LostRemote reports that ABC News has rolled out a new iPad app which offers users video books “that combine text, photos and video from the network’s archives”.
The ABC Video Bookstore app (iTunes), which is free, launched with two $7.99 books for sale: A Modern Fairy Tale (previewing the royal wedding) and The Amanda Knox Story.
The app which launched last week can be found here.
The Guardian reports MP John Hemming is launching an inquiry into “excessive and possibly unlawful court secrecy” in relation to the use of ‘hyperinjunctions’.
His inquiry follows a case in the High Court last week and the use of orders which could allegedly mean journalists could face prison for asking questions about the case.
“This goes a step further than preventing people speaking out against injustice,” said Hemming, the Liberal Democrat MP for Birmingham Yardley and a longtime campaigner against secrecy.
“It has the effect of preventing journalists from speaking to people subject to this injunction without a risk of the journalist going to jail. That is a recipe for hiding miscarriages of justice.”
The Press Association has signed “a landmark deal” with the Associated Press to distribute PA’s UK video news footage through the US wire’s archive.
Under the new agreement AP’s archive customers will be able to access more than 18,000 UK videos, with new content from PA added on a daily basis.
A release from both parties says the deal will help the PA extend the reach of its footage beyond the UK and “significantly bolster the UK news element of AP’s video offering”.
It added the stories supplied to AP have been “specifically designed as ‘archive-friendly’ compilations of the rushes from which the story was created”.
Fully shortlisted, the stories provide customers with longer sequences and greater depth than the tightly edited packages offered by other suppliers.
Mashable’s community manager and social media strategist Vadim Lavrusik is to take up Facebook’s new role of journalist program manager.
Journalism.co.uk reported in February that Facebook had created the role in its marketing team in order to bring in an experienced journalist to help news organisations understand how the social network can be used as a reporting and distribution tool.
Announcing his new role on his Facebook page Lavrusik said he will be “leading the charge” to build programs that help journalists utilise Facebook in their reporting.
This includes the likes of the recently launched Journalists on Facebook Page and Facebook Journalism Meetups program, as well as resources for journalism educators, but also taking insightful feedback to product on how Facebook can be improved for journalism.
In a release today the Department for Culture, Media and Sport announced ministers have confirmed the UK will adopt an amended framework on electronic communications “exactly as set out by the EU”, which will include the need for website owners to get the user’s permission before a cookie – a text file used to store information such as user preferences – can be used.
Today’s announcement follows a consultation where concerns were raised about the impact of changes to the use of cookies.
To address these concerns, the Government has said it will work with browser manufacturers to see if browser setting can be enhanced to meet the requirements of the revised directive.
The updated directives must be implemented by 25 May, the release added, and the Information Commissioner’s Office will publish further guidance on the use of cookies.
Last month Information Commissioner Christopher Graham said the new law will be a challenge but “will have positive benefits” by offering more choice and control over what information businesses and other organisations can store on and access from consumers’ own computers.
But he added that the limited time remaining until the directive becomes European law was causing concern.
Writing on the BBC College of Journalism blog, Judith Townend says sometimes journalists cry ‘super injunction’ when they mean privacy injunction.
A super injunction is one whose very existence cannot be reported – as in the cases involving Trafigura (2009) and Terry (2010).
As media lawyer Mark Thompson explained in a footnote on the Inforrm media law blog last year: “The ‘super injunction’ part of the order is the restraint on publication of the existence of the proceeding.”
Townend also explains the recent case of ZAM v CFW, despite media reports to the contrary, did not involve a super injunction.
Contrary to what you might expect, it appears that there are very few privacy injunctions against the media directly.
The public judgments suggest that the injunctions are often against blackmailers, and it is rarely contended that there is a public interest in the publication of the information.
Townend also has a compiled a list of the number of privacy injunctions here on the Inforrm’s Blog.
There appear to have been 11 privacy injunction hearings in the first three months of 2011, seven of which resulted in ‘public’ – although not always ‘published’ – judgments and two in which judgment is awaited.
She goes on to say there is a need for more information.
So where does all that leave us? While journalists should continue to raise questions about ‘super injunctions’ and the use of anonymous injunctions restricting the media’s ability to report court proceedings, there is a more pressing need for raw information direct from the courts.
Mashable says Twitter and Facebook are promoting quality journalism.
A recent survey of tweets with links to stories in the iPad-only newspaper the Daily demonstrated people are more likely to tweet hard news than softer stories, the article says.
The incentive to share quality content is simple: a person may be more likely to read gossip, but they may share a news piece to shape their followers’ perception of them.
They may even view it as a public service. I tend to believe it’s usually the former rather than the more altruistic latter.
As a result, news organizations producing quality journalism are being rewarded with accelerated growth in social referral traffic — in some cases, growing at a much faster pace than search referrals.
More notably, social media is enabling the citizenry to be active participants in producing journalism by giving them platforms to publish to the social audience.
This has made journalism more efficient and, in many ways, enhanced the quality of storytelling.
The post goes on to demonstrate how social media could provide a more engaged reader.
In a recent analysis of Mashable’s social and traffic data, I found that Facebook and Twitter visitors spent 29 per cent more time on Mashable.com and viewed 20 per cent more pages than visitors arriving via search engines. This may suggest a more engaged or exploratory reader, at least in terms of how much time they spend reading the content.
The article also predicts how Google’s +1, which adds a social recommendation layer to Google searches, and how +1 could influence the stories people share by ‘likes’ and tweets.
Though +1 isn’t a social network, it is certainly a big step toward building one. But perhaps most important is its implications for quality. The number of +1s on a story link affects its placement in search results.
Ian Burrell, the Independent’s media editor, provides further insight into the close relationship between Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, both former News of the World editors and both caught up in the ongoing phone-hacking affair.
He discusses Brooks’ 2003 admission to MPs that the paper had illegally paid police officers for information. Eight years on and this week Brooks has denied knowledge of specific payments.
I was there that day in March 2003 and saw Brooks (then Rebekah Wade) arrive in apparent high spirits, joking with Coulson and Piers Morgan, editor of the rival Daily Mirror but an old friend. All three had sat in the editor’s chair at the News of the World. All three would tell MPs that press regulation was working just fine. Morgan said tabloid reporters had not been so well behaved in 15 years; Brooks that the PCC had “changed the culture in every newsroom in the land”.
Then she admitted paying the police. Ian Hargreaves, a former editor of the Financial Times, later commented that she had “clip-clopped into a big hole in the ground”. Her error seemed borne of a lack of experience in the political arena and intoxication with the power of the tabloid press in which she had spent her working life (she tried to put MP Chris Bryant in his place by reminding him she had 10 million readers).
Burrell then brings us up-to-date, following recent arrests and News International’s apology.
With two more of Coulson’s senior staff being arrested by police and one of them sacked by NI, his previous claim to have been let down by a single rogue reporter is thoroughly discredited.
MPs, including Bryant, are furious that, eight years on, they still haven’t been told the truth about tabloid intrusion. The Operation Weeting team, investigating phone hacking, wants to speak to Brooks about NI’s past behaviour. Those inseparable pals, Rebekah and Andy, both remain in the gun sights – and this time neither seems capable of pulling the other out of the line of fire.
Mashable has taken a look at three paywalled sites: the Dallas Morning News, the Economist and the Honolulu Civil Beat.
It has talked to community editors on the titles about how they promote stories via social media without incurring the wrath of angry readers who follow links to then find they are blocked by a paywall.
Dallas Morning News
Travis Hudson, a Dallas Morning News web editor, manages the site’s Twitter account and Facebook fan page, where he shares both free and premium content.
Like any good social media strategist, transparency is key for Hudson.
He designates whether a link is behind the paywall when posting it on Facebook or Twitter.
The Economist
Social media helps the site reach subscribers, regular readers and new readers by the means most convenient to them, while providing an opportunity to spark discussions around the Economist’s coverage areas.
“Readers who are empowered to participate are likely to spend more time with the site, return more often and become more active advocates of our work,” [Mark Johnson, The Economist’s community editor] says.
With the metered model, Johnson and other web producers can share any articles on social networks without experiencing the backlash of readers’ inability to access the site. Perhaps more importantly, they’re able to bring in more traffic.
“Referrals to the site from social networks, and the pageviews generated by such referrals, have grown almost every month since our social strategy began,” Johnson says. “Nor is this growth slowing. If anything, it’s speeding up.”
Honolulu Civil Beat
Online-only local news site the Honolulu Civil Beat is coming up on the one-year anniversary of its launch.
Though content is and always has been free through email, the site initially gave only partial access to visitors who came through social networks.
Beginning January 2011, however, all visitors can read all articles until they visit regularly enough to be asked to become a member.
“We figured, if they’re reading us that much they would be happy to become a member, and we’d be happy to have them,” says Dan Zelikman, the Civil Beat‘s marketing and community host.
There is no specific threshold number. Rather, the site runs a custom program that asks a reader to subscribe based on how often and how much he or she reads.
“Basically, if you read a couple of times a week, it will take a while before we ask you to register,” Zelikman says.
Reading access aside, the Civil Beat’s subscription model fosters community by only allowing members to comment on articles. In addition, subscribers experience the site without advertising, a perk that’s particularly popular with the community.
The Department of Culture Media and Sport has advised Journalism.co.uk of some inaccuracies in this article by PaidContent. We are awaiting clarification and will update this post shortly.
paidContent reports this week the government has abandoned plans “that would have compelled publishers of content behind ‘paywalls’ to make that content available for free through Britain’s main libraries”.
The report refers to the government’s response to a consultation on plans to allow libraries to use both free and paid-for content in their archives, which appears to have been published this month.
Currently, the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003 grants the British Library, the National Libraries of Scotland and Wales, and the university libraries of Oxford, Cambridge and Trinity College, Dublin, the right to receive and store one printed copy of each printed work available in the UK.
Last September, the government, acting on advice from the Legal Deposit Advisory Panel, which advises government on the Act, proposed extending this provision to offline digital publications and online publications. The libraries would run harvesting algorithms to grab and store the content. But paid-access web systems make this more difficult.
… But, in conclusion this week, it [the government] says: “In the light of the overall responses, and the lack of evidence from both libraries and publishers to support the case that the regulations do not impose a disproportionate burden, we do not believe that it is viable to go forward with the regulations as currently drafted unless we can find evidence of proportionality.”
paidContent said this is “a victory” for news publishers.