Author Archives: Paul Bradshaw

Why do people read online news? (Research summary)

Ioana Epure summarises “Harnessing the potential of online news: Suggestions from a study on the relationship between online news advantages and its post-adoption consequences”, a study by An Nguyen (University of Stirling)

In the last decade journalism has entered a stage in which news organisations are less reluctant to invest in online operations, but An Nguyen’s study starts from the premise that they do so driven not by the desire to innovate and fully exploit the potential of online news, but because of the fear that the internet will replace traditional media in the news market.

As a consequence, they haven’t actually tried to understand what users want from online news and how what they want will affect their behaviour after receiving it.

Surprisingly, the results of Nguyen’s study show that traditional press still has a battle to carry, provided that practitioners understand why people have turned to online news and try to offer them something similar. Continue reading →

Data journalism pt2: Interrogating data

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This is a draft from a book chapter on data journalism (the first, on gathering data, is here). I’d really appreciate any additions or comments you can make – particularly around ways of spotting stories in data, and mistakes to avoid.

UPDATE: It has now been published in The Online Journalism Handbook.

“One of the most important (and least technical) skills in understanding data is asking good questions. An appropriate question shares an interest you have in the data, tries to convey it to others, and is curiosity-oriented rather than math-oriented. Visualizing data is just like any other type of communication: success is defined by your audience’s ability to pick up on, and be excited about, your insight.” (Fry, 2008, p4)

Once you have the data you need to see if there is a story buried within it. The great advantage of computer processing is that it makes it easier to sort, filter, compare and search information in different ways to get to the heart of what – if anything – it reveals. Continue reading →

Data journalism pt1: Finding data (draft – comments invited)

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The following is a draft from a book about online journalism that I’ve been working on. I’d really appreciate any additions or comments you can make – particularly around sources of data and legal considerations

The first stage in data journalism is sourcing the data itself. Often you will be seeking out data based on a particular question or hypothesis (for a good guide to forming a journalistic hypothesis see Mark Hunter’s free ebook Story-Based Inquiry (2010)). On other occasions, it may be that the release or discovery of data itself kicks off your investigation.

There are a range of sources available to the data journalist, both online and offline, public and hidden. Typical sources include:

Continue reading →

Sutton and Cheam Guardian skewered by blogger for misreporting Election

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This is a Guest Article from political blogger Anna Raccoon about questionable Election reporting by the Sutton and Cheam Guardian , where all the candidates but one received objective biographies; it’s also a case study of one way that bloggers can hold journalists to account, and how the media is becoming more permeable.

For me, the more cross-scrutiny we get between journalists and bloggers, the better it will be for our media. It first appeared on Anna’s blog

The interesting, and potentially damning, points of this story are that one candidate was included with a joke biography in a survey of all candidates, that the audit trail seems to show conclusively that the newspaper had a full biography available – having used the photo which was attached to the same email, and that the journalist concerned has been shown to be a supporter of the candidate who would probably benefit most from damage to the Libertarian Party candidate. I’ll be pleased to run a reply from the Sutton and Cheam Guardian; I think it needs one. Continue reading →

I've moved my blog – here's why

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In the past few days the Online Journalism Blog has moved to hosting on Journal Local, a platform primarily aimed at hyperlocal publishers.

I’ve moved the blog for a number of reasons. Firstly, the platform offers specialist support that doesn’t appear to be available anywhere else. Philip John, who built Journal Local, is an experienced hyperlocal publisher (of the Lichfield Blog) himself, and he knows his stuff. He has already been able to provide technical assistance on all sorts of things I don’t always have the time to look into, from themes and plugins to sorting things out when the blog has been the target of hackers.

In fact, just having someone around who knows when the blog is being targeted by hackers is going to give me a bit more peace of mind.

Secondly, I want to support what Philip is trying to do. Journal Local is an attempt to find one sustainable business model for hyperlocal publishing. It’s not only well thought-out and executed but, for me, could make it easier for hyperlocal publishers generally to continue to operate both editorially and commercially.

It’s a freemium service, with a free, bespoke platform for those who are trying out hyperlocal publishing, but also – in the premium version – more control and support for existing publishers who are looking to make their operations more professional. Both are expanding markets.

And although Journal Local hasn’t yet officially launched, already North West Sheffield News and Inside the M60 have signed up, and the Future of News website is using the platform too.

A key element for me is that Journal Local isn’t just a technical service but an information service as well. If you’ve met Philip, you’ll know he’s an important part of the hyperlocal movement and always ready to offer help to other bloggers and publishers. I think that’s key in any new media business – that it’s a vocation for the founder.

Particularly interesting are the features tailored to hyperlocal site owners and online journalists. The basic setup comes with plugins that pull from TheyWorkForYou.com, WriteToThem.com and Opening Times – as well as an Addiply plugin that allows publishers to instantly sell advertising. The service will also be bolstered in the near future by features that take advantage of such great tools as OpenlyLocal and Patient Opinion, among others.

In that context, I’d much rather give the money I currently pay on hosting and domain name registration to Journal Local. It’s a no-brainer.

And I may well start recommending that students running their own hyperlocal operations use the free version of the service.

In the meantime, I guess if you want to use it yourself you’d need to contact Philip John on Twitter or something.

Telegraph launches powerful election database

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The Telegraph have finally launched – in beta – the election database I’ve been waiting for since the expenses scandal broke. And it’s rather lovely.

Starting with the obvious part (skip to the next section for the really interesting bit): the database allows you to search by postcode, candidate or constituency, or to navigate by zooming, moving and clicking on a political map of the UK.

Searches take you to a page on an individual candidate or a constituency. For the former you get a biography, details on their profession and education (for instance, private or state, oxbridge, redbrick or neither), as well as email, website and Twitter page. Not only is there a link to their place in the Telegraph’s ‘Expenses Files’ – but also a link to their allowances page on Parliament.uk. Continue reading →

Open Data in Spain: AbreDatos

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I come from Argentina, where the government isn’t obliged by law to give away public information to citizens or NGOs that request it. There are, though, some access-to-information projects ready to be discussed in Congress in the next few days. Still, this is why I’m always amazed by all the open data initiatives in the USA and UK.

But now I can show you an open data project from Spain called Desafío AbreDatos, organized by the ProBonoPúblico association and supported by the Basque Government.

AbreDatos 2010 consists of two days’ programming by groups of 4 developers building websites, apps, widgets or mashups with at least one source coming from a public organization in digital format (APIs, XML, CSV, SPARQL / RDF, HTML, PDF, scanned images). Many of those sources can be found in datospublicos.jottit.com.

Of course the initiative wants to encourage the opening up of public data and transparency of administrations, and some of the projects are very interesting (my favorite is a website that shows if Congress staff really earn their salaries).

One to keep an eye on.

The Internet hates middlemen…

Date for the diary: JEEcamp 2010 on May 21

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jeecamp

Given that Roy Greenslade has beaten me to blogging about my own event, I thought I’d better go ahead and blog about it here. I’m talking about JEEcamp of course – a conference-cum-unconference about journalism experimentation and enterprise. Put another way, if you read this blog, the sort of stuff I talk about.

It’s on May 21st at The Bond in Birmingham. Here’s what we’ve got:

Keynote from Simon Waldman, Author, Creative Disruption, and Digital Director, Guardian Media Group. (When I started blogging this was one guy I always read – and he’s still ahead of the game.)
Panel: What does the election result mean for publishers and startups? Confirmed so far: Tom Loosemore (ex-Ofcom, -BBC, now-Channel 4), Talk About Local’s Will Perrin and outgoing Creative Industries minister Sion Simon.
Please nominate who you would like as the fourth panellist.
Closing keynote: Stewart Kirkpatrick, founder of Scotland’s first online-only newspaper, Caledonian Mercury (@calmerc), which launched earlier this year.

More importantly, in between all of that are a whole bunch of fringe meetings, chats over coffee and group discussions. You decide what to talk about here. Because, really, that’s what we go to conferences for, isn’t it?

And in the spirit of the internet, there’s a low barrier to entry: tickets are only £30

For those who haven’t been before, there’s coverage of last year’s event here and here. For those who have, feel free to post a comment.

You really don’t need to use any more brainpower on this. Book a ticket by emailing Kelly.ONeil@BCU.ac.uk (invoices available!) and sign up on the Facebook page or wiki.