This is part 2 of a couple of posts that develop some of the areas covered and not covered by the CNN mobile journalism panel I sat on at the Frontline.

In a previous post I clarified some of the points I made. I didn’t want to sideline them it was just going to be a long post. So I my touch back on some of that in this post.

To try and keep some shape to the post I thought I would go back and look at the suggested areas given to me for the panel. They are broadly the same as the topic areas on the eventbrite page.

How important are eyewitness reports in news today? In the future.

Of course it’s really important. We can’t be everywhere as journalists so being able to get input from the scene is invaluable, however we get it. Given the subject area of the panel I suppose the context for this is the use of mobile as the tool that gets eyewitness accounts to ‘us’, the mainstram media. The fact that the CNNi app comes with ireport built in illustrates the importance of mobile as a possible platform.

Of course this is where the vexed question of CitJ rears its’ head. I was amused to read in the pre-amble to the event “Citizen journalists and ordinary people are, increasingly, beating TV crews to the scene of breaking news stories.”. Yes people are racing to events but they are also there already. We used to call them victims or bystanders.

What motivates people to submit content to news orgnaisations? What type of people do it?

All kinds of people. All kinds of motives. Some people will do it out of a passion for the story and at the other end of the spectrum, some will do it out of spite. What’s clear is that that they send in to an organization because they have some affinity to it. They send to the BBC because they respect it and want to be part of it. They will take time to post a video to CNN because they may get a chance to be associated with it. That’s where we let them down sometimes. We don’t recognize that and engage. Sometimes we don’t even say thank you. How hurt would you be when someone something you respect let’s you down or treats you badly.

Is it important for practicing journalists to understand and use mobile technology in their work? What does it bring to their craft that’s new, or better.

In a nutshell, yes. If you don’t use mobile in what you do how can you possibly know how to serve and interact with your audience who do.

CNNi’s Louis Gump made a great point when he said that mobile is not just one thing. It’s mobile phone apps, its tablets and ipad stuff and its the mobile web (browsing the web on a phone). I think thats really important in this context. But we also need to add that in a journalistic context it’s also a tool to gather content. Alex Woods had it so right when he said we have to think of a mobile in its individual parts. It’s a camera, a video camera, a web browser and a phone.

That brings loads of opportunities but it also challenges.

It challenges the working practice and professional definitions. Take the mobile web. Louis rightly pointed out the stylistic differences for content online (images and bullet point text). But many journalists balk at that as a change from their ‘normal style’. The mobile phone as a tool is great but what about the feeling of inadequacy when using a mobile phone to shoot video rather than a big broadcast camera (subjugating your ego to small devices as @benhammersly summarized it!)? What about the problem that most journalists pay their own phone bills and don’t want to subsidize their org by paying the data tariff so they can stream their own video?

All of those questions, and the related by-ways of debate they create are, I think, one of the reasons the debate was a bit stale for some. You see, we haven’t really answered those questions. As journalists we haven’t come to terms with those changes. When people in the room are asking if it’s a good idea to specialise or learn a range of these ‘new skills’ then you realise that perhaps the debate isn’t so stale.

Tips on creating great stories using a mobile device?

I’d say consume some content on your own phone. Think about the limitations and your experience. It’s no different from the consumer so put yourself in their shoes then act on your own experience. I would also go back to Alex’s point about thinking about the individual functions- the camera, video, apps etc. The rest is then a case of what you are doing. If you are taking a picture then think about what makes a good editorial picture. That doesn’t change because you are using a mobile. Likewise with video. Yes, some of the tropes of TV can be subverted but the basics work.

What’s the impact of new technology on the business of news?
Obviously there is a huge impact. As I was drafting this post the BBC have just announced that they have  had the go ahead for BBC apps. That’ll put the cat amongst the pigeons. But that aside I think it’s important to look at the different sectors of ‘mobile’ to gauge the impact but in general I think the impact is in capacity. You have to spend money to get the capacity to do mobile – the technology part of it. But there is also your the capacity of the people within your organsiation – the understanding and skills.

Of course you could throw a lot of money at the problem but skills and understanding are often resilient to that. Hearts and minds don’t often change with cash. But time and money are well spent when building capacity and the smart people are seeing it as a medium term thing.

Take the ipad for example. In a quick straw poll of the audience only 3 out of 40’ish people admitted to having an ipad. So why the big fuss about it? Well, one part is the apps which are a big area of development. But for the smart set the ipad is a transitional platform. It’s a place to experiment with HTML 5 for example. Get you offering right on the ipad and chances are you will be a step further down the line when browsers catch up.

The danger is that some orgs will try and bypass the necessary investment by seeing mobile as just another platform to aggregate and dump content on to. Thats a mistake. Shovelware on any platform doesn’t work. Aggregation is something that is better left to your audience to do and not your organization.

How is technology changing the way people consume news?
Whenever new technology comes along it will change peoples habits. Mobile is no exception. But the killer combination is mobile and the rise of social media online. Any stats on mobile app use for example shows the importance of Facebook and social sites Facebook. Look at the fluster around Flipboard and you get an idea of the issues as the relate to journalism.

So if you are a large media organisation looking to develop for a mobile platform then ask yourself what social media elements you are adding? What social media habits are you tapping in to? Do your journalists have the capacity to work in a social media environment.

Perhaps the answer to a business model lies in the fact that if you are not up to capacity on understanding and working with communities then decide what content you can give for free in an app wrapper to get you on the platform. But don’t give it much thought beyond that. You just aren’t ready to make the best of it.

A quick bluster through I know. But it’s a start. I’d love more questions.

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Big cameras at the Frontline

One commentator noted the white, male flavour of the panel. I agree and I’ll not go next time. But for many the problem was we didn’t really get round to what a lot of people wanted to know – what are the business models for mobile? @thevideoreport report tweeted that it was all “a bit 2002” and @adamwestbrook noted that, lovely though the panel was, nothing new was learned. I understand the frustration. The conversation ranged round some of the usual subjects – citizen journalism vs. journalism, big cameras vs. little cameras (a subject I’ve blogged in repeatedly) – and it seemed only vaguely touched on mobile itself. I suppose I should apologise for that, I was on the panel when all is said and done. But I just wanted to clarify some points and maybe develop the conversation a little more in to the areas people felt we missed.

As I was drafting this post it started to get a little long so I’m going to do it in a couple of parts. So,to start, some clarification. One point I wanted to pick up was the brief kick around of the ‘attitude’ of students to news and opinion. I was quoted as saying that “journalism students come in thinking everything they think is news” It’s not quite what I said but the point is worth amplifying. Students do come in with very strong opinions and ideas. Opinions about what journalism is, what they will be as journalists, right and wrong etc. As they should and, as I always say, that’s brilliant – not that they need my permission or approval. I love opinionated people and I love the passion that brings. But the reality is that for most jobbing journalists expressing their opinion is a luxury. It isn’t what journalism is about. It’s my job to help them understand that framework perhaps to frame expectations. But it doesn’t mean I don’t thing they should have opinions or that they are wrong (or that journalism is wrong or right for that matter). It’s just there is a time, place and form.

What takes time is building a professional identity that separates that opinion and journalism in a visible and transparent way. I suppose the web blurs that slightly as we still labour under the distinctions of journalists and bloggers for example. (if you want to debate this more you can go read this post, most of which I struggle to agree with, and knock yourself out ) But the truth is journalism works a certain way and if you want to be ‘in journalism’ its worth learning how to bend to that when required.

The issue of citizen journalists also came up. I said that I kind of liked the term because it described what the person was and what they did. They were a citizen, concerned and motivated by what was happening around them and they wanted to tell the world about that. The discussion prompted a question from the floor asking why, if it was so good, it hadn’t taken over from traditional news sources?

For me that isn’t it’s job. It’s there to amplyfy the concerens and interests of a collection of people; hyperlocal, niche, whatever. In that sense it doesn’t aim to replace the mainstream media, just live in the gaps. And, I might add, there is a nice opportunity for a business model there. Not, as I have said before, for the big guys. But big enough to support the community it amplifies. That’s a challenge for mainstream media. Not the threat itself but the fact that it’s happening because of them as they seemingly ignore or having only a passing interest in those communities. I’m going to stop there because I’ve blogged on all of these areas at length before.

Update: I said that there was a killer app on a mobile phone for journos -the phone bit. I’m pretty sure that I wasn’t the first to say this. If you were, let me know.  I also committed the cardinal sin of thinking two Canadians where American. I apologise. Although one did call in to question my dress sense :)

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News reaches me via the newspaper video group about  me about an excellent new project called Findingtheframe by  Colin Mulvany,  multimedia producer at The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington.

According to Colin the site was set up as a website

for the sole purpose of connecting those who need feedback on their multimedia, to professionals willing to share some time and knowledge.

It came off the back of a post on his (excellent) blog Mastering Multimedia where he voiced his disappointment at the quality of the video being submitted to the NPPA Best of Photojournalism Multimedia Contest

The plan is to have onboard as many “expert” volunteers as possible that have solid foundations in video storytelling, audio slide shows or Flash projects. This pool of reviewers will peruse the submitted links of multimedia in the “Story Pool”. If they decide to comment on a story, it will then become public on theFinding the Frame home page where anyone else is free to give added feedback.

The site has already drawn in some great content and some lively debate. Well worth a look and if you are in that game then sign up to help review.

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• Mulvaney: Newspaper video has to improve (collegemediainnovation.org)

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You may remember a that Google trialed a bit of code with the New York Times and Washington Post called Living Stories:

Living Stories are a new format for presenting and consuming online news. The basic idea of a living story is to combine all of the news coverage on a running story on a single page. Every day, instead of writing a new article on the story that sits at a new URL and contains some new developments and some old background, a living story resides at a permanent URL, that is updated regularly with new developments. This makes it easier for readers to get the latest updates on the stories that interest them, as well as to review deeper background materials that are relevant for a story’s context.

It wasn’t long before the code became open source for people to tinker with. You need to be prepared to tinker a lot if you want to run it on anything other than Googles AppEngine (and even then you’ll be tinkering for a while). But now that tinkering may be over.

Google have announced the release of a special theme and collection of plugins that allow you to create a version of their Living Stories using WordPress as the base.

I’ve had a quick play and (once I got over a mistake with the installation. I’m a donkey!) it certainly makes it’s presence known. Look at the updated  dashboard!

The post page becomes redundant as you get a choice of a raft of different content types organized in to stories by assigning categories.

You start by defining a category for the story and then creating an event. You can then add other elements and, hey presto, it starts to package it up.

There is no fancy timeline but the way it breaks the content up would make for an interesting approach to group work on a project.

Worth a play.

HT to Charles Arthur (@charlesarthur) for the head up to this one

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• Living Stories can reinvent the article (radar.oreilly.com)
• Google Opens Up ‘Living Stories’ (paidcontent.org)
• Google Declares “Living Stories” Experiment Success, Offers as Open Source (readwriteweb.com)
• Google’s “Living stories”: first thoughts (newsless.org)

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Last week I gave a short lecture to broadcast (and a smattering of magazine) students about using the web to help find a job.

I tried to sum the whole thing up in a pithy slide:

It was really about fitting digital in to an already well established pattern for job hunting – traditional ad’s with a good slice of what and who you know.

That’s why I started with a list of job sites offering a digital way of doing that long slog of working through the job ad’s.  No surprise there then.

But I made the point that looking for work in a converged world mean’t a bit of a change of perspective.

Even though you may come from a broadcast tradition and your target job may be in a traditional environment (radio newsroom for example) the market is increasingly varied. (as my highly technical diagram shows) Your skills carry across boundaries in a converging world. You could end up as a radio producer at a newspaper working on their podcasts or working for an online only publication working on video.

Increasingly that converged mindset is what you have to cultivate to get work. But I think it’s also  the mindset to apply for job hunting. Don’t limit yourself to one sector. Instead of starting in one of the circles, position yourself in the middle and aim at all of them. You never know what might crop up. So my tip around searching for jobs also included searching for jobs.

By searching for something like radio OR broadcast jobs UK you get a rich and broad pot that you can then start to refine and filter. To develop your searches, think laterally. Add phrases that are specific to your area of interest or that would be unique to a job : radio OR broadcast ~job +salary +enps uk.

Remember the aim here is not to get Google to simply churn out job ads; the jobs sites will do that. It’s also to introduce an element of serendipity in to the mix that will richen your understanding of the market.

Of course the introduction of a broader range of sites means more content to wade through so you’ll also need to consider ways to manage the flow. Simple things like setting up a Google Alert based on the search terms you enter can help. But you may also want to get your RSS reader working for you to pull all your job related feeds in to one place that you can search and filter.

If a speculative google search throws up an interesting company (who don’t have jobs but you might want to keep an eye on) then search for an RSS feed to subscribe to. Then when a job comes up you know what they have been up to.

When the orginal slides went up in a post on  journalism.co.uk, John Thompson pointed out a way to get custom RSS feeds based on custom searches.

In the top left-hand column on most of the pages on Journalism.co.uk, you will see a panel headed “Job of the week”. About half-way down there is a dropdown menu that allows you to search by job type. For this example, select “editorial assistants and trainees” and click “go”.

On the subsequent search results page, you will see at the top of the central column an advanced search form. This allows you to make a more detailed search based on sectors, categories, salary and location. You will also see an option under format to “return search results as RSS feed”. Select that and also tick “editorial assistants and trainees” under the “categories” section.

Click the search button and, voila, you will be presented with a customised RSS feed containing only editorial assistant and trainee vacancies.

Josh Halliday got in touch via twitter so say he has put together a combined RSS feed of popular job sites that you can subscribe to. (thanks Josh)

I’ve put together an RSS bundle of just five of the UK’s most comprehensive media jobs listings sites: Gorkana, Guardian Jobs, Journalism.co.uk Jobs, Hold The Front Page and the Editorial Jobs Twitter feed (it’s RSS is borked).

And don’t forget that there are other ‘oldschool’ ways. Sign up for email newsletters like the Gorkana alert

The Shmoozing bit.
In the media people will often tell you that it’s about who you know rather than what. So whilst the broad searching will tell you what jobs are available and give a broad view of what’s going on we need to get next to some real people.

At this point it’s worth stressing that this is not about using digital to replace the process. You still need to get out there and meet people. But we can build our own networks online that help us connect and experience the churn or views and news from the industry. It could be eavesdropping on the latest gossip to build up ‘intelligence’ or even using the community to help you get a job.

But if it’s about who you know, how do we know who to connect with?

This is where social networking sites like Twitter come in to their own. They offer an easy way to find and connect with people in your community. Take a look at MediaUK’s twitter page (@mediauk). Obviously a popular follow and the kind of thing that a lot of people in the industry would look at. Now we could go through the list of people that follow and are followed by @mediauk to find useful people; use their contacts if you like. But notice their lists

Mediauk's twitter lists

They are nicely split in to sections and make following a glut of people in your area easy. If you find someone on the list who really resonates with you or fits right in to your area then look at their lists (if they have them) and build your network.

The same logic (if not the same mechanics) work for other social networking sites. Take a look at LinkedIn or even Facebook. Connect with one person or join a Facebook group and you’ll open yourself up to more connections.

Of course, the key to success in social networks is to be an active part; Share, listen, help, participate. All of these things will build your profile. And profile is important as it doesn’t just build your recognition within the community (the most valuable part) but it also makes you more visible online.

The lists from mediaUK are actually generated from user submissions – you can go to their site and add yourself. That’s an easy way to be pro-active about building visibility. For some this might fall in to the ‘rampant self promotion’ section but it’s a way of getting your name out there.

That’s why I think a blog is still a valuable tool in your job searching kit.

Many people are leaving blogs behind in favour of the more dynamic ‘statusphere’ of twitter and social networks. But a blog offers something a little more stable, a more permanent place for you online. It offers you a chance to reinforce and expand your online identity. (I will always look at the link that people put in their twitter profile to get more information about a person.) To start with you could use it simply as a static CV/Portfolio site that you can point people to when applying for jobs. But it could soon expand to offer more. More active posting about your experiences and interests attract audience.

The most popular blogs within the journalism community tend to be the ones that share experiences – Think about Josh sharing that list of RSS feeds. It’s journalists trying things and showing their working out. Thats valuable to the community and people remember you for that (you’re playing an active role). That’s one of the reasons I linked to Adam Westbrook in the presentation. Like Josh, he’s a great example of someone who plays an active part in the community.

You could ask ‘why a blog and not a static website?’ My first response is that blogging is one of those things that you should have experience of in a converged world (back to my point earlier). But there are some, more practical reasons.

There are lots of great website builders out there (I’d add Jimdo to that list ), but blogs offer a lot of under the bonnet stuff that helps promote your stuff and make it easy to share. Built in notification of search engines and automatic RSS feeds are just two of the things that will help spread yourself around the web. They may be the thing that gets you popping up in a search engine when a prospective employer searches your name and it will link them to something that sells you appropriately.

Here’s a quick cheat sheet telling you how you can tweak a wordpress.com blog to start showing static pages rather than the more dynamic posts. You can change it later on when you are ready to go down the more dynamic posting route.

Given that this presentation was to broadcast students I also looked at the problems associated with multimedia on free sites and blogs. I’ve listed a number of third party hosts that you can try to get round some of those restrictions. Using a third party site also has the benefit of getting your work out there on another platform to another audience.

So, there it is. Use the web to sign up to job sites but don’t stop there. Use it to broaden your horizons, think multiplatform in where you look. Be part of and visible in the community and your profile will grow and that can only be a good thing.

I hope it made sense and if you have any questions then drop me a line.

• The slides are available at http://www.slideshare.net/digitaldickinson/webjobs
• On a related note: Any students reading this should go and read Alison Gow’s advice for work placement students. Invaluable stuff
• John Thompson has posted more about j.co.uk’s jobs boards and also points to their advice about CV’s.
• Glyn Mottershead (@Egrommet)has created a nifty yahoo pipe that lets you filter jobs from popular media jobs sites by location (thanks for that Glyn)

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Image via Wikipedia

News reached me (via the excellent Newspaper video group) that the season end for House was shot on a Canon 5D Mark II. According to the petapixel blog Greg Yaitanes, the director of the show answered questions on twitter about the show. Most surprising for me was the suggestion that he didn’t use any special lenses or rigging.

When I posted a link to twitter, video whirlwind David Dynkley Gyimah commented:

Arun Marsh commented:

My reply.

It’s not the only show that has used the video side of DLSR’s as part of their shooting kit. Sci-fi series Caprica sneaked in a few shots taken using a DLSR.  Notes on video waded through a number of the shows podcasts to confirm the process and highlighted a nice exchange between the shows exec-producer David Eick and director Jonas Pate:

Pate: This opening sequence was not shot in [the] three camera style, it was actually shot with a [SLR]. And we put a funky little lens on the front of it called a Lensbaby and we shot the whole thing incredibly quickly in probably…I dunno, 30 minutes. Increasingly the digital technologies are allowing camera guys to work quicker.

Eick: Well yeah, what it does is it strips any of the mystique of the so-called art of film making, which is to say that anyone listening to this could probably make their own episode of Caprica if you study these podcasts long enough. The technology really has simplified and shrunk.

I heard a little of Dave’s response in that “…strips any of the mystique of the so-called art of film making”. And it’s a familiar refrain.

The idea that low-pro/pro-sumer equipment can push out pro-quality content is an argument we are more than used to in the world of videojournalism. Give anyone a camera and they are a film maker right?

Maybe not. It still takes a story and people passionate about telling that story to make great video whether it’s House or Video journalism. Kit like the Canon makes it easier for the ‘pros’ to do their job for less and (if you delve in to the caprica podcasts) what they feel is a more liberating and creative way.

In terms of video journalism, the canon may not be the piece of kit that opens the floodgates to the amateurs. But it does show that the walls are coming down.

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• Canon 5D Mark II used to shoot entire House season finale, director says it’s ‘the future’ (engadget.com)
• House Season Finale Shot Entirely on a Canon 5D Mark II [Photography] (gizmodo.com)

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These are my links for September 23rd through March 16th:

• Demand Media’s content assembly line – A look under the company (and algorithm) behind the likes of ehow
• Social Media policy auto generated from PolicyTool.net – Mark Comerford auto generates a social media policy using a free online tool. If nothing else it can get the conversation started says Mark (H/T @alisongow)
• Why Wikipedia Should Be Trusted As A Breaking News Source – quot;a good, trustworthy source for contextual news and informationquot; according to wikmedia#039;s Moka Pantages. Apart from the outrageous generalisation about profs at the start it#039;s an interesting take on the shrinking gap between breaking news and news aggregation.
• Reporter tracks down convicted rapist in Switzerland – A nice example of using facebook and FOI together. New tools for new journalism. Shame the comments are the usual HTFP caliber
• BBC – About the BBC: Putting Quality First – Mark Thompson explains the recent strategic review from the BBC
• What the Times-NYU partnership says about the future of journalism education – A Qamp;A with Jay Rosen from Nieman Journalism Labs. Interesting stuff. I think that what it says about journalism education is that it#039;s nice when you get that chance and you find a commercial entity that#039;s prepared to be that uncommercial
• Magazine web versions not as well edited as print – Hints at the size of magazine staff and the resulting urge to shovelware
• Use of financial aggregators – Research from hitwise shows that Preston is #039;over represented#039; in visits to financial aggregators. In english! They look at a lot of price comparison websites!
• AP launches new multimedia unit – The Denver post reports on AP#039;s new project AP Gateway
• The Shift Newspapers Use When They Discuss "Citizen Journalism" – Dave Cohn ponders the seemingly opposite view of the audience and the media to the pros and cons of partnering with CJ networks
• Human readable linked data URIs – Martin Belam continues his look at teh way URI#039;s are constructed and the impact that has on reader and newsroom alike. Another example of the excellent work Martin does to connect the mechanics of the web and the way people consume information
• Q. and A. with Howard Owens of The Batavian – Howard Owens talks hyperlocal
• I Chose This: Why the Web Is More Personal – I#039;m not sure why it is a suprise that content that works means that people will come back. But the challenge for MSM is getting this idea to percolate and to work in their systems.
• Social Norms? Twitter Users Follow the 79/7 Rule in the U.K. | Nielsen Wire – Starting with the Pareto principle and working through a time spent metric Nielsen have come up with some interesting stats on the users of twitter.
• The Role Of Curation In Journalism – Another perspective on the google newsroom idea
• Simon Fuller’s next show will debut on Hulu – Simon Fuller, the creator of the most watched show in the US for the past eight years American Idol, will premiere his new show on Hulu.
• News after Newspapers: Predictions for 2010 – News after newspapers gets in as the first prediction of 2010 bookmarked. It ends, rather ominously with quot;news in print will be left completely in the dust.quot;
• 16 social media guidelines used by real companies – A neat round up of solid social media guideline with some useful links
• Tindle Newspapers to roll out ‘successful’ paywall to 40 titles – Paywalls pay off for this UK newspaper group
• How News Organizations Can Create a Mobile-First Strategy – Not sure how much of this is just broad statements and how much makes for a strategy but worth a read.
• 500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
• Research: Yet Again, Consumers Want Something For Nothing – The methodology may be a bit weird but the stats add to the debate
• European web users stop searching after first 10 results – More than 40% of users give up checking after the first 10 search results, while 70% give up after scanning 20 search results.
• A Critique Of ‘Hulu For Magazines’ – Will it work? Won#039;t it work? Why are they even thinking about it in the first place…
• 8 Companies That Are Reinventing TV Online – Mashable takes its pick of companies that are going to take TV in to the online future
• BBC to aggregate headlines from commercial outlets – Editors Weblog – Linking in and out at the Beeb
• 8 Must-Have Traits of Tomorrow’s Journalist – Mashable have gathered some skills that are quickly becoming basic requirements for the journalist of tomorrow
• Who’d pay for content? That depends on who you ask … | Media | guardian.co.uk – I#039;m guessing that some would take the highest number some the lowest. The truth will always be quot;those who see something worth paying forquot;
• NewsNow aggregator to pull some newspaper links – Editors Weblog – The great divide begins
• NCTJ to pilot multimedia qualification across UK centres – And demand that there is no dedicated digital modules in courses at the same time….hmmm
• 500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
• 10 alternative rules for journalists covering magistrates court David Higgerson – With the help of people on Twitter, Dave Higgerson compiled the 10 alternative rules for covering magistrates courts – the things anyone, hyperlocal journalist or rookie reporter should find helpful in the quest to get the most out of court:
• A Graphic History of Newspaper Circulation Over the Last Two Decades | The Awl – quot;Every six months, the Audit Bureau of Circulations releases data about newspapers and how many people subscribe to them…So we#039;ve taken chunks of data for the major newspapers, going back to 1990, and graphed it, so you can see what#039;s actually happened to newspaper circulation.quot;
• British National Party membership list – Wikileaks host an updated version of the BNP membership list.
• What lit mag McSweeney’s could teach news orgs about the iPhone – Why aren#039;t more magazines building iphone apps
• Wikipedia for Journalists Bloggers – A great presentation that outlines how you should approach wikipedia as a journalist
• Time for journalists to update views on Wikipedia Pursuing the Complete Community Connection – Wikipedia will suggest the questions to ask not give you the answers. A very well rounded discussion of the need to change our view of wikipedia
• House of Commons computer used to hide past of Tory ally Kaminski | Politics | The Observer – One of the things that is often missed in the debate about wikipedia and trust is the fact that it is a lot more transparent than you think, you just need to know where to look. This article(one of a steady stream of this kind of thing) proves that point
• How to make interactive geographical timelines using Google Calendar and Yahoo Pipes – Nice mash-up fun from Kasper Sorenson
• How The Huffington Post uses real-time testing to write better headlines Nieman Journalism Lab – The Huff uses a system of playing stories with two headlines on a story and settling on the one that gets the most clicks. An interesting experiment and one of a number of user tweaks they seem to use
• 100 years of Big Content fearing technology-in its own words – Ars Technica – Nate Anderson puts together a compelling argument that technology doesn#039;t kill content creation.
• Cervical cancer vaccine: Please – here’s how YOU can help us inject some sense into Google’s results malcolm coles – Malcolm Coles highlights a problem with Google searches and good information. Off the back of the fact that many people still believe that Google ranks by truthfulness – this is important stuff.
• 10/GUI – Re-imagining a Desktop Touch Interface – The video outlining a new touch interface takes a while to get going but its all Minority report after that.
• An Open Letter To Derek Powazek On The Value Of SEO – Search engine land#039;s Danny Sullivan replies to Derek Powasek#039; rant against SEO
• Derek Powazek – Spammers, Evildoers, and Opportunists – Derek gets biblical on SEO. Amazing that you can get so excorsied by a term. What he says is right. SEO is now tainted. But maybe it#039;s the term we are stuck with good or bad as its practitioners can be. Like Website design or journalism.
• What I’ve learned about Hyperlocal (Scripting News) – Dave Winer talks about why his hyperlocal project, inBerkeley, didn#039;t work.
• Mugging the rich bastard lawyers | Online Journalism Blog – A blow-by-blow of the social media uprising against the gagging order against the Guardian.
• Local Media in a Postmodern World: The Process Web – The Digital Journalist – Terry Heaton writes a nice essay but it could have been written 5 years ago. Does it make it any less relevent and interesting – no. Does it get to the heart of some of the developing debates…
• Topical Versions of Local Council Websites 26 Give Us the Data and We’ll Work It For You OUseful.Info, the blog 26 – Tony Hirst blogs a request for an change to the openlylocal api (and kind of gets it) but on the way illuminates some interesting corners of the UK#039;s growing civic data scene.
• Why Facebook could be the next big news publisher | Blog | Econsultancy – The question really is why should it bother. This post, I think, confuses the capacity of a platform with the will of its users. It does highlight the issues but the honest truth is that Facebook is, for the vast majority of its users, a platform to share not create.
• A list of hot picks from the ONA conference – Reynolds Journalism Fellow Jacqui Banaszynski lists seven forecasts from the Online News Association’s annual convention
• AJC wimps out on endorsements – Alan says why he thinks newspapers/journalism should stand behind the demoratic process and not #039;wimp out#039; of endorsing candidates
• Getting my head around Digital Engagement – A nice diagram outlining how you can add value to offline events and get more engaged with your audience
• 500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
• Writing for the Web – Nice round up of Jakob Nielsen#039;s views on writing for the web

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As I was leafing through the Guardian on Saturday morning I came across an article with the rather alarming headline

Google news tax could boost local papers, report says

Google and other websites that carry news they do not produce should be taxed and the money generated used to prop up local newspapers, says a report which warns control of the media is concentrated in too few hands.

I tweeted it and got a number of interesting replies:

The report comes from the Carnegie trust UK’s commission on Making Good Society. It does indeed set out a suggestion for Industry levies citing Institute for Public Policy Research research that a 1% levy on pay TV providers of 1% “bring in around £70m a year”

A similar fee imposed on the country’s five mobile operators could generate £208m a year. Making Google meet its full tax liability in Britain would boost the pot by a further £100m.‘ The same IPPR report argues that ‘such sums could save many local newspapers and web sites from closing down, could stop the destruction of local and regional news on ITV and could help new media start-ups to plug these gaping holes in public service provision – all without the taxpayer having to stump up any more cash and without having to raid the licence fee.’

But the report also makes it clear that the money would come with something of price

Levies on the use of aggregated material have the potential to generate significant revenue to support the production of new public service and local content, involving civil society associations. If this form of funding were to be explored, changes in regulation would be needed to ensure that revenues go to original news producers and not just to those who present and disseminate material. Original news reporting needs to be supported so that it is financially viable; this could require charging those who are not authorised to use and distribute this material.

Not quite free money from a google tax.

The whole report makes for an interesting read (I mean genuinely interesting not that other academic definition of interesting)

It’s pretty wide ranging but it singles out “democratising media ownership and content as one of it’s four main areas where “a stronger civil society could make the most difference”

A whole chapter (chapter 3) is devoted to trying to understand the pressures on and drivers of news production and the impact that has. They are clear that technology plays a key part citing radical cultural shifts associated with pervasive technology and the rise of ‘digital natives;’ as an uncertain driver of change. But the discussion is a bit more broad ranging:

…[D]espite the proliferation of online platforms, more of the news we receive is recycled ‘churnalism’ and aggregated content. Trends of concentration in media ownership and increased pressure of time and resources have narrowed the sources from which original news derives. Moreover, the centralisation of news production and neglect of local issues has particular repercussions for access to information across the UK and Ireland, especially in the devolved nations.

And it’s clear where the problem is:

…the central issue affecting traditional news providers is not the decline of audiences or interest in news, but the collapse of the existing business model jeopardising the democratic role of journalism. According to the National Union of Journalists: ‘The media industry is essentially profitable but the business model is killing quality journalism.’

Media concentration.
When I first read the Guardian article I bristled at the idea of a google tax of newspapers. Why? Because we would essentially be propping up commercial organsiations who still work at a profit. It would be akin to a bail out. So I found myself drawn to the areas of ownership and centralization in particular. The report is pretty robust here.

The challenge of creating original content and the diminishing number of newspapers is further compounded by the concentration of media ownership in relatively few hands…..with four dominant publishers controlling 70% of the market share across the UK

That concentration of ownership and the influence it exerts is cited as a “key obstacle to transparent policy-making which incorporates a sustainable role for civil society associations” Which comes from the ‘continuing and intimate relationship between key corporate interests and policy-makers; a relationship whose bonds are rarely exposed to the public’

Their suggestion seems to be that the Scott Trust/Guardian model is more likely to serve the development of a pluralist media landscape than a purely commercial one. But it sounds a note of caution

While independent funds directly supporting journalism can come with strings attached and endowments are not immune from economic pressures, philanthropic funding can help preserve journalistic independence and secure guarantees on public service content.

General suggestions.
The big ticket suggestions like tax breaks and levies are balanced by some more specific suggestions that form the main discussion of the chapter.

• Growing local and community news media.
• Protecting the free, open and democratic nature of the internet.
• Strengthening the transparency and accountability of news content production.
• Enhancing the governance of the media.
• Protecting the BBC.
• Redirecting revenue flows to promote diversity and integrity.

Their ideas for strengthening transparency include the suggestion of a Kite mark that shows no dis or mis-information. Good luck with that one.

But back to funding, the last three points are interesting in themselves.

When they talk about enhancing the governance of the media they say that”

“All news organisations in receipt of public funding should actively engage with the public and with civil society associations, through their governing bodies as well as through their daily practice.”

Which could only really mean the BBC right? But in developing the suggestion of redirecting the revenue flow they:

…want to see new funding models explored: for example, tax concessions, industry levies or the direction of proportions of advertising spend into news content creation by civil society associations, or into local multimedia websites.

The price of public money.
My reading of the report was that nothing comes for free. In an earlier chapter the financial sector comes in for a real battering. But though the media orgs are more delicately handled the implicit message is still the same. All the money that could come from tax breaks, funding and other sources comes at a cost. That cost is de-centralisation, openness, stronger regulation and in transparency (a phrase that seems to disappear mid report to be replaced by integrity)

Would be nice but I can’t see it happening.

The full report is available here.

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