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Norway: Journalism school to revise curriculum in aftermath of terror attacks

Sarah Marshall — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:48:05 +0000

Norwegian journalist and blogger Kristine Lowe has written a blog post explaining how an Oslo-based journalism school is considering revising the curriculum in the aftermath of the Norway attacks.

The potential development in a Norwegian journalism school should serve as a reminder to those running UK courses to assess whether they offer sufficient crisis training.

According to Lowe’s post, the suggestion to revise the curriculum of the Oslo and Akershus University College journalism school follows a survey of the Norwegian journalists who covered the 22/7 terror attacks, which saw a bomb damage the building of VG, Norway’s largest newspaper, followed by a massacre on Utøya island.

Lowe explains that the study was carried out by Trond Idaas, an advisor to the Norwegian Journalist Union, who “has also written a masters thesis on the experiences of journalists covering the Tsunami in 2004″, adding that “he feels it is very important that crisis reporting becomes an integral part of journalism training”.

Idaas’ research reportedly found that 40 per cent of the journalists covering the tragic events on 22/7 had less than five years of journalistic experience, July being in the middle of the summer holidays in Norway, as Lowe explains.

She states:

This finding has, according to Journalisten, been an important reason for the journalism school at Oslo and Akershus University College to suggest making crisis reporting an integral part of its bachelor degree. Also, there were widespread public reactions to the use of live broadcasts from Utvika on 22/7, when some of those intereviewed quite obviously were in a state of shock.

Idaas said integrating crisis reporting in the curriculum, such as suggested at Oslo and Akershus University College, is “quite revolutionary and not even widespread internationally”.

That seems to be true in the UK. A quick and straw poll carried out via Twitter, in which we asked journalism students and lecturers whether universities currently include classes on how to report on terror and catastrophes, suggests crisis reporting is not included in the training offered by many journalism courses. Some courses, including one at City University, do offer some guidance and advice.

Are you aware of a journalism school that trains journalists in crisis reporting? Do you think training should be offered more widely? Leave a comment below.

Kristine Lowe’s post is at this link.Similar Posts:

Journalisted Weekly: Breivik in court, Winehouse funeral and Olympics countdown

Sarah Booker — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 13:32:48 +0000

Journalisted is an independent, not-for-profit website built to make it easier for you, the public, to find out more about journalists and what they write about. It is run by the Media Standards Trust, a registered charity set up to foster high standards in news on behalf of the public, and funded by donations from charitable foundations. Each week Journalisted produces a summary of the most covered news stories, most active journalists and those topics falling off the news agenda, using its database of UK journalists and news sources.

Breivik in court, Winehouse funeral and Olympics countdown

for the week ending Sunday 31 July

Norway remains prominent in the aftermath of the terror attacks
Amy Winehouse (in the week of her funeral) and the Olympics (with a year to go) also covered lots
Cyprus’ credit rating, ITV’s profits and South Korean landslides covered little

Covered lots

Anders Behring Breivik, making his first court appearance after twin terror attacks in Norway, 513 articles
Olympic countdown, with one year until London 2012, 309 articles
Amy Winehouse, whose funeral took place this week, 250 articles
President Obama and House Speaker Boehner address the nation as the US debt crisis deepens, 175 articles

Covered little

Cyprus’ credit rating is cut by Moody’s rating agency, 15 articles
Broadcaster ITV announced a rise in pre-tax profits, 10 articles
Torrential rain in South Korea causes landslides, killing at least 32 people, 8 articles

Political ups and downs (top ten by number of articles)

David Cameron: 468 articles (-42% on previous week)
George Osborne: 270 articles (+34% on previous week)
Vince Cable: 177 articles (+111% on previous week)
William Hague: 143 articles (+96% on previous week)
Ed Miliband: 109 articles (-54% on previous week)
Tony Blair: 88 articles (-41% on previous week)
Ed Balls: 88 articles (+132% on previous week)
Gordon Brown: 73 articles (-47% on previous week)
Nick Clegg: 72 articles (-56% on previous week)
Michael Gove: 56 articles (+17% on previous week)

Celebrity vs serious

Zara Phillips’ wedding on Saturday, to rugby player Mike Tindall, 137 articles vs. the death of BBC journalist Ahmed Omed Khpulwak, killed in an insurgent attack in Afghanistan on Thursday, 9 articles
L’Oreal’s airbrushed make-up ads, featuring stars like Julia Roberts, are banned, 7 articles, vs. resignation of Polish defence minister, Bogdan Klich, following a report on the 2010 plane crash that killed President Kaczynski, 3 articles
David Beckham launches an underwear range, 14 articles vs. Iranian nuclear scientist shot dead in Tehran, 5 articles

Arab spring (countries & current leaders)

Libya and Colonel Gaddafi: 199 articles (+188% on previous week)
Syria and President Al Assad: 54 articles (+42% on previous week)
Egypt and ex-President Mubarak: 36 articles (+3% on previous week)
Tunisia and ex-President Ben Ali: 19 articles (+19% on previous week)
Yemen and President Saleh: 10 articles (-17% on previous week)
Turkey and Prime Minster Erdogan: 9 articles (+200% on previous week)
Saudi Arabia and King Abdullah: 8 articles (-27% on previous week)
Egypt’s Military council: 8 articles (-43% on previous week)
Iran and President Ahmadinejad: 7 articles (-22% on previous week)
Gaza and Hamas: 6 articles (-40% on previous week)
Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu: 6 articles (-54% on previous week)
Iraq and Prime Minister Al Maliki: 6 articles (from 0 articles previous week)
Jordan and King Abdullah: 4 articles (+300% on previous week)
Bahrain and King Al Khalifa: 2 articles (-67% on previous week)

Who wrote a lot about…’Famine in Somalia’’

Mike Pflanz – 5 articles (Daily Telegraph), Mark Tran – 3 articles (The Guardian), Emily Dugan – 3 articles (The Independent), Daniel Howden– 3 articles (The Independent)

Long form journalism

4,285 words: ‘Jude Law: “I was a great champion of the human spirit. I lost that for a time”‘ – Carole Cadwalladr, The Observer, 31 July 2011
3,784 words: ’9/11 Ground Zero: why has its rebirth turned sour?’ – Rowan Moore, The Observer, 31 July 2011
3,642 words: ‘Charity cash should go to starving children, not to fire me: Former Unicef boss blasts poverty charity’ – Warren Swords, Mail on Sunday, 31 July 2011

Visit the Media Standards Trust’s new site Churnalism.com – a public service for distinguishing journalism from churnalism

Churnalism.com ‘explore’ page is available for browsing press release sources alongside news outlets

The Media Standards Trust’s unofficial database of PCC complaints is available for browsing at www.complaints.pccwatch.co.uk

For the latest instalment of Tobias Grubbe, journalisted’s 18th century jobbing journalist, go to journalisted.com/tobias-grubbeSimilar Posts:

Daily Mail columnist hits back over quotes in Norway gunman’s manifesto

Joel Gunter — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 09:25:01 +0000

Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips has spoken out after being cited in a manifesto believed to have been written by Norwegian gunman Anders Behring Breivik and sent out shortly before Friday’s attacks.

Phillips is quoted twice by Breivik in the 1,500-page manifesto, which is severely critical of journalists in general and included detailed plans for a possible attack on a journalism conference.

Writing on her blog, she hits back at Liberal Conspiracy blogger Sunny Hundal, who flagged up the references to her in a blog post yesterday. Hundal’s post included a disclaimer stating that “there is no suggestion that his actions were inspired by Melanie Phillips, nor am I making that claim”, but Phillips accuses him of singling her out by only referring to her and Jeremy Clarkson being quoted, and none of the other writers, philosophers and politicians who are also mentioned by Breivik.

The manifesto also cites Winston Churchill, George Orwell, Edmund Burke, Muhatma Gandhi, and John Locke, among others.

Phillips goes on to accuse Hundal of a “crude attempt to smear me by a writer who has long displayed an unhealthy obsession with my work”.

Golly. Is Hundal suggesting that my writing provoked the mass murder of some 93 Norwegians? Doubtless with one eye on the law of libel, he piously avers:

“…there is no suggestion that his actions were inspired by Melanie Phillips, nor am I making that claim”.

Yet apart from a glancing reference to Jeremy Clarkson, whose remark about the flag of St George is also cited in this ‘manifesto’, I am the only person to whom Hundal refers to in this blog post, quoting at some length both my article and Breivik’s comments on it. He therefore gives the impression that I play a major role in this supposed ‘manifesto’, which he describes as warning of the ‘Islamic colonisation of western Europe’.

But in fact, there are only two references to me or my work in its 1,500 pages. Those references are to two articles by me published in the Daily Mail, a mainstream British paper – one on mass fatherlessness in Britain, and the other on the revelation by a former civil servant of a covert Labour government policy of mass immigration into Britain. There is no reference whatever to my writing on Islamisation.

Phillips also accuses the left of “wetting itself in delirium at this apparently heaven-sent opportunity to take down those who fight for life, liberty and western civilisation against those who would destroy it”.

According to her post, she has already received emails from members of the public relating to the manifesto, including one saying “I congratulate you on your part in the Norway massacre”.

Breivik, who has admitted being behind the deaths of more than 70 people in a bomb and shooting attack on Friday but denies criminal responsibility, appeared in court yesterday behind closed doors. Reports suggest that the press were banned from the hearing in part due to a fear that he may attempt to convey coded messages to accomplices.

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BetaTales: Can the story of traffic accidents be told in a new way?

Joel Gunter — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 12:33:02 +0000

BetaTales takes a look at a new project based on traffic accident data from journalists and programmers at Norwegian media house Bergens Tidende.

Accidents are apparently common fare in the Western part of Norway, with frequent news reports of collisions on the region’s narrow, winding roads.

With this in mind, journalists at Bergens Tidende approached the Norwegian Public Roads Administration armed with the Freedom of Information Act, eventually getting access to a database of all road accidents in the country.

The database turned out to be a journalistic goldmine: It contained details about 11,400 traffic accidents all over the country, all neatly arranged in an Excel file. Not only did the database give the exact position of each accident, but it also included numerous details, such as how many were killed and injured, the seriousness of injuries, driving conditions, type of vehicle, type of street, speed limit, time of the day, etc.

Still, most journalists would at this point probably have been happy to take a look at the database, extract some of the relevant accidents and made a couple of news stories based on them. In Bergens Tidende, though, the journalists instead were teamed up with programmers. Within a few weeks all the traffic accidents in the country had been put on a big Google map with endless ways to search the database.

Full story on BetaTales at this link.

“Killing Roads” project from Bergens Tidende at this link (Norwegian).

Bergens Tidende multimedia journalist Lasse Lambrechts talks about “Killing Roads”:Similar Posts:

Late Night Marketing: How one newspaper lost 5,000 incoming links

Laura Oliver — Mon, 10 May 2010 09:12:28 +0000

Late Night Marketing discusses how Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet.no lost more than 5,000 natural “inlinks” (links to its website from external sites and blogs) to its website by disabling a feature from blog search engine Twingly on its website:

The first thing here is that Dagbladet.no now loses a lot of blog traffic, but this is not the most important thing, because the traffic from blogs is not enormous compared to the traffic a newspaper can gain from good rankings on search engines.

What do you think that Google will think of your site if you suddenly have approximately 5,000 fewer incoming links per month?

Full post at this link…Similar Posts:

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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Kristine Lowe: Time to support David Montgomery?

Judith Townend — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 12:12:02 +0000

At the weekend, the Sunday Times reported that Mecom CEO David Montgomery faced an investor rebellion.

Kristine Lowe, who has followed the activities of Mecom (which owns 300 newspapers) since its early days, shares her thoughts on her blog, linking into content elsewhere.

“My hunch is that it’s [the rebellion] nothing to cheer for,” she says.

“[I]f we look at the objections against his leadership brought forth after last year’s revolt, and Mecom’s continuing poor stock market performance this year, it seems to me that the man who gained a reputation as such a brutal cost-cutter during his Mirror-days is simply not a brutal enough cost-cutter for the investors in question.

She also notes that örsen, the Danish financial daily, is reporting that Mecom shareholders are disappointed that share prices have not improved more.

Full post at this link…Similar Posts:

Kristine Lowe: Norwegian magazine journalists face page quotas

Laura Oliver — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 08:49:59 +0000

Kristine Lowe has details of how Norwegian magazine group Hjemmet Mortensen is bringing in a new measure of its journalists’ productivity: journalists and subs will each be expected to produce at least six pages of editorial content per week.

Full post at this link…Similar Posts:

#WANIndia2009: Geotagging and VG.no’s News Portal

Laura Oliver — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:58:38 +0000

Schibsted-owned Norwegian newspaper VG.no isn’t just a newspaper – it’s also a software developer, having built a system for readers to send in stories, news tips and images by mobile. The technology behind the VG News Portal has been bought by newspaper websites internationally, including the Sun and News of the World in the UK.

Papers can also rent the system, Vidar Meisingseth, project manager at VG.no, tells Journalism.co.uk. The image below shows what an editor using the system sees as tips are submitted.

But new benefits of the portal are becoming apparent: in Oslo VG has created a database of its freelance correspondents and ‘tippers’ (users who send in tips and content). By geotagging this information the editorial team at VG.no can call up a map when a story breaks showing who is within a 50km radius.

This has potential for both assigning freelancers to stories, but also to finding eyewitnesses or gathering more information from citizens on the ground, says Meisingseth.

Using geotagging presents further opportunities not yet trialled by the paper, for example, mapping related stories such as a crime to see where and how frequently it is happening in a certain area.

VG.no already has information on its regular ‘tippers’ and this too could provide editorial leads, if for example a reader was sending in the same complaint about an unresolved issue in their area month-on-month.

In the Oslo system images sent in are also being geotagged – a useful step in the factchecking process with the potential to create image maps around larger, breaking news events.

All coverage of #WANIndia2009 from Journalism.co.uk can be found at this link.Similar Posts:

#followjourn: @kristinelowe/media journalist

Judith Townend — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 08:30:13 +0000

#FollowJourn: Kristine Lowe

Who? Blogger and journalist currently based in Norway covering the media industry – for the media industry

What? She writes for numerous titles in Scandinavia and the UK/US, and founded The Norwegian Online News Association (NONA)

Where? @kristinelowe

Contact? Take a look at her blog or email kristine_lowe [at] yahoo.co.uk.

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

Media Release: Schibsted titles to livestream Norwegian football matches

Laura Oliver — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 09:42:19 +0000

Interesting deal between Level 3 Communications and Scandinavian publisher Schibsted, which will bring live streaming of Norwegian Football League games to the group’s newspaper websites.

Users will be able to watch matches on a pay-per-game basis.

“A truly interactive service merging video, text and community functionality,” said Dag Wigum, CIO, at Schibsted ASA, in the release.

Full release at this link…Similar Posts:

Alan Rusbridger (@arusbridger) on why Twitter matters

Judith Townend — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 08:38:15 +0000

Twitter got a big mention in Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger’s ‘Journalism Matters’ speech last night. Repeating his ‘future of newspaper’ Twitter recommendations made in Berlin in April (@amonck, @niemanlab, @jeffjarvis and @cshirky) he praised the way it could be used as a personalised filter for information consumption.

He used Guardian technology writer Jemima Kiss as one example of why to use it – she’s probably in labour, and twittering it, ‘as we speak’, he joked. Journalism.co.uk didn’t put its hand up to say ‘err, no – she’s already had all 10lb 6oz of it’ (we learned via Twitter, obviously).

He also mentioned @GuardianTech with its impressive 900,000+ followers, and showed how journalist Paul Lewis (@http://twitter.com/paul__lewis) had used his account to report from the G20 protests.

Before Rusbridger was reborn as @arusbridger he thought it was all a bit, well, ‘silly’, but now he’s well and truly converted. In fact he thinks all Guardian journalists should use it: “I”m trying to get everyone to twitter”. He told this to a room of newspaper journalists in Norway and they asked whether he, as editor-in-chief, would have to moderate all those tweets?…

John Mair’s report on last night’s Media Standards Trust event here, and tweets from @journalism_live, and others captured by the #journmatters tag, below.

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Organ Grinder: Guardian’s Eurovision liveblog – Scandinavia reacts

Laura Oliver — Tue, 19 May 2009 09:40:10 +0000

Organ Grinder reports on how the Guardian’s tongue-in-cheek liveblogging of Saturday’s Eurovision contest was reported by Scandinavian media.

The perils of liveblogging? Norwegian, Danish and Swedish titles took some of the blog’s teasing comments as the Guardian’s official line, with their humour lost in translation (but leading to some highly amusing headlines…)

Full post at this link…Similar Posts:

MediaGuardian: Mecom to sell Norwegian titles

Laura Oliver — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 11:51:34 +0000

Mecom, former Mirror Group man David Montgomery’s European newspaper group, is to shed some of its Norwegian papers to raise £50 million in funds.

Full story at this link…Similar Posts:

Online Journalism Scandinavia: Resolutions for 2009 – Yes, we link

Kristine Lowe — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 12:37:46 +0000

Danish journalists pen link manifesto, which should be an inspiration for journalists everywhere in 2009.

The last quarter of 2008 did not only open our eyes to how flawed the fiscal economy is, in Scandinavia more and more journalists also realised how awkwardly media organisations operate in the link economy.

In Norway, the union chapel at DN.no, the news site of the country’s biggest financial daily, suggested introducing a common link policy for all the country’s news sites to make it profitable to produce good original articles rather than just to copy-paste.

In Denmark, a survey by eJour found just two links to external sites when monitoring seven Danish news sites over a period of two weeks. Blogging journalists in Denmark were also up in arms over a renewed effort by Danish newspaper publishers to stop websites like Google News from linking to individual articles rather than a newspaper’s homepage.

Against this backdrop, Kim Elmose, the blog editor of Politiken.dk, and Lars K. Jensen, a project manager at Ekstrabladet.dk, launched a link manifesto and encouraged news rooms everywhere to write their own link commandments and use their manifesto freely.

Let’s hope this can inspire more and better linking on many a news site in 2009:

First law: We link to the sources for the data we use in our journalistic products. If we have read, seen or heard important new information on an external site – for instance about companies, people or surveys – we will link to it.

Second law: We link directly and precisely to the information we use from external sites. In this way we provide proper service to our readers rather than just linking to the front page of the external site.

Third law: We are precise in our information about where a link leads to; about who has produced the information we link to and when. The readers should know where it takes them when they follow a link.

Fourth law: We recognise that an article consisting of precise links to information that represents different angles on an issue is a journalistic product.

Fifth law: We are open to inbound links to our own news sites because we want to be an integrated part of the web’s ecosystem

Sixth law: We aspire to making it easier to link directly to our articles.Similar Posts: