Who? Ruud Elmendorp
Where? Ruud is a freelance video journalist based in Africa
Twitter? @ruudelmendorp
Just as we like to supply you with fresh and innovative tips, we are recommending journalists to follow online too. Recommended journalists can be from any sector of the industry: please send suggestions (you can nominate yourself) to rachel at journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.
1. Orwell Prize will not pursue Hari over failure to return money
2. ITV apologises after video game footage used in documentary
3. Five tips from a radio journalist who reports solely from an iPhone and iPad
4. BBC News wins top online journalism award
5. Hearsay, a non-Facebook way of social news sharing
6. Tweet, Like and Google +1 buttons: lessons in privacy
7. Frost/Nixon voted best broadcast interview of all time
8. BBC America scoops Emmy for North Korea report
9. Labour criticised over call for journalists to be ‘struck off’
Google News UK has had a makeover. The site today (Friday, 30 September) launched a new Editors’ Picks feature, enabling publishers to highlight content within Google News; and several new features, including increased personalisation of the site.
Editors’ Picks is a new section of the Google News homepage, displaying original content that publishers have selected as highlights from their publications.
Google told Journalism.co.uk that publishers can select long-form investigative features, photo slideshows, interactive maps, charts or other content to engage readers of online news.
The Telegraph, the Guardian, BBC News, Channel 4 News, Metro, the Daily Mirror, and the Independent already have content available, and the product is available for publishers at this link, (which Journalism.co.uk has today used to apply to be included in Editors’ Picks).
Users can use the slider feature to increase or decrease the amount of news they receive from a particular outlet.
In a release, Madhav Chinnappa, Google’s head of news partnerships in Europe said:
We’ve been working with partners for some time now to create innovative new ways for them to engage readers of news online. Editors’ Picks gives publishers a place to bring together the best of traditional and digital journalism; promoting long-form stories and experimenting with new formats.
Revelations about the extent of the phone-hacking scandal have fuelled discussion about the state of self-regulation and possible reform. Martin Moore, director of the Media Standards Trust, has created a thought-provoking list of seven possible ways in which the system might be reformed, from scrapping regulation altogether to full statutory regulation. Moore has weighed up some of the pros and cons of each idea and intends for them to serve as a framework for discussion of the issue.
The list:
1. Abolish the PCC, without setting up a replacement
2. Reform the existing PCC
3. Create an independent regulator
4. Extend a watered down Ofcom to cover all major media organisations
5. Create a professional body for journalists
6. Withdraw all media regulation, but reform, extend, reduce and clarify existing media law
7. Create a new statutory regulator for all media
See Moore’s post on the MST website for his introduction and the full reasoning behind each idea.
Magazine publisher Future has said it is “considering a wider range of strategic options” for its US division in light of “challenging” conditions for the business.
In pre-close trading update the publisher said its position in the US “is significantly more challenging” than the UK. In July Future announced plans to “accelerate the transition of Future US into a primarily digital business”.
But this week, in a report preceding full-year earnings in November, the group said trading conditions in the US “reflecting ongoing weakness and decreasing visibility at newsstand” means the board is now considering a wider range of strategic options. PaidContent reports that the language used suggests the company “now may look to sell its business there”.
The publisher also confirmed that 10 per cent of its workforce has been cut in the UK and worldwide, which equals around 100 jobs, as part of its restructure to focus on digital and print efficiencies.
The company also claims in the latest report that the trends identified in its Interim Management Statement, published in July, have continued.
Revenues for the twelve months ending 30 September 2011 are expected to be down 6 per cent on last year, in constant currency. The Board remains comfortable with market expectations of results for 2011, subject only to any period-end adjustment required in relation to US newsstand returns, beyond those already announced and incorporated into fourth quarter estimates.
Bloomberg reported late on Wednesday (28 September) that News Corporation’s iPad-only newspaper the Daily has been averaging around 120,000 readers a week, said to be “less than a quarter of the number the company said it needs to make money”.
The figures came from advertising executive working with the publication.
News Corp., whose Chief Executive Officer Rupert Murdoch personally introduced the publication about eight months ago, may have even fewer paying subscribers since people can read the Daily free for two weeks. The 120,000 figure is for so-called unique weekly visitors, which includes people who pay and those who don’t, said John Nitti, executive vice president of Publicis Groupe SA (PUB)’s media-buying division Zenith Optimedia.
Bloomberg adds that Murdoch had said in February the publication, which was launched in February, would need 500,000 subscribers “to break even”.
If you like the sound of Facebook’s new Open Graph news sharing concept, which allows readers to tell their friends what they are reading, but want to share away from the social network, meet Hearsay, which has today (September 29) launched in public beta.
You can sign up by connecting with Facebook, Twitter or by registering and then start to follow people and news sources, such as the Guardian, Mail Online and Telegraph. Once you click-through to a news item from Hearsay others will learn that you have read that article. You also have the option of sharing news on Twitter and Facebook (though bear in mind the tweet will just be the URL of the article with a “via @HearsayNews” message).
John Duncan, Hearsay’s co-founder and CEO who is a former managing editor and general manager of the Observer, describes the social news reader concept as providing others with a more accurate description of your news reading habits than provided by a Twitter stream, for example.
On Twitter and Facebook you tend to share what you think other people will be interested in. On Hearsay you share what you are interested in, what you were interested enough to actually read.
Duncan, who last year was a Knight Fellow at Stanford in the US, met a group of post-grads and together they formed the San Fransisco-based start-up, first working on the concept of social news game which then developed into a social news reader.
So how did they react to last week’s news from Facebook’s #f8 conference that the social media giant was launching its Open Graph single opt-in news reader?
Co-founder and CTO Kevin Montag said they see it as a “flattering endorsement of our vision of the future of social news”.
The more people get used to it on Facebook, the better. Facebook’s problem is that people’s news graph is not the same as their social graph. Can I really rebuild my news graph on Facebook? Do I even want to? We think there’s plenty of room for us to build something that’s huge and news specific.
Duncan put it another way.
We think that Facebook is a bad place for [social news sharing]. Why do I care what my Aunt Mabel read on Yahoo News? But we think that it helps us get across the idea that passively sharing everything you read isn’t so scary – when you know you’re doing it.
The former journalist told Journalism.co.uk that Hearsay last week held talks with the Guardian, one of two UK news sites to launch a new-style Facebook Open Graph app last week.
And as with the Guardian and the Independent Facebook apps, Hearsay users can opt-out of sharing any article.
If Hearsay is successful in attracting enough users then as with the Facebook apps this news reader could be an important social traffic driver and other news sites will no doubt be keen to sign up as recognised sources.
For the past 18 months Neal Augenstein, a reporter with Washington DC’s all news radio station WTOP, has carried out all his field reporting from his iPhone and iPad.
Like many radio reporters Augenstein is also shooting and editing video, taking photos and tweeting from the scene of news stories he covers. All the audio, video, audio, photos and scripts he produces are created and edited on his two devices.
A year and a half in, we spoke to him to find out how he is finding the experience. He said he finds the iPhone more valuable than the iPad and tends to produce his live and pre-recorded audio reports on his phone, but writes scripts on his tablet.
Asked how it has changed his job, Augenstein told Journalism.co.uk:
It’s certainly made things a lot easier for me in terms of being able to put my laptop away and all the heavy equipment such as the cables, microphones, recorders, all the cameras that I was using.
There are some challenges to that, for instance, how do you put an iPhone on a podium for a news conference?
Another hurdle he has had to overcome is how to cope with the iPhone being susceptible to wind noise.
So what are his tips on apps and techniques for this form of reporting?
1. 1st Video – Augenstein uses this video recording and editing app for both his video and audio work. It allows multitrack editing and sharing but those familiar with PC or Mac audio and video editing will need to learn a few new swipes and pinches. Here is Journalism.co.uk’s guide on how to shoot and edit video using this app.
2. Ustream – He uses Ustream for livestreaming video, often in breaking news situations. Other app options for free livestreaming include Bambuser and Qik.
3. Skype is used by Augenstein for live reporting, rather than a phone line. He says he finds Skype “a robust way to communicate for a live report”.
One of our goals is the elimination of cell phone-quality recordings from our broadcasts.
Another recommendation from Augenstein was to take the audio from a live video stream, although you cannot have a two-way interview, between the reporter and studio presenter (although you could perhaps do this if you had two phones, one to livestream from and one to listen to the presenter, or if you have a radio to hear the station output, providing there was no delay in transmission).
4. Camera Plus – The WTOP reporter uses this app, also available for Android and BlackBerry, to tweak and edit photos.
5. Spend wisely. Augenstein uses the iPhone’s built in microphone.
There are ways you can plug in other microphones but my goal is trying to minimise the amount of accessories that I need.
As for setting up shots, Augenstein has got a Gorilla iPhone tripod, but opts for handheld shooting for video.
As a radio station our video does tend to be rather rudimentary. Getting a steady shot is important but our web videos are generally not produced, voicetracked packages. What we’re trying to do is work on the synergy between the on air product and the website and the social. If the radio report has sound bites of a person speaking, the website and the video is supposed to complement rather than duplicate what is in the report.
He has looked into the services provided by two companies, Tieline and Comrex, which allow you to broadcast live from a phone. Both options require relatively expensive kit to allow the audio to input via a channel on the radio mixing desk.
I have found, unfortunately, to this point that getting a good connection is difficult. Wifi is always a better-sounding connection than 3G or 4G and in breaking news situations you often don’t have optimal situations.
Since he locked away his cables, cameras and microphones in February 2010, Augenstein has seen his report turn around time decrease.
What used to take 30 minutes to create a fully-produced report I can now do in 10 minutes.
The sound quality is probably is only 92 per cent as good as broadcast-quality equipment, that’s the number I’ve been estimating, but as it can be tweaked and goes through processing at the radio station, people really can’t tell the difference.
And the most beneficial part of his 18-month iPhone and iPad trial?
It’s a chance to re-think the newsgathering process, which to me is the most exciting part about it.
The make-up of the panel of the Leveson inquiry, the public inquiry which will examine press standards, media regulations and the phone-hacking scandal, has come under criticism for lacking in tabloid and regional press representation.
In July prime minister David Cameron announced the line-up for the panel of experts who would assist with the public inquiry:
The Guardian reports that Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail, as well as Trinity Mirror, the Newspaper Publishers’ Association and Guardian News & Media, raised some concerns about the panel during a hearing today (Wednesday, 28 September).
Leveson indicated that he would consider whether to appoint extra advisers in response to Associated’s complaint. The judge said that he would reserve his decision, noting that the “pressures on the Liverpool Echo will be different to the pressures affecting the Mirror and the Sun; different to the pressures affecting the Observer”.
Today the inquiry also announced the dates for two seminars in connection with the inquiry, to be held on 6 and 12 October, which will explore some of the key public policy issues raised by its terms of reference and to hear expert and public opinion on those. More details on content and participants will be announced on the inquiry website shortly.
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.
Debt Crisis, Palestine and Dale Farm
for the week ending Sunday 25 September
Covered lots
Covered little
Political ups and downs (top ten by number of articles)
Celebrity vs. serious
Arab spring (countries & current leaders)
Who wrote a lot about… Troy Davis’ execution in Georgia, US
Long form journalism
Journalists who have updated their profile
Read about our campaign for the full exposure of phone hacking and other illegal forms of intrusion at the Hacked Off website
Visit the Media Standards Trust’s Churnalism.com – a public service for distinguishing journalism from churnalism
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