Category Archives: online journalism

Not another ‘virtual newspaper’…

Remember when newspaper editors thought it was impressive to have a virtual version of their newspaper, turning pages and all? Remember how no one read them?

Well it seems the same mistakes are being made all over again by Arabic daily newspaper An-Nahar.

The newspaper now features a Flash version of itself – complete with a virtual desk littered with virtual pencil, magnifying glass and, er, CD.

An Nahar

It has to be one of the most elaborate, confusing and pointless pieces of newspaper design I’ve ever seen. Continue reading →

Something for the weekend #1: Tag cloud generator

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This post marks the start of what I hope will become a regular feature for the Online Journalism Blog. Every Friday afternoon I will (try to) post a link to an online tool which has potential journalistic applications.

The thing is, I’m not assuming I’ll be the one to spot them.

I’ll write what I can see, what I think and what I’ve done – but for the most part, it’s over to you: if you find the tool intriguing or it solves some problem you have, I’d like you to share your thoughts.

Hence: ‘Something for the weekend’ – something to play around with on a slow Friday afternoon or Sunday night clickfest.

I’ve decided to start with a tool that I find fascinating, and ticks a lot of boxes for me, but whose application I can’t quite yet see. It’s a solution in search of a problem:

The Tag Cloud Generator

(similar services available).

The Tag Cloud Generator will generate a tag cloud for any webpage based on links or just most-used words. The tags will link to Wikipedia or Delicious based on your choice. You can customise appearance and delete irrelevant tags.

Now I’m a big fan of tags – and I recommend anyone to read Everything is Miscellaneous to find out why. They allow you to see patterns and relationships that otherwise might not be apparent.

So. The first application I thought of for this – and actually the reason why I searched for it – was this:

I was writing an album review for a music magazine, and the particular artist has a set of cliches around him. I wanted to be able to put a bunch of reviews through a tag cloud generator to see the most frequent words.

I did it with one review and it kinda worked. To do it with more than one would have been a cut, paste, and upload job that I didn’t have time for – but really that’s what you need to do.

I then tried doing it with the Wikipedia entry for the Gulf War. Dates figure heavily. Places, people and things (e.g. submarines) too.

But that’s just two applications. I’m hoping you can come up with more ideas.

Environmental blogs: the first week

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It’s been a pretty good first week of blogging from my online journalism students. After those impressive first ideas they’ve demonstrated that they understand the form in practice as well as theory.

First-time bloggers are often disappointed that the world isn’t listening as soon as they open their mouth, and I was expecting to have to advise all students that it would take time to build any sort of audience.

But when I asked them to call up their stats after just seven days I was surprised to find some were already gathering a readership: two students had had over 130 visits; another had had around 60; and a further two had around 40. Continue reading →

Reading Evening Post video pt. IV – shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted

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It seems the Reading Evening Post video saga has another chapter in it. Adam Javurek has emailed to tell me that they’ve disabled the links function on the YouTube page. So what did look like this:

YouTube links

Now looks like this:

You Tube - links disabled

On the good side, at least it means the Reading Evening Post check on their YouTube videos (or perhaps the web person told them they were getting an unusual number of hits coming from YouTube).

But on the bad side, was it worth it? On the one hand, it’s clearly an attempt to stop people clicking through to the (at last count) three sites criticising the production and editorial values of the piece.

But did they think beyond that knee-jerk reaction?

Firstly, it means you’re not allowing people to look at the debate generated by video. And hold on – that means you’re also stopping people clicking through to your own site.

Wasn’t that the point of putting it on YouTube?

Secondly, someone – in this case Adam – is likely to spot the ruse and… oh yes, just when everyone was starting to forget about it, here we are still talking about that awful video.

And now we’re talking about some flawed decisions regarding online distribution too.

I won’t even touch on the censorship issues this raises, and the fuel this adds to the suspicion by readers that journalists can’t take criticism.

Anyway, let’s end on a more positive note: this video from the same YouTube channel may be a bit rough and ready but at least it’s got some ideas and leaves the office:

In fact, it even generated a follow-up.

Ten changes in 10 years for journalists

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The past decade has seen more change in the craft of journalism than perhaps any other. Some of the changes have erupted into the mainstream; others have nibbled at the edges. Over at the Press Gazette website I count the ways…

PS: I’ll be publishing the ‘blogger’s cut’ with 400 extra words in a week or so.

JEEcamp – in mainland Europe but can’t afford to come? sponsorship for travel/accommodation available

Reading Evening Post – we generated more hits to their video than they did. In two days.

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Two days ago I blogged about some bad newspaper video from the Reading Evening Post, and ended

“Let’s see if I can generate more views from this blog than from their own site – at least it will prove the value of making your video embeddable.”

As of today the video has received 145 visits via this blog compared to the 81 from the newspaper site. There are also a further 27 visits from two other blogs. In other words, two out of three viewers came to the video through viral means.

YouTube links

Verdict: if you want people to know about your video offering, make your video embeddable. And do something that people will want to embed – preferably something good, not embarrassing.

BASIC principles of online journalism: A is for Adaptability

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In the second part of this five-part series, I explore how adaptability has not only become a key quality for the journalist – but for the information they deal with on a daily basis too. This will form part of a forthcoming book on online journalism – comments very much invited.

The adaptable journalist

A key skill for any journalist in the new media age, whatever medium they’re working in, is adaptability. The age of the journalist who only writes text, or who only records video, or audio, is passing. Today, the newspaper and magazine, the television and the radio programme all have an accompanying website. And that website is, increasingly, filled with a whole range of media, which could include any of the following:

(Hyper)Text
Audio
Video
Still images
Audio slideshows
Animation
Flash interactivity
Database-driven elements
Blogs
Microblogging/Text/email alerts (Twitter)
Community elements – forums, wikis, social networking, polls, surveys
Live chats
Mapping
Mashups

This does not mean that the online journalist has to be an expert in all of these fields, but they should have media literacy in as many of these fields as possible: in other words, a good online journalist should be able to see a story and think:

‘That story would have real impact on video’;
or: ‘A Flash interactive could explain this better than anything else’;
or ‘This story would benefit from me linking to the original reports and some blog commentary’;
or ‘Involving the community in this story would really engage, and hopefully bring out some great leads’. Continue reading →

Brainstorming environmental blogs

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In week two of my Online Journalism module I introduced students to the principles of blogging. After the lecture I asked the students to brainstorm ideas for blogs on an environmental issue theme, based on what they’d just heard.

To inject some extra ideas I brought in star Birmingham blogger Pete Ashton.

The results were some of the best blog ideas I’ve heard from journalism students – and certainly more imaginative than most newspaper thinking around the blog platform.

Emma wanted to look at supermarket waste – Pete suggested getting “behind the scenes of what happens at a supermarket”; I added the possibility of a Flickr account/photoblog.
Hayley wanted to do something about energy efficiency – Pete suggested they drill down very specifically to something like a blog purely about issues around energy saving lightbulbs.
Natalie has recently learned to drive – she suggested blogging about her experiences of a ‘return to public transport’
Laura wanted to look at the topical issue of chickens and supermarkets and mentioned the fact that you could access data on declining sales – I suggested a blog monitoring sales of chicken at supermarkets; Pete suggested tapping into the online organic farming community.
Stephanie thought of a challenge-based blog following her as she tries to get an environmental story from every country in sub-Saharan Africa.
Alice was thinking of a blog following attempts to get a whole street to go eco-friendly. I suggested a group blog.
Kat wanted to follow her student house doing something similar with ‘downshifting’. Pete pointed out the dangers of blogging about other people without their knowledge/editorial approval. I advised her to broaden her mind beyond students.
Kasper wanted to pick a community, e.g. fishermen, then look at their perspectives on water pollution country-by-country. I suggested turning it round to pick one country and use the blog to post on different communities’ perspectives and experiences on/of water pollution, e.g. fishermen, people who live by rivers; shipping companies; water suppliers.
Tuuli wanted to pick a name (e.g. “Adam”) and get one person with that name from every state in America to write a post about what they do related to the environment. Pete suggested that there will be spin-offs from those, like follow-ups on what contributors are up to.

They also set up their own blogs during the lesson – more on these in future posts.

A new nomination for Worst Newspaper Video – Reading Evening Post does it again

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A student writes: “I dont think the Reading Evening Post read your blog Paul. If they did, they didn’t pay much attention...”

Yes, the previous contender for Worst Newspaper Video have done it again. But this time, instead of Sports Editor David Wright, it’s young gun News Reporter Stuart White, who looks quite smart in the official picture that sits above a slightly less well-dressed moving picture version of the same.

The 1980s-era production style remains, with the same stock music, garish graphics – and this time, some appalling spinning, zooming, transition wipes.

Stuart’s challenge: to read out the day’s headlines “in just 60 seconds“. Yes, that’s some challenge. Perhaps someone should suggest that idea to BBC3.

One problem: when you take out the credits it’s not actually 60 seconds, which may be why Stuart is drowned out by the closing music at the end, just as David Wright was before him. Do they ever watch their own videos?

I’ll be more barbed: Stuart has the flat delivery of a 12-year-old reading ‘What I did on my summer holidays’, while his eyes flit below the camera like he’s checking his emails as well as reading the headlines. Presumably he’s reading a script. Doesn’t he know what the news is?

And what was that about a “sweet Haribo ring”? Some lessons in writing for broadcast needed.

Of course I’m being harsh, and as before this is not Stuart’s fault. Step up owners Surrey and Berkshire Newspapers Limited, part of the Guardian Media Group.

The one good thing is they’ve discovered YouTube, so unlike last time, I can embed it below for your convenience and their viewing figures. Let’s see if I can generate more views from this blog than from their own site – at least it will prove the value of making your video embeddable.