Archive for the blogging Tag

Case Study – Two political blog articles which went viral

Two articles from the last month by the Heresiarch and Anna Raccoon form an interesting study in articles by independent publishers which gained widespread attention.

John Rentoul, Media Oops Number 1 : You cannot close the door once a blog post has bolted

John Rentoul of the Independent has the blog with the longest running single-blog meme in the known world. “Questions to which the answer is no” is now up to number 411 (“Will Barclays carry out its threat to leave UK?“),

I can’t compete with that, so I thought I’d start a list of Media Oops-es, i.e., cockups. This is all in the interest of media transparency, you understand. Shooting from the hip is just as big a problem for blogging journalists as it is for rednecks and Harriet Harman – though I suspect her invective was planned.

My Henry Stewart talk about ‘Blogging, Twitter and Journalism’

I’ve recorded a 48 minute presentation covering ‘Blogging, Twitter and Journalism‘ for the Henry Stewart series of talks. It’s designed for journalism students and covers How blogging differs from other journalism platforms; Key developments in journalism blogging history; What makes a successful blog What is Twitter and how is it useful for journalists and publishers? and Why RSS is central to
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From a 15-year-old’s blog to MSM: Bleachgate and Miracle Mineral Solutions

Journalists wanting evidence of the value of blogs should take a look at the ‘Bleachgate’ story which has taken a month to filter up from 15-year-old Rhys Morgan’s blog post through other skeptic and science bloggers into The Guardian. Rhys has Crohn’s Disease and was sceptical of the Miracle Mineral Solutions ‘treatment’ being plugged on a support forum that was
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Why was Simon Perry ejected from Newport coroner’s court?

Very odd scenes at the coroner’s court at Newport in the Isle of Wight, where VentnorBlog’s Simon Perry was ejected by the coroner’s officer – at first, according to Perry, on the grounds that he had suddenly ceased to be a journalist (VentnorBlog have a fine record of attending meetings and hearings), then as a member of the public on the
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My Favourite UK Political Blogosphere Statistics in 2010 so far

During January and early February we have been subjected to a festival of political Satirical Statistics, as blogs reviewed 2009, Tweetminster reviewed political twitter, and commentators reviewed all of these numbers.

Most of it has been fluff and fury, but amongst the noise these are the statistics which I think are worth noting with care.

The Press Complaints Commission consultation: respond by January 25th

The Press Complaints commission, which is the industry body which attempts to regulate the printed media, and now the corresponding websites, is engaged in a “Governance Review” – and is wanting responses by January 25th 2010.

The commission last had the attention of bloggers when a proposal was made by the PCC Chairman Baroness Buscombe that they should be regulated by the PCC. Unity, at Liberal Conspiracy, organised a response which drew expressions of support from perhaps 300 bloggers over the following 3 days.

Tim Ireland has been organising an excellent response , based around these five specific proposals:

SUGGESTION ONE: Like-for-like placement of retractions, corrections and apologies in print and online (as standard).

SUGGESTION TWO: Original or redirected URLs for retractions, corrections & apologies online (as standard).

SUGGESTION THREE: The current Code contains no reference to headlines, and this loophole should be closed immediately.

SUGGESTION FOUR: Sources to be credited unless they do not wish to be credited or require anonymity/protection.

SUGGESTION FIVE: A longer and more interactive consultation period for open discussion of more fundamental issues.

And he has done an excellent (and noisy) video involving space invaders, which you can see here.

The PCC has a special website set up, from where you can send your submission.

The closing date is January 25th 2010.

Baroness Buscombe, the Press Complaints Commission and the Internet: Hard Questions

Baroness Buscombe, the Chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, gave a speech this week to the Society of Editors, followed by some comments to Ian Burrell of the Independent about a desire to “regulate the blogosphere“.

The Baroness has taken several steps backwards from her previous statements to Mr Burrell, and has attempted to emphasise that any proposals would be “voluntary”.

I am sceptical as to whether this is a true change of mind, or a simply more nuanced journey aiming for the same destination by a more circuitous, and perhaps better hidden, route. Ian Burrell has pointed out that he had a direct interview with her for 40 minutes, so making that mistake would not be easy/ However, that has been addressed elsewhere by perhaps hundreds of people, with an excellent and vigorous collective letter from hundreds of bloggers.

For me, in addition to the “will we … won’t we … will we … won’t we … regulate the bloggers” game of Hokey-Cokey, this affair has highlighted a number of problems with both the Press Complaints commission, and perhaps with Baroness Buscombe herself.

Local Blog impact on Local Democracy: Somerton Town Council

Local Bloggers are beginning to produce a few good examples of effective scrutiny of Local Councils. In this piece David Keen, who is a Vicar in Yeovil and writes regularly for my Wardman Wire political site, gives an account of a local controversy in the Somerset town of Somerton, which has lead to a number of resignations from the Town Council.

Further, some national commentators are beginning to notice that local blogs have a place in building a better political culture in the UK.

Asian Correspondent taps into region’s blogosphere to fill foreign newshole

James Craven believes that instructive blogging should be paid. That was part of his inspiration behind leaving a job as CEO of a successful B2B media company and launching Asian Correspondent, a news site intended to report and aggregate news and information from the continent. “I think that the blogosphere is one of the most important things to happen in
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