Linked data and structured journalism at the BBC

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Dont repeat yourself

Last month Basile Simon from BBC News Labs gave a talk at the CSV conference in Berlin: a two-day “community conference for data makers” (notes here). I invited Basile to publish his talk here in a special guest post.

At BBC News Labs, we’ve been pushing for more linked data in news for years now. We built a massive international news aggregator based on linked data, and spent years making it better… but it’s our production and live services who do the core of the job today.

We’re trying to stay relevant and to model our massive dataset of facts, quotes, news and articles. The answer to this may lie in structured journalism.

Starting in 2012, News Labs was founded to play with linked data. The original team, comprised of many data architects, strongly believed this was a revolution in the way we approached our journalism.

They were right. Continue reading →

5 ways to find useful Snapchat accounts to follow as a journalist

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Snapchat book cover

This post is an extract from the book Snapchat for Journalists

Finding Snapchat accounts to follow is harder than it needs to be. There are some directories, such as Snapcodes, but these rely on user submissions. The iPhone app GhostCodes also ‘curates’ lists of accounts by category, but also relies on users giving their own usernames.

You can find some articles highlighting interesting accounts to follow on Snapchat. One useful search phrase to use for finding those is this:

Here are 4 useful techniques for tracking them down.

Method 1: The advanced search

The most obvious approach is to look for some articles highlighting interesting accounts to follow on Snapchat. You can narrow this a little by using search operators like allintitle: (which restricts results to those where the words are in the page title).

One useful search phrase to use with this is: Continue reading →

How to embed a vertical video from YouTube or Vimeo

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In my series of posts on Snapchat for journalists I mentioned that you can embed vertical video so that it doesn’t have those annoying black bars either side. Here’s how.

OK, so YouTube may not support vertical video as a format on desktop (it does on the mobile app) but you can embed a vertical video hosted on YouTube so that it is presented as a vertical format on your own webpage.

This is particularly useful if you’ve created a video using the Snapchat app, or merely filmed on your phone without remembering to rotate it, and want to use it on a normal site. Continue reading →

We are proposing to hand away property details at the very point journalists need them most

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offshore property private eye

Late last year, as the government indicated it was prepared to water down the Freedom of Information Act, industry publication Press Gazette launched a petition. It was one of a range of factors which led to a promise to leave the Act alone.

This year we face a similar threat. But the industry press is silent. Press Gazette say nothing. Hold The Front Page is empty of reference.

What am I talking about? The Land Registry.

The government is holding a consultation on moving Land Registry operations to the private sector, and with one week left the industry press needs to wake up. Continue reading →

How the Old Trafford bomb scare was reported on Snapchat: live stories vs Dream Team

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On Sunday the 75,000-capacity Old Trafford stadium was evacuated 20 minutes before the last game of the season kicked off. I found out on Snapchat: it was, if you like, my ‘Hudson River moment‘.

But what was striking was just how little space Snapchat itself devoted to the event. So I took screenshots of the ‘snaps’ and am publishing them below for the record. Continue reading →

Snapchat for journalists (part 4): sharing and measuring your story

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In the previous parts of this series I covered different types of stories, tools, and thinking about narrative. In this extract from the ebook Snapchat for Journalists I cover the practicalities of storing, sharing and measuring your Snapchat stories.

Snapchat book cover

You can read more in the ebook (also available in the Kindle Store)

Sharing your Snapchat Story

Each snap in a story only lasts for 24 hours, so it’s worth making sure you share them as early as possible, and regularly before they have finished.

You cannot share a link to your Snapchat story: people need to be following you on Snapchat and checking it for notifications. Whenever you add a new snap to your story, they will receive a subtle notification within Snapchat.

To share it you have a number of options: Continue reading →

Snapchat for journalists (part 3): narrative

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In the first and second parts in this series I covered different types of stories and the different tools in Snapchat. In this extract from the ebook Snapchat for Journalists I cover narrative techniques in Snapchat, including the importance of variety and thinking about beginnings, middles and endings.

Snapchat book cover

You can find more tips and examples in this ebook (also available in the Kindle Store)

Snapchat Stories: variety is key

The best stories tend to mix both images and video, have more than one person, and employ a range of different techniques.

Just as you wouldn’t write a news story which employed a quote-quote-quote structure (you might instead choose fact-quote-background), stories are more engaging when you switch from one type of content to another.

One technique, for example, is to use a still image with a caption to introduce a speaker, before moving on to a video clip of that speaker. Continue reading →

Snapchat for journalists (part 2): the tools explained

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In a previous post I covered the different types of stories that work well for news organisations on Snapchat. In this second extract from the ebook Snapchat for Journalists I go into more detail on how to use particular tools: the pencil, stickers, and filters

Snapchat book cover

You can read a lot more about Snapchat in this ebook (also available in the Kindle store)

Using pencils

Aside from captions you can also illustrate images and video with filters, pencil annotations and stickers.

The pencil tool can be used by tapping the pencil icon in the upper right corner after taking your image or video snap. This will open up a slider which you can use to choose your pencil colour (to get black you will need to drag your finger past the slider and all the way to the bottom right of the screen; to get white drag your finger from the slider to the upper left corner of the screen).

The pencil can be used in a number of ways but common techniques include:

  • Highlighting some element in the image or video, by circling it, colouring around it, and/or drawing an arrow pointing to it
  • Making caption text easier to read by colouring behind it (text will always appear on top of pencil marks)
  • Writing text
  • Drawing on top of an image: for example giving someone sunglasses, a crown, halo, etc. Continue reading →

Snapchat for journalists: a great big guide

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Snapchat for journalists

I’ve put all these posts – plus a whole lot of extra help and examples – in this ebook

A few weeks ago I started writing a post about Snapchat for journalists. It ended up so long that I decided to turn it into a small ebook. But I thought I’d split that original draft – just under half the length of the finished ebook – across a number of posts here on OJB. I hope you find it useful.

In a long history of technologies journalists have struggled with, Snapchat could be the most frustrating of all.

On the one hand: promises of insane engagement and impressive advertising rates.

On the other, however…

Well. Firstly there’s the ephemeral nature of the tool: creating content designed to disappear is precisely the opposite of what journalists aspire to.

Secondly there’s that obtuse-to-the-point-of-arrogance interface that can be summed up with the advice ‘Just swipe somewhere.‘

And then there’s the amateurishness of the content.

If you struggled with the limitations of 140 characters, Snapchat takes things to a whole new level: vertical video, over-emotional stickers, and the choice between a) using a typeface that makes you look like a government bureaucrat in 1978, or b) scrawling bright red text on the screen like a demented crayon-wielding five year old.

Landscape video shown vertically

Fusion fail to realise that Snapchat is a vertical medium

But still…

There is that engagement. And an audience you can’t easily reach elsewhere.

And to be honest, once I got my head around Snapchat, I started to see storytelling possibilities that other platforms simply don’t offer. And I hope you will too. Continue reading →