[Keyword: onlinejournalism]. The New York Times has announced that it is to charge for a new online section called TimesSelect, which “will provide exclusive access to Op-Ed and news columnists on NYTimes.com, easy and in-depth access to The Times’s online archives, early access to select articles on the site, as well as other exciting features.” The charge is $49.95 per year, but Poynter feels the inclusion of columnists in the section is a mistake, reducing the number of inbound links and discussion they will otherwise generate.

Of course, charging for certain parts of content isn’t new – the Independent is one of the main practitioners in the UK (despite having one of the weakest sites), charging for crosswords, archive, specific articles and comment; and The Times also charges to access its crossword, or its e-paper. Crosswords also cost at The Telegraph, which offers a subscription to a weekly version of the paper, and you can get Digital editions of The Guardian and Observer.

[Keyword: onlinejournalism]. More from Poynter (you can tell I’m catching up on my mailings), who highlight “an audio slide show of a home-improvement expert talking about photographs of her home, “Home Diva.” Barbara Kavovit is the sole voice heard on the feature.”

[Keyword: onlinejournalism]. Nice bit of statistics from Poynter about the increasing share that digital editions are taking in circulation figures. Paper may not be dead but online subscriptions certainly seem to be flourishing.

UPDATE (May 20 2005): Meanwhile, recognition of digital editions in circulation figures is also increasing, as Poynter reports Spanish newspapers counting PDF versions in their figures.

[Keyword: onlinejournalism]. Interesting moves afoot in America as a non-profit newspaper launches in San Diego, and Poynter wonders, “Is Voice of San Diego a harbinger of news reporting to come? As explained on the site, “Initial funding comes from San Diego foundations and individuals, a structure which allows Voice to be independent and nonpartisan. Long-term, Voice will rely on a combination of individual donations, corporate sponsorships, foundation grants, and advertising.””

[Keyword: onlinejournalism]. Paul McLeod’s Web Tools for Journalists includes a number of useful links for Computer Assisted Reporting – many of them American as usual, but some very useful.

[Keyword: onlinejournalism]. More echo-chamber posting: here’s a story I’ve written for Journalism.co.uk about chatrooms being used to investigate some allegations. An updated version, with quotes from an ex-UK investigative journalist, should replace it by the end of the day.

Again, in the interest of transparency, here’s his thoughts in full:

“I have always been firmly against entrapment, if it involves setting someone up to commit a crime or an act of wrongdoing that they would not have otherwise committed. In my view, this is deplorable, and makes the journalist just as bad as the person they trap – if not worse.

“This should not be confused with going underground to ‘catch someone in the act’ . I have no problem with that at all – there are occasions when this is essential in order to get the proof you need to nail a wrong-doer. It’s a valid technique for an investigative journalist. I have used it in many investigations in the past and would do the same again – although I personally would only go underground if the evidence could not be obtained in any other way, and there was a clear public interest issue involved.

“As I understand it, the Spokesman-Review used computer technology and a level of deception to catch the Mayor in the act, and I have no problem with that at all. I don’t think they entrapped him. There was a genuine public interest issue – an under-18 was involved, and the Mayor appeared to be misusing his office by offering favours.

“I would have done the same in the same situation. This is a classic example of having to go underground as a last resort to obtain the evidence you need.

“I don’t think it raises too many ethical issues for a journalist in this country. It’s not really any different from bugging a phone – the PCC Code of Practice allows this in the public interest. And in terms of privacy, I would be surprised if anyone genuinely thought that an internet chatroom was a place where they had a reasonable expectation of privacy.”

[Keyword: onlinejournalism]. New Media Age’s ‘Analyst Speak’ column by Paul Milsom of BMRB has a number of useful figures around readership of online newspapers in the UK. Here’s some snippets:

• A fifth of web users visit the online version of a national daily newspaperat least once a week – roughly 6m people per week.
• The largest audiences are for the ‘quality’ titles: the Telegrap, Guardian and Times all attract over 1.5m visitors per week
• Male majority among all audiences

There’s also some information about buying and lifestyle habits.

[Keyword: onlinejournalism]. Always happy to quote my sources in full, especially when they’re as witty as Laurence Simon. Here’s what he had to say about Huffington.com when I emailed him in connection with an article I was writing for Journalism.co.uk on it:

“Huffington Post’s blog is what you get when you get rid of all the monkeys and have an infinite number of celebrities banging away at typewriters. The only change is that there’s a lot less monkey-poo being flung around. (Even though Jim Lampley and John Conyers are doing their best to fill the fecal void. Vegas oddsmakers and pollsters? STUPID!)

“Some people will think there’s an upper limit to collaboration, but if it’s done right, there isn’t.

“Command-Post had a few hundred posters combing sources and collecting them at the start of the Iraq war and the 2004 election, but it was better-organized.

“Blogcritics has a few hundred reviewers. It’s well-organized.

“Despite a group of investors and a 7-man team of codemonkeys, Huffington Post is chaos.

“They have comments on news stories and not on the blog. That’s backwards. And elitist. Walter Cronkite grumbling about another useless convention and three or four celebs patting him on the back or smirking is not a conversation or a debate. Open it up to the public… you know, like the convention itself? (HAHAHAHAHA yeah right. A political convention where the public isn’t involved… this isn’t the Monster Raving Loony Party!)

“There’s no individual RSS feeds for the various posters. For instance, I want to track just John “Kerry 311 / Bush 213” Zogby. How can I do that?
Seven codemonkeys and investors couldn’t anticipate that? Why? Because the designer of the site came off of Drudge and everything was Drudge talking about Drudge and where Drudge would be appearing with Drudge’s voice to talk about Drudge talking about Drudge.

“This isn’t one “anchor” figurehead virtually reading the prompter that’s filled by a dozen writers on his staff. This is a few hundred anchors all screaming at once.

“The future of the HP blog can be summed up in David Frum’s post on it.
He had an op-ed in OpinionJournal, and used the hype and traffic from Huffington post to link to his op-ed on another site.

“”Hi. Look at my other stuff. Bye. And buy bonds.”

“The site will stratify into alphas, betas, and fawning twits. Cronkite and Ariana will get their boots licked clean every time they post.
Huffington’s “beta” pros (David Frum, John Zogby) will exploit the site to redirect people to their pet projects and paying gigs. Huffington’s amateurs (Jim Lampley) will just natter away until the site ends up needing to partner with Air America, Kos, or Democratic Underground.

“We, the public, are Gammas. Mmmmmmm… soma.”

Meanwhile, LA Weekly prints a column proclaiming the “horrific debut” of the site and the decisions that led to its flop.

[Keyword: onlinejournalism]. Yesterday Arianna Huffington* launched a 300-person blog, modestly named the Huffington Post. Unknown over here, it seems Arianna is able to draw on a raft of “famous showbiz friends” to post to said blog, including Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, David Geffen, Larry David, David Mamet and Walter Kronkite, plus plenty more I’ve never heard of. Personally the attraction of Larry David is enough to get me reading, but two days in the blog looks pretty slick.

*No, I didn’t know who she was either. According to this very useful article in the Washington Post about the launch of her blog, she “has been a Republican activist (as a GOP congressman’s wife), Democratic activist (she backed John Kerry), Comedy Central bedmate of Al Franken, syndicated columnist, author, anti-SUV crusader and gadfly candidate for California governor (she got 0.6 percent of the vote after a last-minute pullout). She envisions the blog as a big dinner party, with chatter “about politics and books and art and music and food and sex.”” As publicity-seeking stunts go, well, you know who she is now…

[Keyword: onlinejournalism]. Thanks again to the Search Engine Journal for pointing out Gigablast’s new Dedicated Site Search and Custom Topic Search facilities. The Site Search facility enables you to add a search facility to your website – although it does need to be registered with the search engine.

The Custom Topic Search allows you to create a search box that will search up to 200 sites that you specify, so instead of just enabling users to search your site, you can instead provide them with the facility to search a specialist set of sites relating to your topic area – watch this blog for something along those lines.

Of course Gigablast isn’t the only site to offer custom searches – Google offers the same service to non-profit institutions, to name one. If you know of any others, let me know.