Editors' Blog | Journalism.co.uk » Shane Richmond

Shane Richmond: The value of reader comments to online newspapers

Laura Oliver — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 08:14:16 +0000

Telegraph Media Group’s head of technology Shane Richmond weighs in on a debate about the value of comments left by readers on newspaper websites.

Journalism professor Jeff Jarvis recently suggested a turnaround in his view on reader comments: “I defended [newspaper] comments for years. But the problem is that comments are too often the voice of assholes.” He added in a blog post: “[C]omments are an insult because they come only after media think they’re done creating a product, which they then allow the public to react to.”

This prompted a response from Ilana Fox, who ran online communities for the Sun and Mail Online, disagreeing with Jarvis and arguing that the majority of people interacting with newspapers online aren’t “assholes” at all.

Richmond says both are right – his post is worth reading in full – and makes a particular point about the effect of journalists’ involvement in comment threads:

Jeff makes the point that inviting readers in after the fact is disrespectful, which is what leads to the unconstructive nature of much commenting. But I’ve noticed that engagement by journalists breeds a culture of respect. If journalists join the conversation, they are more likely to be respected by readers.

I don’t think the “true collaboration” that Jeff would like to see is a replacement for commenting. Many people are happy to comment and don’t want to do more. True collaboration builds on the work we’ve done so far. And it is a goal that many of us are working towards.

Full post at this link…Similar Posts:

Nieman Reports: Latest edition focuses on journalism and social media

Laura Oliver — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 08:53:46 +0000

This quarter’s Nieman Reports, from the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, has too many good articles in one place to select just one as an Editor’s Pick – so here’s a link to the whole index of pieces on journalism and social media.

Some highlights include:

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Shane Richmond: Why the Drudge Report hasn’t ‘lost its edge’

Laura Oliver — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:10:43 +0000

Shane Richmond responds to last week’s New York Observer article on the allegedly waning influence of the Drudge Report.

Looking at its audience, impact and design, Richmond argues that the news aggregator, which broke the media blackout on Price Harry’s deployment to Afghanistan, still has its edge:

“For his audience, Drudge is a kind of search engine but one that has already answered their question,” he writes.

“It’s a simple idea, executed brilliantly. The Drudge Report is a page of search results, handpicked for an audience its author knows well.”

Full post at this link…Similar Posts:

Journalism Daily: Trinity Mirror’s Midlands consultation, Wikipedia’s editorial changes and the industry chicken and egg conundrum

Judith Townend — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:06:25 +0000

A daily round-up of all the content published on the Journalism.co.uk site. You can also sign up to our e-newsletter and subscribe to the feed for the Journalism Daily here.

News and features:

Ed’s picks:

Tip of the day:

Using Twitter as a point of contact

#FollowJourn:

@benjaminbland/Freelance journalist

On the Editors’ Blog:

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Essential journalism links for students

Judith Townend — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:56:59 +0000

This list is doing the rounds ‘100 Best Blogs for Journalism Students – Learn-gasm‘… and we’re not on it. Nope, not even a smidgeon of link-love for poor old Journalism.co.uk there.

The BachelorsDegreeOnline site appears to be part of e-Learners.com, but it’s not clear who put the list together. Despite their omission of our content and their rather odd descriptions (e.g: Adrian Monck: ‘Adrian Monck writes this blog about how we inform ourselves and why we do it’), we admit it is a pretty comprehensive list; excellent people and organisations we feature on the site, our blog roll and Best of Blogs mix – including many UK-based ones. There were also ones we hadn’t come across before.

In true web 2.0 self-promotional style, here are our own links which any future list-compilers might like to consider as helpful links for journalism students:

Journalism.co.uk for industry news, events and developments

Journalism.co.uk Editor’s Blog for the titbits, tips, trade tools, recommendations and daily editors’ picks.

TNTJ blog: Tomorrow’s News, Tomorrow’s Journalists

Insite: an advanced internet research skills.news blog by Journalism.co.uk’s consulting editor and trainer, Colin Meek.

Journalism.co.uk training section and forums.

And here are some blogs/sites also left off the list which immediately spring to mind as important reading for any (particularly UK-based) journalism students:

Organisations

Global Voices Online – essential for anyone interested in press freedom issues (Co-founder, Ethan Zuckerman’s blog, is here)

The Frontline Club blog, as above.

European Centre for Journalism (EJC)

WEF Editors’ Weblog and SFN blog.

Crikey.com: news from down under that’s not Murdoch, or Fairfax produced.

Press Review Blog (a Media Standards Trust project) – it’s a newbie, but already in the favourites.

Centre for Journalism from the University of Kent

The UK National Union of Journalists news site and its president, Jeremy Dear’s, blog

AllMediaScotland.com

The Independent’s Media section

NY Times’ media section

FT.com media section

Press Gazette’s Peter Kirwan/The Wire

BBC Editors’ Blog

BroadcastNow.co.uk

StinkyJournalism: it’s passionate and has produced many high-profile stories

Wired Journalists

Index on Censorship

Demotix blog

Reporters Without Borders

Committee to Protect Journalists

International Federation of Journalists (though we’ve had problems accessing their site or feeds lately)

British Journalism Review (now in its 20th year)

Individuals

Craig Silverman’s Regret the Error

MST director, Martin Moore’s blog

Clay Shirky

CurryBet – Martin Belam’s links are canny, and provocative and break down the division between tech and journalism.

Malcolm Coles – for SEO tips and off-the-beaten track spottings.

Dave Lee – facilitating conversations journalists could never have had in the days before blogs.

Joanna Geary – as above

Marc Vallee – photography freedom issues from the protest frontline.

FleetStreetBlues: an anonymous industry insider with jobs, witty titbits and a healthy dose of online cynicism.

Alison Gow for a view from the regionals

Sarah Hartley previously as above, now with more online strategy thrown in.

The e-Grommet for links.

Charles Arthur – for lively debate on PR strategy, among other things

Shane Richmond’s blog at the Telegraph.

MarkMedia (view from Scandinavia)

Kristine Lowe (as above)

Media Culpa (as above)

Richard Sambrook, BBC big cheese and excellent blogger

Justin Williams, Telegraph assistant editor

Matthew Buckland, media views from South Africa

Steve Buttry

Craig McGill – bridging journalism and PR.

Writing this has only brought home further the realisation that omissions are par for the course with list-compilation, but it does inspire us to do our own 101 essential links for global online journalists – trainees or otherwise. We’d also like to make our list inclusive of material that is useful for, but not necessarily about, journalists: MySociety for example.

Add suggestions below, via @journalismnews or drop judith at journalism.co.uk an email.Similar Posts:

TBC at high noon? Telegraph-Guardian spats

Judith Townend — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 10:17:01 +0000

The latest ‘Twackdown’ seems unlikely to be the end of the Telegraph-Guardian or, to be absolutely fair, Guardian-Telegraph frictions.

After all, in just under an hour we’ll know who is top of the ABCe pops for this month…

So, this week’s Twitterfall spat from Malcolm Coles: ‘That Shane Richmond / Charles Arthur Twackdown in full’.

Guardian technology editor Charles Arthur has the last word [to date] in a comment beneath the post: “I’d only point out that this was a far more multidimensional discussion than this portrays.”

Another row a’brewing with this? The Guardian reports ‘anger’ at the Telegraph over Guido’s Spectator article.

(And while we’re on Guido, it’s interesting to note that Guido himself was in the Guardian building this week – via Jon Slattery)

Update: In the March 2009 ABCe audit, as released at midday, the Telegraph tops the table of six national newspaper titles with the highest number of unique users, followed in second place by the Guardian.Similar Posts:

First video ‘splash’ for Telegraph.co.uk

Laura Oliver — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:44:10 +0000

An update to Twitter from Telegraph.co.uk communities editor Shane Richmond suggests the paper is breaking more new ground with its videojournalism.

News of the sentencing of John Darwin, who faked his own disappearance in 2002, and his wife Anne was broken on the site using the video below:

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A lesson in SEO from Charlie Brooker

Laura Oliver — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:40:21 +0000

Following the surge of comments generated by Charlie Brooker’s Comment is Free article, he’s asking this week what impact search engine optimisation could have on the quality of journalism online.

To take his point to the extreme Brooker gives us a fully SEO-ready article complete with celebrity names, certain pharmaceutical brands and political links (I’d mention them by name but that would start a kind of SEO vicious circle for this post).

As one commenter points out, Brooker’s got it spot on – at the time of writing his article occupies the top five slots when you Google the key SEO terms shown below:

Jokes aside – Telegraph.co.uk’s Shane Richmond has given us some insight into the site’s SEO strategy, would be good to hear what might be going on with the Guardian.Similar Posts:

While we were away… EveryBlock, LoudounExtra, BBC plans and more

Laura Oliver — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:36:32 +0000

In case you hadn’t noticed, Journalism.co.uk was in Sweden last week covering the World Association of Newspapers annual conference and the World Editors Forum.

So no one misses out, here’s a round-up of what went down while we were away:

Guardian: BBC ends ‘licence fee’ plans for international news website
The Beeb has dropped proposals for subscription-based access to BBC.com

WSJ.com: Analysis of hyperlocal news site LoudounExtra.com
Following the departure of Rob Curley, chief architect behind the Washington Post spin-off site, WSJ asks if the site has found its audience a year into the project.

Editor&Publisher: 94 newspapers join Yahoo partnership
A total of 779 newspapers now have access to the search engine’s advertising technology and HotJobs ads.

Daily Mail: Sir Ian Blair advocates use of celebrity news videos as evidence in drug trials
Footage, such as the Sun’s infamous Amy Winehouse video and of Kate Moss snorting a white substance, should be presented to the jury in such cases, Blair has said.

Guardian: BBC’s new plans for personalisation of website
Plans to create a new rating, recommendation and personalisation system across bbc.co.uk will be put to the BBC Trust, according to the corporation’s latest programme policy statement.

Editor’s Weblog: Washington Post launches online publishing company
The Slate Group will feature a host of digital titles including Slate and The Root, with additional launches planned.

Telegraph.co.uk: Update on revamp of community blogging platform MyTelegraph
Communities editor Shane Richmond says a relaunch date will be announced by the end of next week.

Matthew Ingram: Globe and Mail removes pay wall
Number of subscribers was not enough to maintain the wall, says Ingram, who works for the paper. Some readers remain unconvinced, he says, pointing out one comment: “You can’t shut us out for a few years and then expect us to come back just because it’s free.”

MediaShift: Everyblock releases first special report
The hyperlocal data and news site has mapped information from a recent Chicago police bribery investigation as part of its first special report.Similar Posts:

Guardian publishes string of anti-Telegraph stories – cue spat

Laura Oliver — Wed, 28 May 2008 17:03:58 +0000

While the Daily Mail allegedly has a gentlemen’s agreement with the Telegraph not to write about each other’s parent company, it hardly seems worth pointing out that no such pact exists between the Guardian and the Telegraph online.

Over the last month a series of articles published by Guardian.co.uk has alleged various problems with or criticised Telegraph.co.uk.

The latest links the MyTelegraph section with the BNP for a second time in little over a week, detailing a blog post on the platform by BNP member Richard Barnbrook entitled ‘Blame the immigrants’.

The Guardian first made the connection between the party and MyTelegraph with an article looking into managing online communities that discussed MyT under the provocative headline ‘Platform for free speech … or hate?’ and went on to say one user ‘publishes BNP campaign literature and flyers’ on the site.

On both occasions the Telegraph emphasised the free speech ethos behind MyT, which is policed by readers who are relied upon to report offensive material.

The policy seems to be working – Barnbrook’s post has attracted over 30 comments including several from the hang ‘um and flog ‘um brigade alongside more measured anti-BNP responses.

MyTelegraph’s problems at the end of last year, as the technology firm behind its development went into administration, were also documented recently by the Guardian:

“Telegraph Media Group’s community media site MyTelegraph ‘is on life support’ until it receives an overhaul this summer, the company’s communities editor said today.

“Shane Richmond told the PPA Magazines 2008 conference that the site had suffered periodic downtime, slow page-loads and instability since the company which built it, Interesource, went in to administration late last year.”

I was there, he did say that, but then again he’d already blogged about it months before.

But then again, again. He DID say it, so it’s fair to report him saying it.

In addition to this last month’s ABCe figures showing that the Telegraph site passed the Guardian for the first time to become the UK’s most popular newspaper website in terms of unique users, seem only to have fanned the competitive fire.

The Guardian was the first to delve into the Telegraph’s recent rapid growth in unique users – from 12,283,835 in February to 17,036,081 in March, and 18,646,112 in April – suggesting a switch in internal measurement tools may have prompted the surge.

Continuing the series of pieces on the Telegraph’s online traffic – and there are a few of them now – the Guardian suggests that a review of online traffic measurement announced by JICWEBS last week was sparked by publishers concerns over the Telegraph’s recent growth.

All fair news pieces from the Guardian? Surely there can be no complaint with their reporting factual news? Well, yes there can.

After the publication of the latest Guardian piece today, Telegraph communities editor Shane Richmond came out fighting, accusing the Guardian of hypocrisy and arguing that if the charge leveled at the Telegraph is one of giving a platform to racists and fanatics then it is a charge that could well be applied to the Guardian’s Comment is Free blog.

“How about we take the view that when you have an open platform, whether it’s My Telegraph, Comment Is Free, or the internet itself, then you have to accept that a multiplicity of views will be expressed on it and that some of those views will be unpalatable to some people,” he wrote.

“If the Guardian’s attacks on our site are motivated by genuine concern, then they should look closer to home first. However, I suspect that this sustained criticism has more to do with sour grapes over recent audience trends.”

Stories about other publishers are fair game and healthy competition between the titles is to be encouraged.

But take the BNP stories and the numerous stories about the Telegraph’s web advances en masse and one may begin to wonder when healthy news reporting begins to border on the obsessive?

UPDATE – the ‘debate’ continues with a post from Shane Richmond in response to a comment left by Comment is Free editor Matt Seaton on his Telegraph.co.uk blogSimilar Posts:

Guardian review of MyTelegraph is ‘out of touch with internet age’

Laura Oliver — Mon, 19 May 2008 13:56:06 +0000

Speaking in a blog post of Friday, Shane Richmond, communities editor of Telegraph.co.uk, explained that staff from the Guardian had been putting questions to users of MyTelegraph in preparation for an article about the blogging site.

To pre-empt the ~~attack~~ article, Richmond posted the answers to the questions asked of the site, which covered alleged links between MyT and BNP propaganda and Enoch Powell, while also asking for examples of the best blog posts contributed.

“To me, the tone they strike is politically correct and out of touch with the internet age. The internet encourages free speech, has lower barriers to entry and places greater onus on individuals to decide for themselves what is acceptable. Is it the case that Comment Is Free only within Guardian-approved limitations?” wrote Richmond.

The aforementioned article, published today by MediaGuardian, compares and contrasts MyT with the Guardian’s own Comment Is Free platform and the Sun’s MySun.

“A cursory glance reveals that while it has some powerful and well-written blogs, My Telegraph is also inhabited by some very unsavoury characters. . . Such comments appear on all websites, the Guardian included. The difference with My Telegraph and similar sites overseas is that the newspaper is providing the platform for others to start the debate. On most comment sites, bloggers sanctioned by the newspaper group typically do so,” it reads.

While it’s interesting to consider the different approaches taken to moderation and user-generated content by the Telegraph and the Guardian, in the spirit of open debate on the subject, wouldn’t it be worth mentioning the Guardian’s recent debacle with one of its ‘sanctioned’ bloggers? The debate started by this blogger, wasn’t allowed to continue – I wonder if this would have been the case if the post had appeared on MyT.Similar Posts:

PPA Magazines 2008: Community stats for Telegraph.co.uk

Laura Oliver — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:17:15 +0000

According to Shane Richmond, communities editor of Telegraph.co.uk, articles on the site’s Your View section receive an average of 166 comments a day, while 2,000 comments a day are recorded across the main site.

MyTelegraph, which is one year old on Friday, now has 18,000 registered users and will be rebuilt this summer with new tools for uploading content introduced and plans to integrate MyT content across the main site.

Richmond added that a feature rating the posts of other MyT bloggers, which had been scrapped at the request of users, was something he hoped to reintroduce to the site.Similar Posts:

Telegraph to offer open OpenID

Oliver Luft — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 10:30:10 +0000

Shane Richmond is claiming a first for telegraph.co.uk, saying that from the end of next month it will become the first newspaper in the world to provide OpenID to its readers.

OpenID is a technology that allows people to carry the same user names across several different websites, thus removing the tiresome process of having to log-in 137 times each day and remember the plethora of necessary passwords.

OpenID claims are over 160-million OpenID enabled URIs with nearly 10,000 sites supporting its logins.

The system is growing in popularity with publishers. AOL and Microsoft are amongst a host of other using it. At the very basic level for them it means less time having to vet and manage user accounts, as well as removing a barrier to a greater level of interaction with users.

However, some users may be put off by by the security issue of effectively placing all eggs in one basket.

Plenty more innovation expected from the Tel in 2008, adds Mr Richmond:

“I could describe this as the biggest development of 2008 but I won’t. I know what else we’ve got planned.”

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BBC director general answers readers questions online at Telegraph.co.uk

Oliver Luft — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 11:21:32 +0000

Mark Thompson, the director-general of the BBC, put himself up for some close public scrutiny yesterday when he agreed to answer questions from Telegraph.co.uk readers live on the site.

“I can’t, off the top of my head, think of a more potentially hostile environment for him,” writes Currybet’s Martin Belam in his excellent summary of the event. However, he notes that Thompson got a relatively easy ride in the Q&A.

Judging by the questions posed, the application of regional and clipped RP accents across the Corporation appears to be one of the main issues of contention for the readers of the online version of The Telegraph.

A few questions – offering enough for more than a cursory skim read – about criticism of the coverage of the Madeleine McCann story and Parliamentary scrutiny, did pop up. But these were subjects that the DG could tuck into with gusto.

A question about access to BBC TV in Australia got this interesting answer:

“I would like to be able to offer people around the world on demand access to more of the BBC’s domestic content – and maybe to complete home services. We’re working on that.”

The Telegraph’s Shane Richmond notes: “We let our Q&A guests choose the questions they answer and our more cynical readers will probably argue that the more difficult questions are overlooked.”

It’s something to bear in mind. On the whole the questions selected were of the reactionary kind and easy for a shrug off – I would have liked to see more sustained questions about the Corporation throwing money at platforms, channels and programming that painfully attempts to reach out to certain demographics with little or no obvious success – yes, BBC3 – what are you for?Similar Posts:

God, no? Is it list and predictions time already?

Oliver Luft — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 10:37:06 +0000

Yes, it’s that time again, the season of favourites lists, bests of, highlights of 2007, and rough guesses of what may happen in the coming 12 months.

I’ve brought together the few lists I have managed to find in between crazed bouts of gorging my way through East Sussex’s entire supply of mince pies and crapulent afternoons spent selecting the wine for the Christmas party (finally decided on Blue Nun – half bottles).

For what it’s worth, my predictions for the next 12 months are a pocket-sized Second Life for the Asian market, Google car insurance and marriage counselling by April and some kind of Granny app for Facebook so you can check on the vital signs of elderly relatives.

Best journalism film of all time, bar none – cue ‘no, this is better,’….’no, this one,’
Regret the Year. Twelve-months of comical mistakes brought to you by Regret the Error
Yahoo!’s list of the year – favourite sites and causes on the web in 2007
US news source of the year – by top ranking stories on Google News
Top ten search terms of the year
The Jeff Jarvis list of stuff from 2007
Internet TV, 2007, a year in review
Guardian predictions for 2008
Press Gazette twitters from journalists about what they learned from 2007
Shane Richmond’s review of the year in webby tech, month by month

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