Category Archives: Events

New meet-up group organised to discuss the future of news

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Freelance journalist Adam Westbrook has set-up a new meeting group (online and offline) for UK-based journalists interested in where their industry is headed.

As the UK Future of News Group website explains:

“We’re undergoing a digital revolution. The value of news has disappeared, and with it, the revenues of papers and TV stations around the world. But from all the turmoil new opportunities are emerging, if you look in the right places.

“The UK Future of News Group is for anyone interested in the future of journalism. Whether you’re a journalism student, a young journalist or a seasoned professional, the group is a place to openly and positively discuss new ideas.

“We’re not here to talk about why journalism is in trouble, or the death of newspapers, no no no. Save that for the blogs.

“We’re here to actually come up with the ideas which will determine what comes next. That could be a new news start-up, a new idea for aggregating content, or the alternative to Murdoch’s paywall. Who knows.

“You don’t have to have an actual idea to attend a meeting, but we hope eventually someone will come up with the next big thing!

“At the very least we hope it’ll provide a positive, open environment where new ideas can flourish.”

The first group meeting is scheduled for 7 December at a location somewhere in London (revealed to members of the group, who must sign-up online). Journalism.co.uk hopes to be there – especially to talk about our new event news:rewired.

Cardiff students live-tweet PTC New Journalist of the Year Awards

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Journalism.co.uk unfortunately couldn’t make today’s Periodical Training Council’s (PTC) New Journalist of the Year Awards – good luck to all the runners and riders.

Fortunately, a group of Cardiff University students are tweeting the results. Follow the hashtag #ptcnewjournalist2009 or the stream below:

Photographers speak out on protest coverage rights

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Photographers feel they have come under attack ‘from all sides’ when covering demonstrations and public order situations, warned photojournalist and investigative reporter Marc Vallée last weekend.

Vallée, a spokesman for campaign group I’m a Photographer not a Terrorist, suggested that photographers have been affected by the police’s attempts to create a hostile environment for terrorists in such situations.

At the same time photographers also feel that they have been unjustly targeted by protestors, who misunderstand their role.

Photojournalists on the ground are workers, said Vallée, adding that it’s a common law right for photographers to take photographs. Protestors do not have to co-operate with this and can turn away if necessary, he said.

Vallée made his comments during a panel discussion held as part of ‘Signs of Revolt’, an exhibition at the Truman Brewery in Brick Lane to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the massive protests against the World Trade Organisation meeting in Seattle.

But Vallée saved most of his condemnation for the police, suggesting that there were a number of reasons police officials would not want photographers at protests.

The Met and the Home Office issued new guidelines, but these have not filtered down to other groups, such as the TSG [Territorial Support Group], he said.

Damien Gayle is a postgraduate journalism student at City University, London.

#soe09: Audio – Trinity Mirror’s Neil Benson on newspapers as PR agencies

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There was a mixed reaction (as you might expect from a room full of newspaper editors) to Trinity Mirror Regionals’ editorial director Neil Benson’s suggestion yesterday that newspaper groups could make money from running ‘arm’s length PR agencies’.

Journalism.co.uk spoke to Benson at the Society of Editors conference to find out more about the scheme in Northumberland (in which he refers to Brian Aitken, editor of the Journal) and the potential for newspaper groups to work with local authorities:

Below he explains why newspapers running PR agencies in-house could work:

#soe09: Guardian’s Paul Lewis wins ‘Rat up a drainpipe’ Award

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Guardian journalist Paul Lewis was last night awarded the ‘Rat up a drainpipe’ or Bevins Prize for investigative journalism.

Lewis won the accolade for his investigation into the death of newspaper vendor Ian Tomlinson at this year’s G20 protests in London.

Lewis was shortlisted for the Paul Foot award last month for the same investigation.

#soe09: Google doesn’t need newspapers – but do newspapers need it?

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Google doesn’t need newspapers – it’s official; but its users do, Matt Brittin, UK director of Google, told the Society of Editors conference today.

Some key points from Brittin:

  • “Taking content out of Google news is a political statement (…) but experimentation is good.”
  • “One of the reasons we’re working with a lot of publishers is because we passionately believe that the internet needs to have quality content on it.”
  • “Does Google need news content to survive in this year? No (…) Economically it’s not a big part of how we generate revenue, but the value of the internet to consumers is all about finding great content online.”
  • “We’re a technology company and we’ll try and contribute technology that helps [e.g. Fast Flip, micropayment system] (…) We’re absolutely not [a newspaper company].”

The audio below features Times editor James Harding (first), Evening Standard editor Geordie Greig, and The National editorial director Martin Newland with their opinions on removing content from Google News:

#soe09: Hyperlocal, mobile and experimentation for newspapers, say Brittin and Newland

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“We must try any way possible to keep what we do alive so that in the end when the advertisers come back for quality we’re still here,” Martin Newland, editorial director of Abu Dhabi paper The National, told the Society of Editors conference today.

Newland said state subsidy, paid-for content online and new forms of advertising should all be considered – but in a vein of experimentation.

“Is there a model in what you are doing?” asked fellow panellist and Evening Standard editor, Geordie Greig.

“No,” said Newland, who had earlier apologised for ‘moving East’ when his industry in the UK descended into crisis. “But we’re experimenting.”

As such The National is developing a website with verticals, on of which will be news, and all of which can be separately branded and advertised around, Newland said. This is to cater to the more promiscuous habits of online news consumers and serve different people’s different tastes, he added.

Mobile
Newland’s plea for experimentation was subtly back by fellow panellist Matt Brittin, UK director of Google, who stressed the potential of mobile for newspaper publishers and local media.

“What could be most useful to the UK newspaper industry is the mobile internet (…) We’re seeing the beginning of people paying for news applications and using micropayments,” he said.

The geotagging capabilities of mobile also provides ‘a major opportunity for local media’ in particular for serving up targeted ads and building relationships with local businesses, he added.

“We will see subscription-based content, micropayments primarily mobile-based, and subscriptions through mobile (…) But there will also be a significant proportion of content remaining free.”

Hyperlocal
Newland also stressed the importance of hyperlocal as a future model for regional newspapers: “Going down, down, down is the way to go.”

“If you are in the local market, going even more local is probably the way to go (…) Could advertising that has fled be brought back with hyperlocal sites?” he asked, citing the potential for reverse publication of hyperlocal online content in a print product, which could carry advertising.

Times editor James Harding, who spoke to the conference about the paper’s plans to charge for content online, added his own support for hyperlocal or ultra-local news coverage by the local press.

#soe09: Online newspaper business models – where else is the money?

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Where are newspaper websites making money and where are the new opportunities? These are the questions asked by Francois Nel, director of the journalism leaders programme at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN), in a study, the highlights of which he presented to the Society of Editors conference today in the slides below:

View more presentations from Francois Nel.

#soe09: Winners announced for NCTJ’s excellence awards

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The winners of the National Council for the Training of Journalists’ (NCTJ) awards for excellence in journalism were announced today at the Society of Editors annual conference.

The prizes went to:

News Journalism
Student:    Tim Fletcher, City of Wolverhampton College
Trainee:    Arron Hendy, Dorset Echo

Sports Journalism
Student:    George Scott, News Associates, London
Trainee:    David Jordan, Grimsby Telegraph

Top Scoop
Student:    Juliet Conway, Brighton Journalist Works (winner)
Student:    Jessica Shankleman, Cardiff University (highly commended)

Features of the year
Student:    Harriet Webster, NoSWeat Journalism Training
Trainee:    Emily Koch, Bristol Evening Post

Images of the year
Student:    Bethany Clarke, The Sheffield College, Norton
Trainee:    Leah McLaren, Derby Telegraph

Awards for the best performance in examinations leading to the NCTJ Preliminary Certificate in Newspaper Journalism, NCE for Reporters and NCE for photographers were also presented:

NCTJ Student Journalist of the Year: Mary Hamilton, Press Association Training

NCTJ Photographer of the Year: Hannah Kinver, South Wales Evening Post

NCTJ Reporter of the Year: Victoria Carr, Wetherby News

#soe09: Live coverage online – opportunities for audience and money?

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The benefits of using social media sites, predominantly Twitter, to cover live news events, newsgather and let the readers in were stressed by speakers from Sky News, Trinity Mirror, NWN Media and Northcliffe in a session at the Society of Editors conference today.

Sky’s social media correspondent (once titled ‘Twitter correspondent’) Ruth Barnett explained what had been learned since her role was created:

“We’d be very foolish as journalists not to be part of this interaction (…) I use it as a newswire – not one as valuable verifiable and reliable as PA, but as a good source of leads, eye witnesses and trends.

“If we can tweet our own breaking news it allows us to be proud of it, own it and direct traffic back to us.”

But there’s more to come: Trinity Mirror multimedia head David Higgerson emphasised the need to work with the audience to improve the use of tools such as CoveritLive.

“The big lesson that we need to learn is that we need to involve the audience more. If people want more passive coverage we’ve got the BBC, which is not to be critical of the BBC, but it can be hard to interact with it,” said Higgerson.

There needs to be experiments with livestreaming video into liveblogs, he added, and newspapers should start looking at the potential of  tools like Audioboo. There’s no reason Audioboo, for example, couldn’t be used for more in-depth reporting, such as livecasting election results, he explained.

But the biggest challenge is finding a way to work with the ‘army of citizen journalists’:

“We need to go to them and our reporters need to be building relationships with them. If we can engage with them on local terms we can create a potent force for live news.”

But it was Hull Daily Mail editor John Meehan who suggested that liveblogging and live-tweeting could be a revenue opportunity for news groups:

“If paid content on the web is part of our salvation we have an obligation to develop services that go far beyond news and traditional reporting (…) It used to be paid-for live coverage in print (…) Covering it live on the web, real-time and interactive, may be one of the keys to earning revenue from content published online,” said Meehan, who used the Mail’s coverage of transfer deadline day in September as an example (500 posts on CoveritLive by journalists; 6,200 comments received on all-day liveblog).

“We’ve got no plans to make them pay for it, but I think we as an industry should have an eye on where we can make money from. If that many people are going to spend that much time on a service, they really value that service (…) Mainstream news is a commodity; we need to find the things that aren’t commoditised.”