It’s a simple question. Following on from my post on Bild last week, how is your news organisation exploring new sources of revenue? Are they hosting events? Selling photos or merchandise? Selling online services?
What are they doing and what would you like to see them doing?
The more interesting of the sessions at the BBC’s Future of Journalism conference came on the second day.
Head of BBC Newsroom Peter Horrocks spent most of his session fielding questions from employees concerned about how their particular corner of the corporation would be affected by multimedia newsrooms. That aside, general themes from his presentation and responses to questions included:
The second panel, on user generated content, was probably the most interesting of the two days – mainly because it was also the most diverse, including Sky’s Simon Bucks and Paul Hambleton from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation alongside BBC Sport Online’s Claire Stocks, Matthew Eltringham from the BBC’s UGC hub, and Chris Russell from Future Media and Technology. Continue reading
German newspaper Bild is “looking to expand without the expense of actually hiring new reporters,” reports The Guardian:
“Bild has joined up with discount supermarket chain Lidl to sell a basic digital camera to a legion of citizen journalists, who the tabloid hopes will contribute images to its coverage.
“”We can’t cover everything,” said Michael Paustian, a Bild managing editor. “We think it is an advance for journalism.”
“The pocket-sized camera has 2GB of memory, can shoot still pictures and video, and costs €69.99 (£60). It comes with software and a USB port that allows “reader-reporters” to upload content directly to editors who will be assigned to review it for publication.”
Predictably, the coverage has focused on the citizen journalism angle and the fears over standards and privacy…
But the real news here, I think, is that Bild may have stumbled across an interesting business model for news. Continue reading
That’s the question being asked in Norway after a political journalist “was criticized because she was a “fan” of the Norwegian Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg, on Facebook.” (via Bente)
new journalists for new information
Information is changing. The news industry was born in a time of information scarcity – and any understanding of the laws of supply and demand will tell you that that made information valuable.
But the past 30 years have seen that the erosion of that scarcity. Not only have the barriers to publishing, broadcast and distribution been lowered by desktop publishing, satellite and digital technologies, and the web – but a booming PR industry has grown up to provide these news organisations with ‘cheap’ news.
Information is changing. Increasingly, we are not seeking information out – instead, it finds us. The scarcity is not in information, but in our time to wade through it, make meaning of it, and act on it.
Information is changing, and so journalists must too. In the previous parts of this series I’ve looked at how the news process could change in a multiplatform environment; how to involve the former audience; what can now happen after a story is published; journalists and readers as distributors; and new media business models. In this part I want to look at personnel – and how we might move from a generic, hierarchy of ‘reporters’, ‘subs’ and ‘editors’ to a more horizontal structure of roles based on information types. Continue reading
Nokia have unveiled the N97 and Robert Scoble makes a compelling case for its superiority over the iPhone. Curiously, many of his points mirror ones I had prepared in a blog post comparing the iPhone to the N95, giving me the perfect excuse to finally publish it.
The iPhone is overrated. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Yes, it’s got great usability, but for a journalist it just doesn’t compete. And here are 10 reasons why:
This was published as a guest post on Shane Richmond’s Daily Telegraph Technology blog:
Media organisations are still barely getting their heads around social media. They look at a conversation and see ‘vox pops’; they look at a community and see a market. They ask for ‘Your pictures’ and then complain when they get 1000 images of a mild snowfall.
They ghettoise viewers into 60 second slots at the end of the news bulletin, or ‘Have Your Say’ sections on the website. They can see the use of blogs and Twitter when they can’t access a disaster area and are desperate for news, but the rest of the time complain that they’re ‘only for geeks’ or ‘full of rumour’. And they advertise, when they should socialise. Continue reading
I’ve produced a series of 5 podcasts talking about the results of my survey into blogging journalists. You can hear the first 3 on the European Journalism Centre’s website (embedded in the outside column) – the final 2 are set to go live in the following weeks.
Successful journalists not only know where to find the great stories – but how to make great stories find them. They know lots of people, and know the right people; they hang out in the right places, and they make themselves available.
On the internet you’d call it search engine optimisation (SEO), but while many news organisations now focus on optimising stories for search engines, most journalists fail to realise they should also be search engine optimising themselves.
A search engine optimised journalist is findable, connected, and visible. Your sources and potential sources are moving online – and what’s the first thing they do when they want to connect with someone about a particular issue they feel is becoming important? Google it. Or failing that, they go to their social networks.
If you don’t have a strong presence on either, you’re missing out.
Last week I spoke at the BBC College of Journalism’s Future of Journalism conference about the future newsroom, and the News Diamond specifically. Chair Louise Minchin asked the following question: did these new production processes mean journalists would become more passive?
It is a great question. On the surface that’s what would appear to be happening: in posting alerts and blog drafts you are inviting the input of the audience and therefore being more reactive. Continue reading
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