Author Archives: Joe Bond

The Sun launches ‘multimedia studio’ with video webchat

Sun webchat

The Sun has launched a new “multimedia studio”, which it used this week to host a video webchat with actor and politician Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The studio will not be in full-time use until February, but Schwarzenegger helped open the studio on Tuesday (22 January).

The 30 minute webchat used the Showcaster platform to provide live video from their new studio, alongside a chatbox in which users could post questions. The questions were moderated and put to Schwarzenegger by showbiz editor Gordon Smart.

A video of the interview was then posted on the Sun’s online ‘showbiz’ section, accompanied by a write-up of the interview focusing on the show-business related aspects of his answers.

European Journalism Centre to offer grants for innovative development reporting

euro notes

By CoreMedia Product on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

Journalists can now apply for grants to help them produce innovative and in-depth coverage of “issues related to global development and the United Nations’ Millenium Development Goals”.

According to a release from the European Journalism Centre, it recently received funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation which will help it offer up to 30 grants this year.

The press release adds:

The Centre will provide a selection of innovative reporting projects with the necessary funds to enable journalists, editors, and development stakeholders to perform thorough research and to develop entirely new and experimental reporting and presentation methods.

They will also be able to use multi-platform approaches and to think laterally across disciplines and techniques of journalistic storytelling.

Applications for grants should start from at least €8,000, with the centre expecting to give out grants of €20,000 on average. The deadline for applications is 15 March. More details on how to apply are on the grants website.

Hannah McLean, community manager at the European Journalism Centre said it is “looking for new ways of reporting that break outside the lines of the usual story”.

We encourage applicants to use multi-platform approaches and to think laterally across disciplines and techniques of journalistic storytelling.

We want applicants to experiment with new reporting and presentation methods. One of the ways they could accomplish this would be through digital storytelling.