I’ve written a piece in the latest Press Gazette about the need to “take down the walls, stop mystifying investigative journalism and include readers in the process, starting now.” Sadly, they’ve pigeonholed it as being about “blog investigations”. Never mind: you can read it here.
I’ve written before on just how important geotagging will be in preparing for a mobile future – well, now that mobile future is here:
“Apple’s newly unveiled second-generation iPhone includes a news service from the Associated Press which provides stories tailored to an individual user’s location.
“The application uses the phone’s in-built GPS (global positioning system) and serves stories based on the user’s immediate area.”
Now, what’s your excuse?
This was originally published in Press Gazette as Del.icio.us social bookmarking explained and Need some background info? Just follow the electronic trail.
Every newspaper has a library, and most journalists have kept some sort of cuttings file for reference. But what if you could search that cuttings file like you search Google? What if you could find similar articles and documents? What if you could let your readers see your raw material?
That’s what online bookmarking – or ‘social bookmarking‘ – tools allow you to do. And they have enormous potential for journalists.
There are a number of social bookmarking services. Del.icio.us is best known and most widely used and supported. For this reason this article will focus mostly on Del.icio.us. [Read more]
Over at Press Gazette you’ll find my latest article on using social bookmarking for journalism – split into three areas: managing cuttings; sourcing information; and publishing. Let me know if you have any personal experiences with bookmarking services – are there better services than Delicious?
I was due to take part in the 9th Journalism Leaders Forum next Tuesday, but sadly have had to pull out. I’m especially gutted because Chris Anderson, editor of Wired magazine and author of “The Long Tail“, will be there via video link. Another time perhaps… [Read more]
A few weeks ago I wrote an 800-word piece for UK Press Gazette on how journalism has changed in the past decade. My original draft was almost 1200 words – here then is the original ‘Blogger’s Cut’ for your delectation…
The past decade has seen more change in the craft of journalism than perhaps any other. Some of the changes have erupted into the mainstream; others have nibbled at the edges. Paul Bradshaw counts the ways…
Perhaps the biggest and most widely publicised change in journalism has been the increasing involvement of – and expectation of involvement by – the readers/audience. Yes, readers had always written letters, and occasionally phoned in tips, but the last ten years have seen the relationship between publisher and reader turn into something else entirely.
You could say it started with the accessibility of email, coupled with the less passive nature of the internet in general, as readers, listeners and watchers became “users”. But the change really gained momentum with… [Read more]
The past decade has seen more change in the craft of journalism than perhaps any other. Some of the changes have erupted into the mainstream; others have nibbled at the edges. Over at the Press Gazette website I count the ways…
PS: I’ll be publishing the ‘blogger’s cut’ with 400 extra words in a week or so.
Here’s the second report I wrote for Press Gazette from the Future of Newspapers conference last week. The version which appeared in Press Gazette is here; the original is below:
Former Guardian editor Peter Preston has said that owners who are “giving up the ghost” must take some responsibility for the decline of newspapers. [Read more]
[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. What’s happened to the Press Gazette /discuss section? I was just about to comment on the latest piece in the print paper (‘Mainstream media must show respect for the new kid on the blog’) only to find the link at Press Gazette now goes straight to the AOL homepage.
So, no copying and pasting, no linking, and because I have other stories to blog (and a bathroom to strip) Press Gazette (and AOL) lose the opportunity to get a few more hits.
The piece in a nutshell focuses on Daily Mail columnist Keith Waterhouse’s “distaste for bloggers” but that this changes “when it comes to photo bloggers. Citizen journalism suddenly becomes worthwhile, even respectable, if the blogger has a camera.”
Interestingly, given that the issue was debated at yesterday’s Citizen Journalism conference, Waterhouse is quoted as saying
“This Damascus U-turn took place in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s
execution, when the pictures began to come in.“You will recall that the reports originally had it that the death sentence was carried out with as much decorum and dignity as such gruesome rituals allow.
“No Western reporters were present – the BBC’s John Simpson was asked along to the necktie party by the Iraqi leader himself, but was turned away.
“The bloggers were there, though, armed with picture-snatching mobile phone cameras. The official photo coverage, taken to convince the world that the monster had indeed paid the price, were grisly enough.
“The bloggers’ contribution – grabbed at the gallows either by a mini-mob of gleeful Shia interlopers or by the condemned prisoner’s guards themselves – shocked all right-thinking people.”
Thankfully, because Waterhouse’s piece is available online, I can quote at length.
Well, you may not be able to discuss it at Press Gazette, but feel free to discuss it here.
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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media
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