Tag Archives: online poll

#jlist: Vote for your 50th member of the J-list

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UPDATE – VOTING ON THIS POLL HAS NOW CLOSED

Yesterday Journalism.co.uk published our final list of 49 people that we consider to be innovators in their area of journalism or digital media. As with all lists, it’s incredibly subjective and open to debate – which is exactly what we wanted people to do.

We’ve had lots of suggestions for who else should be included. We’re listing them all below – remember, these are NOT Journalism.co.uk’s selections, they are from our readers.

Vote for your choice below – voting will close at 5:00pm on Tuesday 10 August.

See below the poll for descriptions of the candidates.


Mike Butcher – long-time journalist and blogger, taking industry titles online long before anyone else was publishing websites. Joined TechCrunch in 2007 and is now editor of TechCrunch, Europe.

Adam Westbrook – freelance multimedia journalist, nominated by Mike Butcher.

Deborah Bonello – now working for the Financial Times, Deborah Bonello founded the multimedia reporting project Mexicoreporter.com. Nominated by Mike Butcher.

Mike Magee – founder of the Register and technology news website the Inquirer. Nominated by @wegotblankets.

SOCHI project – Ambitious, crowd-funded project from photographer Rob Hornstra and writer/filmmaker Arnold van Bruggen to document the changes in the area around Sochi, where the Winter Olympics will take place in 2014, over five years. Nominated by Ann Laenan.

Mike Rawlins/Pits ‘n’ Pots – part of the team behind hyperlocal news site for Stoke with an emphasis on local politics. Nominated by Sam Freeman.

Natasha Loseva – Curator of internet projects at Russian news agency Ria Novosti. Nominated by colleague Valery Levchenko, who says: “Her innovative multimedia ways made @rianru the best source on Russia with UGC.”

Brian Farnham – editor-in-chief of US hyperlocal website Patch. Nominated by colleague Benji Feldheim for Patch’s rapid growth in websites.

Richard Wilson (a.k.a. @dontgetfooled) – Nominated by Naomi McAuliffe for “for his sterling work on Trafigura and Carter-Ruck, dodgy MPs, the ignored problems in Burundi and freedom of expression and libel”.

Emily Bell – former digital director at Guardian News and Media, Emily Bell will now lead the Tow Centre for Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism School. Nominated by @balihar.

Ilicco Elia – head of consumer mobile at Thomson Reuters, nominated by Sarah Booker. Pushing innovation in social media and mobile media for news organisations.

Niall Hunt – Digital content strategy manager for CMP Medica with a history of innovation, including time at EMAP investigating new approaches to web journalism. Nominated by colleague Chris Chapman, who said: “leading a web revolution here, with amazing track record in online journalism”.

Guy Clapperton – freelance journalist, broadcaster and author (has also worked as a trainer for Journalism.co.uk in the past) – an expert in online branding and marketing for freelancers.

OWNI.fr – collaboration of journalists, developers and designers creating new forms of online storytelling and news applications – and making a profit from its work. Team features Nicolas Voisin, founder and CEO, Adriano Farano and Nicolas Kayser-Bril.

Tomas Bella – Nominated by Nicolas Kayser-Bril: “He’s the only person I know of to have bought and integrated a digg-like for a news website (sme.sk) and he now offers solutions to the local online media, such as a Kachingle-like paywall plan.”

Dejan Restak – Nominated by Nicolas Kayser-Bril: “He developed a last.fm-like for the news portal B92.net and now works with mobile news at WAN/IFRA.”

Chris Wheal – freelance journalist who is successfully making a living from online journalism working for a range of finance and insurance news titles. Leading online training and development for young journalists as part of the National Union of Journalists’ training arm.

Robert Andrews – editor of paidContent:UK, nominated by Patrick Smith: “He’s been doing analysis-driven live journalism with data/charts for years.”

Channel 4 runs online poll after Gordon Brown makes on-air ‘bigot’ gaffe

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As former Observer political editor Gaby Hinsliff (@gabyhinsliff) tweeted earlier today, Gordon Brown’s post walkabout gaffe (see video below), in which he called an elderly former Labour voter a “bigot”: “Shows how easy it is to forget the first law of broadcast: even if you’re not on air, if you’re miked up you’re effectively on record.”

Channel 4 News was quick off the mark with an online poll on its live election blog, asking: “Does Gordon Brown’s unguarded ‘bigot’ remark make you less likely to vote Labour?” At the time of writing, the ‘no’s” had a 68 per cent majority but watch that space…

Meanwhile, a spoof Twitter account @bigotedwoman and the phrase “Bigoted Woman” are currently trending on Twitter.

Time’s most influential list hacked

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Catching up on news from last week that a plan to source Time magazine’s ‘100 most influential people’ list via an online poll was itself influenced by a group of hackers, reports the Industry Standard.

The group rigged the votes to spell out a message (‘marblecake also the game’ (too cryptic for me – ed)) – see here for Paul Lamere’s post on how the hack was done (and what it has to do with cake).

Poll: Was the Guardian right to shut down Max Gogarty’s problem travel blog?

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The Guardian has closed the travel blog of Max Gogarty after the young writer’s initial post came under fire from readers.

But was this the right move by the paper? Was this a reaction to readers’ views or an attempt to control them?

Have your say in our online poll: was the Guardian right to shut down problem blog? (Brief Log-in required.)

Gap year blogger ends Guardian blog after ‘hate mail hell’

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(Update – vote in our online poll: was the Guardian right to close Gogarty’s blog? Brief Log-in required.)

‘Hate mail hell of gap-year blogger’ – a headline from the Observer relating to Max Gogarty, whose first blog post on Guardian.co.uk about his gap year plans received a less than warm reception from readers.

The forthright criticisms left on Gogarty’s post were aimed less at the young writer’s style and more at his links with travel section contributor Paul Gogarty – Max’s dad – and as a result Guardian policy.

Since comments on the original post were closed, the paper’s travel editor Andy Pietrasik, digital editor Emily Bell and Observer columnist Rafael Behr have all reacted to the backlash – each trying to add a measure of calm to the situation.

The ‘hate mail hell’ to which the Observer piece refers lasted for around five days, but I can’t help but think the publisher might have expected this. Surely the accusations of nepotism made could have been foreseen, as could criticism of what value such a blog contributes to the section?

Furthermore, much of the criticism centres around the blog vs professional blog debate, arguing that the writing offered did not match up with the professional content elsewhere on the site.

As such I feel for Max – I don’t know how I would react to such a torrent of online abuse, especially as most of this abuse should be levelled at the publisher and not the blogger in question.

This was an editorial error by the site – neither reader nor writer are satisfied with the outcome – yet the paper’s commentators don’t own up to this, condemning this as a case of ‘online mob justice’.Yes, some of the comments are an attempt to outdo the last with their mercilessness, but the fact that over 500 were left on this blog should set alarm bells ringing.

Do the comments lose their credibility because they are largely angry (and yes, sometimes borderline abusive)? If so, why allow so many through the moderation process in the first place?

These are your readers – telling you exactly what they think – best to listen to them and not label them a mob.