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This week’s jpod looks at how different publishing platforms in the news industry are approaching curation and aggregation of news, from sources across the web including news outlets, bloggers and social media platforms.

Journalism.co.uk’s news editor Rachel McAthy speaks to:

• Burt Herman, co-founder of Storify
• Mark Johnson, chief executive of Zite
• Rory Brown, co-founder of BriefingMedia, publisher of TheMediaBriefing.com

In the spirit of curation, here is a list of some related reading and resources on this topic:

• Aggregation guidelines: Link, attribute, add value – Steve Buttry pulls together some standards journalists should bear in mind when aggregating news
• Five curation tools all journalists should know about – some recommended tools suggested by Journalism.co.uk
• New curation tool Bundlr sets sights on ‘untangling the web’ – Journalism.co.uk article on Bundlr
• Meet the curators – The Economist follows up on a tweet which caused much discussion during the SXSW conference
• Social media: what’s the difference between curation and journalism? – The BBC follows up on another Twitter debate
• 5 opportunities for dynamic curation tools – 10,000 Words suggests five ways to put curation into practice
• Are aggregation and curation journalism? Wrong question – GigaOm highlights the importance of putting the audience at the heart of the debate
• This Week in Review: A push for aggregation standards, and the end of an era for print – The Nieman Journalism Lab highlights recent efforts to set aggregation standards

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

• New curation tool Bundlr sets sights on ‘untangling the web’
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – social media filtering
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – social media kitbag
• Curation tool Bundlr goes public
• ReadWriteWeb: Wikipedia as a breaking news source

Looking to set up an online portfolio? Mashable has a post by Heather Huhman which details five different platforms you could use to upload an online portfolio: WorkSimple, Behance, Carbonmade, Pinterest and Dribble.

If you’re also after some inspiration for your portfolio then take a look at a collection we have previously pulled together here, offering five examples of portfolios other journalists have created, as well as their top tips for others.

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 – five free online portfolio sites
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – data journalism inspiration
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – toolkits for journalists
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – covering street protests
• Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – improving use of audio in multimedia reporting

10,000 Words has compiled a list of “websites, applications and tools”, which arose out of the CIR/Google TechRaking conference earlier this month, which help in “facilitating the reporting process”. Tools range from those to help record audio to social media engagement intelligence and project management.

See the full list 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 – tools for beginner data journalists
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – simplifying investigations
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – toolkits for journalists
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – using digital tools to report elections
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – links to lessons on using Pinterest

Over on Ideas Tap Stevie Martin has collected some key pointers from visiting professor at City University London Paul Bradsaw, TheMediaBriefing’s editor Patrick Smith and founder of fashion blog Frassy Audrey Rogers, on blogging. Tips range from choosing a subject you’re passionate about, keeping updates fairly regular and networking with other bloggers.

Read more 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 – student blogging tips
• Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – journalism news on Faceboook
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – key elements to podcasting
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – the Facebook + Journalists page

1. How to: verify content from social media

2. Ten ideas for news outlets using Pinterest

3. Archie Bland to be youngest Independent deputy editor

4. App of the week for journalists: SkyRecorder, for recording Skype calls on iPhone/iPad

5. Students to launch liveblogging platform Ocqur

6. Bloggers lose $105m pay claim against Huffington Post

7. Rebekah Brooks reapplies for Leveson core participant status

8. Veteran broadcaster and Media Society chairman David Walter dies

9. Future Publishing launches iPad-only title as second screen to computer

10. Police refer ‘Gypsy’ headline case to CPS

• Friday deadline for core participant status for next Leveson inquiry module
• The top 10 most-read stories on Journalism.co.uk, 10-16 September
• Leveson inquiry: full list of core particpants
• Guardian: Biography claims David Cameron texted Rebekah Brooks before she quit NI
• Standard: Metropolitan police loaned horse to Rebekah Brooks

1. Al Jazeera to broadcast Syria documentary filmed entirely on iPhone

2. BBC: ‘sophisticated cyber-attack’ on London newsroom

3. Ebooks: a new publishing solution to an old business problem?

4. Rebekah Brooks among latest Operation Weeting arrests, reports say

5. Citizen journalism, cyber censorship and the Arab spring

6. Guardian reporter: Police communication being ‘closed down’

7. Shareholders concerned about Sly Bailey pay

8. ‘Cities expect more from newspapers that are ‘local’ in name only’

9. Former NoW reporter: ‘I was instructed to bribe police officers’

10. Syrian citizen journalists win Netizen prize

• The top 10 most-read stories on Journalism.co.uk, 22-28 October
• dot.Rory: ‘When blogging meets policing’
• Press Gazette: Media favoured protestors in G20 coverage, says police chief
• New York Times: Arab Spring reshapes market for TV news
• Parliamentary committee calls for police training in role of protest journalists

Over on Poytner Casey Frechette runs through a total of eight APIs which he insists “your news organisation should start using today”, in this useful how to.

The APIs include OpenCalais, Fusion Tables and the Guardian’s – and for each one he also offers some suggestions for how news websites can use them to improve output and the way content works.

Journalism.co.uk also has more on APIs and news outlets at this link, which features an interview with Torsten de Riese, managing director of NewsCred and who was also involved in the launch of the Guardian’s open API.

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.

• #news2011: A guide to APIs and why ‘everybody who has content’ needs one
• Guardian’s Open Platform – some thoughts from the blogs
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – ideas for using open APIs
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – how to break into radio industry
• Jobs round-up: Mobile moves and digital appointments at Guardian and Telegraph

On his Online Journalism Blog Paul Bradshaw has posted a list of mistakes “made repeatedly by first-time web writers” and offers detailed advice using examples on how to avoid them and improve writing standards. The post refers to issues such as linking to sources, headlines and the use of block quotes.

Read his full post on his Online Journalism Blog.

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 – publishing data online
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – how to quote sources responsibly
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – kit checklist for mobile reporting
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – understanding website analytics
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – creative toolkit for industry guidance

Entries are now open for this year’s Online Media Awards, which set out to recognise the best digital news work from online operators big and small.

There are 17 categories covering everything from writing and editing to photography, design and use of social media. The entry deadline for the awards, now in their second year, is 23 March. The finalists will be announced mid-April and the winners at the awards ceremony in London in June.

Last year’s big winner was the Sunday Times website, which won six awards including best video journalism, best campaigning or investigative journalism, best use of photography, plus the grand prix. The site’s editor, Gordon Thomson, was named online editor of the year.

To find out more, see http://www.onlinemediaawards.net/

• Awards round-up: Index on Censorship winners; Mind Journalism Awards; Paul Foot nominations call
• WikiLeaks satire takes first prize at cartoon awards
• NYTimes.com and BBC scoop prizes at Webby awards
• Property Week journalist takes top prize at PTC New Talent Awards
• British Press Awards – the winners

Paul Dacre giving evidence to the Leveson inquiry yesterday

The Independent has supported Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre’s suggestion to create a register of accredited journalists and toughen up access to the press card.

In a leader article today, the paper agreed that the “kitemark” system had potential, claiming: “Some information sources are more reliable than others.”

Mr Dacre was right that the idea that journalists should be licensed by the state is repellent to the fundamentals of press freedom. But there is merit in his suggestion for a body replacing, or sitting alongside, the existing Press Complaints Commission, which would be charged with the wider upholding of media standards.

One of its functions might be the issuing of a press card which could be suspended or withdrawn from individuals who gravely breach those standards. And while some people will argue that a kitemark for professional journalism might threaten freedom of expression in an age when much news and comment originates with bloggers and social networks, there is no danger to that freedom in giving the public what might be called a quality reassurance. Some information sources are more reliable than others.

Dacre admitted yesterday that he hadn’t given much thought to whether digital journalists would be eligible for the scheme.

The Guardian’s Dan Sabbagh says Dacre’s proposal risks pushing bloggers “right to the fringes of the system“

Meanwhile, where would foreign media, with their own rules, fit in? Nor is it certain that a Dacrecard system would be effective. Whilst some of the reporting closed shops, most obviously the political lobby, confer benefits, being outside it does not hamper quality political journalism. It could be surprisingly easy to make a mockery of the Dacrecard system.

TheMediaBlog agrees:

This self-serving suggestion is a clear attempt to ostracise whole swathes of the predominantly online media industry who would eat Dacre’s lunch given half the chance.

• More from Dacre: The Daily Mail editor on Max Mosley and ‘Flat Earth News’
• MediaGuardian: Commons committee hears from Mosley and McCann
• SoE08: Paul Dacre’s speech – in pictorial form
• Comment is Free: Polly Toynbee says that ‘Judge Dacre’, the nation’s ‘bully-in-chief’ gives little justice
• Online commenters are like ‘particularly aggressive sub-editors’ says Guardian’s Andrew Sparrow

Toni Knevitt, London College of Communication

Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow gave the annual Hugh Cudlipp lecture last night, in which he gave a powerful speech on what he views as the advent of “journalism’s golden age”.

Snow has published the full version of his speech on his Snowblog, but here are some highlights from the lecture.

Much of his speech discussed how new technology and real-time news across platforms has an impact on the work of journalists:

Contrast therefore my first reporting from Uganda in 1976 and my most recent foreign assignment in 2011.

That first report on the ground in Uganda dealt with the horror of Amin, it was graphic, and because I was not constrained by immediate “live” deadlines and the rest, I had time to hang about to try to grab an interview with the tyrant: that’s the upside. But I had little mechanism for developing any sense of how the story connected with the outside world – the UN, Westminster and the rest.

… Contrast that with my last major foreign assignment in Cairo’s Tahrir Square where I tweeted, blogged, reported, fed the bird, and then anchored that night’s Channel 4 News live from just outside the Square. Mind you, with the pressures of time, some of the fun has gone out of it all.

For journalists, he said, the “liberation” of the media gives way to a new “golden age of journalism”:

We are in the age of answer back, better still we are in the age in which “we the people” have their greatest opportunity ever to influence the information agenda … But above all we are in the age of more. More potential to get it right, to get it fast, to get it in depth. We have that illusive entity “the level playing field”, we can compete on equal terms and yet be the best.

He also passed comment on some of the biggest issues facing the news industry today, from regulation to the phone hacking scandal:

I think it is absolutely right that there is a regulator that people can go to. Who are we to be above the opportunity for people to review what we’ve done? Furthermore I do not want to find my own editors somewhere in the mix. I want an objective regulator.

… Of course, papers and TV are entirely different beasts, and they work in entirely different ways, but I see no reason why print journalism wouldn’t benefit from a credible regulator in the same way TV has.

And not forgetting the Leveson inquiry, which is currently looking at the culture and ethics of the press:

Leveson should recommend many of the people and institutions that have been before him find a way of allowing their staff to get stuck into the real world, it will vastly improve and deepen their journalism. We journalists are not a breed a part – we must be of the world we report. The hacking scandal reveals an echelon of hacks who removed themselves from the world in which the rest of us live – they took some weird pleasure in urinating on our world.

But finally, he called for journalists to be given more time and space wherever possible:

The speed and pace of what all of us is doing is starving, television journalists in particular, of the opportunity to develop the stature and presence of our forebears.

These were people who had days in which to prepare their stories, dominated a tiny handful of channels, and became iconic figures in the medium. It is much, much harder for journalists today to ascend the same ladder and preside with their kind of authority and we need to afford talent the time, the space and the working experience to develop the authority that our medium depends upon.

• The top 10 most-read stories on Journalism.co.uk, 17-23 December
• Blogging for a cause leads to first prize for Global Voices in Zemanta competition
• #soe09: Live coverage online – opportunities for audience and money?
• Innovations in Journalism – live streaming video from mobiles developed by Qik
• Full Leveson inquiry statements from NUJ and Guardian

Consultant Jim Chisholm gave a jam-packed presentation to the Global Editors Network news summit in Hong Kong today.

His presentation (which I will link to here once it is available) offered plenty of facts and figures about the state of the industry across all platforms, but focused on how improving the approach to digital content can also help provide a secure future for more traditional forms.

Here are just some of the messages I took away from his presentation and comments:

1. We have abandoned circulation

“There is no evidence that the internet is the cause of the circulation decline”, he said. According to the statistics for online given in his presentation the rate of ad spend per hour was £8.20 online but £23.50 in newspapers. And the time spent by the audience consuming media was still top for newspapers, although overall this is in decline.

Television is increasing its share but not time, the amount of time internet is consumed is leveling off. People are not spending more time [consuming news] despite all the platforms available.

Print circulation was also said to maintain a key share of revenues, but he said that it “has been forgotten”.

The reason it’s going down is because nobody cares. It is a really serious problem.

2. Mobile opportunities will be higher than predicted

Chrisholm told the conference that “forecasts suggest by 2017 mobile will deliver around 24 per cent of all digital advertising”, but “the forecasts are wrong”, he said, adding mobile use will be a lot higher.

Mobile is a second evolution.

As well as wireless capabilities mobile offers multimedia and location features that can exploit the personalisation trend. Also looking at tablets, he said growth in this area is “absolutely enormous” adding that Le Monde told him “reading times on tablets are as high as those reading print newspapers”.

3. Newsstands could be the way forward, not paywalls

Put simply, “paywalls will not work”, he told the audience. But the newsstand formula could be the answer.

It will work online if everyone works together [and offers content] all in one place. That is a solution that could work. In a competitive market people can choose to go from one place to another.

4. We need to be more obsessive about analytics

He told the audience of editors that journalists may not like to hear it but “the time has come … we have to be obsessive about analytics.”

Because of our reluctance to take on board the concept of analytics, that’s what’s holding back our ability to develop digital. We are not exploiting the medium in the way it is meant to be exploited.

… The reality is unless traditional news media adopt scientific approach to customer retention and intensity, they’re dead.

In conclusion on the topic of analytics he told the audience of editors “you can all do this,” and added that “tailored content will dramatically transform the industry”.

• Analytics to help news sites understand the mobile audience
• WAN Amsterdam (audio): Mobile is not emerging: it’s here and we know how to monetise it, say speakers at Digital Revenue Goldmine
• #soe09: Jim Chisholm – the five myths affecting UK newspapers
• WAN 2008: Print and online newspapers on the rise
• Forbes.com: Circulation revenue is more stable than paywalls, says Scripps senior VP

Browser extensions for Google Chrome, add-ons for Firefox and Safari extensions can be very powerful and incredibly useful to journalists.

Here is a list of some that can help you find and search, verify sources and speed up picture annotation.

Some of the extensions in this list are our tips and the rest are suggestions submitted to us after we sent out a tweet asking for nominations.

1. HoverMe (Chrome)

Verifying Twitter sources can be testing. When this browser extension for Chrome is installed and you hover over a Twitter profile photograph, it will enable you to see what other online accounts that user has and although not fool-proof, will give you some idea of whether they are a real person with LinkedIn, YouTube and Delicious accounts and, helpfully, a Klout score, which measures online influence.

The downside is you have to use Twitter’s own website rather than a platform such as TweetDeck and it does depend on users using the same email address to link their various profiles.

2. Awesome Screenshot (Chrome and Firefox)

An incredibly useful Chrome and Firefox extension for online journalists who spend time annotating screengrabs in Photoshop and other graphics packages.

First you click the button on your browser to take a screen shot and then you can crop the image, circle or blur an area and save it.

3. Greplin (Chrome)

Greplin is an incredibly useful tool and has a handy browser extension which allows you to search your own private files from Chrome. It’s like Google for your email, calendar, Dropbox and Delicious. After you have signed up to Greplin and added the extension you can then type ‘g’ in the url field and search for a keyword or phrase and find references to it from your Gmail, Facebook and Dropbox accounts, plus in several other platforms.

4. Delicious (Firefox, Chrome, Safari)

Delicious has various add-ons to help users of the bookmarking platform. You can post a URL directly to Delicious and see your tags to allow you to easily find archived bookmarks.

Tipster: @the_claus

5. British English Dictionary (Firefox)

If your CMS, such as WordPress, has a default US spelling setting, this is one way of switching it to British English. Install the add-on, select several rows of text, right-click and change the language.

6. Firebug (Firefox)

This is a handy extension for journalists to “edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page”. By clicking on the installed add-on, you will be given a screen which shows you the code. Handy for spotting bugs.

7. Zotero (Chrome and Safari)

Zotero is a tool to help you collect, organise, cite, and share your research sources. Click on the add-on and you can file any web page into your Zotero library and manually add additional notes and information. There is a video here that explains how Zotero works.

Tipster: @onlinejourno

8. ScribeFire (Chrome and Safari)

ScribeFire allows you to blog from your browser, without opening the CMS or platform. You can post to platforms including WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, Windows Live Spaces, Tumblr, Posterous, Xanga, and LiveJournal.

You can edit and update existing posts and also schedule posts for the future (if your blog allows that). You can also delete posts, save drafts, tag, categorize and upload images, and post to multiple blogs at once.

Tipster: @onlinejourno

9. WikiTrust (Safari and Firefox)

Journalism students are no-doubt told never to rely on information form Wikipedia. This handy add-on goes some way to help you understand the online reputation of authors and content, however. Click the installed tab (within Wikipedia) and the intensity of the colour highlighting the text will tell you the degree to which it has been revised by high-reputation authors.

An orange background indicates new, unrevised, text, white is for text that has been revised by many reputed authors.

Tipster: @the_claus

10. Greasemonkey (Firefox)

This Firefox add-on allows you to  “customise the way a web page displays or behaves, by using small bits of JavaScript”. For example, use other people’s code to do things like remove the Facebook side ticker.

Journalist Mary Hamilton, who recommended the add-on said she uses it to automate really simple tasks and auto-refresh web pages.

Tipster: @newsmary

• Tool of the week for journalists – Greplin, to search your private files and profiles
• App of the week for journalists: Greplin
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – a browser extension for marking your reading point
• Q&A: New ways of reading the news with Chrome extensions
• Ten free apps in the Chrome web store that journalists should know about

There was an interesting discussion going on at Cardiff University today, as Darren Waters, a social media producer in the BBC Wales newsroom, joined students for a discussion on community which, according to the hashtag on Twitter (#cjscomm), included a topical discussion on the issue of immediacy in online reporting.

Recent events, specifically in relation to court coverage, have demonstrated the issues this can raise for journalists and news outlets working in the online environment, with the pressure and power of immediate publication at their fingertips. Earlier this month several news outlets mistakenly reported that Amanda Knox’s conviction for the murder of Meredith Kercher had been upheld, when the judge was in fact returning a guilty verdict for a charge of slander. The murder conviction was overturned, but once the word “guilty” had been heard several news organisations quickly sent out their stories and the Guardian made the same mistake on its liveblog.

Another specific challenge related to this is the delivery and sharing of breaking news on platforms such as Twitter, where journalists face making important decisions of when to share certain information and when to hold back.

In December last year England and Wales’ most senior judge published new guidelines which gave journalists greater freedom to file live reports and Twitter updates from court. As I write this a number of journalists are covering the Vincent Tabak trial live, with the issue of what a journalist should and shouldn’t report from a court case (and the wider approach to using Twitter) being simultaneously highlighted in the Cardiff University discussion.

http://twitter.com/#!/egrommet/status/126977274489737216

http://twitter.com/#!/trouse11/status/126979679524634624

http://twitter.com/#!/elenacresci/status/126978519996710912

http://twitter.com/#!/EMD1990/status/126980685570392064

http://twitter.com/#!/joeloboUK/status/126976995283320835

Follow the hashtag to read more from the debate and advice offered by Waters. And feel free to tell us what you think. Where should the line be drawn in court reporting, especially during the hearing of detailed evidence, and what considerations should journalists make before pressing the button to submit? Share your thoughts in the comments below or via Twitter @journalismnews.

• Judge bans use of Twitter in Raoul Moat accomplices case
• Fox News Twitter account hacked, claims Obama is dead
• Lord Chief Justice backs use of technology in court reporting
• Revised guidance on live court reporting due Wednesday
• #collegejourn coming to Europe

The Sydney Morning Herald has reported that News Limited (the Australian arm of News Corporation) will officially announce its paywall for the Australian this week, after it outlined plans for a ‘freemium’ subscription model for its online content back in June.

It had already been announced that the model will offer access to some content for free, but others will require payment.

According to the SMH report the site will charge $2.95 a week to access all content across the website and its phone and tablet apps.

It will be the first paywall for a general newspaper in Australia, an experiment that has achieved mixed success overseas by newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, the Financial Times and The Economist.

It will follow the approach of News Corp stablemate The Wall Street Journal. Some stories will be able to be read for free while others will need a subscription to be read, most likely to be its analysis and specialised sections.

At the World Editors Forum last week, three publishers – including the New York Times – outlined their paywall strategies and lessons they had learnt along the way.

• Independent: Ten years of FT’s metered pay model
• ‘We don’t see this as a paywall’, says Express and Star
• Will the Shropshire and Wolverhampton walls pay?
• Mashable: What impact has the NY Times paywall had on traffic?
• Confirmed: New York Times website will introduce FT-style charging system