(This entry was originally posted by Dave Lee on jBlog)
A few days ago on this blog, Paul Bradshaw wrote what he called one of the most important posts he’s ever made. Here it is.
In it he describes how the era of the awkward, socially backward geek is nearly behind us. They’re not geeks, he says, they’re early adopters. And you’d better listen to them if you want to stay a step ahead of the game. Continue reading
Continuing the final part of this series (part 1: Community is here) I look at conversation. I look at why conversation is becoming a form of publishing itself, why journalists need to be a part of that conversation, and a range of ways they can join in. Continue reading
Semantic journalism is a vision for the future of journalism. As the writer works on her article, her computer would gather data on the matter, from pictures to other articles to assessing global opinion trends. It would read through the Wikipedia pages of a given theme and summarize key concepts. A semantic algorithm would bring a selection of the most authoritative people on a subject.
The journalist is left with what she does best: checking and analyzing the data.
That means avoiding the pitfalls of redundant news content. That means escaping the trap of writing about topics without having a clue of what’s at stake. That means interviewing people who do things rather than those who talk about it.
This article is the first of a 4-part series. We’ll explore semantic hacks for newsgathering, writing and publishing in the coming weeks. Continue reading
What happens when you bring together local journalists, bloggers, web publishers, online journalism experts and new media startups – and get them talking?
That was the question that JEEcamp sought to answer: an ‘unconference’ around journalism enterprise and entrepreneurship that looked to tackle some of the big questions facing news in 2008: how do you make money from news when information is free? Where is the funding for news startups? How do you generate community? What models work for news online? Continue reading
In the final part of the Model for the 21st Century Newsroom I look at how new media has compounded problems in news organisations’ core business models – and the new business models which it could begin to explore.
Let’s start by looking at the traditional newspaper business model. This has rested on selling, in a broad simplification, three things:
Developments in the past few decades have eaten into each of those areas as follows: Continue reading
Guest Blogger Bas Timmers is Newsroom Editor at Dutch broadsheet de Volkskrant.
‘A newspaper is like an oil tanker,’ editors in chief call out in despair again and again. Changing the direction is often slow and difficult. But that of course just depends on whether you have the right rudder or not. Because the captain is still steering the ship. Yes, journalists can be quite nasty and stubborn, but mutiny is still a step too far for most of them. Continue reading
Over at BBC Radio 4’s iPM website there’s an interesting experiment going on – and some good examples of my 21st century newsroom ideas in practice.
The blurb, BTW, is: “We’ll source what we do through the best blogs, passionate ‘ear catching’ online debate as well as comments and recommendations of others. So what ends up on air will be shaped by listeners and bloggers.”
I felt so strongly about the Five W’s and a H that should come *after* every story that I pitched an idea based on it to the Knight Foundation. It’s called the ‘Conversation Toolkit’, and it’s through to the second round of the Knight News Challenge. Think it sounds like a good idea? Have any improvements? Want to help make it happen, or test it out? Then log on to the idea wiki at http://bidideas.pbwiki.com/conversationtoolkit (password: idea) and add what you can, or contact me directly.
Here’s the text so far: Continue reading
The Washington Post have followed up their playful Facebook app Compass with the more functional newsTracker – and it’s very good indeed.
Not only can you specify which topics you want ‘fed’ to your page – but you can also include custom searches (which is why mine has no current matches – they’re very specific).
The ‘Hot News’ tag cloud is nice – but the ‘Friends’ Search Terms’ really takes advantage of the social element of Facebook technology – although it does raise possible privacy issues (Blog Friends does a similar thing very well).
Dear Roy,
For someone who believes in the merits of the web conversation, your decision to leave the NUJ strikes me as strange.
You say you
“cannot, in conscience, go on supporting this crucial plank of NUJ policy when it is so obvious that online media outlets will require fewer staff. We are surely moving towards a situation in which relatively small “core” staffs will process material from freelances and/or citizen journalists, bloggers, whatever (and there are many who think this business of “processing” will itself gradually disappear too in an era of what we might call an unmediated media).” Continue reading
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