Category Archives: Editors’ pick

BetaTales: The digital makeover for journalists

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BetaTales suggests a seven-step plan for print journalists wanting to move into digital media, including getting to grips with social networks, online journalism, photo editing and making short video clips.

Step 3: Learn basic photo editing

In big print organizations specialists often take care of the photo editing. So far, at least.  Hardly any web site editorial organization can afford that luxury. Instead it is expected that all journalists know how to crop and photo shop an image. And I tell you: There are hardly any journalists under the age of 30 that do not know photo shopping today at some level.

Full post on the seven-step plan at this link

TNW Media: Two years after newspaper closes, 67% of its journalists earning less

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TNW Media reports that a former editor of the now-closed Rocky Mountain News in Denver, Colorado surveyed his former journalists to find out what they are now earning. Most of them are earning less than they did when they worked for the paper, which shut two years ago.

146 of the paper’s 194 journalists responded to Temple’s survey which found that 67% of them now earn less than in their old job at the Rocky Mountain News, with 57% saying that they now earn “Much less” than in their old job.

Full story on The Rocky Mountain News at this link

 

 

Jon Slattery: Tower Hamlets scraps press table but fights to save East End Life paper

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Jon Slattery reports that the Tory group leader at Tower Hamlets claims the council has removed the press table from its council chamber and is ‘fighting to the death’ to preserve its controversial newspaper, East End Life.

The future of East End Life is currently “under review” and a new code being proposed by Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Eric Pickles would ban local authority newspapers being published more often than four times a year.

Full post on Jon Slattery’s blog at this link.

 

On the Media: Andy Carvin and Twitter’s ‘new kind of journalism’

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NPR’s On The Media show has Andy Carvin discussing how a ‘new kind of journalism’ has been created by social media reports from the Arab world. Carvin has been vetting sources and trying to verify individual tweets from the Middle East and North Africa since the recent uprisings began.

Listen using the embedded player below.

Full post on On The Media at this link

Channel 6 to partner with universities across the UK

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Channel 6 is to team up with Skillset to “explore partnerships and collaborative opportunities” with more than 20 media colleges and universities in the UK, according to reports this week.

The Drum claims that Channel 6, which is reportedly planning on bidding for the new national TV network announced by culture secretary Jeremy Hunt last month, to support local television across the UK, already has plans underway to work with both Sunderland and Cardiff University.

Richard Horwood, chief executive of Channel 6, said universities are “key local partners”.

Over the next few months we will be sitting down with our partner colleges and universities to discuss in detail how we can collaborate most effectively. We’ll be looking at issues like access to studios, production, and post-production facilities, providing internships for undergraduates and jobs for graduates, maybe even setting up our local affiliates on campus. Depending on the business model we agree, our partner universities could participate directly in the profitability of the local affiliate.

Libya could relax ban on foreign journalists on Friday

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Libya is reportedly planning to allow some Western journalists to report from the capital, Tripoli, tomorrow, but has warned those who have already entered without proper government accreditation that they face immediate arrest and will be considered al-Qaeda collaborators.

Foreign media have been trying to gain access for the past week to cover the violent protests that have gripped the country, as protestors call for the end of Colonel Gaddafi’s 42-year rule.

Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya have been relying on user-generated content sent in from around the country to keep on top of the story. The Independent’s Robert Fisk managed to file a report from Tripoli following a brief visit there.

Gaddafi’s son said in an interview with Libyan state television that some journalists would be allowed into the capital Tripoli on Friday. The Washington Post says Libya will do this “so [journalists] can corroborate the government’s claim that the country remains under Gaddafi’s control”.

According to the US state department, Libyan officials say they will grant access to CNN, BBC Arabic and Al-Arabiya.

It said, however, that any reporters who have entered without government permission to cover the violent unrest sweeping the country risked “immediate arrest on the full range of possible immigration charges” and considered al-Qaeda “collaborators”.

The warning to news organisations from the US state department says: “Be advised, entering Libya to report on the events unfolding there is additionally hazardous with the government labeling unauthorized media as terrorist collaborators and claiming they will be arrested if caught.”

The government appears to have lost control of parts of eastern Libya, including the second biggest city Benghazi. As a result, some reporters have managed to get into the country by crossing the border from Egypt.

The Daily Mail says crowds in Benghazi “cheered as international journalists drove through the city – and the only shooting that could be heard was celebratory gunfire”.

CNN’s Ben Wedeman tweeted from the city yesterday: “As first western TV crew to make it to Benghazi we were greeted like liberators, pelted with candy, cheers and thanks. Very humbling.”

The Guardian’s Martin Chulov is there and has been posting updates on Audioboo. ITV News also has a team in the east of the country.

‘Bloggable’ follows ‘paywall’ and ‘tweetup’ into OED

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Is this story bloggable? A raft of new online words have been added to the latest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, including “bloggable” (a suitable topic for blogging) and “clickjacking” (concealing hyperlinks to send web users somewhere unexpected).

“Cybersecurity” also gets a mention for the first time, as does “trackpad” and “scareware”.

Gabby Fletcher, a spokeswoman for Oxford Dictionaries Online, told the Telegraph: “The rapid development of technology creates multiple new products, services, and functionalities, which all need new terms to describe them.

“We are also seeing the very fast circulation of new vocabulary on a global basis, with the expansion of social media.”

The Oxford dictionary recognised the words “paywall”, “tweetup” and “microblogging” last August.

Alan Rusbridger: The Guardian, the Scott Trust, and the thorny issue of tax

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Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger has penned a long piece for the Inside Guardian.co.uk blog about the newspaper’s tax status and its relationship with funding bodies the Scott Trust and Guardian Media Group.

It makes for interesting reading for anyone curious about the tax issues facing large, loss-making media organisations, or the affiliate revenue streams that keep them running, or the measures in place for making sure editorial content is not unduly influenced by the business dealings that provide for it.

Individual columnists – and even leader writers – may well disagree with some aspects of how the parent company has run itself over the years. Commercial colleagues may likewise fundamentally disagree with the views of the paper and its writers. The point of the trust is to allow each to operate independently. It seems an odd argument that individual Guardian journalists, who have no part in business decisions, should refrain from covering tax avoidance, or should feel inhibited in expressing their views.

Full post on Guardian.co.uk at this link.

Guardian: Greg Dyke’s LTN group to bid for national TV network

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The Guardian reports this morning that the Local Television Network, which is headed by former BBC director general Greg Dyke, is planning on bidding for a new national TV network announced by culture secretary Jeremy Hunt last month.

Dyke’s group, which is yet to be incorporated, agreed at a meeting on Monday to put in a formal expression of interest in running the national channel to Hunt, who is asking for submissions by Tuesday, 1 March. LTN joins Richard Horwood’s Channel 6 in the bidding for the national TV channel.

The new channel forms part of the government’s review of media and communications, unveiled by Hunt at the Oxford Media Convention. The initial schemes will be focused on 10 to 20 local TV services, operating by 2015 with the first local services licensed from 2012.

Telegraph web rumours: Is metered charging the best way forward?

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Speculation that Telegraph Media Group is planning to start charging for some of its online content has been brought up again today by Marketing magazine.

The magazine’s report claims that the publisher is talking to digital agencies about overhauling Telegraph.co.uk and is considering a hybrid part-paid, part-free model from September.

Officially, TMG says it is keeping its options open, issuing a statement that “absolutely no decisions have been made on the introduction of a paid-content model. Like all publishers, TMG continually evaluates the developments in the digital sector”.

The metered approach, if adopted, means readers could access a small number of articles for free before being prompted to register, and could share links on social media.

Tech news site the Register, in its own inimitable style, discusses the issue in a post headlined: “Telegraph mulls cash alternative to suicide”.

“The Telegraph, like other papers, has spent a small fortune in building up a web audience of 31 million, chasing web fads with the dignity of a dad at a disco,” it says.

“But how fashions change. Losing most of the 31 million casuals who make up the Telegraph’s web audience may not be such a disadvantage if it can extract some value from the loyalists.

“Ad agencies naturally love qualified upmarket readers, and with the web, they’ve never been sure they’ve been getting them.”

Gordon Macmillan, writing on Haymarket’s social media blog The Wall, says the metered approach is winning the most favour with publisher so far, with the Daily Mirror apparently tipped to be considering a similar method.

“It is the one that makes most sense in how it relates to the rest of the web – containing within, as it does, a degree of openness that allows the essential social media seeding and sharing of content. That is essential.

He predicts that Mail Online – which is already the biggest UK newspaper website with a record-breaking 54 million unique users – will be the big winner if the Telegraph starts to charge.

The Guardian’s media editor Dan Sabbagh says the proposed model is “cautious” – and not so much a paywall as “a pay fence, sitting somewhere in the distance at the end of a large field.”

He writes: “True Telegraph fans will be discovered through the system, and the exercise might help bring some loyal readers into a new model of payment.”