Editors' Blog | Journalism.co.uk » Colin Meek

Slideshare: research tips for journalists from @colinmeek

John Thompson — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 08:52:33 +0000

Journalism.co.uk consulting editor Colin Meek (@colinmeek) found himself stranded recently in Oslo, Norway but was rescued thanks to some nifty footwork by Kristine Lowe and an online project from Norwegian news site VG.no entitled Hitchhikers Central.

Colin was in Oslo to give, among other things, an evening presentation to the Norwegian Online News Association (NONA). Colin, when he’s not advising on Journalism.co.uk’s editorial board, is an investigative journalist and trainer in advanced online research skills (his next one-day, open course is in London Tuesday 15 June 2010). Here are some of the tips he shared with our Norwegian colleagues:

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How Norwegian newspaper site is helping stranded travellers get home

Judith Townend — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 14:27:53 +0000

As briefly noted on this blog earlier, Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang (known as VG), has put together a ‘Hitchhiker’s Central’ page on its site, for travellers stranded by the volcano ash cloud to arrange emergency overland transport.

Media journalist Kristine Lowe reports on her blog how she was able to use the service to help get Journalism.co.uk trainer Colin Meek home from an online course he was teaching in Oslo.

“What VG.no could offer in this situation was scale. With its close to 3 million unique users a week it offered people a brilliant connection point that few other sites could,” says Kristine. “It’s a great service to its readers and, I’m sure, a great click winner too.”

How Kristine set up Colin’s journey home:

[W]hen I found a friend who was willing to drive from Oslo to Dover and back to get him home, I was able to fill up the car in both directions, thereby covering the costs of the trip, by submitting a message to Hitchhiker’s Central. I did call around a few other travellers advertising for lift to London before submitting an ad myself, and several of those I talked to had already found lift from Oslo to London which suggests my experience was not unique.

Within minutes of placing an “ad” (a free message) on Hitchhiker’s central, the receptionist at a Rica hotel in Oslo called me to ask if I had room for a British businessman staying at the hotel (…) The last passenger on the trip to Dover (they arrived this morning) was a Norwegian student desperate to get back to the UK for his exams at Cardiff University. On the way back to Oslo, the car will bring a salesman, a singer and a conductor – all Norwegians who were stranded in London.

Without this arrangement via VG.no, overland costs were adding up to around £1000, Colin tells me. A Eurostar one-way fare was going to be around £250 and the one-way ferry crossing from Oslo to Copenhagen would have been 1950NoK (£215) minimum. “It would have taken me about three days – at least – with no guarantee that some of the legs would be available.”

So, VG.no’s collaborative site has been helpful, both in terms of cost and time for Colin. But, he adds, the 18-hour car journey was something of a personal challenge – he’s getting on the sleeper train back home to Scotland.

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Essential journalism links for students

Judith Townend — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:56:59 +0000

This list is doing the rounds ‘100 Best Blogs for Journalism Students – Learn-gasm‘… and we’re not on it. Nope, not even a smidgeon of link-love for poor old Journalism.co.uk there.

The BachelorsDegreeOnline site appears to be part of e-Learners.com, but it’s not clear who put the list together. Despite their omission of our content and their rather odd descriptions (e.g: Adrian Monck: ‘Adrian Monck writes this blog about how we inform ourselves and why we do it’), we admit it is a pretty comprehensive list; excellent people and organisations we feature on the site, our blog roll and Best of Blogs mix – including many UK-based ones. There were also ones we hadn’t come across before.

In true web 2.0 self-promotional style, here are our own links which any future list-compilers might like to consider as helpful links for journalism students:

Journalism.co.uk for industry news, events and developments

Journalism.co.uk Editor’s Blog for the titbits, tips, trade tools, recommendations and daily editors’ picks.

TNTJ blog: Tomorrow’s News, Tomorrow’s Journalists

Insite: an advanced internet research skills.news blog by Journalism.co.uk’s consulting editor and trainer, Colin Meek.

Journalism.co.uk training section and forums.

And here are some blogs/sites also left off the list which immediately spring to mind as important reading for any (particularly UK-based) journalism students:

Organisations

Global Voices Online – essential for anyone interested in press freedom issues (Co-founder, Ethan Zuckerman’s blog, is here)

The Frontline Club blog, as above.

European Centre for Journalism (EJC)

WEF Editors’ Weblog and SFN blog.

Crikey.com: news from down under that’s not Murdoch, or Fairfax produced.

Press Review Blog (a Media Standards Trust project) – it’s a newbie, but already in the favourites.

Centre for Journalism from the University of Kent

The UK National Union of Journalists news site and its president, Jeremy Dear’s, blog

AllMediaScotland.com

The Independent’s Media section

NY Times’ media section

FT.com media section

Press Gazette’s Peter Kirwan/The Wire

BBC Editors’ Blog

BroadcastNow.co.uk

StinkyJournalism: it’s passionate and has produced many high-profile stories

Wired Journalists

Index on Censorship

Demotix blog

Reporters Without Borders

Committee to Protect Journalists

International Federation of Journalists (though we’ve had problems accessing their site or feeds lately)

British Journalism Review (now in its 20th year)

Individuals

Craig Silverman’s Regret the Error

MST director, Martin Moore’s blog

Clay Shirky

CurryBet – Martin Belam’s links are canny, and provocative and break down the division between tech and journalism.

Malcolm Coles – for SEO tips and off-the-beaten track spottings.

Dave Lee – facilitating conversations journalists could never have had in the days before blogs.

Joanna Geary – as above

Marc Vallee – photography freedom issues from the protest frontline.

FleetStreetBlues: an anonymous industry insider with jobs, witty titbits and a healthy dose of online cynicism.

Alison Gow for a view from the regionals

Sarah Hartley previously as above, now with more online strategy thrown in.

The e-Grommet for links.

Charles Arthur – for lively debate on PR strategy, among other things

Shane Richmond’s blog at the Telegraph.

MarkMedia (view from Scandinavia)

Kristine Lowe (as above)

Media Culpa (as above)

Richard Sambrook, BBC big cheese and excellent blogger

Justin Williams, Telegraph assistant editor

Matthew Buckland, media views from South Africa

Steve Buttry

Craig McGill – bridging journalism and PR.

Writing this has only brought home further the realisation that omissions are par for the course with list-compilation, but it does inspire us to do our own 101 essential links for global online journalists – trainees or otherwise. We’d also like to make our list inclusive of material that is useful for, but not necessarily about, journalists: MySociety for example.

Add suggestions below, via @journalismnews or drop judith at journalism.co.uk an email.Similar Posts:

Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – Who’s behind a website?

Laura Oliver — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 10:42:49 +0000

Research: Check out Colin Meek’s guide to finding out who’s behind websites, which shows you how to you use four tools to search behind the url. Tipster: Laura Oliver.

To submit a tip to Journalism.co.uk, use this link – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.Similar Posts:

Insite: Finding the people behind sites – an insite guide

Judith Townend — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:35:49 +0000

From Insite, the journalism research site: a post about tracking site or domain owners. Colin Meek’s tactics could help save time by alerting you to linked content and commentary, and helping you trace a domain or site owner.

“Looking for strategies to find out about people behind sites? Dozens of ‘Whois’ lookup sites exist with many offering similar tools. Instead of simply listing the choices, this post looks at some of the best tools for the job, how they differ and how to use them to find nuggets of information about a target site and its owner.”

Full post at this link…Similar Posts:

[insite] – interview with semantic web expert Brooke Aker

Laura Oliver — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:47:57 +0000

Over at our sister blog insite, the excellent Colin Meek has conducted the second interview in his series on the semantic web.

On the receiving end this time is Brooke Aker, founder of Acuity Software and Cipher Systems, who answers qs on semantic search, the failures of Web 2.0 and uses for Web 3.0.

More on the semantic web can be read in our feature ‘Web 3.0: what it means for journalists’.Similar Posts:

Slideshow on ‘Journalists and the Social Web’

Laura Oliver — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:13:39 +0000

Following Colin Meek’s articles for Journalism.co.uk on how journalists can get the most out of the semantic web, below is Colin’s presentation from Saturday’s seminar in Oslo on using the social web:

You can view past slideshows from Colin on Slideshare.

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#socialweb: Web 3.0 – the social web (video)

admin — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 08:27:18 +0000

We’re gathered here in Oslo this morning (25 October) with 20+ of Norwegian’s finest journalists to listen to addresses from investigative journalist and research skills trainer Colin Meek, Journalisten.no journalist and blogger Kristine Lowe. Colin will be talking about web 3.0 (the social web) and what it means for journalists). We’re streaming live, but you should be able to view this video later (gremlins permitting).

UPDATE: They turned the lights down so the audience could see the projection screen! Apologies for the poor quality of the video.

Watch live video from johncthompson’s channel on Justin.tvSimilar Posts:

Insite: Interview with John Breslin, semantic web expert

Laura Oliver — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:02:34 +0000

Colin Meek interviews John Breslin, founder of the Semanticaly-Interlinked Online Communities (SIOC) project, about the semantic web, what it is and what it can do.Similar Posts:

Online Journalism Scandinavia: using the social web seminar – #socialweb

Laura Oliver — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 18:34:37 +0000

It’s going to be a veritable Journalism.co.uk party in Oslo on Saturday: blog regular Kristine Lowe has organised a seminar on using the social web featuring our very own consulting editor and online research specialist Colin Meek, who also runs the Insite blog.

To kick off the coverage, read Colin’s feature on ‘Web 3.0: what it means for journalists’, which tackles what the semantic web is and why journalists should be paying attention to it.

Kristine will be talking about how she has used and benefitted from using ‘the social web’ as a journalist and blogger; while Colin’s talk will focus on the research opportunities and newsgathering potential of web 3.0 for journalists.

Kristine will be blogging the event and we’ll round up some of that content and Colin’s here for those of us not lucky enough to have made the trip.Similar Posts:

Ta-da! Insite goes live – a brand new online research website

Judith Townend — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:03:14 +0000

Journalism.co.uk is happy to announce that Insite, a new blog designed to bring users tips on ‘slick research, advanced internet research strategies and news about the best tools’, is now live.

First up is an interview with the founder of the new UK-based search engine MSE360, which has attracted praise from both sides of the Atlantic with a three-tier display, clean design and other unique features such as virus alerts.

Insite is the handiwork of Journalism.co.uk’s consulting editor, Colin Meek.

Colin has been working on investigative and in-depth research projects for over 15 years as a journalist and policy analyst, and was founding editor of the online news channel on journalism.co.uk.

Over the last three years he has delivered courses in advanced internet and investigative research.

Since starting as a freelancer 10 years ago, Colin has worked for many clients including Which?, Health Which?, BMJ (British Medical Journal) Knowledge, The Times, the Canadian Medical Association Journal, journalism.co.uk, the Pharmaceutical Journal, the RSPGB and many others.Similar Posts:

Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – browse the Newseum

Laura Oliver — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 08:54:40 +0000

Research: Newseum is a world map where you can view the front pages of papers local to that area just by moving your cursor. Only three listed in UK (Telegraph, Herald and Guardian) but a fascinating tool. Tipster: Colin Meek

To submit a tip to Journalism.co.uk, use this link – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.Similar Posts:

Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk: want to find local papers the world over? use Newseum

Oliver Luft — Fri, 23 May 2008 09:22:40 +0000

Got a tip? Submit it here – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.Similar Posts:

Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk: Searching for health news? – use mamma deep

Oliver Luft — Tue, 20 May 2008 09:16:27 +0000

Research tools: The mamma deep web health search engine reaches places other search engines don’t go. It returns results from a range of deep web sources such as NHSDirect and MayoClinic.com. Tipster: Colin Meek

Got a tip? Submit it here – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.Similar Posts:

Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk: Looking for an easy to use, reliable, index of web resources?

Oliver Luft — Mon, 19 May 2008 11:39:00 +0000

Research tools: Looking for an easy to use, reliable, index of web resources that’s been evaluated by specialists in a range of disciplines? Oh, and free to use to? Try www.intute.ac.uk – a fantastic site for serious background. Tipster: Colin Meek

Got a tip? Submit it here – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.Similar Posts: