Tag Archives: journalist

You must not embed the Telegraph’s embeddable video

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It might look like you can embed this Telegraph video on your blog:

telegraphembed

But no: please take note of the last part.

As both Journalism.co.uk and Fred Hatman, a journalist in South Africa found out, embed codes are only for ‘personal use’. That didn’t include Hatman (@fredhatman) even though he is a lone blogger.

Instead, we had to feature the story of the Telegraph journalist who was attacked by a lion after willingly entering its enclosure (mauling received surprisingly cheerfully) without the accompanying video. We got permission to link though!

Syndication@telegraph.co.uk informs us:

“I’m afraid at this time we can’t grant permission for you to host the video, but you are welcome to link to it.”

So we asked them why they supplied the code? And how could we fulfil the requirements for a licence? They replied:

“My understanding is that this function is for personal use only, not for commercial use, as per our terms and conditions.  Often we are able to issue a licence for the content, but on this occasion Telegraph.co.uk are not offering this video for web syndication.”

Journalism.co.uk wonders how Telegraph.co.uk will monitor and police misuse of the videos – if abuse was extensive. Or how they decide who is commercial and who is not? If, as the Syndication people tell us, ‘on this occasion Telegraph.co.uk are not offering this video for web syndication’ why bother supplying it at all? Isn’t that just asking for trouble?

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’.

Telegraph journalist gets mauled in lion’s enclosure (video)

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We’ve just watched a Telegraph TV video: journalist Charles Starmer Smith getting mauled by a lion in Limpopo Province, South Africa – after entering its enclosure.

Perhaps his comment that ‘the lion just obeys what he [Arrie, the handler] does and plays (…) but stops up to a point’ was a little premature. He doesn’t look so relaxed when the animal’s teeth are firmly stuck into his leg.

Nonetheless, he is smiling when he steps out of the enclosure: he can’t wait to get home and ‘show off’ his scars he says. Then he goes off to get some stitches.

Starmer Smith’s account here.

Video at this link.

(Hat-tip: Fred Hatman)

Stephen Farrell’s kidnap raises the ‘media blackout’ question: it’s time for a debate in the UK

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This week’s operation in Afghanistan to rescue New York Times journalist Stephen Farrell, during which a British soldier, Farrell’s Afghan translator (Sultan Munadi) and two civilians were killed, has provoked national debate in the UK:

“One senior Army source told the Daily Telegraph “When you look at the number of warnings this person had it makes you really wonder whether he was worth rescuing, whether it was worth the cost of a soldier’s life.” (Telegraph.co.uk)

Many of the commenters on news stories feel very strongly that it was wrong for a journalist’s actions to lead to such tragic consequences, as Jon Slattery noted on his blog yesterday. Further still: “Members of the Armed Forces have expressed anger that he [Farrell] ignored warnings not to visit the site of an air strike on two hijacked fuel tankers that killed scores of Taliban and innocent villagers,” the Telegraph reported. Others defend the role of journalists in Afghanistan: for example, the Committee to Protect Journalists and the International Federation of Journalists.

This tragic incident also raised another issue, that of media silence. Today a special report by Joe Strupp on Editor&Publisher questions whether media blackouts are appropriate when reporters are kidnapped in war zones. It’s an excellent overview of recent events, that looks back at the case of another New York Times journalist, David Rohde – the paper managed to keep news of his kidnap off Wikipedia until his escape seven months later.

The question of media blackout is one Journalism.co.uk has raised in the past. In January, we reported on the silence surrounding the kidnap of the Telegraph’s Colin Freeman and José Cendon in Somalia. We had been asked not to report on the case by the Telegraph and the UK Foreign Office when the pair went missing at the end of 2008. The ban was lifted when they were released.

However, as we reported, some information was published before the blackout request was made clear: the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released information relating to the journalists’ kidnap on November 26 2008 and Roy Greenslade subsequently blogged about it at Guardian.co.uk – the post was removed but it was still captured in the RSS feed.

It’s a complex issue that Strupp raises in his E&P article:

“With Rohde’s escape, a major debate ignited in and out of the journalism community about how responsible the coordinated secret had been. Was this a breach of journalistic ethics, sitting on a story for so long mainly because a colleague was involved?”

Strupp quotes Edward Wasserman, a journalism professor at Washington & Lee University in Virginia, who echoed claims of other critics, that the Times and similar news outlets would not do the same for a non-journalist: “Some people are in a position to implore the press for restraint better than others”.

It is a debate we need to have in the UK too: the London-based Frontline Club would be an ideal venue in which to hold a discussion with representatives from the UK foreign office, press freedom and safety organisations and news organisations raising the reasons for and against media blackouts. The practicalities of enforcement also need to be discussed. We understand that such an idea is in the pipeline, so we’ll keep you posted.

Please do share links to existing debate online.

In the meantime, here is a link to an item on this morning’s BBC Radio 4 Today programme, featuring Frontline Club founder and cameraman (and former soldier) Vaughan Smith and the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen discussing the Stephen Farrell case.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8247000/8247681.stm

Journalism Daily: Alex Brummer on the economic crisis, BBC director-general’s email and a shout-out to freelancers

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A daily round-up of all the content published on the Journalism.co.uk site. You can also sign up to our e-newsletter and subscribe to the feed for the Journalism Daily here.

News and features:

Ed’s picks:

Tip of the day:

#FollowJourn:

On the Editors’ Blog:

Nieman Journalism Lab: NYTimes’ pulled post lives on

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An incident at the New York Times shows that news lives on even when it’s taken offline.

The Nieman Journalism Lab tells the story of two NYT posts: one, which named the alleged blogger behind NYTPick.com, now removed; and another, updated with the journalist David Blum’s denial.

But at least part of the piece was easily recoverable via Google News and RSS readers (including the NYT’s own Times Wire).

NJL’s Zachary M Seward comments that ‘this is a lesson that removing content from the web is a futile task, particularly for big news sites’.

“And if a story needs to be retracted, if that’s the case here (update: it is), then we need better ways to do it than just pulling content off the web.”

Full post at this link…

#FollowJourn: @craigmcginty/online publisher

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#FollowJourn: Craig McGinty

Who? Publisher for This French Life.

What? A journalist with a wide variety of experience in daily newspapers, breaking news websites and public relations. McGinty was formerly editor of the Lancashire Evening Telegraph’s website thisislancashire.co.uk and now runs a website in France.

Where? @craigmcginty

Contact? craig [at] thisfrenchlife.com

Just as we like to supply you with fresh and innovative tips every day, we’re recommending journalists to follow online too. They might be from any sector of the industry: please send suggestions (you can nominate yourself) to judith or laura [at] journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.

British journalist rescued from Taliban but interpreter died; reports suggest British soldier also killed

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Stephen Farrell, a British-Irish journalist working for the New York Times, was rescued from Taliban captivity on Wednesday morning, according to global news reports.

His Afghan interpreter, Sultan Munadi, was killed during the operation, the Telegraph reports.

According to as yet unconfirmed reports by the Associated Press, a British commando was also killed during the raid.

The Guardian reports:

“Military officials in Kabul told the Associated Press a British soldier was killed in the raid. The Ministry of Defence was unable to confirm the reports this morning.”


Slewfootsnop: What are employers advertising for in journalism job ads?

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Murray Dick has created a nice word cloud of the skills being sought by journalism employers by running a series of job ads through Wordle.

Dick took the latest 25 ads (as of August 30) from our jobs feed; 24 results from a search of Guardian jobs for the term ‘journalism’; and 20 results from a search through the BBC jobs site for ‘journalist’.

[He explains the process in full in his blog post.]

Below is the result:

Wordle produced by Murray Dick of journalism job ad terms

It’s interesting to see how prominent the term ‘team’ is – but no appearance of ‘audience’ or ‘online’ either [my eyesight stands corrected].

The Jobless Journalist: Week two: CVs and style guides

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This is the second post in a series from an anonymous UK-based journalist recently made redundant. To follow the series, you can subscribe to this feed.

You can also read posts by our previous ‘Redundant Journalist’ blogger at this link.

When I was made redundant my CV was a bit like an ex-race horse: out of shape and in need of attention. That’s the thing with CVs – after you get the job they get put out to grass and tend to become a little moth-eaten.

But, after two weeks of serious overhauling, I’ve finally got it to the stage where with each application I can just alter a few words to suit the prospective employer.

If you’re a reporter and there’s a features job going, what should you do? I’m trained in news and specialise in the arts and have developed CVs tailored to each sector.

Having spent a lot of time on both CVs I think I might be developing career schizophrenia. Should I concentrate on one or keep them both on the boil?

I’m not a big fan of self-help books or books ‘for dummies’, but a journalist friend recommended I read Max Eggert’s the ‘Perfect CV’. It’s a great guide to writing CVs and covering letters and offers neat tips such as ending a covering letter with the suggestion of a follow up call.

With hindsight I should have read this book before I even started applying for jobs. It would have saved me cringing at things I had written (and sent) that Eggert categorically says you shouldn’t include, like cracking a joke in your CV.

Now, I completely agree with this. Your CV is a formal and professional representation of you and your career. But what about your covering letter? This is where you’ve got to get yourself noticed and what better way to do this than with a bit of wit?

I suppose I have to come clean here. In a recent application to the Sunday Times I included a line about how I’d doorstepped Steve McQueen at the Venice Biennale with my dressed accidentally tucked into my knickers.

I thought it showed I had the confidence to approach anyone in any circumstance. And I did get my quote, although I didn’t get an interview, which makes me think that comedy is probably not the best policy.

I spent a lot of time on this particular application. When I’m freelancing or blogging I usually write to the Guardian style guide, but this time I matched my CV to the Times style guide.

A friend of mine has since confided that she thought I was going slightly mad and I have to admit I thought my attention to detail bordered on the obsessive.

The trouble is, when you’re applying for a job with a national where they might get 1,000 applications in one week [or a reported 1,200 – Ed], you really have to go the extra mile to get noticed.

If anyone who has had to sift through thousands of covering letters has any tips for what you should and shouldn’t include, I’d be very interested to hear from you.