Local news and community website for Washington DC TBD.com and its sister site WJLA.com are planning to relaunch next week, following the downsizing of TBD.com in February.

In a post on TBD.com outlining the changes, it is said the new WJLA.com will offer stories from regional crime, weather and transportation reports and in-depth looks at health and medicine to features on big national and international stories.

TBD.com on the other hand will look through information from news sources across the area and offer them up alongside original reporting “on the area’s arts and entertainment scene, news, crime, sex and gender, groceries and transportation”.

Earlier this year Journalism.co.uk reported that TBD.com was shedding most of its staff after just six months and would stop most of its general news and sports coverage.

• Are the new police crime maps any use for UK journalists? Some doubts raised
• paidContent:UK: Planned redundancies at Metro
• Hysterical woman – also a Spanish government minister – ruins AP copy
• The Register: Advanced copy of new terror guidelines on photography
• Tool of the week for journalists: Google Follow Your World

UK digital journalist Alison Gow takes a look at the news site for Washington TBD.com, launched earlier this week, and says the site provides much inspiration for hyperlocal news ventures elsewhere.

Says Gow:

I like it as a journalist because:

• It’s seriously packed with news, features and information
• It’s packed with news (truly  - the homepage splash changed every time I reloaded the page)
• It updates constantly
• It has loads of sources of information – both from TBD staffers, mainstream media, social networks, bloggers and users
• It’s an active site – doesn’t rely on feeds/UGC
• It “gets” hyperlocal
• It does live fact-checking

Full post on Headlines and Deadlines at this link…

• HuffPost: Obama’s State of the Union address, now with real-time fact checking
• Nieman: Exploring a niche for non-niche fact-checking
• Spleak apps deliver politics and sport news to social networks
• NYT: Fact-checking in the online age
• #snprivacy: Journalists’ privacy plea to social networks

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

News and features:

• 3am.co.uk goes live with ‘breaking news bleats’
• Demand Media buys minority stake in liveblogging firm CoveritLive
• MSNBC buys neighbourhood news aggregator EveryBlock

Ed’s picks:

• Media Release: Bauer Radio signs syndication deal with Independent.co.uk
• Public Agenda: Private newspapers in Africa hit by advertising slump
• CJR: The Guardian’s Washington bureau chief on US/UK news models
• CJR: A ‘new threat’ to Middle East journalism – created in the US
• Portfolio.com: The Reader’s Digest Index
• AP: Amish newspaper is a non-electric internet, says publisher

Tip of the Day:

• Freelance job listings

#FollowJourn:

• @mathewi/communities editor

On the Editors’ Blog:

• Former Total Politics editor to start up PR company

• Portfolio.com: The Reader’s Digest Index
• Reuters: Journalists in more than 500 attacks during uprisings, claims CPJ
• Media moves: Telegraph gets Mike Seery; Guardian appoints new CFO
• On the Media: Andy Carvin and Twitter’s ‘new kind of journalism’
• FT.com: Reader’s Digest looking to overhaul sites but won’t charge for online content

Our second pick from the Columbia Journalism Review today: a lengthy Q&A with the Guardian’s Washington bureau chief, Ewen MacAskill.

There is lots of ground covered; MacAskill’s explanation of the Guardian’s approach in the States and his thoughts on differences between US and UK journalistic technique make particularly interesting reading.  An extract:

“[I]n some ways, the American system is more transparent, but because of the more adversarial system in Britain, sometimes more stories come out there. It’s a contradiction: the American system is more transparent, but in spite of that, an awful lot goes on behind the scenes that we never get to hear about.”

Full Q&A at this link…

• Guardian America
• UK press regulation discussed at the Frontline Club
• Heather Brooke: ‘Transparency keeps those in power honest’
• #jpod: Why the Guardian is taking a laid-back approach to news on the iPad
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – Data Miner’s tools for data journalism

The Washington Post is pulling the plug on its hyperlocal site, the Loudoun Extra, two years after launch, reports the Loudoun Independent.

“While the Washington Post remains dedicated to maintaining a high level of coverage of the counties surrounding Washington, D.C., we found that our experiment with LoudounExtra.com as a separate site was not a sustainable model,” said Kris Coratti, the Post’s director of communications.

Full post at this link…

• Rob Curley: reflections and lessons from WPNIs Loudoun hyperlocal project
• Birmingham Post News Blog: ‘Why the Post must go weekly’
• Washingtonpost.com: WaPo signs up TechCrunch for online syndication deal
• Nieman Journalism Lab: For-profit model can’t support investigative journalism, says Len Downie
• ReadWriteWeb: Newsweek loses another journalist to new media as reporter joins HuffPo

The former president Bill Clinton has gone to to North Korea to try and win the release of two women journalists who have been detained since March 17, Politico learned from a Washington source.

“North Korean officials told one family that they would release the women to Clinton, the source said. The family then approached the former president.”

Laura Ling, 32, and Euna Lee, 36 are reporters for Current TV, and were  arrested in March near the China-North Korea border while reporting on the trafficking of women. They were sentenced to 12 years hard labour in June.

Full Politico story at this link…

A campaign to release the journalists can be found at http://www.lauraandeuna.com/ and on Twitter: @LiberateLauraSF.

• US journalists released from North Korea
• NYTimes.com: N. Korea sentences American journalists to 12 years hard labour
• BBC News: Current TV journalists will face North Korea trial in June
• ‘Hostage in Qatar’: jailed for three years with hard labour unless raises appeal money
• Current TV to air documentary on journalist’s imprisonment in North Korea

On Monday, The Washington Post hosted a live Q&A with Marlene Adler, former chief of staff to Walter Cronkite, the much-respected news anchorman who died last week, aged 92. WashingtonPost.com users put questions about his career to her. What would Cronkite have thought of the internet and its impact on journalism, they wondered. Adler said that Cronkite would have adapted easily to online journalism, but that he was worried about internet source attribution.

Full Q&A at this link…

Here are a couple of excerpts from the interview (Hat-tip: StinkyJournalism):

Chevy Chase, Md (…) “How did Mr. Cronkite feel about technology in general, and specifically as it relates to news and the demise of newspapers”

Marlene Adler: (…) “He loved the new technology, (the Internet) but also saw the problems with reliability of news delivery. He was concerned that news sources on the Internet were not attributable and worried that it would further diminish trust in the news media.

“About newspapers disappearing, he was sad indeed. He was a newspaper man first and loved that part of his life and that business. He was incredulous that entire cities could be without a newspaper.”

Washington, D.C.: “A friend was supposing that she thought Cronkite would have more easily adapted to online journalism because of his work for UPI. What were his thoughts about balancing speed and accuracy, and did he really think it was much different from what countless wire reporters have done for years?”

Marlene Adler: “As a newspaper man and a TV reporter, speed and accuracy were what it was all about. Getting the facts, getting them right and getting the story out first, whenever possible. He didn’t like to be scooped by another network or print reporter. However, he would not release a story, even if it meant being second, if he could not authenticate his sources. I, too, think he would easily have adapted to online journalism.”

• The NYT’s Cronkite mistakes and the paper’s ‘top 20′ error rate list
• Walter Cronkite: death of America’s ‘most trusted’ news voice
• AP: Amish newspaper is a non-electric internet, says publisher
• Survey showing that ‘trust in the UK’s national media is on the up’ actually shows nothing
• BBC explains semantic technologies and linked data behind World Cup site

The original Politico story:

“Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth said today she was canceling plans for an exclusive ‘salon’ at her home where for as much as $250,000, the Post offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record access to ‘those powerful few’ – Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and even the paper’s own reporters and editors.”

Full story at this link…

And also read about it here:

• The Atlantic: ‘Should journalists be entertainers?’

• Washington Post: ‘Post Co. Cancels Corporate Dinners: Journalistic Boundaries Brought Into Question’

• WashingtonMonthly.com: ‘Wash. Post selling access?’

A video from Politico showing the Whitehouse press secretary Robert Gibbs answering a question about the ‘salon’:

• Why are news providers on Facebook?
• Reuters: Washington Post closes US bureaux
• The Atlantic: The hackers who keep the Washington Post running
• Yahoo and Politico to offer inside view of Democrat and Republican conventions
• Yahoo News: Politico to launch new website and expand staff

“It’s ok to be sick and tired of Twitter rants by journalists who don’t understand it,” writes Steve Buttry.

“The same day I posted about Edward Wasserman writing about Twitter without really learning about it, I read another piece from another journalist I respect, Paul Farhi of the Washington Post, writing The Twitter Explosion in the American Journalism Review.

“Farhi, to his credit, did a fairly thorough job of researching Twitter by reading about it online and by interviewing journalists who use it. He just didn’t bother, from what I can tell, to learn anything firsthand by actually using it. And his writing revealed his ignorance.”

Full post at this link…

• CJR: The Guardian’s Washington bureau chief on US/UK news models
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – understanding website analytics
• Survey attempts to track the changing skills of online journalists
• OJB: Three things the BBC has done for online journalism
• AJR: Newspaper journalists are not to blame for industry downturn

“Reporters Without Borders is concerned about freedom of expression in Bahrain. In the past couple of months, two journalists have been charged because of what they wrote and the information ministry has stepped up Internet filtering,” the organisation reports.

“Around 600 websites are currently blocked in Bahrain and online censorship has become more extensive since 21 April, when the authorities ordered that access to the Washington-based news website Aafaq.org, Ghada Jamsheer’s women’s rights blog Bahrain-eve and the blog aggregator Bahrainblogs.org should also be blocked.”

Full story at this link…

• WikiLeaks launches ThaiLeaks following government censorship
• News International steps up blocking of aggregators
• Reporters Without Borders: Life sentence for Bahraini blogger
• NYTimes.com: Internet sites blocked for reporters in Beijing
• NYTimes.com: Can you see my blog, Times reporter asks China

Senator John Kerry will oversee a series of hearings in Washington next week on the US newspaper industry’s financial problems.

Full article at this link…

• Advertising Age: Calls for Facebook privacy regulation could hit publishers
• Ombudsman Blog: Is it right to ‘unpublish’ online content?
• Rob Curley: reflections and lessons from WPNIs Loudoun hyperlocal project
• WashingtonPost: Michael Kinsley on life after newspapers
• Tweeted debate: does it have any significance for democracy?

“In a slumping economy, U.S network news programs are expanding their gaze beyond Wall Street and Washington to mainstream America, heralding projects that give voice to everyday people and their financial woes,” reports Reuters.

Full story at this link…

Find an injection of cynicism over at Doug Fisher’s blog, at this link.

• Common Sense Journalism: Obits behind the paywall?
• Common Sense Journalism: Tweets and a news ‘story’ – stop confounding the two
• Common Sense Journalism: ‘Unpublishing’ news
• Thomas Crampton: New job requirements – the Phnom Penh Post recruits
• Webby success for FT.com and BBC News

This morning Al Jazeera English’s managing director, Tony Burman, held a breakfast meeting in London and invited journalists along to ask about latest developments at the channel.

Burman is in town for tonight’s Royal Television Society Awards (2007/8), for which the channel has been nominated for the ‘News Channel of the Year’ award – and it’s up against BBC and Sky.

Burman was, however, not overly optimistic and said that he thought it would be the BBC’s win. However, “next year will be the Gaza year and we will be here again,” he told the group. We’ll report back with an update tomorrow.

Burman’s message was clear: the channel is increasingly strengthening its reputation (that includes within the US, he said) and he emphasised that the fact it broadcasts to nearly 140 million households, after two years on air (it launched in November 2006) was a feat he considered very impressive. Getting Al Jazeera onto the satellite and cable networks in North America is a priority, he said.

The real topic of the morning was the crisis in Gaza: the two correspondents, Ayman Mohyeldin and Sherine Tadros, who had been on the ground prior, and during the 22 day conflict were also there to answer questions.

It was again confirmed that Al Jazeera English was the only English-language broadcaster to report from the Gaza strip before the press ban was lifted (see a previous interview with the channel’s head of new media, Mohamed Nanabnay).

So, here a few of the things that were discussed. Journalism.co.uk will be following up in more detail on these and other points raised, in due course.

Gaza:

Tony Burman said that ‘coverage was really very comprehensive’ and that the reaction to the channel’s output ‘was a reminder that there is a hunger in the world, to get a sense of what is going on’.

The Al Jazeera site had, at times, seen a 600 per cent increase in traffic during Gaza coverage, he said.

Because Israeli, as well as other international media couldn’t access the area either during parts of the conflict, Al Jazeera was watched by a bigger Israeli audience too, he said.

Sherine Tadros, who said it was just ‘chance’ that she ended up reporting from the ground (she is normally the Jerusalem correspondent) said that ‘everything was a risk’. ‘There was no green zone,’ she added. She ‘wasn’t meant to be there’ she joked.

Tadros was asked to go and do a feature from the region before the media clamp-down became apparent, and she hadn’t even packed clothes to take, thinking that her stay would be brief.

To be the only English channel on the ground could be a ‘one-off experience’ during her career, she said. While she thrived on being part of the only English-language media team on the ground – ‘everything we did was exclusive’ – Tadros was aware of the responsibility to cover as much as possible for an English speaking audience.

There was no way they could go away and ‘Google’ for additional information, for example, she said. All the information from the ground had to be gathered by themselves directly. While Tadros said she was already quite familiar with the region, she also had to adapt very quickly to the surroundings and context, she said.

Ayman Mohyeldin described how other international broadcasters were eager to use their material and how he did then feed back to US networks. One of the main differences between the Arabic and English coverage was the level of detail in the reports, he said.

Reports can’t assume context for an English-language audience, whereas an Arab audience has grown up very aware of 60 years of history, he said. As a result, English coverage must supply more detail and background. So while the English and Arabic channels worked closely via multimedia channels (there is a joint new media team) and shared information and sources in their newsrooms, the output can vary.

The style of English reporting is also different, Tadros added. Whereas an Arabic channel might do one hour of footage inside a hospital, that wouldn’t be something they would necessarily do on the English channel.

Expanding into Africa:

With a good presence in Nairobi, Zimbabwe and Johannesburg they’re keen to meet the needs of a ‘growing’ African audience, Burman said.

In regards to whether a full bureau would be opening in Nairobi (to add to bureaux in Washington, Doha, London and Kuala Lumpur), Burman was hesitant. In the current economic climate he ‘can’t talk about expansion,’ he said. For now, little is being said about big investments he explained, adding that Africa is a very important region for them and more correspondents would be added around the continent.

• Going it alone: Al Jazeera’s Gaza correspondents live interview FRIDAY 2pm (GMT+1)
• Update on Al Jazeera coverage of Gaza: mapping and incident lists
• Al Jazeera Arabic joins Livestation
• A week of innovation from Al Jazeera ends with launch of mobile sites
• OJR: Promoted tweets – the AdWords for live news?

In her weekly column, the Guardian readers’ editor, Siobhain Butterworth, takes a look at newspapers’ handling of reader complaints and responses in the age of digital publishing.

She picks out a New York Times case: following the settlement of a libel action brought against it by a Washington lobbyist, the paper published a joint statement, an article from the lobbyist’s lawyers, a note to readers and a report about the settlement.

“What’s interesting and unusual about the Iseman case is that the negotiated resolution of her complaint included space on the paper’s website for her lawyers’ views about the lawsuit,” Butterworth comments.

Full story at this link…

• Press Review Blog: Complaints, the PCC and accountability online
• Guardian: Apology to be tweeted 100 times to settle defamation case
• Journalistic issues raised by the Jared Diamond case
• Cloud on Economist.com aggregates reader comments
• The Bookseller: Supreme Court resurrects $18m settlement between publishers and freelancers

This afternoon @journalism_live ‘twinterviewed’ the Twitchhiker, aka Paul Smith, a freelance journalist from Newcastle. The background here is that on March 1, 2009, Smith will set off on a 30 day mission – to see how far he will get with the Twitter community as his only aid. Yup, he’s truly in the hands of Twitter altruism. And it’s all for charity: the same charity supported by Twestival, Charity:Water. Full details on his site, Twitchhiker.com. You can follow him, and his conversation with this search tag ‘#twitchhiker’.

So here’s how it went. When @twitchhiker ‘met’ @journalism_live

twitchhiker: Yes, hello. Good afternoon from a rather snowy North East of England.

Journalism_Live: So. No. 1. In 140 chs. what is @Twitchhiker all about?

twitchhiker: Twitchhiker is an attempt by me @paul_a_smith to travel the world in 30 days relying only on Twitter users

Journalism_Live: aha. so you have a real name,@paul_a_smith. And was this @dave_gorman style mission dreamed up in the pub?

twitchhiker: No, the slightly disappointing answer is the bread aisle of Gateshead Tesco about a fortnight ago.

Journalism_Live: Only a fortnight? You’ve acted fast. Has it been hard to organise?

twitchhiker: In terms of travelling, nothing’s organised. One of the rules is I can’t plan my route more than 3 days ahead.

twitchhiker: In terms of everything else, Twitter users are currently helping me to compile a list!

journalism_live:  blimey. so let’s hear the other rules…

twitchhiker:  I can only accept offers of travel and accommodation on Twitter, from Twitter users. No third party offers.

twitchhiker:  I only spend money on food and what I can carry. If there’s more than one offer, I choose. If not, I don’t.

twitchhiker:  Finally, If I’m unable move on from a location within 48 hours, the challenge is over and I go home.

journalism_live:  do you reckon people might join Twitter in order to help you out?

twitchhiker: I’ve had messages from people who’ve seen the press coverage and joined up, so here’s hoping they’ll help!

journalism_live: and we hear you’re a journalist by trade…?

twitchhiker:  No formal qualifications, but I freelance for the Guardian, write and edit for other sites and iPhone apps too.

journalism_live: ever worked as a travel writer before?

journalism_live:  (impatient! – ed) it ain’t over yet. Can your thumbs keep up?

twitchhiker:  A feature for the Guardian site, the iPhone app, some unpaid stuff, that’s it. More radio, tv and consumer.

journalism_live:  aha! now we see the Tweet! So could this be a venture into pastures new for you?

twitchhiker: Possibly, but it’ll be an aside. Anybody who writes can lend themselves to writing about their experiences.

journalism_live: so money: you want to get sponsored? For water? Pray tell us more…

twitchhiker: Charity: water is a brilliant charity supported by today’s equally brilliant #twestival. Hope to do my bit too

journalism_live: nice. And how will you be reporting back from the field?

twitchhiker: Hopefully a mix of blogs, video, images and tweets. Not sure of the detail yet – mobile tariff’s [sic] aren’t cheap!

journalism_live:  indeed! and making it to NZ – a realistic goal?

twitchhiker:  I think it’s possible -it’s more important we’re all in this together and prove Twitter can make a difference

journalism_live: ‘we’re’ – you’re on your own! @journalism_news will be in the warm eating toast when you’re rummaging in dustbins

twitchhiker: If I’m on my own, I’m going nowhere. That’s the point really. There are 3,175 followers who are here too

journalism_live: ok! let’s wrap this up if not Qs from the crowd? Your biggest fear… and your biggest wish?

twitchhiker: Biggest fear – not enjoying the experience. Biggest wish; make this work, raise the money, meet great people.

journalism_live: @twitchhiker lovely! That’s us done. And woo-hoo – a Q from @DannyDougherty: @twitchhiker?

DannyDougherty: OK, how ambitious are you. I’m over in Wash, DC — any chance you’re going to make your way out here? Do you have travel goals?

twitchhiker: @DannyDougherty Twitterers offer to get me places, I have to go to one of them. So I might come the States

DannyDougherty: So, you’re free as the wind, no personal goals you want to hit, eh?

twitchhiker: @DannyDougherty I am, but as a freelance, I still have to work. I’ve got my full time workload to fit in too

twitchhiker: @journalism_live There you go! Thanks everyone! That’s why this will work. It’s a brilliant community. Global but together #twitchhiker

journalism_live: Send any new Qs to @twitchhiker; have to get back to work. We’ll post link/s later via @journalismnews. Cheers @twitchhiker!

and then the party continued without us…

• Interview with the Twitchhiker at 3pm – tune into Twitter #twitchhiker
• ‘Twitchhiking’ freelancer Paul Smith completes journey
• #FollowJourn: @annasmithjourno/film journalist
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – starting out freelancing
• Live journalism and the power of links #hhldn