BeatBlogging.org funding ends September 1

Pat Thornton reports that funding for the site he edits, BeatBlogging – part of the NewAssignment.net project will cease on September 1.

“The fate of BeatBlogging.Org is undecided for now. I can at least assure you that the site will not be going away, as it is too strong of a new media brand to let die or even languish,” he writes.

“Being the editor of BeatBlogging.Org has been a great ride. I’ve learned a lot about how beat reporters are adapting to the web, how social media is changing journalism and where journalism is heading.

“Working with NYU’s Jay Rosen has been a great learning experience. It’s very invigorating to work with someone who is interested in answering, “what’s next?” And in journalism, that’s the No. 1 question we all must answer.

“What’s next for me? I don’t know yet. I hope to be able to contribute to the search for journalism next.”

Full post at this link…

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Journalism Iconoclast: News organisations – make more use of photos

New organisations have forgotten that people love photos, writes Pat Thornton, so why don’t they publish more?

“Why give a photographer $10,000-20,000 worth of equipment for just a few shots to appear in the newspaper and online?” says Thornton.

Stop thinking about captions, start thinking about tags, he adds.

Full post at this link…

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Journalism Iconoclast: Are newspapers just following online fads?

Newsroom managers seem to be investing in the latest trends – whether it’s video, audio, RSS, Twitter – before assessing whether this is the right choice for their newsroom, argues Pat Thornton.

Full story at this link…

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Journalism Iconoclast: Journalists should rethink the newsroom

Pat Thornton explains how his BeatBlogging project works without a physical office space – detailing the tools he uses to collaborate with contributors remotely.

“What’s the point of a newsroom in today’s era of limited resources? What would you rather fire: content producers (and by extension money makers) or a physical building? For knowledge workers, I’d argue that physical buildings often make us less efficient and always cost a lot of money,” writes Thornton.

Full post at this link…

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BeatBlogging.Org: Editors are not liable for changing comments

Video of the Citizen Media Project’s David Ardia explaining why – under US law – editors are not legally liable for changing comments left on their news sites.

As Pat Thornton points out:

“This falsehood must stop now. It’s been used — knowingly and unknowingly — by news organizations for years as  justification not to allow user comments.”

Full story at this link…

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Conference tweets: live from two international journalism events

We’re a little bit sad here at Journalism.co.uk towers that we didn’t get to go to either of this week’s major journalism conferences, the Global International Journalism Conference (GIJC) in Lillehammer, Norway and the Online News Association (ONA) in Washington DC.

But we got our web feelers out and collated these Twitters for your perusal.

Over at the ONA Twitter Search you can follow the Poynter Group, who are all twittering madly (you’ll need to create yourself an account to log in) and you can see the tweets from the first session of the morning here. The ONA has put together information about the Twitterers, discussion groups and podcasts here.

Or follow blogger supremo Pat Thornton, who was a little bit bored this afternoon…

Meanwhile over GIJC Twitterland we picked up this Tweet about Al Jazeera’s Sami al-Hajj –  imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay for six years.

We’ll be back with a better summary of the conferences’ outcomes next week, when we’ve spoken to a few more participants.

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Milwaukee Sentinel Journal shows off its video production

US paper the Milwaukee Sentinel Journal has produced a video for the Associated Press Photo Managers Association of exploring the Journal’s use of video online.

The footage shows the results of three professional editing suites recently installed at the Journal and the training in editing techniques received by reporters, photographers and online production staff.

From the video explanation it is clear that the Journal sees the medium as just another vehicle for storytelling – one that can, in certain news situations, be more appropriate than just text, slideshows and images.

Using footage to cover local arts news gives clarity to concepts that might be complicated by text coverage. Similarly ideas such as their technology review show are a simple way to engage on a personal level with your readers.

A surge in video on the site does not mean the paper is abandoning other reporting techniques – something that will soothe new media journalist Pat Thornton, whose latest blog post urges newspaper sites to only use video when the quality is there.

“You could have a totally modern news site without video, and video will not suddenly transform your site into something modern. Be smart with your resources, because the industry doesn’t have a lot of room for error,” warns Thornton in the post.

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