Kristine Lowe is a freelance journalist who writes on the media industry for number of US, UK and Norwegian publications. Here she looks at use of open-source software, Drupal, on Danish news sites. Continue reading
Prince Harry is to be withdrawn from his tour of duty in Afghanistan after reports on US blog, Drudge Report, revealed he was serving with British forces there.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) issued a statement today confirming speculation that the third-in-line to the throne would cease active service and return to the UK.
“Following a detailed assessment of the risks by the operational chain of command, the decision has been taken by Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, Chief of Defence Staff, in consultation with General Sir Richard Dannatt, Chief of the General Staff, to withdraw Prince Harry from Afghanistan immediately,” read the statement.
“This decision has been taken primarily on the basis that the worldwide media coverage of Prince Harry in Afghanistan could impact on the security of those who are deployed there, as well as the risks to him as an individual soldier.”
The media blackout agreed between the Ministry of Defence and UK news outlets about Prince Harry’s secret deployment was broken after popular US blog, The Drudge Report, ran a story about his activities in Afghanistan.
The MoD and the media struck a deal that meant extended access to Prince Harry during his time in Helmand Province in exchange for news of his deployment to be held until after his tour had been completed.
A stipulation of the agreement was that media in the UK would hold its stories unless a foreign news publisher made the news public first.
When Drudge broke the story news groups in the UK were then forced to flood their stories on an unsuspecting public.
The MoD asked the media to refrain from speculating on Prince Harry location and other details of his mission until he returns to the UK.
Journalism.co.uk talks to journalists across the globe about social media and how they see it changing their industry.
This week’s guest is Pramit Singh, blogger on the Indian new media scene and founder of Bighow.com. Continue reading
In this article Chris Mooney sees similarities between grievances in the recent Writers Guild strike in Los Angeles and problems facing bloggers.
The strike after all, he writes, was about the impact of online on the screen and television writing industry: writers seeking compensation for their work as its disseminated across a range of platforms.
Could a Bloggers Guild be set up and put to action in similar circumstances?
Joshua Micah Marshall, editor and publisher of US political blog Talking Points Memo, has received the George Polk Award for legal reporting and becomes the first blogger to do so.
Marshall won the award, which have been handed out by Long Island University since 1949, for his coverage of dismissals of United States attorneys, which were found to be politically motivated.
Clark Boyd, technology correspondent for The World – a joint production by the BBC and US public service broadcaster WGBH – discusses the merits of podcasting in this video.
Boyd says there is a future for audio content in this form, which will not be supplanted by video.
Celebrity website TMZ is streaming live video from a network of webcams at key celebrity hangouts in the US, according to a report by CNET news.
To create the 24-hour-surveillance-society-meets-celebrity-obsessed-culture venture, the webcams are not stationary, but are operated by crews sent out to different locations, whether these be top restaurants or hot dog stalls on a street corner.
“It’s fun and raw and fresh, and it fits the personality of our site,” says Harry Levin, executive producer of the site, in the article.
The cameras have already picked up Paris Hilton’s brother Barron being released on bail and were started during Britney Spears’ court appearances last October.
There’s nowhere left to hide.
The founder of one of America’s largest regional news networks is to launch a website dedicated to international news.
Philip Balboni, who established the New England Cable News (NECN) in the US, will resign from his post as NECN president in March to launch Global News Enterprises in early 2009.
The site aims to have correspondents in nearly 70 countries, a press release from NECN said.
According to a report in the International Herald Tribune, $7 million (around £3.5 million) has been raised to fund the news site.
“The world in every respect is globalizing, and we’re being swept up in it with the economy, our lives, our leisure times, our children’s education. And the American people are not being well-served by our media. The moment is right for this,” Balboni told the Tribune.
The US’ National Press Club (NPC) is to allow ‘citizen journalists’ to become members through a partnership with cit-j site Helium.com.
The doors aren’t completely open: only the top contributors to the site – those that have earned a five-star rating for their body of work – will be able to apply for membership. However, reaching out to new kinds of media is a big gesture for an established, traditional journalism institution.
Helium’s ratings system will allow the NPC to effectively take on only the most ‘professional’ of the site’s citizen contributors. This could have a two-way impact, as Mark Ranalli, president and CEO of Helium, suggests in a release: “With their [the NPC’s] involvement, we believe we can elevate the stature, awareness and quality of citizen journalism.”