism.co.uk » AP

AP test claims 50% of countries with FOI laws ‘do not follow them’

Rachel McAthy — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 15:06:14 +0000

Of the 105 countries which have laws governing the freedom of information, more than 50 per cent “do not follow them”, according to a test carried out by the Associated Press.

In a report on the findings of its test AP reveals that it sent out requests for information on “terrorism arrests and convictions … to the European Union and the 105 countries with right-to-know laws or constitutional provisions”, to find out how well they follow the rules.

According to its findings a total of just 14 gave complete responses and abided by the set time limit to do so in, while 38 “eventually answered most questions”.

The figures show 51 per cent of countries (a total of 54) approached for information by AP had not given it at the time of writing while 6 per cent “refused to disclose information, citing national security”.

Right-to-know laws seem to work better in some new democracies than older ones, the AP test showed, because their governments can adopt what has worked elsewhere.

Read the full report here.

AP is also asking its audience to send in ideas for more FOI requests they could make elsewhere.Similar Posts:

Nieman: AP Interactive and a visual future for breaking news

Joel Gunter — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 16:02:06 +0000

Nieman Journalism Lab’s Justin Ellis has written an interesting post on the development of Associated Press’ interactive output, which has nearly doubled over the past two years.

Among other things, Ellis touches on on the work of the AP Interactive department covering breaking news stories with graphics:

The trick in being able to roll out these features so quickly (and likely another reason the department has increased its output) is the usage of templates, Nessa said. That basic form allows the artists, programmers, and others on staff to publish graphics quickly — and to continuously update them as more information comes in from reporters. That’s why when events like Japan’s earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit, you could find not only breaking reports from the AP, in text, but also incredible photography and interactive graphics that harnessed reporting from correspondents as well as accounts and images from on-the-ground witnesses.

See the full post at this link.

Interactives, graphics and visualisation are among a range of essential topics for modern journalists that will be covered at Journalism.co.uk’s upcoming news:rewired conference. See the full agenda at this link.Similar Posts:

AP: Huffington Post sale boosts newspaper stocks

Paul McNally — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 15:05:16 +0000

Shares in some of the big publicly quoted American newspaper groups rose yesterday on the back of news of AOL’s £195m acquisition of the Huffington Post.

Gannett rose 2.8 per cent yesterday and the New York Times Company 2.7 per cent.

According to the Associated Press, the flurry of trading activity shows that investors are still interested in news companies. “The [Huffington Post] deal raised the value on leading branded digital properties,” one analyst told the newswire.Similar Posts:

Have your say on the AP 2011 Stylebook

Rachel McAthy — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 15:52:10 +0000

Do you find yourself critiquing news reports for poor writing style, bad punctuation or incorrect phrasing? If so then this is definitely one for you. The Associated Press (AP) has again opened up the floor to the public for entry suggestions to its 2011 Stylebook.

Last year the AP decided to ask for suggestions for its new section on social media and received 237 ideas in response.

Now the guide’s editors are asking for more suggestions for the next revision. The Stylebook itself features a main A-Z as well as the areas listed below:

Social Media Guidelines;
Business Guidelines;
Sport Guidelines;
Punctuation Guide;
Briefing on Media Law;
Photo Captions;
Interactive Department;
Filing Practices;
Filing the Wire.

The deadline for offering suggestions for the 2011 Stylebook is 15 November.Similar Posts:

James Beard Journalism Awards and Associated Press bylines go platform-neutral

Joel Gunter — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 09:30:14 +0000

The James Beard Journalism Awards – “the Oscars of the food world” – are to go platform-neutral. Categories for the awards will no longer be arranged according to platform but content.

“Why? Because we cracked a window … and noticed it was 2010 outside,” wrote Kat Kinsman, who is also on the committee that oversees the awards, for CNN’s Eatocracy section. “This is not a dance on the grave of print publication … Rather, this is an acknowledgment that online contributions should no longer be relegated to the kids’ table.”

Full story on sfnblog.com.

Associated Press also signalled a move toward multi-platform today, announcing that it would no longer byline its stories “Associated Press Writer”. According to an Editor & Publisher report, bylines will now feature the journalist’s name, followed simply by “Associated Press”.

Thomas Kent, the AP’s deputy managing editor and the man responsible for editorial standards, told E&P the new platform-neutral style is “consistent with the change in AP journalists. It reflects what’s been going on for a long time – people go out, they take pictures, they write stories, they do video, they work on different platforms.”

Full story on Editor & Publisher.Similar Posts:

BJP: Photographer drops copyright claim over iconic Obama image

Laura Oliver — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 12:02:46 +0000

The Associated Press and freelance photographer Mannie Garcia have settled a dispute over copyright of an iconic image of President Barack Obama, with both parties dropping their claims, reports the British Journal of Photography.

But the case involving artist Shepard Fairey, who claims he used the image to create his HOPE poster of the US leader, is yet to be settled or judged.

Full story on the British Journal of Photography at this link…

Image: Albany_Tim on FlickrSimilar Posts:

CNN drops Associated Press in favour of its own ‘distinctive’ content

Judith Townend — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 08:30:36 +0000

CNN has announced that it will no longer use content (stories, video and photographs) from the Associated Press (AP), “ending a business relationship that had been in place since the cable network’s inception”.

Jim Walton, president of CNN Worldwide, said in a memo to employees that the decision to discontinue the network’s use of the wire service was part of a strategy to “more fully leverage CNN’s global newsgathering investments.”

“We will no longer use AP materials or services,” Walton wrote. “The content we offer will be distinctive, compelling and, I am proud to say, our own.”

It is to use Reuters to supplement its breaking news coverage. While cutting the deal with AP will save CNN money, Walton claimed it was only “partly a business decision”.

Full announcement at this link…Similar Posts:

E&P: AP videojournalist in the thick of it in the Gulf of Mexico

Joel Gunter — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:43:50 +0000

Rich Matthews, a videojournalist with Associated Press, decided to report from the Gulf of Mexico’s oil-slicked waters. Not content with looking overboard, he went diving, intending first to go 60 feet but having to cut this back to 20 feet due to the lack of visibility.

I jump off the boat into the thickest, reddest patch of oil I’ve ever seen (…) I open my eyes and realise my mask is already smeared. I can’t see anything and we’re just five seconds into the dive.

Full story at this link…Similar Posts:

AP updates Stylebook with social media guidelines

Laura Oliver — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 07:53:20 +0000

The Associated Press (AP) has updated its Stylebook to include 42 new entries under a special social media section. The new edition of the style guide, which is widely used in the US and internationally, has changed its recommendation for “web site” to “website” and now includes terms such as “app”,” blogs”, “click-throughs”, “friend” and “unfriend”, “metadata”, “RSS”, “search engine optimisation”, “smart phone”, trending, widget and wiki. (Not all necessarily in keeping with the Journalism.co.uk house style…)

The new Stylebook also includes advice for journalists using social media for their work, in particular tips on how to use Twitter and Facebook effectively.

Full release at this link…Similar Posts:

AP to launch copyright tracking system on 14 July

Laura Oliver — Tue, 04 May 2010 12:21:05 +0000

The Associated Press will launch its news registry on 14 July, opening it up to all members and publishers who want to sign up before the end of 2010, the agency has announced.

The new system will automatically notify the agency and members about how their content is used beyond their own websites. It also stores information identifying each piece of AP content distributed and its terms of use.

The registry will make use of the new microformat for metadata introduced by the AP earlier this month, which has been added to all its news stories online to encourage an industry standard for tagging.

“Beyond analytics, the registry also will set the stage for a new way of doing business as a cooperative,” says Tom Curley, AP president and CEO, in a release.

“Every content creator who uses the registry will be able to set the rights for the use of that content, so that it can be copied legally or used in new products that the industry or others create with proper permission and compensation.”

More than 200 AP member newspapers have signed up as beta testers of the system and the agency expects this number to reach 600 by the July launch date.Similar Posts:

Outsourcing photography – what cost to local news organisations?

Laura Oliver — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 15:27:14 +0000

Last week, the Associated Press’ (AP) commercial photography arm, AP Images, launched a new service and a new revenue stream. The new Editorial Assignment Service offers other news organisations the chance to hire out its photojournalists to cover events for their reporting.

(Read more about the launch on the British Journal of Photography’s site and Photo Archive News.)

Twenty-five AP photographers are available via the assignment service and the images on display on the marketing site are great quality. For the AP it’s a new source of revenue and use of existing resources to create a money-making service; for other news organisations – as far as the agency is hoping – it could be a labour-saving device, allowing them to outsource work on far-flung or one-off assignments.

I’m thinking in particular of local media and newspapers here. Many of whom are already AP members in the US – some of whom have left the agency as a results of increased membership fees. Much is made of multimedia and the potential of online publishing platforms to mix words with rich images and more. But where do images from the field stand on a local or regional newsroom’s budget at a time of cuts/limited financial resources?

Some such news organisations are turning photo departments into visual departments – adding video to images – and creating their own money-making products by putting these desks at the heart of the newsroom. US newspaper the Star-Ledger and its website NJ.com is now generating revenue from specialist coverage of local events, in particular high-school sports, and as such video and images remains high on the agenda.

While outsourcing could bring a greater range of images to some news sites and free organisations from the labour of obtaining them, the local knowledge and understanding of an audience can’t be outsourced or replaced by the AP. Local media outlets wanting stronger visuals would do well to develop their own rather than outsource and build products for both a multimedia and potentially commercial end.Similar Posts:

Editor&Publisher: New AP regional investigative teams will boost CAR and data journalism

Laura Oliver — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 12:13:07 +0000

The Associated Press (AP) is creating four regional investigative teams to support its staff across the US with “reporting and presentation resources”, in particular by using journalists with expertise in computer-assisted reporting (CAR), Flash interactives and access to public records.

Now, any reporter in a region who has an idea for a story that requires high-level data analysis will have a partner. If an editor has an idea for a project that lends itself to an interactive map or another data-driven multimedia project, they can work with the team. When a big, breaking story happens anywhere in the country, we’ll tap the region’s I-team [the name given to the newly created teams] to begin digging into public records and inspection reports while the story is still developing, not days after the fact.

Full story at this link…Similar Posts:

US Digest: paidContent 2010; Tiger Woods, Scientology vs; journalism, and more

Joel Gunter — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:29:02 +0000

Starting today, the editor’s blog will feature an afternoon roundup of all things media from over the pond. From the hugely important to the very inconsequential, check in for a choice of America’s journalistic goings on.

paidContent 2010

The issue of paid content was high on the agenda at the end of last week with the paidContent 2010 conference in New York. In attendance were big names from the New York Times: Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., chairman and publisher; Janet Robinson, president and CEO; and Martin Nisenholtz, senior vice president of digital operations, who were interviewed at length by ContentNext’s Staci D. Kramer on “metered news and more”.

According to the paidContent coverage, “while they were willing to buy lunch, they weren’t ready to feed the appetite for detail about plans for NYTimes.com to go metered in 2011″.

See the video here

And the full conference coverage from the paidContent site here

“Does the bleeding ever stop at 425 Portland?”

image courtesy of Stephen Cummings

Presumably, ways of making newspaper journalism pay were also high on the agenda over in Minneapolis at the end of last week, where the Star Tribune announced that five voluntary redundancies would be offered to reporters and editors. “Does the bleeding ever stop at 425 Portland?” asks MinnPost.

Staff memo here

Pessimistic stories of this kind, including this one, continue to be thoughtfully aggregated by blogger and pessimist extraorinaire Fading To Black. Not featured on this chronicle of US newspaper decline was the story that down in South Florida, rather than asking him if he’d like to pack his things, the Sun Sentinel handed production maintenance manager Bob Simons a $25,000 spot bonus and a Caribbean holiday. Simons’ suggestion of a different supplier for equipment apparently saved the paper $1 million.

A very different staff memo here

AP underperforms on non-profit content distribution

An interesting story from the Nieman Jounalism Lab reports on the outcome of Associated Press’ decision to distribute content from America’s top four non-profit news outlets: ProPublica, Centre for Public Integrity, Centre for Investigative Reporting, and the Investigative Reporting Workshop.

The six-month project was launched back in June 2009 at the Investigative Reporters and Editors conference in Baltimore, “with great fanfare” according to Bill Buzenberg, executive director of Centre for Public Integrity.

It seems however that the scheme hasn’t been successful so far, with admissions from both the AP and the non-profit directors that very little content has made it into print. A poor distribution model is to blame apparently, with new non-profit content not being sufficiently flagged.

“They haven’t done the technical backup work to really make it work,” said Buzenburg. “They haven’t made it a priority.”

However, hope remains for the project from both sides. Buzenburg added: “This is a good idea. I’d like it to work [...] The potential of this remains.”

“It’s early yet – we’re only six months into it,” said John Raess, AP’s San Francisco bureau chief.

“We want our celebrities to show a little leg”

image courtesy of Jim Epler

Much of the weekend’s media coverage in the US was given over to Tiger Wood’s much-publicised public apology on Friday morning. Mediabistro nailed the best format for coverage by inviting readers to pen Haikus for the Mediabistro facebook page. Submissions include this clear frontrunner from Pamela Ross:

“Questions? Don’t go there.
My Thanksgiving meal was ruined.
Thanks. Now. Watch this swing.”

With more syllables at his disposal, David Carr of The New York Times’ Media & Advertising pages goes into a little more detail, considering the relationship between celebrity sportsmen and the media:

Athletes and actors would like for us to focus on the work, while reporters know that their editors and audience want more, because while the work is visible, we want our celebrities to show a little leg.

But once this bit of leg, so strictly concealed by Woods for so long, has been shown, why are the media who feed on it so relentlessly owed some sort of apology?

Those of us who have had some experience with human frailties all know why Tiger Woods did what he did last Friday, which was to get in a room with people he had hurt or embarrassed to say he was “deeply sorry” for what he had done. That part made sense, the beginning of a process of amends.

I just don’t know what the rest of us were doing there.

A sentiment echoed this side of the pond by Charlie Brooker today in the Guardian.

There are those that must hope that, now this enigmatic character has addressed his hushed audience, and delivered his much anticpated talk, that the hype, rumour, pontificating, and endless media coverage will die away.

Apple wields knife over TV show prices

It is fair to say that at least a few people thought exactly the same thing about Steve Jobs’ unveiling of the iPad. But the so-called saviour of the newspapers is back in the media spotlight this week with news that Apple are considering halving the current price of television shows on iTunes from $1.99 to 0.99 cents. Media commentators have hailed the iTunes store’s 125 million registered customers as a potential liferaft for sinking newspaper publishers, and major networks may be wary of waving a pin anywhere near that customer base by rejecting the move, instead gambling on even a small percentage increase in those paying for TV offsetting the significant price drop.

image courtesy of curiouslee

Meanwhile, Adobe and Conde Nast have jumped right aboard the good ship iPad, unveiling “a new digital magazine experience based on WIRED magazine” at the TED Conference in Long Beach, California.

The Church of Scientology vs. the St. Petersburg Times, Round 1

And finally, from Howard Kurtz’s Media Notes at the Washington Post, the improbable story that the Church of Scientology, in a tit-for-tat response to investigations by the St. Petersburg Times of Tampa Bay, has organised some investigative journalism of its own.

image courtesy of Ben Sutherland

The church has officially hired three ‘veteran reporters’ – a Pulitzer Prize winner, a former “60 Minutes” producer, and the former executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors – to look in detail at the newspapers’ conduct. Steve Weinberg, the former IRE executive, who was paid $5,000 to edit the study, says that the agreement stipulates the church publish the study in full or not at all.

Weinberg claims that in spite the study being bankrolled by the church, it will be objective. Neil Brown, executive editor of the St. Petersburg Times, thinks otherwise:

“I ultimately couldn’t take this request very seriously because it’s a study bought and paid for by the Church of Scientology.”

Brown seems to feel a bit hard done by in this instance:

“I counted up something like six or seven journalists the church has hired to look into the St. Petersburg Times. I’ve just got two looking into the Church of Scientology,” he complained.

No fair.Similar Posts:

Steve Rubel: The AP’s vision of a “siteless web”

Laura Oliver — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 10:22:51 +0000

Steve Rubel responds to criticism of the Associated Press for redirecting its followers on Twitter to stories hosted on its Facebook page rather than on the AP’s own or partners’ websites.

As wires like AP and Reuters syndicate their content everywhere, they have struggled to build any kind of meaningful relationship with readers (…) The AP is now changing the game for news by not only going where attention spirals are taking us but by also using their content to curate a conversation on Facebook and – above all – build relationships.

Full post at this link…Similar Posts:

AP: Using and verifying citizen journalist photos

Laura Oliver — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 08:51:34 +0000

News breaks.

Images are uploaded to photo-sharing services like TwitPic and yFrog. Links are tweeted by the original photographer. Other people retweet those links or copy and paste them into Facebook or other blogs. In a matter of minutes, an individual photo can spider out in myriad directions.

So how does a news organisation verify images? Director of photography Santiago Lyon explains the Associated Press’ explains the agency’s process and establishes some useful guidelines for other news orgs – above all: “If we can’t verify the content, we don’t use it.”

Full post at this link…Similar Posts: