The New York Times is among several US media outlets to adopt a new-style Facebook page.

The page makes the most of the timeline feature, adding photos and anecdotes from the Grey Lady’s 160-year history, inviting readers in to the newsroom.

Announcing the timeline on its Facebook page, the New York Times says:

We’re pleased to introduce our timeline, which highlights select moments from our 160+ year history. Come into the newsroom on the night of the 1928 presidential election. See our reporters at work during the 1977 blackout. You’ll even find a guest appearance by Marilyn Monroe in the 1950s. We plan to update our http://www.facebook.com/nytimes timeline frequently with key milestones from 1851 through the present. Take a look and let us know what you think.

The new-style pages were announced by Facebook today, already adopted by US TV show Today and People, and were among a number of features released at the Facebook Marketing Conference (fMC) in New York City.

Facebook describes the layout, which “includes a cover photo, larger story sizes, better tools to manage a page and more”, as designed to “help business and organisations better share their story and connect with people”.

Update:  There are a couple of handy posts on how to create a great news-style Facebook page and timeline for your news organisation. Here is some advice from Lost Remote and here are a few tips from Zombie Journalism.

• So last century: How to add a web page archive to a Facebook timeline
• New York Times launches ‘Times Skimmer’ after beta trial
• Poynter: NY Times introduces unmoderated comments for ‘trusted commenters’
• Facebook launches page for journalists
• The top 10 most-read stories on Journalism.co.uk, 25 February-2 March

When Liz Heron, social media editor of the New York Times, told the news:rewired conference for journalists about the seven ways the New York Times is using social media for ‘deeper’ engagement, she mentioned the term “hashtag science”.

The New York Times has been running an iEconomy series, an example where the news organisation has chosen “a series name based on what we thought would make the best hashtag – something that cleverly and clearly identifies the topic at hand, feels universal and inviting, fits neatly into a sentence, and above all, is short.”

Heron explained how “hashtag science” can “help reach new audiences”.

Other news sites could benefit from starting with a suitable, short hashtag when dreaming up a name for a series of features.

If you have a tip you would like to submit to us at Journalism.co.uk email us using this link– we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

• Tool of the week for journalists – Pinterest
• #followjourn – @lheron/social media editor
• #jpod: How journalists are embracing Facebook subscribe
• The Times and Sunday Times: What a paywall looks like
• NBC and Outside.in match EveryBlock and NYTimes partnership

The George Polk Awards, run by Long Island University, announced the winners of its 63rd event today.

According to a release the New York Times won two of the 15 categories. The first, for military reporting, was awarded to CJ Chivers, and the second was the foreign reporting prize which went to Jeffrey Gettleman and Tyler Hicks for their “numerous exclusives and heart-wrenching photos of ethnic conflict, pillage, famine and piracy”.

It was also announced that Anthony Shadid, the New York Times foreign correspondent who died from an apparent asthma attack in Syria last week, will receive a posthumous award “for extraordinary valor for his work in the Middle East”.

Other winners include the Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press, the New Yorker and the Boston Globe.

“There was a strong field of contenders this year, especially in investigative work,” said John Darnton, curator of the George Polk Awards. “It was a big year for news with the Arab Spring and the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, and reporters from many news organizations went behind the headlines to search for underlying causes and trends.”

The full list of winners can be found here.

• CNBC, New York Times and Vanity Fair recognised at US business journalism awards
• Editors Weblog: ‘What will happen to the Boston Globe?’
• New York Times: Behind the anonymous video nominated for a Polk Award
• Boston Globe launches midday video news update
• Finalists of Online Journalism Awards announced

1. Seven ways the New York Times is using social media for deeper engagement
2. Times web app brings tablet newspaper experience to browser
3. BBC World Service to broadcast morning news conference
4. Thurlbeck: Murdoch would ditch the Sun
5. Sun condemns tabloid witch hunt as more journalists arrested
6. Murdoch: Sun on Sunday will launch ‘very soon’
7. Tommy Sheridan back in court over NoW damages battle
8. BBC World News apologises for programme funding breaches
9. Times digital subscribers continue to rise
10. App of the week: Banjo for finding the location of breaking news

• Guardian: Andy Coulson denies phone-hacking at Sheridan trial
• App of the week for journalists: Banjo, for finding the location of breaking news
• #jpod: The top news stories from Journalism.co.uk, 10 June 2011
• Papua New Guineans now suing for $45m in Jared Diamond/New Yorker case
• The top 10 most-read stories on Journalism.co.uk, 21-27 April

Over on the 10,000 Words blog Lauren Rabaino gives an interesting overview of the different ways the New York Times has used responses from its online users in relation to news into their own stories, often in very visual ways.

The post demonstrates how this sort of material can be used by news outlets to illustrate the attitudes, opinions and emotions of their audience, and how the NYT, as one example, has achieved this.

See the 10,000 Words post here.

Tipster: Rachel McAthy

If you have a tip you would like to submit to us at Journalism.co.uk email us using this link– we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – attribution guidance
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• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – tagging advice for newsrooms
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – Storify examples
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – using QR codes

Tool of the week: Pinterest

What is it? A bookmarking and sharing tool

How is it of use to journalists? Pinterest has been growing in popularity recently.

It is a virtual bookmarking system that can be used by newsrooms to curate and share news.

Indeed Liz Heron, social media editor of the New York Times (NYT), suggested at last week’s news:rewired conference that NYT will be joining.

When Heron was asked: “Are there any emerging platforms that NYT are excited about?”

She answered:

Pinterest is one up and coming platform, but we’re still figuring out what the community wants there and how we can deliver something new. You’ll see us there soon.

Journalism.co.uk has since created a Pinterest account and has used it to collate blog posts from news:rewired.

It is invite-only at the moment but we have a handful to share. Email us using this link if you would like one.

• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – 10 social media tips for bloggers
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – links to lessons on using Pinterest
• Delicious users have until July to transfer to new owners
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – how to get more pins on Pinterest
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – follow ProPublica’s ‘tools and data’ Pinterest board

The New York Times last week introduced a new category of “trusted commenter”, which it describes as an “invitation-only programme designed for our most valued commenters”.

In this podcast Journalism.co.uk technology correspondent Sarah Marshall speaks to Sasha Koren, deputy editor of interactive news technologies for social media and community at the New York Times; Meg Pickard, head of digital engagement for Guardian News and Media; and Tamara Littleton, CEO of eModeration, a social media management agency that handles outsourced commenting.

The #jpod looks at how the New York Times pre-moderates the majority of comments and how the Guardian post-moderates most of its comments. The podcast also has tips for community managers in encouraging debate, diffusing heated arguments and rewarding readers.

You can also read advice from Tamara Littleton in this guide on how to manage reader comments as a journalist.

You can hear future podcasts by signing up to the Journalism.co.uk iTunes podcast feed.

• #jpod – How to engage a subscriber community: Lessons from the Times and Financial Times
• #jpod: How journalists are embracing Facebook subscribe
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – Seven steps for building an online community
• #jpod: How journalists and publishers can best use Foursquare
• How the Guardian’s community of commentators contributes to the story

Beet.tv has an interview with Ann Derry, editorial director for video and television for the New York Times and Shawn Bender, editorial director for video for the Wall Street Journal online. They explain “why readers click the play button” to watch videos on the two news sites.

Bender feels readers click play in order to feel a connection.

I think that there is a feeling of excitement about the news that you don’t get in the static environment of print that you can get in video.

Derry says that both news sites have had to educate their readers in order to consume news in video form online.

We’ve had to train our users, both at the Journal and at the Times, that if you click on something you get a good experience.

Bender goes on to say that concise videos where the reader/viewer can learn two or three points are the most successful. Derry adds that news video should offer the reader/viewer a quicker, more “efficient” way of accessing the story than if they had chosen to read it as text.

The Beet.tv video is at this link and below.

• Video: NYTimes’ Ann Derry on going multimedia – video is key
• AP pushing 250 stories a week through its newly launched YouTube channel
• NBC provides code to embed news shows
• News sites can remove YouTube logo for embedded video
• Citizen journalist videos through op-ed pages of NYTimes.com

Poynter has an interesting post highlighting the overhaul of the New York Times’ commenting system.

The news outlet has introduced “trusted commenters“, which the Times describes as an “invitation-only programme designed for our most valued commenters”.

Those who have proved to be trusted by consistently having comments approved will be allowed to leave comments that will be made live immediately without the need for moderation.

Poynter’s Jeff Sonderman explains the overhaul of the NY Times’ commenting system:

The trusted commenter programme is the most significant new feature, in my opinion. Those who join will have to submit and verify real names, a profile photo and hometown by connecting a Facebook account. (Some people object to using Facebook, so other identity verification methods may be supported later, [Sasha Koren, deputy editor of interactive news] said.)

In exchange they get instant commenting, as well as a higher profile on the site. With a special “trusted” logo attached to their color photo and full name, they stand out visually from the other commenters who usually have an anonymous username and no profile photo.

Sonderman’s full post on how New York Times’ overhaul of its comment system and how it grants privileges to trusted readers is at this link.

• #jpod: Lessons from the NY Times and Guardian in managing reader comments
• Comment Central: New commenting system for Times Online
• WordPress rolls out Twitter and Facebook comments options
• Independent integrates article comments with Twitter and Facebook
• Nieman Journalism Lab: Barriers to entry can improve quality and quantity of reader comments, says Gawker

Transcripts of recordings published by the New York Times reveal that Saddam Hussein personally ordered the execution of Observer journalist Farzad Bazoft, who was hanged in Iraq in 1990.

The transcript of a conversation between Iraq’s former leader and the country’s then-foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, reads:

Hussein: We will execute him during Ramadan, in Ramadan, as punishment for Margaret Thatcher.

The documents, which were seized by the US military during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, were yesterday released by the Conflict Records Research Center, a US government archive.

The case of Bazoft, an Iranian-born freelance journalist who worked for the Observer, drew worldwide attention at the time, and the British government appealed for clemency.

The Guardian has more on Bazoft and states:

It appears that even if Bazoft had had British citizenship at the time of his arrest, this would not have saved him.

The document archive reveals the conspiratorial mind-set of Hussein, according to the NY Times, and demonstrates that the Iraqi leader believed Bazoft was an “Israeli spy working for the British”.

The New York Times states:

Even in an age of WikiLeaks, such a detailed record of a foreign leader’s private ruminations is rare.

• Comment: Joe Lieberman, the New York Times and the idea of ‘bad citizenship’
• FT.com: GNM considers Observer’s future in digital age
• British journalist rescued from Taliban but interpreter died; reports suggest British soldier also killed
• Times opens up 200-year digital archive
• #jpod: A guide to using numbers in journalism

“Don’t be afraid” – this was just one of many messages given by a panel of publishers at the World Editors Forum today, who shared their experiences of erecting “paywalls” or what came to be termed by the panel as “leaky walls”.

The panel featured three news outlets which have all established paid-content systems in their own ways, although the general approach appeared to be the same, leave holes in the “paywall”.

Dirk Nolde, managing editor of Berliner Morgenpost Online in Germany spoke first, outlining the site’s paid-content model which is free for print subscribers, or 4.90 euros a month. Only some content is placed behind the wall, including local news and sports, which are charged on different models, such as by day or month etc. “Make the assets paid”, he said.

The site also offers a “first-click-free”, such as via Google or social media, which works three times a day. ” We are trying to be leaky with the paywall,” he added.

The results so far is that we have 11,000 digital subscribers which includes print subscribers who can register for free. We thought it would be horrifying but we were wrong, visits went up.

According to his statistics in December 2009, the year in which the “paywall” was set up, visits stood at 2.4 million. In September 2010 this had risen to 3.3 million and last month, in September 2011 it was at 5.1 million.

It didn’t really hurt us, we were able to tell the readers and our users there’s quality behind this paywall.

But he said the site is looking to move to a more metered model.

We will give away more stuff, use a softer approach. It is about being able to accommodate users with the fact we think you should pay for content. That’s our mission.

Fellow panel member, Matus Kostolny, editor-in-chief of SME in Slovakia, discussed how they joined up to the Piano project, a group paywall used by nine news outlets in Slovakia.

The project was set up by Piano Media. I spoke to chief executive of Piano Media Tomas Bella after the panel to find out where the company is going in the near future.

Tomas Bella, Piano Media by journalismnews

The paywall was erected in May this year. On SME it costs 2.90 euros a month or 29 euros a year and, just like Berliner Morgenpost Online, is free to print subscribers. Also similarly only some content is behind “the wall”, such as opinion and political news, the wall is removed for big stories and SME is also considering a more metered wall.

But he added that is is important to remember that “behind stories are real human beings doing real jobs that are worth paying for”.

Public opinion is one of the things we want to influence and we believe it’s so important people pay for it, but if we don’t pursuade enough people then we’ll lose our inflence. We are thinking of different ways to change the structure of paid content and still think that in the end the journalism is worth to pay for and we will pursuade our readers to do it.

Revenue for the first month across all nine sites was 40,000 euros, “which was successful story for our market”, he added.

We were afraid we would lose readers but in the end we didn’t lose anybody, there is an increase of five per cent in unique viitors. We were afraid we would lose readers in locked sections but not losing them so much.

Later he added that one of the biggest lessons is not to be afraid to experiment.

The final speaker was assistant managing editor of digital content at the New York Times, Jim Roberts, who shared some interesting details on the Times’ model, which we reported on here. He told the conference the Times’ pay model is “based on number of principles”.

We try to strike a very delicate balance betwee keeping as open as possible to news junkies, but also really wanted to instill a sense of value for our loyalists who continue to consume quality journalism.

We wanted our regular users to pay. They came to our site and still do, frequently. We felt they understood the sense of value and they would want to pay for it as many of them had done for their print subscription.

Concluding the panel the speakers were asked to share their main lessons. Dirk Nolde gave three which nicely rounded off the session:

• Communication, communication, communication  – you have to tell users what you are doing
• This is no supermarket. We’re not selling everything, they don’t have to pay for everything. You have to give things away to accomodate readers.
• Produce online content that’s really worthy of being paid for. That convinces readers and makes them say “wow that was good”.

• Second country expected to adopt group paywall later this year
• #paywalls12 – Niche content paywalls: three success stories
• Will the Shropshire and Wolverhampton walls pay?
• Forbes: Times and NY Times paywall figures compared
• Should we ‘pay the wall’ to maintain quality journalism?

The Online News Association’s annual conference and awards took place in Boston at the end of last week.

Here is a round-up of the must-read blog posts which will help you sort though the noise of an event that saw 21,000 tweets sent by around 1,200 journalists.

A two-part post by university lecturer Sue Newhook on the top 10 tech trends is one to read and bookmark. It has links to handy tools and news of developing technologies. Part two of the post is here.

There is also a must-read Storify created by Craig Kanalley, an editor at the Huffington Post, with 13 key takeaways told in 13 tweets.

The 10,000 Words blogs has a series of posts, including on how to find and create an awesome web apps team and be a rockstar data developer, on verifying images and information from social media and this guide explaining how to create visual interactives In news time.

One session heard how ESPN and the New York Times build a second screen for readers, which has been documented on the 10,000 Words blog. The post explains the concept of a second screen:

The second screen is literally what it sounds like — the screen readers look at in addition to the TV. This could be an iPad, a laptop or a phone.

According to [Patrick Stiegman of ESPN] stats about Internet consumers, 85 million Americans consume both TV and the web simultaneously. This provides a huge opportunity for news organisations to serve fans in real time, alongside live events.

One particularly interesting area for UK news sites to consider is how the New York Times, which doesn’t control the first screen, competes with eyes for the second screen.

The post explains how Brian Hamman and Tyson Evans of the New York Times  have observed and outlined the cycle for event coverage online:

1.    Event cycle: What’s happening, how much can I get about the event before it happens?

2.    Analysis cycle: When event is started, what does it all mean

3.    Conversation cycle: What are other people and my social circle saying and how can I chime in?
To accomodate for all three cycles of these major events, the best project to point at is The New York Times’ Oscars coverage, which was a dashboard built with three streams.

And the post explains how you can do it all for free:

If you don’t have a team of developers to spend three months building these tools (as Evans and Hammans spent on the Oscars site), there are free tools you can use to achieve the same thing:

1. Cover it live widget for the realtime analysis
2. Free Twitter and Facebook widgets for the conversation elements.

• If you were unable to take a trip to the US to attend #ONA11, you can learn about key developments in journalism at news:rewired – connected journalism, which takes place in London on 6 October.

• Mashable: Five tools to better time your tweets
• New York Times opens ‘Visualization Lab’ online
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk: Using Facebook, Twitter and Storify for political coverage
• Wired: New York print war is really about digital future
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – brand your tweets using a WordPress plugin

Image by openDemocracy on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

Yesterday’s New York Times editorial was devoted to the case of murdered Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

Politkovskaya, who became known for her fearless investigative reporting of social issues in Russia and human rights abuses in Chechnya, was killed in her apartment building in 2006.

Five years on, no one has been convicted of her murder.

From the New York Times editorial:

At the time of her murder, Vladimir Putin, who is now the prime minister but was the president then, dismissed her journalism as “insignificant” and said that nobody “currently in office” could possibly have organized a crime that, he said, was committed “to create a wave of anti-Russian feeling.” To many Russians, that sounded like orders from the top that police or judges or prosecutors should take care not to accuse anyone in power.

Read the full article

Read Journalism.co.uk’s coverage of the case

• Reuters: Timeline of the Politkovskaya murder trial – three accused walk free
• RSF: RSF reps refused entry to Moscow on eve of Politkovskaya anniversary
• New York Times: New investigation into murder of Anna Politkovskaya
• Are the new police crime maps any use for UK journalists? Some doubts raised
• Comment: Joe Lieberman, the New York Times and the idea of ‘bad citizenship’

The New York Times’ top-floor Research and Development Lab has released a demo video of its latest innovation: a kitchen table. No ordinary kitchen table obviously, it uses Microsoft’s Surface technology to produce a tabletop news consumption experience that departs from the paper’s normal design and layout and has strong social features built in.

See the full demo video below, courtesy of Nieman Journalism Lab, which has a fuller write-up on the table and the New York Times R&D Lab, and transcript of the demo.

New York Times R&D Lab: The kitchen table of the Future from Nieman Journalism Lab on Vimeo.

• Evolving Newsroom: Arthur Sulzberger Jr on newsroom investment
• Cyberjournalist.net: The Nation’s new website with emphasis on community
• Guardian Technology: Bonnier’s magazine of the future
• Bits Blog: Traffic patterns visualised at the New York Times
• Nieman Journalism Lab: How Ushahidi can be use by media organisations

The New York Times blog today published in full a speech given by photojournalist Joao Silva at the Bronx Documentary Center earlier this month. Silva was severely injured after stepping on a landmine in Afghanistan last year.

Silva lost both legs below the knee, with months of recovery ahead of him at the Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington. Just last month his work returned to the front pages, with an image accompanying a story about the closure of the very medical centre in which he was staying.

In his speech, published in full here, Silva describes that moment in October last year when “everything changed”.

I heard the mechanic click. I knew: this is not good. And I found myself lying face-down on the ground, engulfed in a cloud of dust, with the very clear knowledge that this has just happened and this is not good. I could see my legs were gone, and everybody around me was dazed. I was like: “Guys, I need help here.” And they turned around and saw me on the ground. They immediately sprang into action. I got dragged out of the kill zone, for safety reasons, to a patch of ground a few yards away.

Immediately, there were medics working on me. I picked up a camera, shot a few frames. The frames weren’t very good, quite frankly, but I was trying to record. I knew it wasn’t good, but I felt alive. Adrenaline kicked in. I was compos mentis; I was on top of things. So, I made some pictures. I dropped the camera, then I moved to Plan B, which was to pick up the satellite phone. I called my wife, Vivian, and told her: “My legs are gone, but I think I’m going to live.”

Silva also used his speech to offer advice to young photojournalists keen to enter the field. And the key is perseverance, he said.

It’s not an easy industry. It’s highly competitive. Every year there are literally thousands of young kids coming on the stage, a lot of them so talented. For freelancers, it’s a juggle every day. There’s only so much money going around. There’s only so many publications that will employ people. Even though demand for knowledge and content has grown, the market has shrunk. It’s really sad, but it’s a reality.

As for Silva’s own journey, he said it is likely to be another year before he is “fully functional”, but added that the ultimate goal is to get back to work.

Without a doubt, life is strange. Everything has changed. But I hope to pick up from where I left off, to a certain extent. In the meantime, I just take a little more courage and a little more perseverance — and quite frankly, take as many drugs as I can.

• Lens blog: Photojournalist’s images from the moment he stepped on a landmine
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – reporting medical studies
• David Cameron to give Hugo Young lecture
• Young journalists wanted for Asia-European projects