Editors' Blog | Journalism.co.uk » sport

Tool of the week for journalists – Trendsmap, for tracking conversations in your area

Sarah Marshall — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 15:27:01 +0000

Tool of the week: Trendsmap

What is it? A tool that maps Twitter trends in real-time.

How is it of use to journalists? Reporters can follow trends based on a subject or location.

The map option (as shown in the below Trendsmap of Brighton) allows you to see what people are talking about in a particular area in real-time, making it a handy tool for local reporters.

The list view of keywords and hashtags (shown below) is also a good way of finding sources in an area and connecting with those people.

There are limitations, however. Mapping relies on tweets being geolocated and as the majority of people choose not to share their location, it greatly reduces the number of tweets picked up by the tool.

Trendsmap also has custom trends pages, such as this one for Formula One. Journalists writing about specific subjects such as sport may find these pages useful.

As well as acting as a tool to hunt for stories and trends, journalists can also use it to help them when sharing their stories via social media. For example, adding a relevant hashtag to a tweet can increase its reach as more people find it and share it.Similar Posts:

Government launches ‘virtual media centre’ for 2012 London Olympics

Rachel McAthy — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 11:09:07 +0000

The government has launched the first few web-pages which will in time form its online media centre for the 2012 Games, giving the press a “single point of access for all government-related news stories”.

Content offered on the pages will include background information, logistics information and an image library. In a press release, culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, who has responsibility for the Games, said:

With London 2012 set to be the biggest media event in history, the UK Government is doing all it can to ensure the world’s media have everything they need.

Delivering an outstanding Olympic Games is not just about building world class facilities and infrastructure; it’s also about making sure the media can bring the sporting, cultural and human interest stories to homes across the world as quickly as possible.

These pages, plus the Government Olympic Communication Media Centre next year, will play crucial parts in making this Games the easiest to access for the media and their audiences. Between now and the start of the Games we will continue to work with media partners to ensure we’re doing all we can to meet their needs.”

The pages went live yesterday (24 October) and journalists can now sign-up and subscribe to the news alerts at www.culture.gov.uk/2012newsroom.Similar Posts:

Media accreditation process open for Paralympic Games

Rachel McAthy — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 11:22:18 +0000

The Newspaper Society issued a reminder this morning that media accreditation has now opened for the Paralympic Games. The first stage of the process, called Press by Number, opened earlier this month and media organisations have until 28 November to complete a document to indicate how many people they would to request accreditation for.

There are more details and documentation at the British Paralympic Association website. Successful media organisations will be contacted early next year to progress their applications to the second stage.

The NS adds that it is currently working with regional and local newspapers and the British Olympic Association (BOA) to put in place a regional press pool for the Olympic Games, which runs a separate accreditation process.

The Olympic Games process has come in for some criticism in recent weeks after it emerged many local London papers have not yet been approved despite certain aspects of the games taking place on their patch.

The NS reports that the minister for sport and the Olympics Hugh Robertson said he would write to the BOA about the matter after being questioned by MPs, but said it was “massively oversubscribed”.

He added: “There will be a level of public interest that I do not think we have remotely started to get our minds around. Spots will be tight, but I will absolutely do all that I can.

“There is a possible second channel for non-accredited media, and considerable provision is being made for those who cannot get formally accredited. The mayor of London has done an enormous amount to help that take place.”

Under the pooling system titles would be able to share material on the Games.Similar Posts:

Reuters: Athletes can tweet at 2012 as long as not in manner of journalists

Rachel McAthy — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 10:50:04 +0000

According to Reuters, athletes due to perform at the 2012 Olympics in London, have been told they can blog and tweet about their experiences of competing in the games, as long as it is “not done for commercial purposes”.

The decision comes from the International Olympic Committee, Reuters reports, which was said to actively encourage and supports athletes “to take part in ‘social media’ and to post, blog and tweet their experiences”.

Bloggers and tweeters must, however, restrict themselves to “first-person, diary-type formats”, must not report on events in the manner of journalists and must ensure their posts do not contain “vulgar or obscene words or images”.

According to the report, broadcasting of video and audio taken inside the venues remains banned but athletes may post videos taken outside the venues.

The IOC gets much of its revenue from the sale of television and online media rights and is therefore highly protective of their intellectual property in that regard.

Times named sports newspaper of the year

University professor aims to create citizen social media network to cover Olympics Similar Posts:

Media release: BBC gets Queen’s Award for sports graphics system

Rachel McAthy — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 13:39:39 +0000

The BBC reports its Research & Development department received a Queen’s Award for Enterprise today for its TV sports graphics system Piero.

By laying graphics over the TV pictures, Piero gives sports presenters and pundits another way to view and analyse crucial incidents in the games, and explain them more effectively to the audience.

According to the broadcaster the Piero system was initially created by BBC R&D and has since been developed and licensed internationally by Red Bee Media, with the award being jointly awarded to both organisations.

Piero works by creating a virtual stadium, which is synchronised to the “real” pictures coming from the TV cameras. Pictures of real players are transposed into the virtual stadium, where it is possible to view and analyse the game from different angles in animated sequences.

In-game incidents, such as offsides and forward passes can be assessed by pundits from the best angle – even if the play has not been captured at this angle.

The system can also render graphics such as distance markings so that they appear tied to the pitch.

The BBC press release can be seen here…Similar Posts:

Sport goes hyperlocal with a web streamed cricket match

Sarah Marshall — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 14:55:16 +0000

An Easter Monday cricket match on a village green in rural England is to be web streamed as a possible world first.

Social media consultant John Popham came up with the idea to film the match in Wray, the first wifi hotspot village in Lancashire, after being inspire by two tweets, he explains on his website.

There were two tweets which really inspired this. The first was from Dan Slee expressing his hopes for keeping up with a local village cricket team via twitter, the other was from Chris Conder (@cyberdoyle) as she tested the 30Mbps symmetrical internet connection her village now has access to, courtesy of Lancaster University.

“I started this off as a demonstration to show what can be done cheaply and easily,” Popham told Journalism.co.uk.

But despite plans to use technology such as Livestream‘s free web streaming service to broadcast the match, the idea has now gathered pace.

With the help of a retweet from Stephen Fry it has now attracted attention and Birmingham-based Aquila TV has offered to take over the filming and web streaming, which will be embeddable so can be displayed on the Wray village website and by anyone else interested in broadcasting the match.

Popham explained he is trying to demonstrate the importance of strong and reliable broadband and upload connections in rural areas and explained “there are hardly any other rural areas where this would be possible apart from Wray”.

The attention has also resulted in interest from across the pond.

“I’ve been contacted by Americans over the moon to be able to watch cricket on a village green,” Popham said.

Is Wray’s cricket web stream the first of its kind, or do you know of another wired village transmitting to the world? Tell us in the comments area.Similar Posts:

Sports journalists in Ghana deny taking money from government during world cup

Laura Oliver — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 10:55:56 +0000

A group of sports journalists in Ghana have denied allegations that they received money from the Ghana Football Association or Ministry of Youth and Sports during the World Cup earlier this year.

According to a report by Citifmonline, the ministry has said it spent $50,000 on media relations during the competition, which was given to the Ghana FA and distributed to journalists.

Full story on Ghanain news site Citifmonline at this link…Similar Posts:

NCTJ award offers students chance to cover Championship play-offs

Laura Oliver — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 10:39:39 +0000

The National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) is offering sports journalism trainees the opportunity to report on this season’s football play-off finals as part of a new arrangement with the Football League.

The sporting body is sponsoring a new award for the best performing candidates in the NCTJ’s sport journalism exam. The winner of the award will cover the Championship play-offs, while second and third place will report from the League One and League Two play-offs respectively.

The winners for the 2009-10 exam will be announced next month. Candidates for the forthcoming academic year will have the chance to report from the 2011/12 season play-offs.Similar Posts:

‘We will not be held to ransom’, Bournemouth Echo warns Southampton FC

Laura Oliver — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 11:15:36 +0000

Bournemouth Echo sports editor Neil Meldrum says the paper “will not be held to ransom” by Southampton Football Club, which recently announced plans to ban press photographers and syndicate the club’s own photographs of the team’s home matches.

Mr Cortese [executive chairman] clearly thinks his club will make a buck or two by syndicating pictures taken by their own man. I’ve got news for you, Nicola: You won’t.

If newspapers hate one thing, it is the greed of people like you and we press people tend to stick together in defiance of arrogance.

Yes, the Echo has let its readers down today by not printing pictures of last night’s match.

But we will not be held to ransom by the likes of Nicola Cortese.

Full post on the Bournemouth Echo blog at this link…Similar Posts:

NYTimes.com: Brazilian journalists want goal-line reporting

Laura Oliver — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 08:15:14 +0000

In soccer-mad Brazil, radio and television reporters stand behind the goals and along the sideline during matches. Technically, they are restricted to interviewing players before matches, at half-time and after the final whistle. But sometimes they get a few comments after goals are scored or when players receive red-card ejections. Once, they were even known to follow Pelé into the shower.

The New York Times looks at the frustrations of the Brazilian journalists covering the World Cup as they are restricted to media areas in the stadia for Brazil’s games and have to watch non-Brazil matches on a television screen in the media centre away from the ground.

There are security and exclusivity issues here, of course, but are Brazilian readers and viewers losing the access and immediacy they have become accustomed to in football journalism?

Full story from the New York Times at this link…Similar Posts:

TheGame: How World Cup journalism works

Laura Oliver — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 09:17:18 +0000

The phone goes. It is the newsdesk. “We need you to go and find North Korean fans now,” comes the instruction. “There aren’t any,” I helpfully reply. “Don’t care. There must be at least one. Go and find him.”

Hmmm. I am in Soccer City, the North Koreans are at Ellis Park across the City. I have only a couple of hours to kick-off, no North Korean contact – but then, who has? – and no ideas, except for simply standing outside the ground and waiting for a North Korean to arrive. This is not time quibble because the message from the newsdesk is that this is a “must-have” story. Foreign correspondents in South Korea and Japan are filing dispatches and Jonathan Clayton, our correspondent in Johannesburg, has been stationed outside the team hotel. I have 800 words to write on the mysterious North Korean fans. Oh dear.

Times reporter Kevin Eason gives a great, first-hand account of tracking down stories – and North Korea fans – at the World Cup. It’s a story of shoe leather, pressure and a little bit of luck as a reward for doggedly chasing leads. Would be interesting to know if any World Cup reporters are using social media shoe leather too?

Full post at this link…Similar Posts:

When Saturday Comes: How Twitter has changed football reporting

Laura Oliver — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 07:54:52 +0000

Football magazine When Saturday Comes looks at how Twitter use by football journalists is changing football reporting, as it encourages debate around news and makes journalists more accountable to fans:

Before social media created a two-way conversation on the internet, a journalist would only have had their editor and probably the manager of the club they reported on to answer to. They could print stories knowing they would not be asked to justify them to the ordinary football fan. But it’s different now for those who have chosen to set up Twitter accounts. They are pulled up on any factual errors in their stories, asked to reveal their sources and generally badgered by their followers (…) it’s a great way of taking the temperature of a club’s fans. You get to understand how they feel about certain players and managers, and what they believe are their biggest issues and concerns.

Of course, journalists should probably know this kind of thing but you can sometimes get caught up in the bubble of press conferences and talking to colleagues, and not realise what the real problems are.

Full story at this link…Similar Posts:

Sports section revamp for Northcliffe – building a sporting community

Laura Oliver — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 11:13:09 +0000

Northcliffe has brought its standalone sport sites in the north east onto the same platform as its newspaper websites for Hull, Grimsby, Scunthorpe and Lincoln – as reported by HoldtheFrontPage – e.g. the sports section on each of the thisis sites for these areas now redirects to SportHull.co.uk, SportGrimsby.co.uk etc.

There’s a big push for interactivity with a Virgin Media video player of sporting highlights alongside in-house videos; CoveritLive blogs for match days and an aggregated feed of local sports news from a range of sources (see left).

Sports coverage is a huge traffic driver to regional newspaper websites and breeds interaction and buzz (one story on the SportHull page posted yesterday morning had already attracted 113 comments at time of writing this post).

The section is more differentiated from the rest of the site now in these four examples, so will it have an impact on traffic to other news areas that may have benefited from the traffic generated by the sports channel. While the sports sections do have a link back to the main website they are more heavily demarcated than previously.

With the new features these pages offer a one-stop shop for local sports fans – I can’t spot a link to a message board or forum on the new sports’ sites however. Other Northcliffe titles still use this format – are the new sites hoping the other interactive features will replace these?Similar Posts:

Media Release: Schibsted titles to livestream Norwegian football matches

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

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

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

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

Full release at this link…Similar Posts:

Video is just start of online for Sport, says MD

Laura Oliver — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 11:55:52 +0000

A new video player – courtesy of Perform and Virgin Media – is just the start for Sport magazine’s ‘nascent’ website, Greg Miall, managing director, told Journalism.co.uk.

Traditionally television’s domain, online sports video from other media sites is a growing trend. By working with a third party, however, rights to the content are handled by Virgin, which supplies Premier League football highlights, and Perform, which handles video of cricket, tennis, golf and rugby fixtures.

“It’s a different way to supply a latent audience demand for this kind of content,” said Miall, adding that the BBC’s recent online coverage of the Beijing Olympics was a benchmark for online sports video.

“What it did [the BBC's Olympics site] was provide another way of viewing all this content and a lot more people ended up looking at content, which they might not look at usually.”

Improvements are lined up for the player and embedding it across the site’s other channels is also in the pipeline.

In addition, an online channel manager is set to join the magazine in the next few weeks and will bring in a series of changes to the site, Miall added.

The key thinking behind the video offering, he said, is to appeal to a generation of readers and viewers who aren’t watching television for prolonged periods or through a set anymore.

So is short-form, online sports video the freesheet equivalent of television?Similar Posts: