Author Archives: Paul Bradshaw

Announcing the launch of Journalism Enterprise.com

21 Replies

Journalism Enterprise.com

Today I am launching a sister site to the Online Journalism Blog: Journalism Enterprise.com will review websites that are attempting to make money from journalism in the new media age. Consider it a TechCrunch of journalism startups.

Why am I doing this? Because journalism is changing, not only as a job and a process, but as an industry. How journalism – particularly good journalism – is going to survive in a world of free content is perhaps one of the biggest and most difficult questions of the moment.

There are so many experiments by so many people in so many fields – from journalists going it alone to large news organisations trying new projects, from amateurs who feel passionately about their field to non-profit organisations who see the potential of the web, and from internet startups to established new media players, I thought we needed a blog to keep track of it all and provide a place for debating the issues involved.

And I say “we”, because this is a team blog – in fact, I won’t be doing much of the writing at all. Reviews – which are done to a simple six-question format – are written by a team of bloggers from all over the world, who I’ve either invited to contribute, or who approached me as part of my appeal for virtual interns.

Membership of that team is very much open – if you want to contribute to Journalism Enterprise.com (or indeed OJB), please contact me. You will then be invited to join a mailing list, through which leads will circulate. You volunteer for whatever you’re able to do, or interested in reviewing. 

You’ll notice that there are already almost a dozen reviews on the site.

If you know of a project you’d like us to review, contact info@journalismenterprise.com. In the meantime, please browse through the site, post your comments, and hope you find it stimulating.

The idea, by the way, is shamelessly stolen from my colleague Andrew Dubber’s similar site for music startups, New Music Ideas. I was toying with using a wiki to do this before Dubber knocked on my door, and his way of doing things seemed so much better. Thanks Andrew.

This post is part of a Carnival of Journalism, hosted this month by Adrian Monck.

How important is it for new journalism graduates to have their own blog?

47 Replies

This isn’t my question, it’s Rian Merrill’s – he posted it on LinkedIn, but the thread is now closed. I’d like to re-open it.

Here’s his question:

I recently had a discussion with a few people who had just graduated from journalism school about the importance of blogging. Most of them acknowledged being told to blog by professors, however, none of them actually blogged. This is contrary to my personal view of things, and was wondering what other professionals in the industry thought.

It’s an experience I share: students blog while they’re told to, but the majority stop once the teaching ends. It’s like someone saying they want to be a musician, but refusing to play any gigs until they sign a record deal.
Thanks to Kerim Satirli for the link 

Who are you?

5 Replies

It helps to know who your readers are. So I’d like your help in completing a very tiny (four questions) survey I’ve created.

Click here to answer those four questions

I will publish the results here on the blog once I get 100 responses (anything below that wouldn’t be representative).

And to make it more entertaining, I’m going to make some guesses as to the results – and see just how far off I am. Feel free to join in the game – a prize to the closest guesses:

  • I think 20% of readers will be journalists, 20% management, 5% technical, 10% other, 25% educators and 20% students
  • The top five countries of readership: USA, UK, Australia, Ukraine, Brazil
  • 50% will not use RSS readers; 20% Google Reader; 15% Bloglines; 15% other
  • 50% won’t remember how they came across the blog; 15% links; 20% search; 10% Facebook; 5% blogroll

Many thanks for your help. Look forward to finding out how wrong I am…

Oh, and by the way: click here to answer those four questions. The survey is now closed.

UPDATE: The results are in.

News distribution in a new media world (A model for the 21st century newsroom pt4)

37 Replies

The fourth post of the Model for the 21st Century Newsroom looks at how distribution is changing from a push/pull model to a tripartite, push-pull-pass, one.

In the 20th century, commercial distribution of news was relatively straightforward: if you worked in print, you published a newspaper or magazine at a particular time, it was transported to outlets, and people picked it up (or it was delivered). If you worked in broadcast, you broadcast it at a particular time, and people watched or listened.

Simple.

In the 21st century, the picture is a little more complicated. Continue reading →

“Twitter shovelware”: from 0 to 1,600 search results in six days

3 Replies

Here’s a bizarre example of just how connected the internet is. Six days ago I wrote a post about some Twitter experiments, and half-jokingly coined the phrase “Twitter shovelware“. I did a Google search at the time on the phrase to confirm that, indeed, the phrase threw up zero results.

On Monday, the piece was cross-posted at Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits, and today, arrived in my inbox as part of their mailing list. So I decided to click on that link to the Google search to see, six days on, how many webpages had used the phrase and been catalogued by Google’s spiders.

Twitter shovelware

I expected maybe ten or so – but 1,590?

Browsing through the results, it’s a very strong illustration of some truths about the internet. We are more networked, and digital reproduction is easier and more automated, than we realise. After the obvious results there are:

And all this from a minor blog post that has only been viewed a fraction of 1,600 times. 

PS: At least one of those pages is the web equivalent of falling trees that only make a sound if someone is there to hear them, i.e. pages that are dynamically created only when someone clicks on a link to them, or at least is unlikely to ever be seen by human eyes. More food for thought.

UPDATE, JAN 2 2008: Three weeks on, the phrase now produces 26,000 results. Incredible.

Online journalism atlas: Iceland (by Liz Bridgen)

2 Replies

In the latest part of the Online Journalism Atlas, Liz Bridgen looks at the online media scene in Iceland. Got any information about your own country’s online journalism? Add it here.

As the country with the world’s deepest penetration of internet use (86.3% of the population) and highest literacy rate (around 99%), it’s no surprise that Iceland should have a buoyant online media scene.

The print, broadcast and online environment

Iceland’s population of just over 300,000 have a choice of three national Icelandic-language newspapers – all with online editions – plus several domestic English-language titles aimed dually at tourists and the growing útlendingur (foreigner) population. Continue reading →

Job ad: Online Community Manager for Knight Foundation

1 Reply

Marc Fest, the Director of Communications at the Knight Foundation, tells me they are seeking a “digital media maven” to create for Knight “a vibrant online discussion community focused on journalism excellence, communities and issues of systemic change.” And they’ve asked for my assistance in finding that person.

Happy to oblige – here’s the info, plus an old-fashioned Word attachment with more info: Continue reading →

Review: FreshTies.com

Leave a reply

Melissa Edwards takes a look at community journalism/activism site FreshTies 

What do they say it is?

“FreshTies main aim is to encourage individuals, charities and businesses alike to actively participate in their local community. It gives individuals the chance to swap things, find local news and ways to help their community; buinesses the chance to promote their services, news to classifieds and initiatives;charities the chance to reach more people for support, resources and funds. It gives budding journalists/writers in need of experience, and those who would like a higher profile, the opportunity to write about their local community in various roles, as editor, reporter or features writer on local content, as well as content for a national audience.” Continue reading →

Some conflicting lessons on journalism ethics re: forums, social networks, mailing lists and blogs

37 Replies

A recent discussion on the NUJ New Media mailing list prompted me to jot down some thoughts on the current private-public confusion thrown up by online communication channels. I think some education is required here on both sides.

Lesson 1: It’s public. Whatever you may think about codes of conducts, etc. etc. if you say something on a forum you should be aware that it may be quoted, that it may be indexed by search engines, databases, etc and potentially findable. You cannot rely on people’s good manners. So be careful what you say, or be prepared to stand by what you say.

Lesson 2: It’s private. Journalists got a lot of flak for wandering into blogs and forums after Virginia Tech because they saw it as being ‘in the public domain’ and therefore ethical (Tony Harcup had this view when I spoke to him at the time). But people using those platforms have a different view of what is ‘public domain’. So be courteous and sensitive.

An addendum: legal issues are still to be resolved around much of this. Employers and lecturers who look at people’s social networking profiles could be breaking the law; Facebook ads might be doing the same.

This post is part of a ‘blog carnival’. Read more at CarnivalOfJournalism.com.

Twitter shovelware and other microblogging experiments

10 Replies

This post is part of a ‘blog carnival’. Read more at CarnivalOfJournalism.com. The story so far (in updates of 140 characters or less):

  1. I set up a Twitter account, toy with it for a few minutes, then ignore it.
  2. Months later, I return to my Twitter account to cover the Future of Newspapers conference – a perfect use for the technology.
  3. Following a tip from Martin Stabe, I use Twitterfeed to push my blog’s posts – and, equally importantly, comments – to my Twitter page, in the process probably doubling the total amount of ‘tweets’ overnight.
  4. At the same time, Martin comes at it from a different angle, and pushes his Twitter posts to his blog.
  5. Realise I am guilty of ‘Twitter-shovelware’
  6. Feel privately chuffed at inventing the phrase ‘Twitter-shovelware‘
  7. Think of a better use for Twitterfeed, and create a new Twitter account for my del.icio.us bookmarks tagged ‘onlinejournalism’. It already has an RSS feed, but feeding it to Twitter allows people to receive it on their mobiles or as a ‘river’ on their Twitter page.
  8. Realise I will probably annoy people who have to delete ten texts every day I do some bookmarking.
  9. Getting even more carried away, I realise I can also use Twitterfeed to create an aggregation of the 70+ online journalism-related RSS feeds I subscribe to.
  10. Decide to use Yahoo! Pipes as part of this, which has been on my ‘To Do’ list since May.
  11. Discover that Yahoo! Pipes not only generates an RSS feed, but also options for mobile and email alerts.
  12. But the process of setting up those alerts is not as usable as Twitter, so set up the Twitter ojblogaggregator account anyway (there are only around 20 feeds included so far, but will continue to add more as I iron out bugs).
  13. Also discover three other ‘online journalism’ Pipes, one of which has been created by a former student. Feel proud.
  14. Then realise he never finished it. Feel proud regardless.
  15. Also realise I can use ‘View Source’ to build on the work of the other OJ aggregator – and that anyone can do the same to build on mine.
  16. Result!