Online Journalism Blog

De Volkskrant’s Harry Potter multimedia interactive isn’t quite what I meant when I talked about the ‘Daily Prophet’ approach to video journalism, but it’s a nice twist on the idea…

Mexico Reporter reports the launch of The Hub by human rights organization Witness to “allow people to publicize events or situations violating human rights using hand-held cameras or mobile phones. They gather material, upload it onto the Hub, and then tell viewers what they can do to help raise awareness of the problem and create change”

In reality, the videos on view at the moment don’t necessarily include the ‘what viewers can do’ element (which admittedly is asking a lot), but there is a specific ‘Take Action’ section. A good example of the ‘how’ of my Five Ws and a H.

Final year Birmingham City University journalism degree students Todd Nash and Neil Timms have launched a niche blog covering the build up to Christmas in Birmingham, complete with video - it’s called Turkey Brumstick. Todd explains:

“For our Professional Journalism module we were asked to produce between five and ten articles for publication. We decided it would be better to create all of them on the same topic and publicise them on a blog to try to get publicity so that it can actually be of use to people.

“We’re filling a gap in the market: the local paper doesn’t produce a lot of video content; then there are the likes of the council websites which tell you what’s going on but not if it’s any good.”

Just a bit of fun. Luc Van Braekel is one of Belgium’s foremost bloggers - read him at http://lvb.net/.

Andrew Dubber, who runs the music industry/new media blog New Music Strategies, has some cute ideas for monetising what has become more than a hobby, “without getting in the way of the content, and without jeopardising the integrity of the blog.” The twist: he’s giving a commission to his readers… (more…)

With the NUJ accepting its first full time blogger member (well done), The NUJ New Media mailing list (how retro) has been debating the acceptance of a second, at the end of which come Jemima Kiss and that original blogger, Engadget’s Conrad Quilty Harper, like a quality double act to head the bill. Kiss asked Conrad (or should that be CQH?) to explain why he joined. The answer bears quoting in full: (more…)

I’m a big, big fan of Bloglines for reading my RSS feeds. Despite effusive pitches from various people for me to switch to Google Reader, and a brief flirtation with the Big G, Bloglines still has me. And it’s for one simple reason:

Bloglines is social. (more…)

I’d love to know who you are and what you do. If you’re on LinkedIn, please add me to your network by going to http://www.linkedin.com/in/onlinejournalist - my email is paul.bradshaw@bcu.ac.uk

Guest Blogger Bas Timmers is Newsroom Editor at Dutch broadsheet de Volkskrant.

‘A newspaper is like an oil tanker,’ editors in chief call out in despair again and again. Changing the direction is often slow and difficult. But that of course just depends on whether you have the right rudder or not. Because the captain is still steering the ship. Yes, journalists can be quite nasty and stubborn, but mutiny is still a step too far for most of them. (more…)

Stefan Lewandowski has very kindly created a Facebook app for the Online Journalism Blog.

Check it out, install it, laugh, cry, enjoy.