Tag Archives: Sky

Sky News uses CoveritLive for Crewe by-election debate

Sky News yesterday used live blogging service CoveritLive to host a debate between candidates standing in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election (thanks to Simon Dickson and his Puffbox blog for the tip).

Candidates Tamsin Dunwoody (Labour), Elizabeth Shenton (Lib Dem) and Edward Timpson (Conservatives) responded to questions directly from readers of the blog and Sky News’ host Martin Stanford.

The service is becoming increasingly popular with news sites: today the Lancashire Evening Post is liveblogging an afternoon from a local pub, while US newspaper the Grand Island Independent used the tool as a feedback channel during the redesign of its website.

Elsewhere Farmers’ Weekly is liveblogging ‘an afternoon in the life of the newsroom’ – a similar experiment to that conducted by the Liverpool Daily Post.

Read Journalism.co.uk’s interview with CoveritLive president Keith McSpurren.

Guardian: Times website seeks Sky News link-up

The Times website wants to carry more video content from Sky News.

Times Online editor-in-chief, Anne Spackman, told MediaGuardian.co.uk that negotiations to make this happen were at an early stage on the newspaper website carrying breaking news videos from Sky.

Any deal is likely to improve the online video offering from the Times.

Despite being one of the first national newspapers to adopt a TV service the Times offering has fallen behind other nationals – in terms of quality – and seems to be due an overhaul.

Sky News creates multimedia timeline to mark disappearance of Madeleine McCann

Sky News has produced a multimedia timeline detailing the events and news coverage of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance over the last year.

The timeline incorporates videos, pictures and analysis from Sky’s crime correspondent Martin Brunt. Users can scroll through the timeline, which offers over 100 screens of multimedia.

Screenshot of Sky News’ multimedia timeline of Madelein McCann’s disappearance

Photoshopped marathon pictures fool Sky News website

Journalism student Todd Nash’s new blog Journalism Today has flagged up some pictures from Sunday’s London Marathon sent to Sky News’ Your Photos section.

Only not every picture here tells the true story, rather the pics have been photoshopped and submitted by forum members of website Football365.com.

Some of the pictures are still available, including this appearance by the grim reaper:

Photo of London Marathon submitted by Daniel Carr to Sky News’ Your Photos

And another submitted by A. Lurker (clue: look closely at his vest):

Photo of London Marathon submitted by A. Lurker to Sky News’ Your Photos

The news site are likely to take the joke well: following an earthquake in the UK in February the site received so many spoof photos of quake damage, it created a separate archive for them.

Breaking news of the UK Earthquake online and off

News of an earthquake that struck the UK in the early hours of Wednesday morning caused a surge in traffic to Sky.com/news with more page impressions recorded on the site at 1am than 9am, the site’s executive producer Julian March writes on the Editors’ Blog.

A similar effect was experienced by the Nottingham Evening Post’s site, HoldtheFrontPage reports, after it posted news of the quake within 30 minutes.

The site saw 1,821 readers visit between 1am and 2am – increasing this to 6,000 by 9am, 20,000 page views and 60 comments on the story – though it’s a shame they appear to have only opened this feature from 6am.

Both great examples of why it’s crucial to break news online – whether a local or national title – and get ‘ownership’ of the story to keep drawing those viewers back.

The BBC’s online and radio coverage was hot on the heels of the incident, though the video below – courtesy of student journalism blogger Dave Lee – suggests their TV news had to play catch up.

(I like the idea of competitive news watching between channels)

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foD0YXHIknQ]