Editors' Blog | Journalism.co.uk » International

South China Morning Post (via Editors Weblog): Hong Kong business papers launch paid-for websites

Laura Oliver — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 11:14:17 +0000

The Hong Kong Economic Journal and Hong Kong Economic Times have both launched new websites with paid-for access models.

Subscribers to the Times’ site, who will pay HKD598 (£49) a year, will have access to full pages of the newspaper, a three-year archive and real-time markets coverage.Similar Posts:

Record donations received for journalists killed in Georgia

Stuart Goodwin — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 15:54:20 +0000

An appeal launched by Editorial Photographers UK (EPUK) has raised £1,330 for the families of two journalists killed during the recent conflict in Georgia.

The families of photographer and news agency head Sasha Klimchuk and journalist Giga Chikhladze received an equal share of the money after it was wired to them in Tiblisi, Georgia, last week.

A statement on the EPUK website read:

“The families were dependent on incomes from Sasha’s photography and from Giga’s journalism. The generosity of EPUK members means the families can begin to rebuild their lives after the tragedy.”

Friends Sasha and Giga vowed to support each other’s families should something happen to one of them in the war-torn environment. They were both shot and killed by gunmen in Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital, on August 9 2008

Giga’s widow thanked the EPUK not only for the donations, but also for the many messages of support, the statement said.Similar Posts:

Reflections on Blog08 and ideas for next year’s event

Judith Townend — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 15:33:18 +0000

So the brief day that was Blog08 is over and our blogging reporter, Anne Helmond, is back home. She rounds up over on her own blog, with a few after-thoughts. She also rounds up a presentation by a blogging politician, Boris van der Ham, who has been voted the most web savvy of Dutch House of Representatives members.

She says:

“Overall, it was a good first blog conference and I hope that next time organizers Ernst-Jan Pfauth and Edial Dekker will keep in mind that not every great blogger is a great speaker and that blogging can be approached from even more different angles and perspectives.”

Thanks to Anne for all the insightful and speedy feedback.

Meanwhile, over at the Online Journalism Blog, Paul Bradshaw – who participated in a panel – does a little piece to camera reflecting on the day’s events:

The event was ‘eclectic and random’, he says – just like blogging, but can we please get past the ‘old chestnut’ question of ‘journalism v blogging’? he asks. You can also watch some other video clips here.

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Blog08: The never-ending journalism vs blogging debate continues…

Anne Helmond — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:04:37 +0000

Bloggers Hugh McLeod, Loren Feldman, Pete Cashmore and Elisabeth Winkler get up on stage to answer questions from the floor and the live backchannel at Twitter.

Rick Slagter asks the first question: ‘is blogging is the rescue of slow journalism?’

Loren Feldman is very explicit when comparing bloggers to journalists: “Bloggers aren’t journalists. You’re just a bunch of guys sitting in your livingroom, writing things.”

Pete Cashmore comes to the defence of bloggers and jokes that “sometimes we dress up and we wear pyjamas.” He describes the current media landscape as an eco-system where bloggers and journalists complement each other.

Winkler sees the overlap between journalism and blogging in the connections between opinion and fact. However, a fact needs a context because everyone has an agenda, and the major media aren’t very clear about their agenda. She sees blogging as a little more transparent.

Cashmore compares the discussion to the endless discussion that is still going on surrounding the term ‘web 2.0′. We spend a lot of time and posts on trying to define it, which leads to endless discussion, he says. The whole journalism versus bloggers debate depends on how you define journalism.

Paul Bradshaw from the Online Journalism Blog enters the debate with his opinion that ‘is blogging journalism?’ is an old question and that we need more challenging ones.

The best part of the discussion seems to be happening on Twitter, where Wilbert Baan (Interaction Designer of the Volkskrant newspaper website) replies to Paul Bradshaw’s statement with this insightful comment:

And me? I think the distinction between the medium and practice of blogging is an important one, especially in relation to journalism.

This post originally appeared on Anne Helmond’s blog.Similar Posts:

Blog08: Pictures from the blogging hearth

Judith Townend — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:45:16 +0000

As written about earlier today, panelists at Blog08 discussed ‘Journalism versus hearth blogging’… and here’s how it looked. You can follow Anne Helmond’s full Flickr stream here. PS. We’re not sure if it is hearth or heart (see below). We think hearth…

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BBC News: Nigerian news blogger detained by security services

Laura Oliver — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:00:18 +0000

Jonathan Elendu, who runs Nigerian news site Elendu Reports, was held without charge by the country’s State Security Service (SSS).Similar Posts:

MediaGuardian: Abu Dhabi’s The National to publish seven days a week

Laura Oliver — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:08:15 +0000

New Saturday edition will feature more section supplements, says editor Martin Newland.Similar Posts:

WAN Amsterdam: Digital will account for 43 per cent of newspaper advertising growth by 2012 according to PricewaterhouseCoopers

Judith Townend — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 10:37:00 +0000

The global leader for the entertainment and media practice, at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in Hong Kong, Marcel Fenez, argued that ‘traditional media isn’t dead’ on the last day of the WAN/World Editors Forum 11th Readership Conference (information courtesy of WAN conference updates).

The latest media and entertainment industry forecast from PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts that global newspaper advertising will grow 2.9 per cent to 136.8 billion dollars in 2012, with digital advertising accounting for 43 per cent of the growth.

Print advertising will grow 1.8 per cent to 123.3 billion dollars worldwide in 2012
Digital advertising will grow 19.3 per cent to 13.4 billion dollars:
While the growth rate for digital advertising will continue its impressive rise over the next five years, the total in 2012 will represent only 10 per cent of total print and digital newspaper advertising.

“Some people say that traditional media is dead. Well, it isn’t. For the next five years, it ain’t gonna be,” he said. “The death of traditional media is exaggerated, at least in a 5-year context.”

Fenez said the forecasts, based on consumer and industry sources, does not take into account the recent economic meltdown, which could have a negative impact on the figures.

Fenez reported:

The generation that comes of age in 2012 will be the first that doesn’t know the pre-internet world. “We hear a lot about user generated content from the ‘net generation’. It’s very, very, very important. But premium content is still really valuable. Even the net generation values premium content. They’re tired of watching videos of a dog running up a tree.”
Advertisers will take a ‘wait and see’ attitude and be cautious about spending in the first half of 2009. “They won’t do anything until mid-year. If they have the revenue, they’ll release their budgets.”
Video games advertising is set to grow 17 per cent to 2012, though the revenue is still negligible. Most of the money being spent on game advertising is coming from television.
“We’re on a journey of transition from traditional to digital: the first to probably go totally digital is the music industry. In 2011, the majority of revenues will be digital.”

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WAN Amsterdam: How a regional newspaper in Austria hopes to make half its revenue from digital by 2011

Judith Townend — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 10:14:53 +0000

In the last session of the WAN/World Editors Forum 11th Readership Conference the speakers looked at shaping the future of the newspaper (information courtesy of WAN conference updates).

While Karen Wall, assistant managing director of Metro in the UK, focussed on good old print, arguing that the free newspaper model was growing, Christian Ortner the editor-in-chief of the regional newspaper Vorarlberger Nachrichten, in Austria, took the WAN audience through his newspaper’s decision to become the ‘Yahoo for local search’ in their area.

“Today Google has taken over search,” said Ortner. “Down to the small restaurant, Google is serving the local market.”

But he believes that “what happened in search need not happen for local news, services, parties, classifieds, restaurants, videos and other content.”

Vorarlberger Nachrichten Online is now aggressively pursuing online opportunities, forecasting that half its revenue will come from its digital platforms by 2011.

Here’s what the paper is developing, as told by Ortner:

17 citizen forums, which connect active citizens at the community level. “Politicians and journalists are also members of the list. The citizens’ ideas are picked up by the newspaper reporters, who try to communicate and solve the problems. VN now generates thousands of new and dedicated ‘freelance journalists.’”
‘MyVillage’ hyperlocal websites, which deliver fresh and useful information to the users about their immediate neighbourhoods. The strategy for the online platform calls for lots of micro-sites on niche topics.
Video, video, video, from a variety of sources – local reporters, news agencies and the users themselves. “What works for YouTube can also be successful locally.”
A ‘mobile journalist’ team covering breaking news, with videos and photos. The ‘mojos’ focus on ordinary people and local stories.
A multi-brand strategy that focuses on target groups: “We believe the online upside is greater than the print downside.”

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WAN Amsterdam: Little known fact?… Guardian special advisor@Digital Revenue Goldmine

Judith Townend — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:18:02 +0000

Caroline Little, this year’s keynote speaker at the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) Digital Revenue Goldmine event, used her experiences at the Washington Post and Guardian to talk about the future of the web for newspapers.

Most delegates had probably heard the sentiments of Little’s speech before, unless they’ve been living on another media planet for the past five years, but were eager to ask how she had implemented changes at her two workplaces.

What was her budget? How would she have coped without the strength of brand? How to manage economically while making the changes?

Little did not really give concrete examples and afterwards she told me it was perhaps too early in the day to talk specifics – she’s only been in the role at the Guardian since August. I’ll be sure to follow up with her in a few months time… The news report on her speech can be read here.Similar Posts:

National Geographic is embracing user-generated content with photo and music sharing

Judith Townend — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:40:37 +0000

In an interview with Beet TV, the senior VP, for online content and development at National Geographic, Rob Covey, said that user generated content plays a central role in the publication’s multimedia coverage.

Users can share their videos on the user-generated video hub Everyday Explorers, which was recently released in beta, and built with online community builder KickApps.
User can upload photos to the ‘My Shot, Your Shot’ photo-sharing community and share music on the World Music Hub
More interactive elements are in the pipeline …

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Opportunity for business journalists to visit Bangladesh

Judith Townend — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:34:39 +0000

A global consultancy firm is offering the opportunity for senior business journalists and editors to travel to Dhaka to advise Bangladeshi business journalists.

Tahmina Shafique from BMB Mott MacDonald told Journalism.co.uk that they “would essentially want these experts to share their expertise and also provide input to our plan of improving the business sections.”

IFC BICF, who are working with BMB Mott MacDonald, will cover the costs of airfare and accommodation. The workshops and discussion sessions will be tailored to the expertise of the visiting journalists.

The event is part of the ‘Stakeholders Engagement Program’, which aims ‘to build government and non-government stakeholder awareness and advocacy capacity on investment climate issues and the need for reforms for sustainable private sector development in Bangladesh.’

The firms are working with the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce (DCCI) to host a series of events from October 30 – November 3 with the goal of making the country ‘a solid investment location, and establish partnering possibilities with local and foreign investors.’

Business journalists who are interested in the opportunity and would like more information should contact Tahmina Shafique as soon as possible, by emailing tahmina at mottmacbd dot com.Similar Posts:

Your chance to vote in the American election without citizenship

Judith Townend — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:02:55 +0000

We could hardly resist putting this pretty map up here, and the motive behind its design makes it even better. The reason is arrived in our inboxes today is because the Economist is inviting the world to vote in the American presidential election in its Global Electoral College (GEC) – we can dream that it would have an impact, at least.

Now, this isn’t some kind of ‘let’s influence the silly Americans’ à la the Guardian’s G2 2004, but a rather nice re-drawing of the electoral map. In the new version 195 of the world’s countries get a say in the outcome of the next presidential election.

“America’s presidential campaign has fascinated people around the world, the Economist.com’s editor, Daniel Franklin said In the release accompanying the map. “Maddeningly, though, only Americans get to vote. But what if the entire world had a say?”

Although based on the American system, it aims to put pay to the significance of the swing vote (‘there are few countries whose votes in the GEC are a foregone conclusion’). The vote closes November 2 2008 when the results will be announced live in New York.

Online, users can look at the world map to see how each of candidates is doing on a global, and country-by-country basis, and find links to the Economist’s election analysis. Right now it’s looking pretty good for Obama. For starters he has 94 per cent of votes in India, 88 per cent of votes in Britain, and 86 per cent support him in China.

It gets more complicated than this, so visit the website for more details. Similar Posts:

Online Journalism Scandinavia: Waiting for the CAR to arrive

Kristine Lowe — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 16:34:40 +0000

Earlier in the week we blogged that the Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Lillehammer (GIJC) had received a little criticism for being a bit 1.0 in its coverage. But if its partcipants made limited use of the social web to report live from the event, the Computer Assisted Reporting (CAR) contingent was out in force and here’s what they had to say.

Paul Myers, a BBC specialist in internet research, and web trainer, told Journalism.co.uk how slow CAR is in the UK. “People pick up on the flashy stuff like Google maps, but not CAR,” Myers said.

“This is quite typical in my experience – lots of resistance when I started training journalists in using the internet at BBC in the early 90s. It has been uphill struggle to convince people to use the web,” he told us.

In an opening session, the director of computer-assisted reporting at ProPublica, Jennifer LaFleur, urged people not to be deterred by how complicated it sounds. “Computer assisted reporting (CAR) is doing stories based on data analysis, but it’s really just working with public records,” she said.

“Don’t get intimidated by the statistics, maths or excel and access focus: these are just the tools we use to report with.”

Along with database editor Helena Bengtsson, from Sweden’s public broadcaster SVT, LaFleur highlighted several recent successful news stories that had been unearthed by using CAR.

One, an investigation into the voting patterns of Swedish EU-parliamentarians, showed that several of the most high-profile parlimentarians abstained in 50 per cent or more of cases, causing political outcry.

But, maybe journalists should leave the more high powered CAR to the IT people? No, was the blunt answer to that audience question. CAR should be par for the course, said LaFleur. “90 per cent of stories we presented here were done with Access and Excel. I am a journalist doing journalism,” she said.

“You have to interview the data as you interview a person,’ added Helena Bengtsson. “When I do a query on data… I’m asking the data as a journalist.

“There is a lot of information in the data that IT-people wouldn’t have discovered. We’re journos first, data-specialists second,” Bengtsson said.

GCIJ Lillehammer also ran classes on RSS, scraping the web, being an online ‘bloodhound’ and effective web searching.

“There are two reasons for that: we have the training expertise and see major need for training in web research and computer assisted reporting”, Haakon Hagsbö, from SKUP (a Norwegian foundation for investigative journalism) and one of the organisers of GIJC Lillehammer, told Journalism.co.uk.

“It has certainly been very popular at earlier conferences. People don’t know what they don’t know until they attend the training. It’s a real eyeopener, but they soon find that it’s not rocket science, as these are simple yet powerful tools. We see more and more examples of colleagues from all over the world who meet online and use the web for research.

In reponse to Isaac Mao’s comment that there had been a low take-up of live social media reporting from the conference, Haugsbö said: “We have streamed everything live online, but other than that I don’t have a good answer to this.”Similar Posts:

AP: Malaysian authorities arrest top blogger after anti-government comments

Laura Oliver — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:45:02 +0000

Raja Petra Raja Kamarudin, who writes for website Malaysia Today, was seized under the Internal Security Act for allegedly posting about the ‘misdeeds’ of government leaders.

Access to Raja’s website had previously been cut off by internet service providers under a government ruling.Similar Posts: