Here is what I’ve been scanning today whilst getting my head around validation paperwork

• The FT newsroom in 2009 – The FT release a document outlining what they are going to do next in their newsroom I predict a lot of newspaper execs getting their assistants to download this. :)
• FT Newsroom 2009 changes – More meat on the bones of the FT’s plans
• Photo technique: framing | Reuters.com – Thanks to Rob Galbraith for this pointer to a great resource for those of us still doing that hand over the lens stuff.
• CMS vendor map – CMS watch get all underground with a neat map of CMS vendors
• Serious, Long-Form Multimedia Journalism that WORKS « The Changing Newsroom – Carrie Brown touches on some very interesting audience engagment metrics as she reports back on Brian Storm’s turn at the College Media Advisers conference last week in New York City
• Trinity chief predicts newspaper closures – “A senior regional press executive has predicted a “sharp contraction” in the number of newspapers across the UK as a result of the economic downturn.” Maybe it’s me but is predict a funny word to use given the source?
• Emily Bell: Digital media cannot be contained by the analogue rulebook – Emily ponders the semantics and legalethics of this new thingy, whotsit that is the the web like “The challenge for the courts, the regulators, the distributors and the publishers of all manner of content is not to try to bind the digital inside the analogue rulebook, but to look beyond it for something that is quintessentially digital and fits this freer world.”
• Digital Steenbeck – Not the virtual grapes of wrath – that’s Steinbeck. This is editing furniture geek heaven.
• Essential multimedia tutorials and resources for do-it-yourself training – More great stuff from Mark S. Luckie
• Introducing the 3rd “Programmer-Journalist” | PBS – Nick Allen is the next Knight News Challenge sponsored “programmer-journalist” at Medill School. What could a “programmer-journalist” do when he graduates – “Keeping a news organization ahead of the competition technically will be a constant battle. The news innovator’s role will be to invent, scout, and borrow innovative tools and techniques.” sounds good to me.
• Social Media Marketing Budgets on the Rise – Mashable – According to the Aberdeen group “63 percent of companies plan to increase their social media marketing budgets in 2009, despite the current weakness in the economy.”
• Why young reporters need to get past their institutional mindsets; or, how reporters are like priests » Nieman Journalism Lab – The future of Journalism and Vatican II all in the same post. Joshua Benton explores the conservative mindset of some young journalists
• YouTube Adds Detailed Engagement Statistics - “YouTube is adding more features to its Insights platform that helps video publishers get a more detailed look at how their uploads are performing on the site.”
• The Declining Value of Content? – “Anyone trying to surface their video content today has to solve a very difficult problem with distribution, and should have a strategy, budget, and partnerships to do so.”
• Videos for journalists, #SXSW edition – Kevin Sablan offers “a few videos, shot at the 2009 South by Southwest festival, that contain advice that journalists might find helpful.”
• Part One: a theory of storytelling – “What makes a story memorable? Is it the plot; the setting; the characters; use of imagery and figurative language? Although these are standards in written stories, there are additional elements in visual storytelling that must be taken into account. ” Cyndy Green looks at visual storytelling in two parts
• SEO strategies for publishers – “How can publishers maintain high visibility on search engines without losing their brand distinction? Decide where to draw a line in the sand” So says Drew Broomhall, Times Online’s Search Editor. He’s an ex-student of mine. Very proud.

The big read today, for everyone, has been Clay Shirky’s essay on thinking the unthinkable . A more cogent discussion of the issues around newspapers would be hard to find. Lots chimed with me and to pick one part to quote kind-of defeats the structure of the piece. So worth a read though.

Round and round this goes, with the people committed to saving newspapers demanding to know “If the old model is broken, what will work in its place?” To which the answer is: Nothing. Nothing will work. There is no general model for newspapers to replace the one the internet just broke.

On the heals of Shirky’s essay comes news that the Seattle P-I is to publish last edition Tuesday. Given Clay’s take and the general shifting to the recognition that change is, well, inevitable, they may feel like they are in a goldfish bowl but this will be one closley watched (re)start for a paper going online.

We don’t have reporters, editors or producers—everyone will do and be everything. Everyone will write, edit, take photos and shoot video, produce multimedia and curate the home page. That’ll be a training challenge for everyone, but we’re all up for the challenge and totally ready to pick up all these skills.

Other stuff that I read today included

• DigiDave | Communication is Key: It is NOT personal branding – it’s Just living your life online. – “Yes. I live parts of my life online. I keep some of it separate. My nomdeplum has served me well. People remember and recognize me. I’ve built a strong presence online that shows consistency in my strengths and dispositions. While this seems somewhat ego-centric, it is MY blog about MY life. I am not an institution and my personal brand is nothing more than me just living my life online.”
• The Daily Dust | UK News | Good News – The only good news on this web site.
• TwiTV – visualising Twitter – A neat little mashup that listens for Tweets containing listening and then tries to match them with a youtube vid. Some fun contrasts.
• 6 Unique Twitter Visualizations – Many may be familiar with these apps but if you are new to twitter this may just prompt a few more follows and drag you deeper in to the Twitter is great camp
• Movie Mosaics – Mike Jones has a great post about why Movie Mosaics are more than just pretty pictures
• Play the news – Interactive News Via Online Gaming – Thanks to Louise over at the JP Digital Digest for reminding me of cracking interactive site Play the News
• AudioBoo out of beta, now available at App Store – An iphone app that looks like fun
• Is YouTube The Geocities Of Online Video? – I get where Tod Sacerdoti is coming from with this but I’m not sure it holds water. After all building a website was an active process compared to the passive consumption of Video

Here isa lost of things that have caught my eye over the last week or so:

• Digital Diversity: bloggers and polymaths « Running, jumping, climbing trees… – Peter Moor offers his “five attributes that I think an ambitious blogger would do well to have”
• MediaPost Publications Moving From Interruption To Involvement 03/11/2009 – More video marketing guidence but the key thing is interaction not intervention.
• Newspaper sites: don’t read or link to us … » malcolm coles – Signs of why the openness at the Guardian causes so much of a stir in the journalism industry.
• Now the media should just do it – Outside Left – “The media are getting a bad press at the moment and with some justification. The periodic vilification of social workers and the demonising of young people are now coming under increasing criticism from us journalists.” Stand up for social work.
• Google Maps Mania – Get your google maps fix here.
• Will Video for Food » The 7 Things Every Marketer Should Know About Online Video – You could say this is a marketing orientated take but solid advice including a useful mantra “Find Existing Crowds, Don’t Try Gathering Them.”
• YouTube to block music videos for UK users | Technology | Reuters – Put this next to the Hulu news this week and you can start to see the impact of the big guns waking up/resigning themselves to online delivery platforms and flexing their legal muscles as they do so.
• If you’re still thinking about charging for online news in 2009, you’re dead already (a primer) – Can’t add much more to that title. Good stuff from Paul Bradshaw
• UK.gov thinks internet should be run like BSkyB • The Register – One of the dumbest ideas I came across last week
• French Online Video Audience Grows 16 Percent in the Past Year to 27 Million Viewers in January – “Driven by the popularity of YouTube.com (which accounted for 97 percent of all videos viewed on the property), Google Sites grew 25 percent versus year ago to further solidify its position as the leading online video viewing property in France, attracting 15.2 million viewers in January 2009.”
• Hulu Now No. 2 Online-Video Site, Behind YouTube – As a “big player” venture this will, no doubt, hearten many broadcasters. But the content has to match the platform which it obviously does in this case. This should be more of lesson to those broadcasters cutting back on production and looking to online delivery (cough…ITV..cough)
• David MacLean: Journalist – Consummate examples of combative posting from Dave. Five things I hate about bloggers, Three reasons why Twitter is useless to me as a journalist are just two great posts to have a go at.
• Wellcome-images – Lots of great images and CC goodness from the Wellcome Trust
• All your TweetDeck questions answered – Richard Barley has put together a great FAQ for this popular twitter client