Tag Archives: liveblog

Guardian launches ‘next phase’ of open newslist: Newsdesk Live

The Guardian has launched a new liveblog in its next development of its open newslist trial, which it started last year to facilitate greater discussion around the given topics.

According to a blog post by UK news editor Dan Roberts, Newsdesk Live was prompted by “limitations” with the open newsdesk which became apparent, “chiefly the difficulty of using a simple grid and 140 characters to communicate all the complexities of the day’s news with an outside audience”.

Newsdesk Live will “incorporate the open newslist, but will also feature a live comment thread allowing readers to discuss what’s going on directly rather than having to do so via Twitter”.

Journalist Polly Curtis is overseeing the project, Roberts adds:

For the period of the experiment, Polly is joining the national newdesk to work alongside other UK editors to help feed ideas from readers back into the newsgathering process.

Hat tip: 10,000 Words blog

Newspaper Society: Round-up of record web traffic for local media titles covering riots

The Newspaper Society today (11 August) published a series of figures for local media titles covering the recent riots across England. According to the NS, many news sites saw record traffic levels as the public swarmed to their local paper’s for the latest updates on the violence.

Some of the highest online statistics from the NS report are below:

  • The Liverpool Echo: Initial story on the riots recorded 850,000 page views. Said to be most-read story on the Trinity Mirror Regionals network. Live blog on Tuesday and Wednesday viewed by more than 85,000 people. Overall website recorded around 3 million page views and 400,000 unique users over the two days.
  • Express and Star: On Tuesday its website recorded 853,000 homepage views.
  • The Enfield Independent: Recorded 203,000 page views on site in 24 hours on Sunday.
  • The Nottingham Post: 120,000 unique users (also on Tuesday), said to be three times the normal level of traffic. Monday night’s lead report attracted 64,000 page views while picture gallery of aftermath received 120,000 page views.
  • This is Gloucestershire: Two picture galleries containing reader-submitted photos received more than 473,000 page views, as of 2pm Wednesday.
  • The Birmingham Mail: More than 100,000 unique users on Tuesday, with page views up more than 300 per cent on average levels.

Read the full statistics here…

#su2011: New online open newsroom a hit for Swedish newspaper

A pioneering Swedish newspaper that involves its readers in the daily editorial decision-making process says the new approach has been a massive hit with users and advertisers.

Norran, a large regional daily in the north of Sweden, has opened up its newsroom with a tool called eEditor, a live chat powered by CoverItLive where readers can discuss story ideas with journalists in real time.

The blog is monitored by a senior journalist throughout the day. The newslist and minutes from conferences are published online and readers suggest possible angles and ask questions.

Editor-in-chief Anette Novak said Norran had completely overhauled its image by involving readers and being more transparent.

Speaking at the WAN-IFRA summer university in Paris today, she said: “I realised that if anybody asks: ‘do we need Norran?’ they would decide: no we don’t. We had to stop it before the question even occurs in their heads.”

She said web traffic and Facebook referrals were up – and key motoring and property advertisers who deserted during the recession had come back. The experiment has also allowed the paper to broaden its coverage.

“We believe that we have strengthened our brand,” Novak said.

“Transparency is the new objectivity. We post the job list – the stories we are working on today.

“The instant feedback and the personal reply is extremely important. It’s the feeling that there’s somebody there live now.

“You have to answer in a good way, a polite way and a knowledgeable way, or you can lose trust.”

Novak said some news organisations were so focused on getting a return on investment from digital projects that they lost sight of their readers’ needs.

“If we follow the money… that will make us go for projects that we know will make money and we will keep doing the same thing over and over again. We have to experiment.

“Get readers involved with your brand, engage them with their hearts and minds and the money will follow.”

Related content:

‘Readers may have the last say in what is and is not journalism’

ScribbleLive: Four ways to make money from liveblogging

paidContent: Which news sites post the most stories and do they get more hits?

PDA: Andrew Sparrow on liveblogging the general election

For the 2010 general election, the Guardian’s senior political correspondent Andrew Sparrow has been tasked with liveblogging the event on an almost daily basis. In this post for PDA he explains his approach, the practical considerations and the benefits for journalists and readers:

I live blog a lot and I believe the format – minute-by-minute updates, combining news, analysis and links – allows journalists to report events with more thoroughness and immediacy than if they are just writing stories (…) If journalism is the first draft of history, live blogging is the first draft of journalism. It’s not perfect, but it’s deeply rewarding – on any day, I was able to publish almost every snippet that I thought worth sharing, which is not the case for anyone who has to squeeze material into a newspaper – and it beats sitting on a battlebus.

On a typical day the site’s liveblog generated between 100,000 and 150,000 page views, rising to 2 million on election night, adds Sparrow.

Full post at this link…

See the results of our poll on the best journalists, tweeters and bloggers of #ge2010…