Special report in today’s Media Guardian about what non-journalists think about journalism, the upshot being pretty negative. Responses include an op-piece from John Lloyd – sample quote:

“The charges … include a belief that standards of veracity and even simple comprehension are lacking; that factual reporting has given way to tendentiousness within reportage itself; that the demands of complex issues are deliberately ignored, far beyond the demands of constricted space or time; that stories of crisis, failure, scandal and personal hatred are the norm; that official or corporate narratives better packaged and more insistently pressed than ever now slip unexamined into news reporting. Because of these practices, trust can no longer be placed in reporting; and as a result of that, both the institutions of democracy and the observation of human rights can suffer.”

Given the amount of design theft that goes on in web design, it’s good to see this site providing a number of open source design templates for people to use for their webpages – and there’s general web design info here too.

Fascinating article. Here’s a sample quote:

“Sanjaya Senanayake works for Sri Lankan television. The blogging world, though, might know him better by his online name, Morquendi.

“He was one of the first on the scene after the tsunami destroyed much of the Sri Lankan coast. Cell phone signals were weak. Land lines were unreliable.

“So Mr Senanayake started sending out text messages. The messages were not just the latest news they were also an on-the-ground assessment of “who needs what and where”.

“Blogging friends in India took Mr Senanayake’s text messages and posted them on a weblog called Dogs without Borders.”

CNET article on Wikinews (see earlier post)

“The issue of journalistic accountability will dominate the newspaper industry after a year of format and ownership changes, the editor of the Guardian said yesterday.

“Alan Rusbridger said the Independent’s conversion to a “viewspaper” posed pivotal questions about the future of newspaper journalism. “If you have got news organisations saying ‘we are putting news behind views’, this is a fundamental statement about what newspapers are for and what journalism is for … It is radically new, it is not what serious broadsheet journalism was about.””

“The issue of journalistic accountability will dominate the newspaper industry after a year of format and ownership changes, the editor of the Guardian said yesterday.

“Alan Rusbridger said the Independent’s conversion to a “viewspaper” posed pivotal questions about the future of newspaper journalism. “If you have got news organisations saying ‘we are putting news behind views’, this is a fundamental statement about what newspapers are for and what journalism is for … It is radically new, it is not what serious broadsheet journalism was about.””

As reported (subscribers only) in the New Media Age (16 Dec 04):

“An overhaul of Times Online will see it adopt a range of traditionally broadsheet qualities over the next few months, including a content-heavy front page to engage readers.

“Other changes to the site … will include a revamped business section and a boost in comment, analysis and original features.

“Peter Bale, online editorial director of the papers, said the move would take place gradually to deepen user experiences, increase dwell time on the site and boost story consumption.

“… The changes are intended to help maintain the recent growth of Times Online, which was visited by a total of 3.9m unique users in November, representing an increase of 100% on the same period the previous year. Data from Hitbox shows that page impressions rose by 60% year on year to 34m, which according to Bale puts the site ahead of Telegraph.co.uk and FT.com in terms of market share.

“Times Online also saw its global reach increase last month after removing subscription fees around its coverage of the US election. Parent company Times Newspapers plans to capitalise on this next year with a focus on geographically targeted ads and global branding campaigns.”

Writing Magazine‘s January print edition includes an interesting comment in Stephen Waddington’s Technology Focus section:

“Google is now under fire for allegedly snuffing out the glorious exclusive for the world’s press. Some in media circles fear that Google’s reach and immediacy mean that there are no true exclusives any more, as when news breaks no readers have time to consider who got it first before a raft of other reports produce their own stories.”

Sadly he gives no sources as to who exactly is criticising Google, so we’ll just have to do our own research.

Writing Magazine‘s January print edition includes an interesting comment in Stephen Waddington’s Technology Focus section:

“Google is now under fire for allegedly snuffing out the glorious exclusive for the world’s press. Some in media circles fear that Google’s reach and immediacy mean that there are no true exclusives any more, as when news breaks no readers have time to consider who got it first before a raft of other reports produce their own stories.”

Sadly he gives no sources as to who exactly is criticising Google, so we’ll just have to do our own research.

Very interesting article from VisualJournalism.com on how newspapers around the world covered Saddam’s capture with accompanying graphics of the ‘spiderhole’ in which he was captured. The thing is: “not a single one of all the graphics published the first day is correct.” Despite subsequent information helping artists to improve the representations, the article also points out that “online content hasn’t changed … You can check out their content, flash-graphics and animations. They haven’t been updated and therefore keep sending the wrong message.”