Tag Archives: internet manifesto

Headlines and Deadlines: Phrases that should be banned in the newsroom

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Reflecting on the online dissemination of ‘the Internet Manifesto’ by a group of German journalists and bloggers last week, Alison Gow suggests five phrases currently heard in most newsrooms that ‘all the manifesto pledges in the world aren’t going to solve’.

Explained in full – and in context – in Alison’s post, the phrases are:

  1. “I’m too busy…”
  2. “I don’t know how to use/make that…”
  3. “No one asked me…”
  4. “It’s only the website.”
  5. “Digital doesn’t make money.” (or “Print is profitable.” when questioning the value of a newspaper’s website)

“I agree that updating your work blog is unlikely to turn around the financial black hole our industry is attempting to extract itself from at the moment (…) [But] if you’re working as a multimedia journalist you have the opportunity to be a real pioneer in the art of online storytelling, audience engagement, and new ways of sourcing, sharing and developing information,” writes Gow.

Full post at this link…

Journalism Daily: AutoTrader tips, Technorati’s ‘original content’ and the online anonymity debate

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The Internet Manifesto translated by its critics

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The German Internet Manifesto, initiated by Sascha Lobo, Mario Sixtus, and Thomas Knuewer and supported by 12 named others – including the Guardian’s Mercedes Bunz – lays out 17 commandments for ‘how journalism works today’ (translated into several languages via http://www.internet-manifesto.org/).

However it has its critics, as well as its fans.

Take Stephen Moss, Guardian journalist (G2 thinker-in-residence, or  naturalist?) for example. Writing under his colleague Mercedes Bunz’s report he leaves a comment in response to Boombox:

boombox 09 Sep 09, 2:06pm:

“It’s funny how the people keenest on “journalism manifestos” never actually do any.”

stephenmoss 09 Sep 09, 4:59pm:

“That’s so unfair boombox. Sascha Lobo has been doing remarkable reportage from Kabul, Mario Sixtus has penetrated the tribal areas in Pakistan and filed a 200,000-word report on how Al-Qaida operates on his blog, and Thomas Knuewer is no doubt even now exposing commercial exploitation in the developing world, local government corruption in Dusseldorf and banking scandals across Europe. This is absolutely not just navel-gazing German theorising.”

Patricio Robles, technology reporter at Econsultancy also raises some interesting issues:

“While it does contain some succinct pearls of wisdom, it’s not exactly the Magna Carta for 21st-century journalism.”

He points out that it includes little discussion of journalistic ethics, and criticises its ‘PowerPoint marketing-speak’.