Tag Archives: future journalism

Blogs and Investigative Journalism: conclusion

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The concluding part of this draft book chapter sums up some of the key points and looks at the future paths of investigative journalism in a new media age. I would welcome any corrections, extra information or comments.

Conclusion

Blogs and new media have undoubtedly changed the landscape of investigative journalism. In terms of its form, journalism as a whole has become more conversational, and iterative, as readers seek to contribute to the story, and journalists open more of their processes to public view. The time and space offered by the internet has provided opportunities for these conversations to take place, and for journalists to make raw material available to fuel them. And the networked nature of the Web has facilitated coordination of contributors across borders and industries, along with a now global distribution of material. Continue reading →

All quiet on the western front? Not quite.

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German regional publisher WAZ just launched its new flagship website, Der Westen. New features include geotagging, blogs and keyword filtering, monitored from a futuristic-looking newsroom. Martin Stabe has the details.

The concept, writes Der Spiegel, is to let users choose the centre of their world, their perspective on news. Der Westen then provides content around it.

The FAZ today has an interview of blogger-turned-editor-in-chief Katharina Borchert. Numerous online ventures have been playing on regional papers’ turf, from local advertisers flocking to AdSense to local radios breaking news more rapidly, she says. To compete, paper brands must regain their offline roles as community leaders by enhancing the news hole with social features, Facebook-style. Continue reading →

The 2009 journalist: some ideas from Paris

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One of France’s main journalism schools, the Centre de Formation des Journalistes, has just launched a revamped new media curriculum, where all students are now required to specialize in new media on top of their traditional skills.

The program was 2.0’d from the start, back in June, when Philippe Couve brought together the crème de la crème of the French blogosphere to outline what the 2009 journalist should look like. Continue reading →

From the inverted pyramid to the tumbled pyramid (João Canavilhas)

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When I published the news diamond model, a number of commentators from Brazil and Portugal compared it with João Canavilhas’ ‘Tumbled Pyramid’ model, which looks at online reading patterns and suggests a new way to structure online journalism. João very kindly agreed to write a post for the OJB summarising this model – here it is:

The inverted pyramid model as the prime writing technique is usually implied when we discuss journalism. The emergence of the web, with its hypertext potentialities, opens new windows of opportunities. Now, journalists are able to provide new and immediate reading horizons by creating links between texts or other multimedia components which can be organised into layers of information.
But how will readers react when faced with several optional reading paths? Do they follow a reading pattern or does each individual have their own way of reading? Continue reading →

Event: Notes from the digital news frontline (Preston, UK)

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One for the diary: The latest Journalism Leaders Forum from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston is on the theme ‘Local Turf Wars – Notes from the digital news frontline’ Continue reading →

Online journalism job of the week: Keyword Manager

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The Guardian are advertising for a Keyword Manager “to look after the labelling of our content online to ensure that it is consistent with the needs of the reader and the editorial values of the Guardian and Observer. The role requires attention to the demands both of a considerable content archive and of a fast-moving news operation, and involves work across media; from text to cartoons, video to podcasts. It would suit either a journalist with a particular interest in archiving, or someone with a background in information science who posesses a keen editorial sense.”

To quote William Gibson: “The future is already here – it is just unevenly distributed”.

The burden of a paper image (Bas Timmers)

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Bas Timmers is Newsroom Editor at Dutch broadsheet de Volkskrant. This post is also available at http://www.bastimmers.nl/diginewsuk.php

“In the virtual world a year only lasts three months,” a manager once sighed. The innovations keep on coming very quickly indeed on the web, and a success story can turn into a tale of shattered dreams within months. Kazaa and ICQ were once extremely popular, for instance, but are now only marginal players on the web.

This high speed of innovation doesn’t mean that you cannot draw any lessons from the past. For example, Pablo J. Boczkowski was examining three online projects at American newspapers already in 1999 and 2000, but the conlusions he drew are still applicable. Continue reading →

Guest blogger Bas Timmers on the customisable future of news

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Bas Timmers is Newsroom Editor at Dutch broadsheet de Volkskrant

It´s 2015. Newspapers don´t exist anymore. At least, not as a mass medium. Because everyone is living in his own cocoon, his own little world, assembled to his own preferences. Customizable, as the phenomenon is generally called. A television(or a computer screen or electronic paper?) displays documentaries and YouTube-like videos from internet users with the same preferences and the same lifestyle. The mp3-player pounds out songs automaticallty that fit the mood of its user, because the bloody thing can sense the mental state of of its boss. And in the meantime it also suggests some new songs that might match his preference. Continue reading →

A model for the 21st century newsroom pt2: Distributed Journalism

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In the first part of my model for the 21st century newsroom I looked at how a story might move through a number of stages from initial alert through to customisation. In part two I want to look at sourcing stories, and the role of journalism in a new media world.

The last century has seen three important changes for the news industry. It has moved… Continue reading →

Preston: Owners are to blame for press decline, not the net

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Here’s the second report I wrote for Press Gazette from the Future of Newspapers conference last week. The version which appeared in Press Gazette is here; the original is below:  

Former Guardian editor Peter Preston has said that owners who are “giving up the ghost” must take some responsibility for the decline of newspapers. Continue reading →