Tag Archives: Shane Richmond

Guardian review of MyTelegraph is ‘out of touch with internet age’

Speaking in a blog post of Friday, Shane Richmond, communities editor of Telegraph.co.uk, explained that staff from the Guardian had been putting questions to users of MyTelegraph in preparation for an article about the blogging site.

To pre-empt the attack article, Richmond posted the answers to the questions asked of the site, which covered alleged links between MyT and BNP propaganda and Enoch Powell, while also asking for examples of the best blog posts contributed.

“To me, the tone they strike is politically correct and out of touch with the internet age. The internet encourages free speech, has lower barriers to entry and places greater onus on individuals to decide for themselves what is acceptable. Is it the case that Comment Is Free only within Guardian-approved limitations?” wrote Richmond.

The aforementioned article, published today by MediaGuardian, compares and contrasts MyT with the Guardian’s own Comment Is Free platform and the Sun’s MySun.

“A cursory glance reveals that while it has some powerful and well-written blogs, My Telegraph is also inhabited by some very unsavoury characters. . . Such comments appear on all websites, the Guardian included. The difference with My Telegraph and similar sites overseas is that the newspaper is providing the platform for others to start the debate. On most comment sites, bloggers sanctioned by the newspaper group typically do so,” it reads.

While it’s interesting to consider the different approaches taken to moderation and user-generated content by the Telegraph and the Guardian, in the spirit of open debate on the subject, wouldn’t it be worth mentioning the Guardian’s recent debacle with one of its ‘sanctioned’ bloggers? The debate started by this blogger, wasn’t allowed to continue – I wonder if this would have been the case if the post had appeared on MyT.

PPA Magazines 2008: Community stats for Telegraph.co.uk

According to Shane Richmond, communities editor of Telegraph.co.uk, articles on the site’s Your View section receive an average of 166 comments a day, while 2,000 comments a day are recorded across the main site.

MyTelegraph, which is one year old on Friday, now has 18,000 registered users and will be rebuilt this summer with new tools for uploading content introduced and plans to integrate MyT content across the main site.

Richmond added that a feature rating the posts of other MyT bloggers, which had been scrapped at the request of users, was something he hoped to reintroduce to the site.

Telegraph to offer open OpenID

Shane Richmond is claiming a first for telegraph.co.uk, saying that from the end of next month it will become the first newspaper in the world to provide OpenID to its readers.

OpenID is a technology that allows people to carry the same user names across several different websites, thus removing the tiresome process of having to log-in 137 times each day and remember the plethora of necessary passwords.

OpenID claims are over 160-million OpenID enabled URIs with nearly 10,000 sites supporting its logins.

The system is growing in popularity with publishers. AOL and Microsoft are amongst a host of other using it. At the very basic level for them it means less time having to vet and manage user accounts, as well as removing a barrier to a greater level of interaction with users. Svetainės, teisiniai, finansiniai, techniniai, medicininių tekstų ir kiti vertimai https://skrivanek.lt/vertimu-sritys/medicina-farmacija-ir-klinikiniai-tyrimai/

However, some users may be put off by by the security issue of effectively placing all eggs in one basket.

Plenty more innovation expected from the Tel in 2008, adds Mr Richmond:

“I could describe this as the biggest development of 2008 but I won’t. I know what else we’ve got planned.”

BBC director general answers readers questions online at Telegraph.co.uk

Mark Thompson, the director-general of the BBC, put himself up for some close public scrutiny yesterday when he agreed to answer questions from Telegraph.co.uk readers live on the site.

“I can’t, off the top of my head, think of a more potentially hostile environment for him,” writes Currybet’s Martin Belam in his excellent summary of the event. However, he notes that Thompson got a relatively easy ride in the Q&A.

Judging by the questions posed, the application of regional and clipped RP accents across the Corporation appears to be one of the main issues of contention for the readers of the online version of The Telegraph.

A few questions – offering enough for more than a cursory skim read – about criticism of the coverage of the Madeleine McCann story and Parliamentary scrutiny, did pop up. But these were subjects that the DG could tuck into with gusto.

A question about access to BBC TV in Australia got this interesting answer:

“I would like to be able to offer people around the world on demand access to more of the BBC’s domestic content – and maybe to complete home services. We’re working on that.”

The Telegraph’s Shane Richmond notes: “We let our Q&A guests choose the questions they answer and our more cynical readers will probably argue that the more difficult questions are overlooked.”

It’s something to bear in mind. On the whole the questions selected were of the reactionary kind and easy for a shrug off – I would have liked to see more sustained questions about the Corporation throwing money at platforms, channels and programming that painfully attempts to reach out to certain demographics with little or no obvious success – yes, BBC3 – what are you for?

God, no? Is it list and predictions time already?

Yes, it’s that time again, the season of favourites lists, bests of, highlights of 2007, and rough guesses of what may happen in the coming 12 months.

I’ve brought together the few lists I have managed to find in between crazed bouts of gorging my way through East Sussex’s entire supply of mince pies and crapulent afternoons spent selecting the wine for the Christmas party (finally decided on Blue Nun – half bottles).

For what it’s worth, my predictions for the next 12 months are a pocket-sized Second Life for the Asian market, Google car insurance and marriage counselling by April and some kind of Granny app for Facebook so you can check on the vital signs of elderly relatives.

Online journalism in 2020…bloggers strike, iToilet and more

Paul Bradshaw has video blogged a post from 2020 about the end of the Bloggers Strike, Apple’s new iToilet, Facebook’s ‘GDPcalculator’ app, and a graduating generation who’ve never known a world without the mobile web.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7O_ugnEZ08]

Failure of the iToilet has always been a pet grumble of mine, glad to see someone has finally been brave enough to voice these concerns.

Paul put the guest blogging vid together to fill in for Shane Richmond @the Telegraph while he’s away – guest spots have also gone to John Hagel and Andy Dickinson.

Round-up: Open house event at The Telegraph on political blogging

Debates about blogging, political or otherwise, could go on forever. Credit must go to the Telegraph team for getting this one going – it was just starting to get a bit more interesting before time ran out though.

Still, some interesting issues raised, if not too many conclusions.

  • Firstly, and this is something raised on this blog before, are journalists who write blogs the same as bloggers?

Iain Dale noted that Mail On Sunday bloggers have to submit their posts to the lawyers first. This was a common experience with one member of the audience, a blogging journalist at Telegraph.co.uk, who said the profit interests of the group’s owner would always impact upon the blogging process in this way.

Lloyd Shepherd pointed out that while legal costs are the only costs not to have gone down in the new digital age, the law is becoming more sensitive to cases where content might not have actually been seen by that many people.

  • Iain Dale downplayed the notion of a blogging elite. Yet how come everyone in the room (bar me…) were on first name terms and often didn’t have to introduce their blog first?

Mick Fealty, writer on Northern Irish political blog Slugger O’Toole and the Telegraph’s blog Brassneck, explained that ‘top blog’ lists are not intended to reinforce an elite, but ‘about trying to get people to break out of their daily online habits and go and look at something completely different’.

  • There’s a lot of cross-over between ‘traditional’ journalism and blogs (maybe this was because there were a lot of journalists in the room…): in-depth investigative coverage, face-to-face networking and contact making.

Major differences between the two discussed last night were the ability of blogs to talk to people and not at people, and their capacity to democratise. (Not a strong enouch distinction was made for me.)

One Telegraph blogging journalist pointed out that the BNP website receives more hits than all the other political parties’ sites combined – yet when blogging about this he didn’t link to the BNP’s site.

So can blogging democratise political coverage by the media, while the media adheres to an establishment view of politics as a three party system?

Lots of summaries of last night’s event have already been posted – here are a few to get you going (am I perpetuating a blogging elite by just linking to these few?):

New Telegraph political blog on the way

At the Telegraph’s political blogging event last night, Iain Martin confirmed that a new political blog will be unveiled on the site in the next few weeks.

Speaking to Shane Richmond, communities editor of Telegraph.co.uk, after the discussion, he said an exact date for the launch couldn’t be set as yet.

Richmond did say that the new blog will enlist big name writers from the Telegraph to contribute on a regular basis overseen by Iain Martin. Its aim will be to provide instant comment and reaction to political news and affairs.

The NUJ and new media: What’s all the fuss about?

The ‘fuss’ was started by an article from Donnacha Delong, a member of the NUJ‘s multimedia commission, published in the Journalist (we’re still waiting for our copy because of the postal strikes, but you can read the whole thing on Delong’s blog).

The article is an introduction to a report by the NUJ’s commission on multimedia working to be released in full next month and, according to the blogosphere, it makes some sweeping arguments that suggest the NUJ is anti-digital media.

Communities editor of Telegraph.co.uk Shane Richmond’s initial reaction to the article on his blog described it as ‘scaremongering’, ‘reactionary’ and ‘badly-argued’.

In a further blog post, Richmond takes to task the whole spread of articles on convergence in the Journalist in which Delong’s article features. He challenges several of the ideas it raises, including:

  • that journalists need protection from new media
  • that online publishers replicate their competitors producing “a dull uniformity of content and presentation”
  • that the online medium restricts design and opportunities for user experience

Jeff Jarvis, whose first reaction to the NUJ’s article was that it was a “whiny, territorial, ass-covering, protecting-the-priesthood, preservation-instead-of-innovation faux” report, is now urging a different approach.

In an updated post on Buzzmachine Jarvis writes that “if you’re a union representing journalists today, you probably don’t know which way is up and who’s the enemy and what you’re fighting for. All the old reflexes and relationships are archaic.”

The idea that the NUJ’s structure as a union body needs to be adapted to better accommodate online journalism is echoed by Roy Greenslade, who has resigned from the NUJ in reaction to its approach to digital media.

As Greenslade says in his blog:

“[Shane] Richmond rightly points to the NUJ’s underlying assumption that the net is a threat to journalism when, of course, it is much more a threat to the union itself. Why? Because the union, as with the print unions of old, cannot possibly adapt to meet the revolutionary demands of a new technology.”

The debate is spreading – as a round-up by Shane Richmond shows even US site Valleywag has picked it up.

Final verdicts await given that the full report won’t be available until mid-November we are assured.

In the mean time take a look at Martin Stabe’s summary of the commission’s initial findings, which points out the following:

“The commission’s survey on NUJ chapels found that 50 per cent of chapels had experienced redundancies since the web operation was introduced; 75 per cent of chapels said their workloads had increased; 37 per cent said journalists were working longer hours. Only 34 per cent said the quality of new media was professional, 52 per cent called it adequate, and 14 per cent said it was poor.”

While the union’s structure and attitude to online journalism should and is being scrutinised throughout the blogosphere, if some of the experiences of journalists found by the commission and reported by Stabe are true then these are worrying developments that the industry must act upon. Unfortunately, these articles suggest that the NUJ may not be fit to do this.

Are you on the Journa-list? Probably not if you’re a blogger

A new website has been launched by the Media Standards Trust, purportedly to provide info on and links to UK national newspaper journalists. The blurb says:

Journa-list is an independent, not-for-profit website that makes it easy for people to find out more about journalists and what they write about.”

Then later:

“It is the first UK website to offer a fully searchable database of UK national journalists (who write under a byline), with links to their current and previous articles, and some basic statistics about their work.

“It contains all journalists from 12 national newspapers – The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The Daily Express, The Mirror, The Sun, The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph, The Sunday Mirror, The Observer – and BBC News Online. The site can only index those articles which have bylines. We started indexing the articles in May 2007.”

An admirable attempt – you can even be emailed or take an RSS feed to alert you to a new article – except that it doesn’t quite do all this yet.

While the list is expansive, my quick, random search revealed a few missing journos (there also seems to be a few teething problems as the alphabetical list, whichever way I look at it, seems to only go up to B or C). Reklama: kriolipolizė, biorevitalizacija, depiliacija lazeriu, LPG masažas Vilniuje už gerą kainą https://oblakasalon.lt/lpg-masazas/

What about the Beeb’s Nick Robinson? Roy Greenslade of the Guardian?

It might be the blogging efforts of these two that’s throwing the list off – but that throws up another question. If they aren’t listed, shouldn’t blogging journalists be included too?

Shane Richmond is listed for a single article, not for his numerous and excellent blog posts. If a journalist is blogger and article-writer both, then is it very indicative if half their output isn’t listed?

If anyone finds examples of blogs in the list, please would they get in touch.