Editors' Blog | Journalism.co.uk » social networking sites

Ten ways journalists can use Google+

Sarah Marshall — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 13:21:18 +0000

Since Google+ (plus) was launched a week ago those who have managed to get invites to the latest social network have been testing out circles, streams and trying to work out how it fits alongside Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Here are 10 ways Google+ can be used for building contacts, news gathering and sharing:

1. As “a Facebook for your tweeps”

This is how Allan Donald has described Google+ in an update. And it is pretty good way of understanding it. A week on from its launch and it seems you are more likely to add and be added by Twitter contacts, many of whom you have never met, than Facebook friends or even LinkedIn contacts.

2. As a Delicious for your Twitter contacts

As the Google+1 button takes off and your contacts recommend articles (Google +1 is like Facebook’s like button), you can keep track of what they like by taking a look at what they are +1ing and use it like a bookmarking service to flag up articles to read later.

Reading what others are +1ing relies on users changing their settings as the standard set-up does not allow +1s to be viewed by others.

3. To check Twitter updates via Buzz

If you signed up to Google Buzz, you will find tweets are included in your profile. It is another way you can read the most recent tweets from your contacts.

4. To create and share in circles

One of the foundations of Google+ and how it differs from Facebook is the circles function. There are suggested circles such as ‘family’, ‘friends’ and ‘acquaintances’ but you can add your own. For example, you could have a ‘journalists’ circle, a ‘contacts’ circle and categorise others by a specialist topic or a geographic area you report on. You can then choose to share updates, photos, videos and documents with particular circles.

5. To crowdsource circles

You can ask a question to those within one or more of your circles. For example, I might want to ask those in my ‘journalists’ circle a question without my ‘family’ circle being included.

6. For searching and sharing content using sparks

Search for any word or phrase in sparks and you will find news items. Google+ uses Google+1 recommendations and Google Search to influence the items that appear in your sparks list. After searching you can then share content with the people in your circles and therefore read and share news without leaving the Google+ site.

7. For promoting content and discussing it

“Automated spewing of headlines likely won’t be effective, but conversing will,” journalism professor and media commentator Jeff Jarvis has predicted in a post. Content is shared and users comment like they would on a Facebook post.

8. For carrying out and recording interviews

Google+ includes the option of instant messaging, video calling and voice chatting with your contacts, similar to Skype. It may well be found to be quite a handy tool when you can see your contacts online and call them. Contacts do not need to be members of Google+ as you can chat with your Gmail contacts.

One option is recording the chat for your notes or for audio and video content for a news site or podcast. One way to record audio is download Audio Hijack Pro (Mac), select the Google Talk plugin (you may find you need your Gmail open to find this as an option) and record. A quick test has proved this provides podcast-quality audio that can be easily edited.

There are various recording options for Windows.

9. For collaborating on Google Docs by circle

This nifty feature which marries Google Docs and Google+ is really handy for those working on a big story or organising spreadsheets with work colleagues. For example, you can create a circle of your work colleagues, go to Google Docs, check the tick box to select the relevant document, go to share in the black Google bar along the top of your window, and share the document with your relevant circle.

10. For wider collaborative projects

Okay, so you cannot yet but it is included as it is likely that Google+ will adopt some of the functions of Google Wave which would allow you to comment and collaborate on articles and projects.

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Google+ launches to rival to Facebook: a round-up of reports

Sarah Marshall — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 15:09:38 +0000

Google has launched a social network with some Facebook-like features. Google+ (plus) is open by invitation only to a very limited number of people while it is in the field test stage but Google has released details on its blog as to how it works.

One of its features is called ‘circles’, which allows users to categorise contacts and only share items with particular groups such as close friends and family but opt to exclude work contacts.

According to the New York Times, this is the “one significant way” in which Google+ is different from Facebook and the way “Google hopes will be enough to convince people to use yet another social network”.

It is meant for sharing with groups — like colleagues, roommates or hiking friends — not with all of one’s friends or the entire web. It also offers group text messaging and video chat.

A post on Poynter points out the most interesting area for news organisations are the ‘stream’ and ‘sparks’.

The stream functions a lot like Facebook’s news feed — a flow of information shared by your friends. If Google+ grows to critical mass, news providers could find it very important to get their content into the stream.

The ‘sparks’ section is a bigger innovation. Essentially, sparks are topics that users designate an interest in. Google uses Google+ sharing activity and +1s, as well as its famous search algorithms, to recommend personalised content for each spark, according to Mashable.

Poynter’s post suggests the Google +1 button, which has received a less than lukewarm reception from news sites, could now come into its own.

Suddenly the +1 button makes more sense. Google announced +1 in March as a way for users to express approval of any web page. Now it seems the +1 button will infuse not only search results, but also sparks, with social recommendations. TechCrunch interviewed Google officials about Google+ and reports: “You’ll see a +1 button on all Google+ content — the +1 button clearly ties deeply into all of this. It is going to be their Facebook ‘like’ button.”

So Google appears to have released its tweet or like button before the social network to share it. A case of the cart before the horse?

Poynter’s post goes on to assess the potential usefulness of Google+ and how it could affect news consumption and delivery. It also states that there has been much scepticism about its success, following less successful attempts with social projects Google Buzz and Google Wave, but author Jeff Sonderman suggests there is hope for Google+.

It’s fair to say that Google+ appears to be different, more comprehensive and more well-planned than any previous effort. The design is great, the ideas sound good and the company is making a large commitment to success.

Marshall Kirkpatrick from ReadWriteWeb has tried it out – and he is impressed, describing it as a “smart, attractive, very strong social offering from Google”.

It is well worth reading his post after he spent a night with the new social network.

But the New York Times argues its Google+ project, which has seen huge investment, may have come too late

In May, 180 million people visited Google sites, including YouTube, compared with 157.2 million on Facebook, according to comScore. But Facebook users looked at 103 billion pages and spent an average of 375 minutes on the site, while Google users viewed 46.3 billion pages and spent 231 minutes.

Advertisers pay close attention to those numbers — and to the fact that people increasingly turn to Facebook and other social sites like Twitter to ask questions they used to ask Google, like a recommendation for a restaurant or doctor.

The article goes on to explain why Google+ has now come at this time, long after Facebook’s creation.

Larry Page, Google’s co-founder, regrets Google’s failure to lead in this market and has spent time working with the team since he became chief executive in April, people at the company say. He promoted [Vic] Gundotra to senior vice president this year, placing him on an equal level with the heads of Google’s core products like search and ads.

Part of the blame, analysts say, falls on Google’s engineering-heavy culture, which values quantitative data and algorithms over more abstract pursuits like socialising.

The consensus of blog posts seems to be another positive cultural shift for Google is strong design, as the Next Web reports.

Google+ and all that falls under its umbrella looks good — really good. The trademark minimalism is still present, but it’s been done with style (is that contradictory?) and is something to be appreciated.

That’s because interface designer Andy Hertzfeld, member of the original Apple Macintosh team, was given free reign over design decisions, AppleInsider reports.

Despite the headline, Hertzfeld is quoted in the piece describing the process and it seems he was not so much given free reign as he took it. “Better to ask forgiveness than permission” and so on.

Hertzfeld was worried that Larry Page wouldn’t like it with its animations and drag-and-drop fanciness, but “he loves it”.

A video overview from Google explains how Google+ works

http://youtu.be/xwnJ5Bl4kLI

What other news outlets have reported:

Telegraph: Google+ explained

Telegraph: Google+ takes on Facebook

Mashable: Google+: first impressions

Mashable: Google launches Google+ to battle Facebook [pics]

Gigaom: Why Google+ won’t hurt Facebook, but Skype will hate it

Guardian: Google+ launched to take on Facebook

Poynter: Google+ sparks interest in new system of news discovery

TechCrunch: That was quick: Chrome extension adds Facebook, Twitter sharing to Google+

The Drum: Google+ launched as fresh rival to Facebook

ReadWriteWeb: First night with Google Plus: This is very cool

NY Times: Another try by Google to take on Facebook

TechCrunch: While we await the native app, the Google+ iPhone mobile web app is pretty solid

The Next Web: Wondering why Google+ actually looks good? Thank Andy Hertzfeld

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Hitwise: More traffic going to content websites than transactional sites

Laura Oliver — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 11:20:09 +0000

Hitwise’s Robin Goad takes a look at trends in UK internet visits over the last three years. The figures suggest that traffic to social networking sites, news and media, and entertainment sites is outpacing that to transactional sites e.g. shopping and classifieds sites.

“[J]ust because people are using the web more, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are spending more money online,” he writes.

Full analysis and charts at this link…

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NowGamer.com takes website to next level

Hannah Stuart-Leach — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 14:15:47 +0000

Video gaming website NowGamer.com was launched by publisher Imagine Publishing on Friday. The site is the first in a series of ‘supersites’ from the company to go live in the next couple of years, according to a release from the group.

The clean, easy-to-navigate site was created with Bedford-based technology partner, Evolving Media and, unlike most gaming websites, it avoids a typically overcrowded, hectic layout.

The stand-out thing about NowGamer.com though it allows you create your own personal space of sorts:

Users can drag and drop different content widgets around the homepage, ranging from podcasts to previews, and reposition each element according to their interest – or even just delete it if they see fit.

Users can also redefine the content so that it only includes material relevant to the video games platform they use, be it Nintendo Wii or iPhone.

This modern, mature approach is also combined with a wealth of expert knowledge. The people behind the site, from Imagine, have all had a history in the field of video games journalism, working on titles including SegaPro and 360 in the past. The site is also able to make use of Imagine Publishing’s extensive back catalogue which started in 1995.

Although only formed in May 2005, Imagine Publishing is already responsible for 25 websites and 20 magazines.

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Financial Post apologises for reporter’s Twitter outburst

Laura Oliver — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 12:14:08 +0000

Canadian title the Financial Post published an apology on its website yesterday for an unnamed reporter’s conduct on Twitter:

An apology

Posted: February 11, 2009, 6:18 PM by NP Editor

Today, a Financial Post reporter responded unprofessionally to another Twitter user on his personal Twitter account.

While the remarks were made on the reporter’s personal Twitter account, the conversation first began when the reporter was acting in his capacity as a reporter for the Financial Post.

We hold – and will continue to hold – all our reporters to a higher standard in how they address anyone, in any forum.

We apologize for the reporter’s conduct.

The reporter in question seems to be @sirdavid (David George-Cosh) who engaged in battle with marketing professional @aprildunford – neatly summed up by Ian Capstick on his MediaStyle blog.

Dunford has drawn a line under the Twitter furore in a blog post, which remphasises why social media needs social awareness – basic manners apply here too.

Interesting to note in the Post’s apology the blurring lines between personal and private. We’ve seen guidelines set out before about journalists and professional/public profiles on social networking sites for example, but the debate seems to be moving onto Twitter.

Most journalists (or other professionals for that matter) would see this as obvious – don’t have an outburst like that full stop. But where does the personal become the public? The Post makes the connection because this conversation started on a work issue – but is it always that easy to draw the line?

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Ten things every journalist should know in 2009

John Thompson — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:15:44 +0000

1. How to use Twitter to build communities, cover your beat, instigate and engage in conversations.

2. How to use RSS feeds to gather news and manage them using filtering techniques (basic or advanced).

3. That there is a difference between link journalism and ‘cut and paste’ journalism (aka plagiarism).

4. That your readers are smarter than you think. In fact, many are smarter than you – they know more than you do.

5. That churnalism is much easier to spot online. If you do this regularly, your readers are already on to you – merely re-writing press releases without bringing anything to the table no longer cuts it.

6. Google is your friend. But if you are not using advanced search techniques, you really have no idea what it is capable of.

7. You do not have to own, or even host, the technology to innovate in journalism and engage your readers. There is a plethora of free or cheap tools available online, so there is no excuse for not experimenting with them.

8. Multimedia for multimedia’s sake rarely works, and is often embarrassing. If you are going to do it, either do it well enough so it works as a standalone item or do it to complement your written coverage – for example, add a link to the full sound file of your interview with someone in your article, or a link to the video of someone’s entire speech at an event. The latter will enhance the transparency of your journalism too. Great tips and resources here and some useful tips on doing video on a budget.

9. How to write search engine friendly journalism. Old school thinking about headline writing, story structure etc no longer applies online and there is also more to learn about tagging, linking and categorisation. Sub-editors (if you still have them), editors and reporters all need to know how to do this stuff.

10. Learn more about privacy. You can find a lot of information about people online, especially via social networking sites, but think carefully about the consequences. And bear in mind that it cuts both ways, if you do not do it carefully, your online research could compromise your sources.

Update: see Ten things every journalist should know in 2010

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‘Trust and integrity in the modern media’ – Chris Cramer’s speech to Nottingham Trent University

Laura Oliver — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 13:42:40 +0000

This is the full transcript of a speech given by Chris Cramer, global head of multimedia for Reuters’ news operations, at Nottingham Trent University last night. Journalism.co.uk’s report on the address can be read at this link.

So I accepted this invitation shortly after I retired from CNN international – where I was managing director and where I’d been for 11 years or so.

I became a consultant for Reuters news in January and now, in the last few months, have become their first global editor for multimedia.

So, I’m talking to you today as a working journalist, broadcaster and manager for 43 years now and what I would like to talk about is ‘trust and integrity in the modern media’.

I also want to ask the question of you whether the media has maybe lost the message somewhere along the way?

So here’s my starting question: give me a show of hands if you trust the print media today, newspapers and magazines? How about TV and radio news?

And let’s ask the same question about the internet – and that will include Facebook and Twitter and social networking sites in general, how much do you trust them?

And that’s an interesting set of responses I think.

It’s not an overstatement I think to suggest that we are in the middle of a revolution in information flow. Many old theories are broken. Many media businesses have closed in the face of competition and rising costs.

The old paradigms, the old rules and theories, are really threatened by the amount of information, chatter, chaff, stuff that is available to us all day, all night, all of the time.

Some of you may have heard of Marshall McLuhan – in his time considered the high priest of pop culture.

McLuhan was a Canadian, an educator, philosopher and scholar and certainly someone who – 40 or 50 years ago now – fastened onto the notion of the global village.

The fact we were, and are, all connected. In fact he is said to have invented the phrase. Though he probably saw the global village as more of a threat than a good thing. He believed it created tribalism and fear; xenophobia and even racism.

He is also credited with first coining the word media and asserting that the medium was the message. I think he meant that the mechanics of the media, the distribution system, the platform, rather than the content itself was the main influencer.

And consider that McLuhan wrote all of this long before the internet existed. A long time.

So I’d like to talk today about what role the media can play in a changing world and what its responsibilities should be.

Is it a passive window on the world, an inanimate mirror which reflects simply what is happening or does the media have a true social responsibility beyond getting ratings and readership and making profit? Can the media and journalists make the world a better place? Or are they just lazy tools of a fickle society?

Have readers and viewers and consumers lost trust in the mainstream media and do they now prefer to gather their own information via the internet and blog sites?

I want also to talk about so-called citizen journalism.

Are we all – you and me – active newsgatherers ?

Given the number of cameras and cellphones we have are we indeed taking over from conventional journalists and reporters?

They say there may be a billion high definition cellphone cameras out there in the world. Quite a few in the audience here I suspect (film that side of my face please, I prefer it).

So how does that change the balance of information flow ?

And if you accept we – you – are now active newsgatherers, do we have any responsibility to maintain balance and paint a fair and accurate picture of unfolding events.

Let me also talk about integrity and trust and whether that still plays any part in media coverage – where does opinion and spin fit with the notion of impartial journalism.

So let me start by stating the obvious:

The media world is changing so rapidly and so quickly that many of us who work in it are frequently overwhelmed by what’s going on, even frightened at the speed of change. Frightened as well that we may be left behind, even become irrelevant.

Recent research in the states, where I live, says only about 20 per cent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 even look at a daily newspaper.

30,000 media jobs in the states have disappeared over the last two years and that pace is accelerating in the past few months with the economic meltdown. More journalists being laid off this year than ever before.

Here in the UK a similar situation. On TV, ITV pulling back from local news. ITV’s main news, according to Michael Grade, may be jeopardy in a few years time. ITV’s rolling TV news channel dumped a few years back.

At the same time, we are living a fragmented and confusing world – a world of so many information options – that our level of trust in conventional, traditional media providers is probably at an all-time low.

In fact, there is a strong, prevailing belief that the traditional media, has had its day, gradually becoming irrelevant.

Take it from me that much of it, print and broadcast, is thrashing about in an identity crisis trying to rediscover its connection point with the consumer. Experimenting with reality TV, raucous news delivery, opinionated ranting – what I call shout and scream TV news – where every story is a crisis, every day is chaos.

Everything is presented to create fear and conflict.

News where there is little or no distinction between a terrorist attack and a fat cat stuck up a tree somewhere.

There is a criminal on every corner. Al Qaeda lives next door. It’s a good day when the threat alert is only orange.

Just hang on here – we know the world is not like that most of the time.

So what to do? How do you react when, it seems, the traditional media is letting you down?

Many millions of people (not just the young like many of you) are already bypassing traditional news sources. Abandoning the news providers that your parents so relied upon, maybe still rely on.

Let me explain.

I have spent the best part of 40 years or more working in the newsgathering business. I started as a cub reporter in local newspapers.

After a few unexceptional years in print I joined the BBC when I was about 20, first in radio and then into television, and then into TV news as a producer and later an editor.

Newsgathering is the stuff that makes news what it is. The content. The stories. The raw material that drives news bulletins and programmes. Some might say that engine that drives the rest of the news machine.

In recent years though, as I said, many more people around the world have the capacity to be newsgatherers. With the advent of cheap video cameras and now cellphone cameras anyone can be a news gatherer. You or me.

With devices like this – the flip camera – one hour of video, great quality, great video and audio. Shoot and plug into your laptop to share with a friend or upload to YouTube.

Truth to tell it is unusual these days for real, professional journalists to be first on the scene of a news story.

Plenty of recent examples: floods in the UK, hurricanes in the US, earthquakes in Asia.

Where most of the compelling pictures and stories came from local citizens or tourists. Eyewitness. On the spot. Much more visceral if you like than anything a journalist could have produced arriving on the scene a few days later.

And we have YouTube and Facebook and Twitter and other social networking.

Real time information and video exchanged at the speed of light – much faster and frequently more accurate than conventional news exchange.

We had eyewitness video of the al Qaeda attacks on New York in 2001. And the terrorist bombings in London in July 2005.

Manmade and natural mayhem these days tends to be covered not by media professionals but from people like you.

One of the most historical events of the decade – the execution of Saddam Hussein –was filmed not by the Iraqi authorities or the Americans but by one of Saddam’s prison guards. On his cellphone camera.

That’s what I mean by anyone being a newsgatherer.

One of the key weapons in the armory of any terrorist group these days is a video camera or a cellphone. It is as deadly a weapon as the AK47 and the suicide belt. Some might say much more deadly. (It stays, lingers, long after the event itself. Part of history)

So who needs the traditional, mainstream media for the message these days. Why don’t we just bypass those conventional information providers?

Any of us can set out with our cameras and an internet connection and start to change the world ourselves.

What a breathtaking opportunity this gives us, you might argue.

An opportunity to promote social and environmental change, to influence the course of history, through social and peer-to-peer networking.

In fact we can use new technology to create our own brand – to become the brand.

Some might go further And argue that if the outcome is profound enough why be hidebound by any ethical considerations? Doesn’t the effect outweigh the methods?

Doesn’t the end result justify the means?

Some examples that immediately come to mind:

Is it acceptable for environmental campaigners, producing say user-generated content and posting it on YouTube, to provide just a few misleading facts to make their point just a little stronger?

Is it fair game to abuse, adjust, sex up, some of the data in = viral campaigns and spam if the cause, as they see it, is legitimate?

How about creating fake election messages to distort one candidates viewpoint – to advantage the other. We saw many examples of that in the recent US election.

In fact do social or political campaigners – people desperate for change – need to abide by those same codes of conduct relating to integrity or the invasion of privacy that news organizations like Reuters, the BBC and CNN have to abide by? Spent years creating.

And what should our considerations be about balance or fairness or having a point of view? If a social filmmaker is focusing on the plight of the Kurds why should he care about giving the Turkish point of view? If you are promoting change in the Middle East why give the Israelis equal time with the Palestinians?

The list is endless.

In effect, how many perspectives or points of view should be given airtime or exposure ?

What level of moral equivalency is the right level. Doesn’t balance get in the way of social change?

These are powerful questions which too rarely get proper discussion.

And what about taste and decency?

A few weeks ago I read the most disgusting reporting via Twitter from a local reporter in America actually sending text reports from the graveside as parents buried their three year old. Describing the teddy bear in the coffin. The parents on their knees sobbing.

Has information technology driven us all mad?

Or the absurdity, here in the UK, last month of two national broadcasters leaving a series of offensive messages on someone’s answerphone boasting about the apparent sexual conquest of his granddaughter.

Doesn’t sensitive reporting and broadcasting and editorial integrity still have a place in today’s media?

I am happy to give you my view which you can agree with, laugh at or just ignore. They say it’s a free world.

My view comes wrapped up in that something called integrity.

What use is news and information from any party without complete integrity, editorial integrity. Shouldn’t we all have a simple set of values to guide us a moral compass.

But what exactly is editorial integrity? In the dictionary you will see integrity defined as ‘an adherence to moral principles… honesty… the quality of being unimpaired… soundness… wholeness… unity.”

And you can’t boast about editorial integrity. It is not a marketing ploy or a t-shirt slogan.

It is practised every day. It is demonstrable. And it is in the past tense. You can’t promise integrity without being able to point at something you have done. I think journalists are only ever as good as the story they last covered.

Reuters – where I work now – defines its journalism in a number of ways. Through its history – a century and a half of serving the world – the breadth of its journalism (2,500 hundred journalists working in almost 200 bureaus and read by more than one billion people each day).

But it also defines its journalism because of something called the Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters believes that trust is everything, the bedrock of free information flow. They believe [sic] that everything done commercially enhances its reputation rather than undermining the principles that have taken a century and a half to build up.

That integrity, independence and freedom from bias define the organization.

And Reuters is a business. it does not shy away from that.

But it believes that trust and integrity make it a much stronger business. people, customers, end users, place a true value against these qualities. The principal reason that I am happy and privileged to now work there.

Truth to tell, there is plenty of lousy journalism out there today which may be why the public are so distrusting of the traditional media. There is too much journalism with cant and rant and a-not-so-cleverly disguised, camouflaged, axe to grind point of view.

News which says it is trusted and fair and balanced and which is patently anything but.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I have nothing against opinionated news. Some people like their news to come with a spin and a certain shrillness.

But we need to label it as such. This is opinion.

It cannot come as part of a clever confidence trick to get consumer attention, page views or ratings.

News organizations, those who disseminate news and information, those who tell a story – have a huge responsibility to represent all sides, all religions, all persuasions. Not just the so-called underdogs as we might see them.

I’m afraid most journalists have a propensity to speak just for what they regard as the underdog. The victim. It’s too simple to apply our labels to people and social issues.

We should speak for all sides – fairly, honestly and with balance. No one or no cause should get an easy ride from us.

So I don’t believe the end result justifies the means.

I don’t believe that you should distort the message to get the outcome you need or seek to persuade other people of the strength of your argument by adjusting the facts to suit the argument.

I don’t believe the internet should be used to disseminate rumour and gossip to somehow make your point. I certainly abhor the frequent trend to whip up fervour and anger by means of innacuracy and the deliberate focus on the untruth.

I think this is what our friend Marshall McLuhan meant so many years ago when he talked about the medium being the message. That the so-called global village – courtesy of available technology – is not always a force for good.

More an opportunity, in the wrong hands, for electronic mob rule. Something intelligent people should be wary of.

What I do believe is that we are living in an extraordinary interconnected world where an event on one side of the globe can have a profound effect on people many thousands of miles away.

The economic meltdown around the world is certainly the best example I can think of or where an occasion such as this one, today in Nottingham, can travel on the internet and the airwaves and the jetstream to many people a world away.

I believe that even in this rapidly changing world some principles are immutable. Whether you are a longtime journalist such as me – or a citizen newsgatherer, like all of you have the potential to be.

In particular, journalists and the media need to build trust and practise integrity each and every day. Remember those Reuters Trust Principles.

Those over-arching principles set us all apart from the unprincipled mob.

Even as we embrace every new information platform available to us we need to stay focused on integrity and brand value.

I take great comfort from believing that audiences and customers do gravitate towards the editorial brands that they trust. That it is worth staying true to the values we believe in.

So far as my chosen profession is concerned – if we wish to remain relevant and successful – we would do well to remember that journalists are not important at all – but what we do is important.

I thank you for listening.

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Naming Baby P is not about giving into a Facebook campaign

Judith Townend — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:45:30 +0000

Naming Baby P and his mother is not about giving into a hysterical Facebook campaign group; this is about confronting the reality of the online age.

I can’t link to it here, because it would be breaching reporting restrictions, but I know Baby P’s name, the baby’s mother’s name and the name of her partner.

So does anyone with even a little bit of Google cache savvy about them: it’s on a BBC report from 2007. Google cache preserves a page even if, as the BBC has done, original articles have been removed.

As the Independent reported, Facebook groups have published the details, despite the court order not to.

My argument is not about revealing the names for justice, it is about having a law which can actually be enforced.

If it had been reported abroad, on non-UK websites, they would be not be held accountable under the UK Contempt of Court legislation. Court orders, such as the one in this case protecting the names of the defendants, are simply not feasible in the web age.

I believe that whatever ensures fair trials without prejudice, protects the innocent people involved in the case (other people connected or in the family, for example) is necessary, and if keeping the names secret does that, then that should be done: I certainly won’t be joining any Facebook group to force their disclosure.

But it should be done in such a way where they really are secret, which has not happened in this case:

Jason Owen’s name is known; the mother’s name has also been previously published and is reachable with a quick search; the baby’s photograph is in the press.

One of the Facebook groups has a description reading: ‘For sum [sic] reason the press have seen it fit not to reveal the sick people who killed this poor helpless child.’

The press has not chosen to keep quiet (they certainly would print the names if they could); they are bound by law not to. But what happens when the wider community who have not been taught about reporting restrictions and contempt of court choose to publish, using blogs and social network sites?

I imagine that most people in that community, and wider geography, knows who the family are. Last night’s BBC Panorama showed that the research team were able to access things the mother wrote on social networking sites.

Yet the names cannot be disclosed by the British press without contravening the Contempt of Court Act. This means that disclosures are made through people who aren’t necessarily so concerned about, or even think about, media ethics or face any kind of editorial process.

As I reported in September, Bob Satchwell from the Society of Editors believes the legislation is out of date and redundant, as do many others.

Orders, such as those under section 11 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981, for example, allow a court to ban publication of specific information, in addition to statutory reporting restrictions. But how on earth to enforce this in an online world?

This is starkly proven in the case of Baby P.

It’s time to readdress our laws, as Satchwell has urged the Attorney General, and make trials really fair.

Postscript: I’ve just found Martin Belam’s blog post, which makes a similar point, and also focuses on the ‘sheer scale of useage of the internet’ in the UK as compared to 2000 when Victoria Climbié case was reported, for example.

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Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – publicise your blog

Laura Oliver — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 08:33:41 +0000

Blogging: Don’t just publish on your blog – spread the word on forums, social networking sites, Twitter etc. You can even create a Facebook page just for your blog. Tipster: Neil Macdonald

To submit a tip to Journalism.co.uk, use this link – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

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Spleak launches new online communities

Laura Oliver — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:17:35 +0000

California-based startup Spleak Media Network has launched three new online applications for fashion, TV and gaming communities.

StyleSpleak, TVSpleak and GameSpleak will work in the same way as the company’s existing sites by providing short-form news and gossip updates alongside comments and contributions from users, and content from partnered media organisations such as Hearst Digital.

The Spleak applications are available on instant messaging platforms, social networking sites and mobile phones.

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Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – Employees: take care on social networks

John Thompson — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:34:39 +0000

Jobseeking: If you are seeking a serious career, be very careful about your use of social networking sites. Employers can and do check sites like Facebook and MySpace to find out more information about you. Tipster: John Thompson

Got a tip? Submit it here – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

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Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk: Get your case studies from social networks

John Thompson — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 09:05:42 +0000

Case studies: Online forums and groups on social networking sites can be a goldmine. Make contact individually or send out a group message depending on the sensitivity of the request and be polite – these are like members clubs. Tipster: Laura Oliver

Got a tip? Submit it here – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

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Social Media Journalist: “Our future isn’t traditional online but in mobile media platforms,” Steve Smith, Spokesman-Review

cathy_relf — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 13:20:48 +0000

Journalism.co.uk talks to reporters across the globe working at the collision of journalism and social media about how they see it changing their industry. This week, Steve Smith from The Spokesman-Review, USA.

1. Who are you and what do you do?
I am the editor of The Spokesman-Review, a 90,000 circulation daily serving several counties in eastern Washington state and north Idaho.

As editor, I supervise all news and editorial operations, including our website, our other digital platforms and our radio operations.

I have a staff of 124 full-time employees in the newsroom and an annual budget of about $9 million. I have been here since July 2002.

Before coming here, I worked in a variety of roles at seven other newspapers in six different cities.

2. Which web or mobile-based social media tools do you use on a daily basis and why?
I use YouTube daily because we post all of our multimedia on the site and also are capable of embedding YouTube videos on our blogs, including my blog, “News is a Conversation”.

I use MySpace and Facebook when hiring. We check the profiles/pages of prospective employees and actually have rejected applicants because of questionable behavior observed on their pages.

I also go into MySpace frequently to check on the pages devoted to our entertainment magazine, “7″.

In addition, I check several industry blogs daily. Several times a day, I check Romenesko, the must-read industry blog on the Poynter Institute for Media Studies site.

I do very little of this on my mobile, though I do use it for blog work, reading and posting.

I’m still somewhat of a troglodyte (no MySpace page of my own) so I don’t use the mobile to access video or social networking sites.

The Spokesman-Review is the pioneer newspaper (in the United States at least) for transparency. Our transparent newsroom initiative is built around interaction with people in our communities. Blogging and the various blogging tools are critical to us.

We also webcast news meetings and provide as much two-way interaction as possible via chats and other real-time opportunities. Increasingly, we’re developing transparency systems that work on mobile devices.

3. Of the thousands of social media tools available, could you single one out as having the most potential for news either as a publishing or a news gathering tool?
Blogging from the field has the most potential for us at the moment. We’re in the process of developing ideas for 7 that would have real non-media people posting live reports from concerts, nightclubs and other events.

We’re also involved in some beta proposals for training citizen journalists and giving them publishing platforms.

I have no idea where all of this will lead. We’re experimenting with some developing Google applications such as Google Maps and Google Street View to see how they might enhance our blogs.

4. And the most overrated in your opinion?
Tough question. I am willing to try anything with any tool. Until something proves to be useless, I won’t dismiss it.

I do believe our future isn’t in traditional online but in mobile media platforms, the potential of which is yet to be understood. That may drive us to networking tools that enhance the mobile experience.

To reference one single overrated tool, as it were, I’d have to mention Wikipedia. There is an enormous amount of information there. I go to the site often for informal searches. But journalists beware. It is a bottomless quicksand pool that will easily send reporters and editors off in the wrong direction, at best wasting time and, at worst, producing factually inaccurate, even humiliating journalism.

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Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk

John Thompson — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 08:45:43 +0000

Slick searching: Intelways.com lets you run a search using dozens of tools in several categories such as search engines, social networking sites and niche sources. Tipster: Colin Meek

Got a tip? Submit it here – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

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