[Keyword: online journalism]. Read all about it at Journalism.co.uk:

“This year’s finalists include a searchable Congress database, run by The Washington Post, which contains every recorded vote in the US House and Senate since January 1991.

“The Transparent Newsroom project run by the Spokane Spokesman-Review was nominated for webcasting its daily news meetings and offering online chats where readers can criticise news coverage or pose questions.The newspaper’s website also posts raw documents, such as interview transcripts and even handwritten reporter
notes.

“Nominee Global Voices Online is network of global news run by multilingual editors who present and translate citizen news from outside North America and Western
Europe.

“HealthNewsReview is a clearinghouse for health news to help journalists write accurate medical reports and consumers find useful health news.

“Developed by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune to track tropical storm and hurricane activity, IBISEYE.com calculates specific buildings that are at risk as well as reporting actual storm damage in Florida.Users can also track storms, submit their own forecasts, assess possible damage.

“Bakersfield Californian‘s social media platform, Bakomatic, a MySpace-like social network, was nominated for dedicating itself to solely cover Bakersfield, California, allowing residents to submit stories, photos and events for publication.

The final nominee TCDailyPlanet – a local news website for Minneapolis and St Paul, Minnesota – brings together over 35 local and ethnic news organisations and trains citizens to participate and contribute to the news.”

[Keyword: online journalism]. Interesting diversion from the recent decision taken by the Guardian and Times to publish some stories online first. The Press Gazette quotes the Independent editor Simon Kelner as saying “If you have an exclusive story at five o’clock to go in the following day’s newspaper, the idea that you would put it on the website for nothing strikes me as complete madness.”

Is this a wilful misunderstanding of what other papers are doing, or does Kelner genuinely believe that The Guardian would do that? Those newspapers who are publishing online first have already said they wouldn’t do so for an “exclusive”.

Similarly, Kelner argues “There is absolutely no model for a newspaper website to make money, and conversely what it can do is hit the value and currency of the printed product.”

Again, this seems to show a lack of awareness of the massive rise in online advertising revenue over the past couple of years, a rise that even managed to wake the techno-unfriendly Murdoch from his slumber into buying MySpace and urging his newspapers to embrace the web. As advertising flees from print, the canniest newspapers are protecting their territory by being able to offer advertisers an extended – and expanding – audience online.

The value that a website can add to the printed brand is also born out by the Guardian and Times’ decision to publish in America, a market where they already have an extensive online readership. Your website is not only part of your brand, but also part of your service. And The Independent’s flat, largely uninteractive site (how about this: a quiz you can’t take part in) does not do justice to the high quality of journalism and design in its printed version. What a shame.

[Keyword: online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Hold The Front Page reports on a seminar on Monday titled “Is Westminster ready for the age of participatory media?”

“The debate, in Parliament, will pose questions such as whether the Speaker should register with FaceBook, or if GoogleVideo is a good place to webcast select committee meetings”

[Keyword: online journalism, citizen journalism]. The Press Gazette reports on plans to launch “the world’s first story auction website” – kissnsell.co.uk. The site has been created by former News of the World journalist Kizzi Nkwocha, now a publicist, who aims to change the way the media buys exclusives.

“Prices for the stories will vary according to the wishes of the seller, and just as in a traditional auction house you will have a reserve price for a story and the auction will run for a set number of weeks.

“But typically, as a publicist, you’d sell a story for anything between £10,000 and £70,000, depending on how big the story is and how much in demand the people behind it are.”

[Keyword: online journalism, citizen journalism]. The Press Gazette reports on plans to launch “the world’s first story auction website” – kissnsell.co.uk. The site has been created by former News of the World journalist Kizzi Nkwocha, now a publicist, who aims to change the way the media buys exclusives.

“Prices for the stories will vary according to the wishes of the seller, and just as in a traditional auction house you will have a reserve price for a story and the auction will run for a set number of weeks.

“But typically, as a publicist, you’d sell a story for anything between £10,000 and £70,000, depending on how big the story is and how much in demand the people behind it are.”

[Keyword: online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. It’s that Jemima Kiss again, this time blogging from an event looking at successful US citizen journalism ventures. Lots of detail here for those with an interest. Meanwhile, I continue to look for the UK’s own citizen journalists and citizen journalism ventures… anyone out there?

[Keyword: online journalism]. Patience Wheatcroft, the editor of The Sunday Telegraph, is quoted in the Guardian on the future of newspapers. And if you’re expecting any pearls of wisdom from that hyperlink, don’t get your hopes up. “Newspapers will be with us for a lot longer yet,” she shockingly predicts. “When people have more leisure time, and this is particularly true for weekend papers, they will still want to sit down and read papers.” Let me guess: it’s their portable nature that gives them the advantage? You can’t read the internet in the bath, eh?

But there’s more. “Increasingly important in the multichannel world is the brand. People have to know who to trust. Old established brands equal strong relationships and that is what it is all about.” Ah yes, another original argument. You can’t believe what these scruffy bloggers are posting, can you?

Still, Wheatcroft does acknowledge “that the impact of the digital era on newspapers was “the most profound change in the way in which we communicate [with consumers] since the birth of the printing press”.” Next thing you know, she’ll be calling it ‘revolutionary’…

[Keyword: online journalism]. Runner’s World, of all things, is being used as a blueprint, according to the Media Guardian. Welcome to the world, NatMags, although it’s worrying that none of the new staff seem to be there to produce content and “Editorial content and control will rest with existing magazine editorial teams”. So, how do you prevent this being another shovelware/extra-job-for-overworked-sub?

[Keyword: online journalism, citizen journalism]. So reports Journalism.co.uk: “Red Herring reports that Yahoo! is working on a way to use a five-digit number – called a common short code – that will allow a user to upload video directly from their mobile phone via an MMS message.”

[Keyword: online journalism]. The Guardian, of course, has announced that it is to publish more stories online ahead of its print version. Great, lovely, super, as Jim Bowen would say.

But there’s a good analysis at Poynter, which picks up on the line saying that some stories will be held back for print publication.

“It remains to be seen how many Guardian articles will be treated as exclusive,
and thereby go “paper first.” … the really interesting shift will come when
exclusive stories — and I mean the prestigious exclusive stories — are
launched first on the site.”

The writer identifies “four distinct archetype models of publishing for exclusive stories:

• Value Model: Exclusive stories are published first wherever the audience is most valuable.
• Story Model: The exclusive story breaks in whichever channel is best suited according to that channel’s strengths and weaknesses.
• Speed Model: Any story breaks in the fastest channel.
• Channel Model: A story follows the channel where it arose. (The good old nothing-has-changed model.)”

“In my opinion,” he says “The Guardian is trying to look like a “Speed Model” organization, while in reality they admit to being a “Value Model” organization. Or at least switching between the two. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just that it doesn’t seem right to claim to be something you’re not. “