Tag Archives: curation

VIDEO: What makes a good email newsletter

Email newsletters are an excellent way for journalism students to build a profile in a field while also improving their specialist knowledge and editorial skills. I’ve put together a short video guide on some of the key techniques to use when starting an email newsletter — and why it’s a great way to stand out in the jobs market.

The video outlines three typical purposes of newsletters, the importance of visuals and links, and other key qualities of the genre. Watch it below.

This video was first made for journalism students on Birmingham City University’s MA in Multiplatform and Mobile Journalism. It also includes some advice on referencing reading and evidence in an evaluation of students’ work.

FAQ: The changing ethics of 21st century journalism

Do you think that the ethical codes of journalism have changed in the transition from traditional journalism to digital?

I think the ethics of journalism have changed, yes, for a range of reasons, and in both negative and positive ways. For example, transparency has become much more highly valued as a journalistic value: journalists are expected to earn the trust of readers much more than was previously the case, and I would argue that is a positive development. Linking to sources, sharing methodologies, etc. forces journalists to hold themselves to higher standards. Continue reading →

5 ways journalists can use Nuzzel with Twitter lists

1 Reply

Nuzzel offers a short-cut to the most shared stories in your Twitter timeline – and is already popular with journalists. But while it’s best known for directing you to your friends’ most popular links, it has other uses. In a guest post for OJB, Andy Brightwell shows how you can use Nuzzel to burst your filter bubble, follow people in a particular location or industry, see the world from someone’s perspective, or create a niche newsletter.

Since Nuzzel added Twitter lists it’s been possible to curate ‘custom feeds’ from sets of tweeters. For journalists this means an opportunity to seek new perspectives on communities, places and politics through Twitter. Below I’ve outlined five different ways to use the feature — but first, a bit of background… Continue reading →

The most-read posts on Online Journalism Blog — and on Medium — in 2016

From scoping to scoops: a model for how journalists get their stories

9 Replies

Scoping, relaying, responding, attending, seeking, investigating

Journalism activities range from scoping out a field through to investigating for ‘scoops’

How do journalists find stories? How do we test whether a story is as good as it could be? How do we get better as journalists?

The image above is my attempt to answer these questions. It maps out the six activities that journalists undertake as part of their workflow, in order of value: from scoping a field or subject, through to relaying information to a wider audience, responding to or attending news events, seeking new information and experiences, and investigating. Continue reading →

Curation is the new obituary: 8 ways media outlets marked Bowie’s life and death [now 16]

15 Replies

The media’s reaction to David Bowie‘s death from cancer early this morning demonstrates just how widely curation has become in journalism practice – and specifically, how it has become the web native version of the obituary. Below I’ve done a bit of curation of my own: 8 13 16 ways that different publications used curation to mark the death of a legend. If you have seen others, please let me know.

1. Liveblogging curation

#BREAKING: David Bowie dies from cancer: latest https://t.co/5Vv4k9DFM6 pic.twitter.com/01TtA0vCw8

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) January 11, 2016

The Telegraph’s live reporting of Bowie’s death is an example of curation itself, incorporating just some of the following elements:

The Facebook update of the statement confirming Bowie’s death
Embedded tweets from key figures reacting to the death
A video playlist
A single video of his last single, along with other videos to illustrate reactions
A posting from Bowie’s official Instagram account

Continue reading →

3 reasons why 2014 was the year news organisations finally ‘got’ web-native production

1 Reply

This Independent story includes two embedded YouTube videos and a Flickr photo gallery

Something remarkable happened this year. Something I’ve been waiting for for a long time.

News reports on the web finally started to look more and more like… well, web-native articles.

Not print articles online, not broadcast journalism online, but online journalism, online. I’m talking about journalism which isn’t just text: whether that means linking and embedding or mixing text with images, video or audio.

So what changed in 2014? Here are three factors I’ve noticed growing in influence over the last 12 months. Continue reading →

Curation vs aggregation, and why news organisations can’t be ‘the next LinkedIn’

2 Replies

“We are not a magazine company,” he exclaims, unprompted. “We are a media company with a portfolio.” “We want to build the next LinkedIn, the next Gilt [a US commerce site], the next Facebook,”

M Scott Havens, senior vice president of digital, Time Inc

What does it mean to be a platform? Time Inc’s M Scott Havens is the latest to express a desire to move into the platform industry, telling The Guardian:

“We want to build the next LinkedIn, the next Gilt [a US commerce site], the next Facebook,”

Platforms came up at the BBC ‘Revival of Local Journalism‘ event last week too. Why weren’t regional newspaper publishers doing more to become ‘platforms’ for their local communities? Continue reading →

Art or journalism?

1 Reply

The internet has opened up all sorts of creative possibilities for journalists – and artists. The following is just a selection of examples of both – but which is journalism, and which is art?