Category Archives: online journalism

Reviews of the latest journalism startups

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Here’s the latest update from the team at JournalismEnterprise.com. This post is part of February’s Blog Carnival of Journalism.

Neaju, says Nicolas Kayser-Bril is “a smart way of making money using other people’s sweat … The total lack of journalistic work is a clever way to reduce costs. But it certainly doesn’t create any value for readers, who would have to fact-check themselves. For writers, the incentive to publish on Neaju instead of blogging is thin, as they lose control over content and leave behind any advertising revenue.”

NewsTrust.net, says Alex Gamela, is “A sort of Michelin guide for news media.”

The Panelist, finally, says Kayser-Bril, is “A niche publication for upper-middle class do-gooders, where a bunch of financial bloggers advises parents worried about the world and the assets they leave their children with.“

Changing tools and approaches in local newspapers (UK)

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A couple weeks ago Journalism.co.uk commissioned me to write a piece on ‘Changing tools and approaches in local newspapers’. But whereas their mental image was of the evangelical stuff I write on my blog; my mental image was of the more objective reporting they have on their site. We got there in the end – and I think the end result is better for it. But I didn’t want the original draft, with much more quotes from figures around the industry, to go to waste – so here it is. This post is part of this month’s Carnival of Journalism:

Local news is changing. Video, podcasts and blogging have been added to the scribbles of shorthand and the nib; searching YouTube and browsing the blogosphere have been added to photocalls and council meetings as part of the daily routine; and the segregations of print and online – and of writer and reader – are being broken down. Paul Bradshaw spoke to reporters, editors and publishers around the country on how their professions are changing. Continue reading →

Teaching journalism students to twitter – the good, the bad, and the ugly

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This year I started my online journalism module with three things: Twitter, Del.icio.us, and RSS readers. I asked students to:

  • socially bookmark useful webpages,
  • subscribe to useful feeds through their RSS reader,
  • use social recommendation and tags to discover new sources
  • – and to twitter the whole process.

The results? Frankly, disappointing.

If you think 19- and 20-year-olds are au fait with Twitter, think again. Only one had used it before starting the class. And even afterwards, the journalism students I was teaching hardly hit the ground running. Continue reading →

BASIC principles of online journalism: B is for Brevity

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In the first part of a five-part series, I explore how and why a talent for brevity is one of the basic skills an online journalist needs – whether writing an article or employing multimedia. This will form part of a forthcoming book on online journalism – comments very much invited.

It shouldn’t have to be said that the web is different, but I’ll say it anyway: the web is different. It is not print, it is not television, it is not radio.

So why write content for the web in the same way that you might write for a newspaper or a news broadcast?

Organisations used to do this, and some still do. It was called ‘shovelware’, a process by which content created for another medium (generally print) was ‘shovelled’ onto the web with nary a care for whether that was appropriate or not.

It was not.

People read websites very differently to how they read newspapers, watch television or listen to radio. For a start, they read 25% slower than they do with print – this is because computer screens have a much lower resolution than print: 72 dots in every square inch compared to around 150-300 in newspapers and magazines (this may change, but usage patterns are likely to stay the same for some time yet).

As a result, you need to communicate your story in less time than you would in print. You need to develop brevity. Continue reading →

Linking – within the story or after?

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Here’s a real poser: when writing for the web do you think you should include links within an article, or leave it till afterwards? I used to teach students to link within an article if they mentioned a specific report or piece; but to leave more general links (e.g. organisations, topics, explanations, etc.) at the end.

Do links in an article interrupt the flow – or add scannability?
Also, if you work online, what is your own organisation’s policy about links?

JEEcamp – the Journalism Enterprise and Entrepreneurship unconference

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JEEcamp banner

On March 14 I will be hosting an ‘unconference’ around journalism enterprise and entrepreneurship. Rick Waghorn, of MyFootballWriter.com, will make the keynote speech.

JEEcamp is an opportunity for a range of people to get together to talk about how on earth journalists and publishers can make a living from journalism in the era of free information, what the challenges are, and what we’ve learned so far.

It is also an opportunity for people with different skills and experiences to network, share those experiences, and perhaps suggest partnerships or new projects.

Attendees might have launched their own journalism project – or worked on one within a mainstream organisation. Or they might just have lots of great ideas, or knowledge about the area.

Anyone can attend by signing up on the event wiki at http://jeecamp.pbwiki.com/ – first come, first served. To add your name, click ‘Edit Page’ – the password is ‘jee‘.

JEEcamp will take place on

Friday March 14 at The Bond in Digbeth, Birmingham (map)

Attendees will be asked to pay £20 towards the costs of the venue – if sponsorship is acquired that money will go to a charity decided by vote.

UPDATE: The event is now listed on Facebook if you want to add yourself there too.

The Online Journalism Blog readers’ map – normal service is resumed

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Thanks to all those who have so far added themselves to the OJB readers’ map – it looks very impressive. I had a couple emails from people who arrived at the map to find it called something else – ‘Mark Weber’ or ‘Félix Bahón’. One of the problems of making it editable, it seems, is people accidentally changing the name of the map itself.

UPDATE: Another is that people can accidentally edit each others’ entries, and so Laura Oliver of Journalism.co.uk in London has suddenly been reassigned to the role of video journalist at Sydney’s Telegraph.

Anyway, the map is now back to its original name with some instructions in the description as well as here.

If your entry has been incorrectly amended you can edit it by clicking on your placemark or listing in the left hand column. Then go to the top of the left hand column and click ‘Edit’. Both the map name and the selected placemark become editable.

It seems Google Maps has some way to go before being intuitive enough for the average reader to contribute to.

Meanwhile, looking forward to seeing more readers popping up, particularly in those hard-to-reach places…

…and after those Google Maps mashups, what better time to start playing with this stuff?

Feb 5, 2008: the day Super Tuesday became the ‘Mashup Election’

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If news organisations thought they were starting to ‘get’ this whole internet journalism thing, yesterday may make them think again.

At 8pm GMT yesterday I received a breathless email from Azeem Ahmad, a student from the journalism degree I teach on:

“Tell me you have seen the Google Maps/Twitter mash up of the American Super Tuesday voters.. it’s amazing! The pointer is flying all over the world, from Spain to England, and all through the various parts of America.”

Logging onto Twitter I found a similar buzz from Martin Stabe and Kevin Anderson:

“Enthralled by Twitter and Google Maps super mashup. I could be entertained for hours”

A quick search on Terraminds (image below) showed it wasn’t just us journo nerds: Twitter was alive with chatter about the mashup – one tweet in particular was worth noting: Continue reading →