Miranda Cresswell, senior vice president for strategy and operations at BBC Online speaks to Beet.TV about the new US edition of the broadcaster’s news website:
“The impetus for the US edition of BBC news is really about building on momentum as a business (…) BBC is one of the world’s greatest story tellers and we tell incredible stories through news video (…) So video is really at the centrepiece of what we’re doing.”
The New York Times Company has reported operating profit for the second-quarter rose to $60.8 million from $23.5 million in the same period the previous year, excluding some special items. The figures show the first increase in quarterly revenue since 2007, as a growth in digital advertising halted decline in print advertising.
The company NYT statement also showed that second-quarter revenue had risen to $589.6 million from $584.5 million one year ago. However, net income dropped to $32 million from $39 million year-over-year.
Digital advertising revenue rose 21 per cent, making up 26 per cent of total ad revenue compared to 22 per cent the year before. They also reported that print advertising has improved, from a 12.3 per cent downturn in the previous quarter, to six per cent.
The company also gained a 3.2 per cent rise in circulation revenue, put down to higher subscription and newsstand prices for both the Times and the Globe.
A photojournalism student from the University of Gloucestershire has had her work selected and commented on by Elisabeth Biondi, visual editor of the New Yorker.
Along with other final-year students on the photojournalism and documentary photography course, Deborah Coleman submitted a small selection of images from her major project on the Wootton Bassett repatriation to Source, a photography magazine.
Four students from other universities have also had their work analysed by Biondi for the magazine’s website.
Journalists are invited to take part in the annual Lorenzo Natali Prize, organised by the European Commission.
The international contest, now in its 18th year, will reward the work of print, radio and television journalists from the following regions: Africa; Asia and Pacific; Latin America and the Caribbean; Europe; and the Arab World and Middle East.
Entrants must submit one extract or entire journalistic work tackling issues in development, democracy and human rights in the developing world. The work must have been printed or aired between 1 July 2009 and 30 June 2010.
There will be a grand prize of €5000 for the overall winner, and runner-up prizes of €2500 and €1500
An awards ceremony will be organised for the winners by the European Commission in Brussels in December.
See the full guidelines for the contest at this link.
See guidelines for entering the contest at this link.
Deadline for submissions is August 31.
A live election webcast created by a cross-university team of journalism students is now available to view online.
Using Skype and Livestream, students from University of Buckingham, Kingston University and University of Westminster collaborated on the project to run live outside broadcasts and live output as well as interviews and packages from the studio, remaining on air continuously from 10:00pm to 6:00am.
The output has been edited into a series of segments which can be watched at this link.
Twenty students also covered the counts at a range of constituencies in Winchester, Eastleigh (Chris Huhne’s seat); Southampton (two constituencies); Isle of Wight; Devizes; Bethnal Green; Twickenham (Vince Cable’s seat); Battersea; Whitney (David Cameron’s seat); and Aylesbury.
The webcast attracted an audience of 1,500 users.
Additional coverage of the project by Journalism.co.uk can be found at this link.
A new search portal has been launched by hyperlocal news site Fwix allowing users to access real time, map-based view of what’s going on in a specific location.
Fwix Local Trend Search provides news, events information, government data and business reviews, as well as Fourquare and Gowalla check-ins, on a map of a given area. Users can alter the sphere of their chosen location to access coverage from a large or more localised area.
Darian Shirazi, CEO and founder of Fwix, explained to TechCrunch how the site determines an article’s location:
Fwix’s proprietary technology analyzes and indexes nearly 40 million pieces of content to determine and scan for any reference to location within the text of a document.
#followjourn: Kevin Anderson
Who? Freelance journalist and digital strategist
Where? Kevin worked at the BBC for eight years, before being made the Guardian’s first blogs editor in September 2006. He went on to become digital research editor at the Guardian from 2009-2010. He writes on the blog Strange Attractor, and was a speaker at Journalism.co.uk’s June conference, news:rewired – the nouveau niche
Contact? @kevglobal
Just as we like to supply you with fresh and innovative tips every day, we’re recommending journalists to follow online too. They might be from any sector of the industry: please send suggestions (you can nominate yourself) to laura at journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.
On 24 July film-makers will have the opportunity to take part in a cinematic experiment aiming to create the world’s largest feature film.
Entrants to YouTube’s Life in a Day project, which boasts film director Ridley Scott as its executive producer, will have 24 hours to record a snapshot of their life on that date and upload it to the project’s YouTube channel. The best footage will be selected and edited by director Kevin Macdonald for a feature film to premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.
Anyone whose footage is used will be credited as a co-director, and all submissions will feature on the Life in a Day YouTube channel irrespective of whether they make the final cut.
The following instructions to take part are posted by the project:
Film-makers have the chance to win a $25,000 grant in the first annual Vimeo Awards, which will recognise short films in a variety of categories.
The grant will go to the winner of the Vimeo Award, or Grand Prize, who will be selected from the individual category winners. The Vimeo Award winner will receive the grant to create an original piece of work, which will be premiered at the Vimeo Festival and Awards in 2011. It will also feature on the video site’s homepage.
Winning entrants from individual categories will have their work promoted on Vimeo’s homepage and the Vimeo Festival and Award Site.
The deadline for submissions is July 31 and winners will be announced by October 9. Entries cost $20 or $5 for Vimeo Plus paid subscribers.
A two-day festival will be held on 8-9 October in New York to accompany the contest. It will include panels, parties and screenings of the winning entries.
The guidelines for Documentary entries are as follows:
#followjourn: Ian Wylie
Who? Freelance journalist
Where? Until October 2009 Ian was the London editor and TV editor of the Manchester Evening News/MEN Media. His features written for the MEN in 2009 can be found at this link. Ian is also member of the Parliamentary Press Lobby and helped lead MEN Media coverage at Westminster of the MPs’ expenses scandal. He now works as a freelance journalist and keeps a blog: Life of Wylie.
Contact? @ianwylie
Just as we like to supply you with fresh and innovative tips every day, we’re recommending journalists to follow online too. They might be from any sector of the industry: please send suggestions (you can nominate yourself) to laura at journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.