The 6th part of the results of my survey of blogging journalists looks at how blogging has affected the relationship with the former audience.
Of all areas covered by the survey the relationship with the audience was by far the most affected, with over half of respondents saying it had been “enormously” or “completely” changed. In particular, journalists felt they had developed a more personal relationship with the reader, who was no longer an anonymous figure. Continue reading
As communism fell in Lithuania 19 years ago, existing dailies started to publish what they wanted. And what they wanted was money. The 2 main titles promptly became filled with advertorial paid for by politicians and industrialists.
The Lithuanian public quickly became disheartened with the printed press and turned to the internet instead. That’s why the audience of Lithuanian #1 website for news is only 8 times smaller than its UK counterpart, even though the country is 20 times as small as the UK (and twice as poor in terms of GDP per capita).
Seeing this enthusiasm for online news, MG Baltic, a Vilnius-based holding that trades in everything from consumer goods to news, decided to launch a website. The avowed goal was to complement their mass media portfolio. Continue reading
On Friday I’m on a panel at Blog08, an international bloggers’ conference in Amsterdam. The topic is blogs and journalism. The conference will be taking questions posted on De Nieuwe Reporter (the new reporter), an online platform for Dutch journalists, but they’d also like to take questions from the panellists’ blog readers.
So… got a question you’d like to pose?
The 5th part of the results of my survey of blogging journalists looks at how blogging has affected what happens after news is ‘published/broadcast’.
In the post-publication or post-broadcast phase of journalism, blogging has introduced a more iterative and ongoing format. Some phrase this in terms of old media paradigms – the items have “more legs” – while others identify how the previous process of “moving on” to the next big story and forgetting about the old one no longer applies so strongly: Continue reading
Here’s my contribution to this weekend’s Carnival of Journalism, on the theme of practical tips for changing newsrooms for a new media age:
1. Set up your systems so that journalists get emails when someone comments on their stories. Nothing kills a conversation like someone who doesn’t listen.
2. Make an effort to meet social media users in your community/beat in person at least once a month (it helps if you set up a meeting or join one that exists). Failing that, have a video conversation. Both strengthen community more than just text. Jo Geary does this brilliantly in Birmingham.
3. Make 30 minutes every week to think about how you do your job, identify problems or frustrations, and blog about it, inviting suggestions on how you can do it better, or asking if others can help.
4. Try a new toy every fortnight – online services like Seesmic, Twitter, blogging, Ning, social bookmarking, Dipity, Yahoo Pipes, Shozu; hardware like the Zoom H2, Flip camcorder, and N95. IF you don’t have any ideas check out TechCrunch.
5. Regularly distribute information internally to all reporters and editors about what is happening on the website – popular stories, most commented on, bookmarked, old stories getting new interest, most visited on mobile, what times most accessed, where traffic is coming from, what search terms are most popular, what stories are getting a ‘long tail’ of small but consistent traffic.
6.If the online side of things seems like ‘extra work’ find out ways to make it less onerous and more automatic – explore Firefox extensions, bookmarking buttons, shortcuts; using ‘downtime’ to update via text or mobile web; and how to syndicate an RSS feed from one place to another (e.g. Twitter’s feed or Delicious feed to your blog).
7. If you are lucky enough to spend most of your time away from a desk and computer, work to keep it that way. A good mobile phone and Shozu may come in useful.
I’d welcome your ideas and reactions.
(Posted from my mobile, so apologies for no links)
The 4th part of the results of my survey of blogging journalists looks at how blogs have affected how news production is affected by blogging.
The area where respondents most often identified a change in news production was in the rise of a looser, more personal, and less formal writing style, echoing the findings of Wall (2005). Respondents talked of finding their “voice”, being more informal and “creative”. For some this fed back into the mainstream news vehicles, particularly for broadcast journalists whose work previously involved less writing. Continue reading
It’s exactly what you’d expect. With advertising budgets shrinking in the credit crunch, agencies are looking to spend that they have more wisely – and this research suggests that means away from from print, and towards the web: Continue reading
A couple of recent emails have brought home to me just how many people are being taught the ‘News Diamond’ model I first proposed as part of my Model for a 21st Century Newsroom series.
So I’d love to know – are you teaching this? What has the reaction been like? Or are you a student learning about it? What do you think?
When I first blogged it I was disappointed by the lack of critical reaction. Come on people, add to it, pick it apart, remix it! Comments please.
The third part of the results of my survey of blogging journalists looks at how blogging has affected how stories are researched.
As journalists move onto gathering information for a story, the scope of easily accessible sources is made broader by journalists’ involvement in blogs. Continue reading
It’s Blog Action Day .Here are 88 ways to do something about poverty now.
And if you’re in the Midlands, here’s an 89th: go to the Birmingham Social Media Surgery, to support voluntary and community groups in the city. Credit to Nick Booth for getting things going; credit to the Birmingham blog community for demonstrating once again what a fantastic bunch of people they are.
If you know a language other than English and would like to help Blog Action Day translation work, please email Easton at easton@blogactionday.org.
I’d love to know what you’re doing, blogger or not.
Online Journalism Blog 