The website of the ABCe, the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) subsidiary responsible for website traffic measurement standards, is embarrassingly bad. Continue reading
ABCe website embarrassingly bad
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Monthly Archives: March 2009
Obama’s way around mainstream media
She was trying to make sure media (literally) used the “right” image of Barack Obama during the campaign. Jodi Williams was one of the many young brains behind Barack Obama’s media campaign.
Jodi Williams, who was part of Barack Obama's press team in the presidental campaign. (Photo: Bente Kalsnes)
I met her at the Digital News Affairs conference in Brussels to talk about the digital changes in campaigning and dealing with the media. She had no doubt that all the new digital tools made it easier for political candidates to communicate independently from mainstream media, on their own platforms. Continue reading
FAQ: questions from Maite Fernandez
A few months ago Uruguayan student Maite Fernandez interviewed me about online journalism. I always try to make these responses public for other students who may have the same questions, so here are the answers as transcribed by Maite:
1) How do you think the net affects the transmission of news?
One major way lies in distribution. Print news spent decades setting up a distribution infrastructure (typically delivery vans, vendors/newsagents and paper boys); broadcast news did the same with distribution over time (scheduling and running orders). But online, distribution is networked – and it is done by readers and, to a lesser extent, the journalists themselves. As I’ve written elsewhere, we are all paperboys now. Continue reading
Forget everything you think you know about Twitter
The following was written for Birmingham City University’s alumni magazine, Aspire.
If you’ve followed recent media coverage of Twitter, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a website where people talk about what they’re eating, or stalk minor celebrities. Continue reading
Shift is happening – useful advice for young journalists
Financial crisis, digital revolution, crumbling media companies – these are shaky days for media and everyone involved in the field. How can journalism students make sense of it all?
I asked several of the speakers and participants at the Digital News Affairs conference in Brussels one question: What is the best piece of advice you will give to journalism students in the middle of this upheaval? Here is what they want you to focus on:
Ben Hammersley, editor, Wired Magazine: Everything comes down to being able to write well. Before you write well, forget Facebook, Twitter, etc. And you learn to write well by reading lots of good stuff and write a lot yourself. And find a good editor! Continue reading
Six reasons why magazines have a future
“The future of magazines is glorious,” said Simon Wear of magazine house Future UK, wrapping up the industry event ‘What Happens to Magazines?’ held in London lon Monday. “Both print and online,” he added.
He would say that, though: Future has been selling a successful 1.7m magazines a month through the recession with its hobby and geek-lad magazines. As written elsewhere, you could call 2008 the Year of the Niche title as people look to do things at home, cheaply, or the things they love most during the economic downturn. Continue reading
New approaches to research in a digital age
In January I made the following presentation to the Association for Journalism Education, talking about how digital technologies can be used to facilitate research. Let me know if you have had any similar experiences with using digital technologies in research yourself.
The future of online journalism, according to Rue89 and Demotix
Paid content online is a dead end, say the founders of Rue89 and Demotix.
-If you want people to buy your content, you need to provide a lot of added value and that is very expensive. The paid content will never cover you expenses, says Pierre Haski, one of the founder of the French online-only news site Rue89.
Rue89-founder Pierre Haski and Demotix-founder Turi Munth at the Digital News Affairs conference in Brussels. (Photo: Bente Kalsnes)
Online Journalism Blog follows the Digital News Affairs conference in Brussels, and going to media conferences can be quite depressive these days. Even more refreshing then to hear the founders of Rue89 and Demotix with some fresh and brave ideas for the future. Demotix is a brand new citizen-journalism website and photo agency, started in January 2009 by Turi Munthe and Jonathan Tepper. Rue89 was started by four blogging journalists from Le Liberation in 2007. Rue89 has today 20 staffers, an impressive achievement for a journalism startup.
– The old media world is crumbling, and you can’t use the old methods for new media world, says Haski. Continue reading
Twitter as chatroom – Growing Bolder’s experiences
In a guest post, Katy Widrick of Growing Bolder talks about how they used Twitter to create a live chat aimed at the 50+ demographic
Six months ago, if you asked me about all the ways I try and spread the message about Growing Bolder, I would have listed some well-known tools: Digg, Facebook, e-mail campaigns, etc. The name Twitter wouldn’t have appeared on the list, and to be honest – I probably couldn’t have told you what it really was, or the best way to use it. Continue reading
User generated content and citizen journalism (Online Journalism lesson #4)
Lesson 4 in this series of Online Journalism classes looks at User Generated Content (UGC) and Citizen Journalism. Now the students have to think creatively of ways to engage communities in the issues they’re covering (and vice versa):
Online Journalism Blog 