Category Archives: Multimedia

Flip video cameras to be discontinued

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Multimedia journalists’ favourite the Flip video camera is to be discontinued.

In a release sent out today, Cisco, which bought out the mini video camera with built-in USB two years ago, said it is to shut down its Flip business.

Cisco said it will “support current FlipShare customers and partners with a transition plan”.

Launched in May 2007, the Flip had sold a million digital camcorders in the US by the following year and was becoming increasingly popular in the UK.

In a release in 2008, Cisco reported the Flip captured 14 per cent of the total video camera market and was worth more than £340 million.

The Atlantic: The hackers who keep the Washington Post running

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The Atlantic has a feature explaining how, and why, developers create a variety of news apps at Washington Post. The article includes details of this tool that was designed to allow WashingtonPost.com visitors to read tweets written in Russian following an explosion at Moscow airport in January, plus several other examples of creating apps for planned events and for breaking news.

With dozens of stories appearing in the Washington Post every day and only so many web developers, there’s only so many ideas the team can deploy. Deciding which ideas are acted upon comes down to what [senior web developer Dan] Drinkard described as ‘level of effort versus perceived value and impact’. His job is to balance long term projects that center around a news event they know is coming – a major debate or election, for instance – with these short one-offs. ‘It’s sort of split three ways,’ he explained. ‘There’s the big stuff, initiatives that you know you’re going to spend the next six months working on. There’s the little stuff that you spend one or two months on, or even a matter of weeks, and there’s the little stuff that comes up every day so you can help unstick something.’

Some of these projects include an interactive map allowing readers to follow the movement of Middle East protests, a Google Maps tool to allow Marine Corps Marathon attendees to geo-tag their photos, and QR codes in the print edition of the paper that aim to drive readers to further coverage online.

[Deputy editor Cory] Haik said that not every interactive item the Post launches has news value – some, like the Charlie Sheen quote randomizer, are mainly for fun. When the Washington Post ran a front-page photo of a shooting of the next Transformers installment, it invited readers to submit their own Photoshop version of the image. While I’m sure a serious foreign policy enthusiast would enjoy a Twitter aggregation of a Pakistani governor’s tweets, sometimes you have to feed your Reddit readers with some sad Keanu Reeves.

The Atlantic’s full post is at this link.

NYTimes.com: Video of four journalists held in Libya

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The four New York Times journalists freed after being held for six days in Libya earlier this month, reflect on their time in captivity in a video on NYTimes.com.

Following their release they spoke of the ‘days of brutality’ they faced while being detained.

British born foreign correspondent Stephen Farrell; photographer Lynsey Addario, who has also been detained and held at gunpoint in Iraq, photographer Tyler Hicks and Beirut bureau chief Anthony Shadid describe how they were punched, kicked and groped, and driven for eight hours to “the heart of Colonel Gaddafi’s regime”, described by Farrell as “a very rare insight for western journalists”.

Lord Chief Justice backs use of technology in court reporting

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The Lord Chief Justice has said that he supports the use of technology in court reporting.

“My fervent hope is that the advance of new technology will make it easier for the media to be ‘present’ in court, and that the present trend for fewer and fewer reporters in every court will come to an end,” Lord Judge said in a speech entitled ‘the judiciary and the media’, delivered in Jerusalem on Monday.

“It is now possible, as you know, for a contemporaneous report of what is being said to be put up on a television screen as the words are spoken, or more realistically, three or four seconds after they have been spoken,” he added in discussing the use of Twitter and live text in court reporting, which is currently under consultation.

“Whatever the result of the consultation, and whatever guidance is promulgated after its conclusion, I have no doubt that it will have to be re-visited, and re-visited again,” Lord Judge said.

Editors and judges should also have a working relationship, Lord Judge argued, “so that if for example it appears that a judge in his sentencing remarks has said something outrageous or absurd, at least before this goes into print, it can be checked that he has indeed said that which was attributed to him, or that if he did, there was a context which explains it.

“A record of what the judge actually said should be made available. In that way what might be a misguided headline is avoided. On the other hand, if the judge did indeed utter a remark which, whatever the context, was absurd or stupid or revealing a prejudice, why then, it should be reported, and criticised for absurdity, stupidity or prejudice.”

Japan quake sends record audiences to broadcast and online news

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The unravelling disaster in Japan has seen record online traffic and a hike in TV audiences.

A spokesman for BBC News told Journalism.co.uk that there were 15.9 million unique users on the site last Friday (11 February), an all-time record – beating the previous best, election results day, which saw 11.4 million unique users.

There were 9.5 million page impressions for the main story, and 6.1 million for the live text page.

And this very visual story saw record video views too. The BBC News site had more than six million hits on its live video stream on Friday and seven million unique users of video, compared to a previous high of 2.7 million, for video views on the day of the general election.

The BBC News website also had a record weekend in terms of web traffic, with 10 million unique users on Saturday, and nearly eight million on Sunday.

BBC News unique users on the day of the Japan earthquake (Mar11) Many Eyes

CNN is also reporting a large increase in traffic. In a release, CNN Digital said between Friday and Sunday, CNN.com had 264 million global page views and 87 million global video streams.

The network said more CNN.com video was watched in those three days than during the previous 30 days.

Sky News said by 4.30pm on Friday, page impressions had more than doubled – to nearly five million – and unique users had also doubled.

Channel 4 has told Journalism.co.uk that it had trebled its usual web traffic on Sunday.

Bar graph of UK TV ratings after the earthquake in Japan Many EyesTV News

Bloomberg Television claims to be the first cable news network to report the quake, six minutes after the record tremor.

All the TV news providers we have spoken to have reported above average ratings for the subsequent days. On Friday, Sky News had one of its 10 largest audience days ever, with only the Iraq war having a higher daily reach. The BBC had an audience of almost six million to its 10pm news programme on BBC 1 on Sunday; ITV had almost five million viewers to a special report on Friday night while Channel 4 News had 1.5 million viewers on Saturday.

The BBC told Journalism.co.uk it had 5.7 million viewers to Friday’s 6pm news on BBC 1 and 5.3 million viewers to the 10pm bulletin when average ratings are 4.3 million and 4.8 million respectively. ITV News had 4.6 million viewers of its 6.30pm news programme on Friday, a 700,000 increase on its average audience of 3.9 million and an audience of 2.9 million for Friday’s News at Ten, up from an average of 2.5 million viewers. Channel 4 News said that its special report on Friday night had 1.3 million viewers, rising to 1.5 million on Saturday.

Social Media

And of course social media is rife with mentions of ‘quake’, ‘tsunami’ and ‘nuclear’.

In the hour that followed the quake on Friday, Tweet-o-Meter reported 1,200 tweets a minute coming out of Japan. And at the time of writing (Wednesday lunchtime), tweets from Tokyo are again peaking the Tweet-o-Meter scale at 1,200 a minute. In a release, CNN has reported that its breaking news account on Twitter acquired followers at a rate of 10 times greater than average and now totals more than four million followers.

Facebook users were also discussing and sharing first hand knowledge of the quake. BBC News created this map based on mentions of key words in status updates.

And, of course, people have been flocking to see user generated and videos from the news channels on YouTube. This dramatic footage from Russia Today has clocked up more than 10 million hits. Meanwhile, Channel 4 has had 200,000 views on this video of Krishnan Guru-Murthy with before and after tsunami shots and ITN Productions is reporting record views of the ITN News Channel on YouTube.

Key World Editors Forum board members create new Global Editors Network

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Prominent board members of the World Editors Forum (WEF) have resigned their posts and re-grouped to form a new international network for editors from all mediums in response to the rapid acceleration of media convergence.

The Global Editors Network (GEN) will be headed by former WEF president Xavier Vidal-Folch, deputy director of the Spanish daily newspaper El Pais and former vice-president Harald Stanghelle, political editor of the Norway’s largest newspaper, Aftenposten. Both men, who will remain on the WEF board, will hold the same positions as they previously held in the newly-formed GEN, which is to be officially launched on 23 March 2011.

Vidal-Folch and Stanghelle both resigned their posts from the WEF board on 14 February 2011, according to WEF’s website. The same page shows that Roman Gallo, the founder of now defunct hyperlocal newspaper project the Naše Adresa in the Czech Republic, resigned on the same day. And, earlier this month, WEF director Bertrand Pecquerie also stepped down.

A full list of the GEN Board members and founding members will be released on launch, according to its website.

A source told Journalism.co.uk that the aim of the new organisation is to gather editors from all platforms (print, broadcast, online, mobile and wire services) and to create an “Editors’ Lab” for new editorial services and new applications.

GEN has published its full manifesto online, reproduced in part below:

We, the editors-in-chief and senior news executives founding the Global Editors Network (GEN), are convinced that news producers and newsrooms across all platforms – print, broadcast, online, mobile and wire services – face comparable challenges.
Because digitalization and broadband access accelerate media convergence, we are members of the same community, all driven by a journalistic imperative and a common goal: Content and Engagement First!

As we are entering a new era for content across multiple platforms, we will:

  • break the barriers between editors of old and new media, print and digital, general interest and specialized publications, free and paid business models, profit and non-profit organisations, international and local media outlets;
  • understand the new news ecosystem based on immediacy, information overload and disintermediation: media are no longer middlemen and users blur the lines between production and consumption in a new world of prosumption;
  • define a vision for the future of journalism, cross-media strategies, attention and audience analysis, newsroom management, dynamics of the news business and ethical values. Lack of vision is the worst that can happen to our community;
  • welcome new players within the newsroom’s collective intelligence: engineers, developers, visual designers, app-makers, community managers, curators, aggregators, researchers and other practitioners of the link economy who enrich our vision;
  • enhance the quality of journalism in its different dimensions: newsgathering, news curation, storytelling, fact and data checking, designing, moderating and sharing, regardless of the platform, browser or application used;
  • continue experimentation and innovation. We consider that mobility, users’ engagement, personalisation, location-based news, data-driven journalism and rich media are key to the future of journalism;
  • encourage mutualisation and co-operation between media. Among us, we are not competitors, but… potential partners. Resulting in the emergence of a new culture among senior news executives and new cross-offerings for consumers;
  • convince media owners that slashes in editorial expenses are no longer a good answer for media outlets because – even for digital natives – content and engagement will make the difference, not only the technology;
  • stop acting like victims of disruptive technologies or lack of citizenship. We are optimistic about the new digital tools and the new channels of distribution offered to us as news producers;
  • reinforce the pillars of credibility of our profession based on context, accuracy, relevance, reliability, loyalty to the audience, effectiveness and connectedness, as citizens’ distrust is the main threat for our civil societies.

Interested parties are invited to contribute to the manifesto here. You can also follow GEN on Twitter @EditorsNet.

The World Association of Newspapers (WAN), the parent organisation to WEF, merged with IFRA, the worldwide news research and services organisation, in June 2010.

Journalisted Weekly: Hosni Mubarak, Fernando Torres, and Cyclone Yasi

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Journalisted is an independent, not-for-profit website built to make it easier for you, the public, to find out more about journalists and what they write about.

It is run by the Media Standards Trust, a registered charity set up to foster high standards in news on behalf of the public, and funded by donations from charitable foundations.

Each week Journalisted produces a summary of the most covered news stories, most active journalists and those topics falling off the news agenda, using its database of UK journalists and news sources.

for the week ending Sunday 6 February

  • Ongoing popular protests in Egypt covered across press
  • Football (Association and American) hogs the back pages
  • Massive Afghan bank fraud and China-Zimbabwe investment hardly covered

Covered lots

  • Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, refusing to step down immediately but entering negotiations with opposition groups, 743 articles
  • Footballer Fernando Torres, making his Chelsea FC debut against former club Liverpool, 152 articles
  • The Super Bowl, in which the Green Bay Packers beat the Pittsburgh Steelers 31-25, 115 articles
  • Cyclone Yasi hitting the already flood stricken coast of Queensland, 114 articles

Covered little

Political ups and downs (top ten by number of articles)

Celebrity vs serious

Who wrote a lot about…’Omar Suleiman’

Richard Spencer – 10 articles (Telegraph), James Hider – 7 articles (The Times), Ian Black – 7 articles (The Guardian), Tom Chivers – 6 articles (Telegraph), Colin Freeman – 6 articles (Telegraph)

Long form journalism

More from the Media Standards Trust

News about the joint Media Standards Trust/Cardiff University local news project, including an ITV Wales programme, available on our website

The Media Standards Trust’s unofficial database of PCC complaints is available for browsing at www.complaints.pccwatch.co.uk

For the latest instalment of Tobias Grubbe, journalisted’s 18th century jobbing journalist, go to journalisted.com/tobias-grubbe

Poynter: Online video proves big traffic generator for Miami Herald

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The Miami Herald site has seen a 25 per cent increase in visitors as a direct result of using video – making movies the second biggest driver behind its stories.

And it claims part of its success is down to getting rid of reporters and replacing them with videographers.

Visual journalist Chuck Fadely, interviewed on Poynter.org, says having a designated video team frees up reporters to get on with writing and improves the quality of the video output:

Three or four years ago we were training reporters, but we discovered it was like teaching a pig to sing; it annoys the pig and frustrates the teacher. Back then we had a couple of reporters who got it. Since the staff reductions they don’t have time to work on videos, and the quality level was lower, so we’ve basically given up on reporter-produced videos.

While many news sites dismissed video as ineffectual and expensive, the Herald decided to use it to consolidate popular subject areas, increase the time people spent on the site and engage them in new ways.

After showing video for six years it found that sport and breaking news attracted the most viewings, so it concentrated on these areas rather than experimenting. It also started partnering with TV stations to expand its brand.

See the full story on Poynter at this link.

Follow Beet.TV’s Online Video Journalism Summit

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Beet.TV will be live streaming its Online Video Journalism Summit from the Washington Post today.

The event kicks off at 9am local time and will include a chat with the Post’s political blogger Chris ‘The Fix’ Cillizza and panel discussions about the opportunities in online video news.

You can read more about the event here, follow the Twitter hashtag #beetmeet and watch the live stream on Beet.TV’s Livestream channel.