Tag Archives: Guardian

From a 15-year-old’s blog to MSM: Bleachgate and Miracle Mineral Solutions

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Bleachgate - Rhys Morgan's video blog

Rhys Morgan's video blog on Bleachgate

Journalists wanting evidence of the value of blogs should take a look at the ‘Bleachgate’ story which has taken a month to filter up from 15-year-old Rhys Morgan’s blog post through other skeptic and science bloggers into The Guardian.

Rhys has Crohn’s Disease and was sceptical of the Miracle Mineral Solutions ‘treatment’ being plugged on a support forum that was also described by the FDA as industrial bleach. The forum didn’t like his scepticism, and banned him. He blogged about his concerns, and it went from there.

I can only hope that enough people link to The Guardian’s piece with the words Miracle Mineral Solutions to help raise awareness of the concerns. *Cough*.

AFTERTHOUGHT: What deserves particular attention is how the Guardian reporter Martin Robbins is responding to critical comments – providing further details of how the forum dealt with his approaches, and addressing conspiracy theorists. This is journalism that gets out there and engages with the issue rather than simply broadcasting. Wonderful.

Martin Robbins' replies to comment

Martin Robbins' replies to comment

The New Online Journalists #3: Josh Halliday

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As part of an ongoing series on recent graduates who have gone into online journalism, The Guardian’s media reporter Josh Halliday talks about what got him the job, what it involves, and where it might go next.

I did an NCTJ-accredited BA (Hons) Journalism degree at University of Sunderland, but it is what I did around my degree that landed me a dream job at the Guardian.

That’s not to say my degree was unnecessary – it gave me an invaluable broad-brush knowledge of the theory and practice of journalism, yet it’s just not enough nowadays. Learning outside the curriculum – playing in the digital world, doing journalism – is what ultimately scored me a highly sought after job. I think myself really lucky, but I also know I worked my arse off and you make your own luck. Continue reading →

The New Online Journalists #2: Todd Nash

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As part of an ongoing series on recent graduates who have gone into online journalism, Midlands News Association online journalist Todd Nash talks about what got him the job, what it involves, and where it might go next. (Disclosure: I taught Todd)

I started as a Community Moderator for guardian.co.uk shortly after graduating with First Class Honours from a Media and Communications (Journalism) degree at Birmingham City University. My new media experience, which was largely inspired by an Online Journalism module, appealed to my employers as did the fact that I had an interest in comments on newspaper websites and had written my dissertation on the subject.

Since then, I’ve moved on to an Online Journalism role with MNA Digital and the role involves taking responsibility for the social media output of the Express & Star and Shropshire Star, as well as looking after the editorial content for the jobs, property and motors sections of both newspaper websites.

I’d say that the biggest part that my education had to play in getting this job and the work that I’ve done here so far, was the inspiration that I had from my education to attempt things on my own. I used my blog to try out new ways of reporting, used social media and had put place my knowledge of the medium at guardian.co.uk and had knowledge of building sites, purely from my blogs.

I see my role developing hugely in the future. Social media does not stand still; just a couple of years ago MySpace was the place to be and Twitter was practically unheard of. Part of my role is ensuring that my websites don’t get left behind where this is concerned.

Guest post: Why I escaped The Times’ paywall

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In a guest post, blogger Tim Kevan explains why he resigned from The Times over the paywall

Back in early 2007 I had been practising as a lawyer for some nine years. But I’d always dreamt of living by the sea and the surf and maybe even writing a novel. I just couldn’t quite see how it could be done.When I finally sat down to write a legal thriller what popped out instead was a legal comedy about a fictional young barrister doing pupillage.

I called him BabyBarista which was a play on words based on his first impression being that his coffee-making skills were probably as important to that year as any forensic legal abilities he may have. I wrote it as a blog and was hopeful it might raise a few smiles but in my wildest dreams I hadn’t imagined quite the extraordinary set of circumstances which then unfolded with The Times offering to host the blog and Bloomsbury Publishing of Harry Potter fame offering to make it into a book.

Since then the first book came out last August and was originally called BabyBarista and the Art of War. It is being re-issued in August under the new title Law and Disorder and the sequel is due out next May.

I was also continuing to publish my blog on The Times until May this year when it became clear that even blogs were going to go behind their new paywall. Continue reading →

Video: Guardian's Beat Blogger for Cardiff: breaking the boundaries between blogger and journalist

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It’s an modern day battle: journalist versus blogger. Often operating in the same field, but with very different aims and objectives, some traditional reporters are wary of this new breed of content creator. However, a new Beat-Blogger role, created by The Guardian, has brought the 2 fields closer together.

Having a local blogger based in several cities around the UK, The Guardian has given itself direct contact with the community, something a national paper would often overlook.

Hannah Waldram is the beat-blogger in Cardiff. At News:Rewired she told OJB more about how the new project is going, and how it has been accepted in the city.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEAaLCcjsbk%5D

Get used to reading this…

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“We have a team of developers going through the data now – and we’ll let you know here what we learn as and when we learn it.”

If you had any doubt over the concept of ‘programmer as journalist’, that quote above from The Guardian’s liveblog of the opening of the COINS database gives you a preview of things to come. While you’re at it, you might as well add in ‘statistician as journalist‘ and ‘information designer as journalist‘ – or look at my post from 2008 on New Journalists for New Information Flows. Are we there yet?

Dealing with live data and sentiment analysis: Q&A with The Guardian's Martyn Inglis

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As part of the research for my book on online journalism, I interviewed Martyn Inglis about The Guardian’s Blairometer, which measured a live stream of data from Twitter as Tony Blair appeared before the Chilcot inquiry. I’m reproducing it in full here, with permission:

How did you prepare for dealing with live data and sentiment analysis?

I think it was important to be aware of our limitations. We can process a limited amount of data – due to Twitter quotas and so on. This is not a definitive sample. Once we accept that (a) we are not going to rank every tweet and (b) this is therefore going to be a limited exercise it frees us to make concessions that provide an easier technology solution.

Sentiment analysis is hard programatically, given the short time span of the event in which we can do this manually. We had an interface view onto incoming tweets which we had pulled from a twitter search. This allows us to be really accurate in our assessment. This does not work over a long period of time – the Chilcot inquiry is one thing, you couldn’t do it for an event lasting a week or so on. Continue reading →

UK general election 2010 – online journalism is ordinary

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Has online journalism become ordinary? Are the approaches starting to standardise? Little has stood out in the online journalism coverage of this election – the innovation of previous years has been replaced by consolidation.

Here are a few observations on how the media approached their online coverage: Continue reading →

UK General Election 2010 – Interactive Maps and Swingometers

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Tony Hirst takes a look at how different news websites are using interactivity to present different possibilities in the UK election. This post is cross-posted from the OUseful.Info blog:

So it seems like the General Election has been a Good Thing for the news media’s interactive developer teams… Here’s a quick round up of some of the interactives I’ve found… Continue reading →

What does John Terry’s case mean for superinjuntions?

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The superinjunction obtained by England Captain John Terry was overturned on Friday – and the case raises some interesting issues (cross posted from John Terry: another nail in the superinjunction coffin):

  • Ecen when the superinjunction was in force, you could find out about the story on Twitter and Google – both even promoted the fact of Terry’s affair – via the Twitter trends list and the real-time Google search box.
  • No one got the difference between an injunction and a superinjunction – the former banned reporting of Terry’s alleged affair, the latter banned revealing there was an injunction. They weren’t necessarily both overturned, but there was a widespread assumption you could say what you liked about Terry once the superinjunction was overturned. This wasn’t necessarily the case …
  • The Mail and Telegraph seemed to flout the superinjunction – as did the Press Gazette which decided if wasn’t bound as it hadn’t seen a copy. This seemed risky behaviour legally – which makes me wonder if the papers were looking for a weak case to try to discredit superinjunctions.
  • This superinjunction should never have been granted. What was the original judge thinking?

Google and Twitter ignored the superinjunction

Tweets from while the superinjunction was in force

Tweets from while the superinjunction was in force

The superinjunction was overturned at about 1pm or 2pm on Friday. Needless to say, the papers had a field day over the weekend. Continue reading →