Category Archives: blogs

Journalism training orgs combine to form Shovelware Alliance

The UK’s three leading journalism training bodies have finally announced that they are to work together as part of a new ‘Joint journalism training council’.

The National Council for the Training of Journalists, the Broadcasting Journalism Training Council and the Periodicals Training Council – who have traditionally provided training for regional newspapers, broadcast journalists, and magazines respectively – have been encroaching on each others’ territories for a while as the industries converged.

It’s early days yet, but the statement doesn’t make encouraging reading for anyone with an interest in the potential of online journalism as a separate medium: the three “new skills and awareness that are and will be required of journalists aiming to work in multi platform news organisations” include:

“b. Developing ideas for repurposing and adding to print or broadcast news material for use on websites including the use of links, background material, writing for the website, the basics of search engine optimisation and use of basic content management systems. [my emphasis]

“c. Using video and audio equipment to produce content for websites and other platforms and publishing it.”

In other words, treating the website as a place to shovel – and possibly add to – content produced for another medium.

The statement does go on to say “It is recognised that this is not an exhaustive list”, but it’s not a promising start.

The biggest deal for online video this year

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Anyone interested in video on the web – and particularly making money from video on the web – should pay close attention to the partnership between MTV and MySpace, which uses fingerprinting technology to allow the broadcaster to identify video being ‘pirated’ and shared on the web.

So far, so old news. The significance is this: the technology is being discussed not as a way to stop people ‘ripping’ and embedding video material, but to actually encourage them. Why?

The money. Continue reading →

Digital media learning competition – $2m up for grabs, international scope

What are your most useful online tools? (Something for the Weekend #12)

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I’ve looked at a number of tools in this series, often very new with potential applications for journalism that haven’t been realised. This time I want to turn the spotlight onto tools that you’re using every day, which may not be flashy, but which do a simple job very well – for example:

in managing or filtering information,
identifying leads, ideas and contacts,
producing news itself,
distributing it,
or allowing users to get involved.

What have been the most useful online tools you’ve used?

Four ways journalists can use Facebook (and other social networks)

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The following are answers to a question posed by Greg Manset (via Facebook, naturally):How can journalists use Facebook?

As a great way to find contacts. For example: say you cover the health industry and you add 20 of your contacts to Facebook – by looking at their friends you may be able to find other contacts you wouldn’t otherwise have met. Now, you obviously have to be careful you don’t add whistleblowers or anonymous sources and risk their anonymity, but for most day to day work this can be really useful. I should add that LinkedIn and Twitter can be used in the same way. Continue reading →

Twitter Updates for 2008-06-11

Bear with me…

NME.com “do” the News Diamond

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I had an email recently from the Editor of NME.com, David Moynihan, about the News Diamond in practice. I thought it was worth reprinting in full:

“You describe much of what I do for a living: I am the Editor of NME.com and work in a buzzing cross-platform environment that mirrors your theories. Now that the dust is starting to settle a bit more in digital publishing, publishers are really taking notice of websites and web staff in ways that would have been unimaginable a few years ago. Continue reading →

Something for the weekend: Comiqs

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Last week I introduced the ‘Something for the weekend’ feature where I post a link to an online tool which has potential journalistic applications.

This week’s tool is Comiqs,

“a service that lets our users create and share their comic-style stories with the community. We aim to provide our users with easy to use tools that transforms their most cherished and most memorable photographs into something fun. We also aim to build to build a fun and light-hearted community where people can hang out to have a laugh or two.”

Now there’s a rich history of comic strips and graphics in newspapers. Satirical cartoons are an obvious application of this.

Could Comiqs introduce a user generated element to that too?

The site already has a News and Politics section, while ‘People and Personalities‘ also has potential for satirical content. But the other categories bear looking at too. Life story and How to and tutorials have clear magazine equivalents.

There’s a lot of crap as always with UGC, but categories like ‘top rated’, ‘most viewed/discussed’ etc. should help filter through.

The site could also act as a platform for a news site’s readers – give them an image to download and point them to Comiqs to create the caption.

Some obvious problems: no RSS feeds; no way of knowing what language something is in before you click or search.

But lots of potential. Any ideas?