Jun 12, 2009
June 12th, 2009 by nicolaskb
As traditional media outlets close down, the relative importance of non-market players becomes more important.
Governments around the world were quick to see the opportunities for their news agencies. From Xinhua (China) to ITAR-TASS (Russia), from AFP (half of its budget comes from state subscriptions) to Voice of America, governments are trying to shape the world’s public opinion.
The coverage of Gaza by Al Jazeera is a case in point. They produced quality journalism no other outlet could dream of. Now, viewers should keep in mind that money for such newsgathering comes straight from the pocket of the Emir of Qatar. Believe me, I’m sure Al Jazeera’s journalists keep that in mind too.
To help you measure the amount of government-funded journalism, I built this little app, I smell a government rat in my news. Just type in any query and you’ll see the share of articles produced with state funds. [Read more]
Oct 24, 2008
October 24th, 2008 by nicolaskb
France is currently paralyzed by yet another strike. Unlike the ones you’re used to when visiting my country, usually from railway or airport staff, this one was launched by lawyers and judges alike, united against their government minister, Rachida Dati (read more here).
Traditional journalists have been covering the event as it unfolded. Google News brings you more than 300 bland and unsurprising articles.
The only place where you can read what’s going on in France’s judicial system is a blog. Maître Eolas, a lawyer who opened his blog 4 years ago, just published 64 testimonies from justice professionals. He even renamed his blog ‘Daily news from angry justice professionals’. [Read more]
Oct 20, 2008
October 20th, 2008 by nicolaskb
As communism fell in Lithuania 19 years ago, existing dailies started to publish what they wanted. And what they wanted was money. The 2 main titles promptly became filled with advertorial paid for by politicians and industrialists.
The Lithuanian public quickly became disheartened with the printed press and turned to the internet instead. That’s why the audience of Lithuanian #1 website for news is only 8 times smaller than its UK counterpart, even though the country is 20 times as small as the UK (and twice as poor in terms of GDP per capita).
Seeing this enthusiasm for online news, MG Baltic, a Vilnius-based holding that trades in everything from consumer goods to news, decided to launch a website. The avowed goal was to complement their mass media portfolio. [Read more]
Sep 14, 2008
September 14th, 2008 by nicolaskb
4 years after launching his blog, a famous French writer publishes a book of comments. The revenues of the book roughly equal 30 years of on-blog advertising.
Pierre Assouline is the typical 50-something, successful French intellectual. Whatever he authors turns into a bestseller, he is involved in the movie industry, writes op-ed pieces for the best newspapers, gives lectures and hosts a radio talk show. And, like many of his ilk, was definitely technophobic. [Read more]
Jun 25, 2008
June 25th, 2008 by nicolaskb
Semantic journalism is a vision for the future of journalism. As the writer works on her article, her computer would gather data on the matter, from pictures to other articles to assessing global opinion trends. It would read through the Wikipedia pages of a given theme and summarize key concepts. A semantic algorithm would bring a selection of the most authoritative people on a subject.
The journalist is left with what she does best: checking and analyzing the data.
That means avoiding the pitfalls of redundant news content. That means escaping the trap of writing about topics without having a clue of what’s at stake. That means interviewing people who do things rather than those who talk about it.
This article is the first of a 4-part series. We’ll explore semantic hacks for newsgathering, writing and publishing in the coming weeks. [Read more]
Jun 6, 2008
June 6th, 2008 by nicolaskb
A thick veil of gloom is slowly blanketing journalism. From resembling Clark Kent and Tintin in their youth, journalists now look more like Jason Blairs, untrustworthy information distorters. Layoffs, shorter deadlines and declining ad revenues are adding to the pessimism of the trade. To feel better, some of them even fake readership data.
We stand against this trend. We are sure that journalism is getting better and stronger by the day. And that journalists will benefit from this.
More than just a big vent session for happy or angry journalists, we want to list the reasons why journalism is going in the right direction. Why it’s easier than ever for young journalists to access sources. Why journalists have more power than ever against their editors. Why journalists will have a more positive impact on society.
This is why the Online Journalism Blog team created JollyJournalist.com, a place where you can tell the world why you think that these are good times to be a journalist. We’ve added ten reasons to get you started below. Once you’re done reading them, please head over to JollyJournalist.com to comment on them or add your own! [Read more]
May 26, 2008
May 26th, 2008 by nicolaskb
A new research from Indiana University showed that 54% of URL requests had no referrals. That means that most of the time, people do not click on links. They merely pick a site in their favorites or type in an URL in the address bar. A mere 5% of URL requests came from search engines.
The figures can hardly be doubted. The study monitored 100,000 users over 9 months â€" the largest yet. What is more, the number of URL requests without referrals actually increased over the course of the study.
Users seem less Google-prone than what is often claimed. They spend little time surfing and prefer to go directly to destinations they know. [Read more]
May 21, 2008
May 21st, 2008 by nicolaskb
The title attribute of a hyperlink allows for a short description of the destination page to be displayed under the cursor. It helps the user get a hint of the linked page’s content without the loading time associated with Snapshot-like plugins (used on this blog).
Most of us would look at the browser’s status bar, but it can be difficult for regular users to determine whether a link is safe for work or if leads to any interesting content. For all the value the attribute adds to user experience, it takes an awful lot of time for a journalist to fill in all the fields. 30 seconds per link, 10 links per article and that’s 5 additional minutes per story. [Read more]
May 8, 2008
May 8th, 2008 by nicolaskb
Skoeps.nl, a citizen-journalism venture, closed down last week after its owners declared it unprofitable. The business plan seemed simple enough to succeed:
- Find loads of money,
- Advertise massively, and
- Share advertising and syndication revenue with writers.
The plan worked, except that there wasn’t enough revenue to share. Skoeps cash-flow was in the black, which means that, if investors refused to go forward, growth must have been minimal and could not have offset the initial investment in the near future. [Read more]
Mar 23, 2008
March 23rd, 2008 by nicolaskb
The cartograms below show the world through the eyes of editors-in-chief, in 2007. Countries swell as they receive more media attention; others shrink as we forget them.
[Read more]
I smell a government rat in my news