Tag Archives: the Telegraph

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

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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.

Nashua Telegraph experimenting with Qik

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The Nashua Telegraph is experimenting with live video from mobile phones on its website using streaming service Qik.

The Telegraph is using the tool to stream footage from N95 handsets to provide behind-the-scenes coverage of its online food show, The Doorbell Gourmet.

Qik’s popularity with publishers seems to be growing – last month the Sacramento Bee used the service to create a broadcast channel for reporters to cover protests over the Olympic torch relay.

Here’s Journalism.co.uk’s interview with Qik founder Bhaskar Roy.

UPDATE – The Telegraph has posted its first ever breaking news coverage using Qik.

Live footage of a police evacuating residents was captured using mobiles and streamed to the site using the service.

All change at the Telegraph: integration continues

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image of the Telegraph newsroom at Victoria

The Telegraph has moved further towards its vision of a fully integrated newsroom with a raft of promotions, new arrivals and a newly integrated Science team.

Integrated desks contribute to both titles and the web site, The Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph and Telegraph.co.uk, and so far business, sport, foreign and comment desks have been reshaped to fit the new mould.

The integrated science team will be headed up by Daily Telegraph science editor Roger Highfield and Sunday Telegraph science correspondent Richard Gray, with Professor Steve Jones continuing to contribute. The team will be assisted by Kate Devlin.

The changes follow the abrupt departure of Nic Fleming, Daily Telegraph science correspondent, two weeks ago.

Following the significant number of departures from the Telegraph sports desk last month, former Times sports feature writer Alison Kervin is joining as chief sports interviewer. She replaces star interviewer Sue Mott.

Other changes include Stephen Adams’ promotion to arts correspondent, replacing Nigel Reynolds who was axed last month.

The Daily Telegraph has also appointed former Press Association chief reporter John Bingham to take a senior reporting role.

Further changes are expected as the integration policy continues to roll out.

There has been talk of strike action over management decisions to axe staff members, which included the Telegraph Media Group’s decision to remove the entire reader relations desk as well as individual journalists over the last few months.

Sunday Telegraph editor Patience Wheatcroft resigned in September 2007, reportedly over the integration strategy.

Press Gazette: Telegraph technology lab created for online innovation

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In an attempt to break down the divide between technology and editorial sections of the newsroom, the Telegraph has introduced a newsroom lab for all members of staff to develop new online products, and ‘take some of the culture [of the lab] back out onto the floor’.

Press Gazette: Telegraph developer weekend: The possibilites of Google Earth

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Google’s Chewy Trewhella gave a presentation to the Telegraph developers day to show off the kind of things that can be done with the media giant’s Google Earth feature through developing mash-ups and apps that run in conjunction with the mapping technology.

Despite the possibilities open to developers through the service, Press Gazette says, he admits that Google have had problems keeping people interested in the technology.

Nashua Telegraph video of Clinton aide arrest is in public interest, says online editor

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The Nashua Telegraph‘s decision to publish a 15-minute video of Sidney Blumenthal, aide to presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, while he was in police custody has been criticised by media commentator Roy Greenslade.

Writing on his blog, the former editor of The Daily Mirror said the video was ’embarrassing, humiliating and overly intrusive’.

“To show the footage of a person undergoing ritual humiliation while in police custody is a disgraceful act. It serves no public interest whatsoever,” he wrote.

Damon Kiesow, managing editor and online editor of the Telegraph, told Journalism.co.uk that the decision to publish the video was ‘typical practice’:

“During the course of our coverage we have published booking photos, police records and court documents related to the case. This is typical practice for us. In fact the story with the video also included a PDF containing nine pages of records including the sentencing document.”

Far from seeking to ‘humiliate’ Blumenthal, Kiesow said the paper – and other US media – had previously been accused of covering up his arrest by not reporting it immediately to protect Clinton’s election campaign.

“The Telegraph has been publishing video on the Web for almost three years. During that time we have published numerous court-related segments including police interviews and court hearings.

“Some have been very graphic and painful in detail but were published due to a significant local interest in the stories.

“The Nashua Police Department only recently implemented the technology that makes it possible for us to gain access to booking videos. Blumenthal is the second booking video we have requested, the first was not published due to technical difficulties on our end.”

Publishing the video was not an attempt to cast aspersions on Blumenthal, but was intended to give readers the opportunity to make up their own minds – with all the information provided.

“I think Roy Greenslade frames the question ‘why publish’ in exactly the wrong way, and by doing so pre-supposes both the answer and the potential public reaction to the video.  In fact, this was the first story in our coverage that garnered any positive reader comments for Blumenthal.

“Obviously those predisposed to support or oppose Blumenthal will interpret it as they want. But it is not our place to try and guess what those interpretations are. We felt in this case, and in general, that supplementing our reporting with source documents is the best way to let readers make up their own minds.”

Is there an issue here about the medium: is multimedia content such as this more intrusive, as Greenslade suggests, and therefore arguably less in the public interest? Or does it better serve the readers by giving them all the information available?

Telegraph adds local elections map

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The Telegraph has created another political map of the UK, this time giving a regional breakdown of local politics.

The interactive map makes use of local council data, such as council tax figures, local services info and the political make up of the authority, which users can browse by area.

The paper says this is a long-term project and data on the map ‘will be enhanced and updated continuously’

Telegraph.co.uk map of local government election information

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Social Media Journalist: ‘Services like ustream or qik that live stream video from DV cams and phones have huge potential’ Damon Kiesow

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Journalism.co.uk talks to reporters across the globe working at the collision of journalism and social media about how they see it changing their industry. This week, Damon Kiesow, Nashua Telegraph.

image of Damon Kiesow

1. Who are you and what do you do?
I am the Managing Editor/Online at The Telegraph in Nashua, NH. I am responsible for the overall news presentation and strategy for our digital publications including NashuaTelegraph.com, NHPrimary.com, FeastNH.com and EncoreBuzz.com.

We have a staff of about 50 in the newsroom and nashuatelegraph.com was a finalist in two categories in this year’s Newspaper Association of America Digital Edge Awards.

2. Which web or mobile-based social media tools do you use on a daily basis and why?
On a typical day:

I use each for a variety of reasons. Delicious is my reigning favourite due to the huge filtering and early warning effect it provides. I follow about 78 people, mostly digital media professionals.

A few times per day I review their most recent bookmarks to keep up to date on what they are thinking about and what new tools and toys they have discovered.

I know many of them do the same and some of my ‘best’ ideas we have implemented at the paper have come from those bookmarks.

Twitter serves a similar purpose – and I am following many of the same people as on Delicious. But I like Twitter for the flexibility (IM, phone, PC, Web) and both the immediacy and asynchronous nature of the service.

It is just a great way to stay in touch with people without the burden of reading or responding to email or phone calls.

I use Ning mostly every day to visit sites like wiredjournalists.com, and we have created several Ning sites for the newspaper including Encorebuzz.ning.com.

I have been on LinkedIn for 5 – 6 years and it is still the best place to accumulate business contacts. I probably do not use it every day, but a few times a week I get requests to connect.

Facebook is one I use just due to the critical mass of people they have online. I check it every day and we do have a few small applications running on the service that feed out breaking news from the newspaper. Most of my time there is spent ignoring Zombie and Pirate invitations.

3. Of the thousands of social media tools available, could you single one out as having the most potential for news either as a publishing or a news gathering tool?
If I had to choose from just the tools I use regularly – I would pick Twitter. They have really focused on a core concept and seem very open to letting people expand on it.

It is too early to say if Twitter will be a huge hit for us as a newspaper but we pick up a few followers a week and the trend seems to be increasing.

I like the fact that we can use it both simply to push content (using twitterfeed.com) and as a two-way conversation with readers. We follow anyone who follows us and try to be responsive to questions or comments that come in via our Twitter friends.

In terms of other products – I think the most likely winners this year will be services like ustream.tv or qik.com that allow live streaming video from DV cameras and cell phones respectively.

This has huge potential both as a newsgathering tool and as a social media/self publishing phenomena. We are just starting to experiment with both of these services.

4. And the most overrated in your opinion?
At the moment I consider Facebook to be the most overrated. Things are beginning to change but it is still a walled garden for the most part.

I would not be comfortable investing a lot time or effort in using Facebook as a social media platform for the newspaper without some continued opening up of their API and clarification of their terms of service.

Telegraph creates mash-up map of London murders

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Following news of the murder of 14-year-old Amro Elbadawi in London, the Telegraph has plotted figures of murders in the capital last year on a Google map to show their location and frequency by borough.

Screenshot of Telegraph map of London murders in 2007

The map gives an at-a-glance overview of the 26 teenagers murdered in London in 2007 and complements the text article, though it would be useful to have more of the information referred to in the piece included on the map – e.g. Metropolitan Police stats on the ethnic origin of last year’s victims.

The Manchester Evening News’ murder map of fatalities since 1999 develops the idea further with images of the victims and links to background articles.

DNA 2008: from outsourcing to in-house, De Persgroep’s ad strategy

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While other media groups consider outsourcing their ad production, at today’s Digital News Affairs (DNA) conference Christian Van Thillo, CEO of Belgium’s De Persgroup, explained his group’s reverse strategy.

Having started by outsourcing all advertising, Persgroup has recently brought its ad production in-house.

Its Fred advertising production service is similar to that recently launched by the Telegraph in the UK for online advertisers and targets big brands offering the opportunity to create multi-platform, group wide campaigns.

According to Van Thillo, news providers online face ‘more of an economic challenge than a content challenge’.

Keeping advertising production under group control could help broach this challenge, while helping alleviate fears for jobs raised by outsourcing models.

In this video clip, Van Thillo also talks about how forming early partnerships with other publishers helped to protect and grow their revenues from recruitment advertising (originally 20 per cent of De Persgroep’s total income).

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z1uwplpFK0]