Neil Arun didn’t want to miss a rare but risky opportunity to embed with an Iraqi police unit, hunting members of al Qaeda. But his employers -- responsible for Neil’s security -- weren’t happy. This film by Richard Pendry nvestigates how a frontline journalist balances risk and reward.
Where journalists have greatness thrust upon them
Editors' weblog
La Stampa: the next step toward true integration
12 hours 30 min agoItalian daily La Stampa is to integrate its newsroom, taking what its editor in chief Mario Calabresi has described as "a step towards the future". Calabresi announced the move, which will incorporate both physical changes and staff changes as well as a change in CMS, in a letter published on February 6. "A newspaper is a lively body that needs to be able to adapt itself to its environment," wrote Calabresi.
This step forward is reflected in the creation of three new job positions, which are intended to form a bridge between print and the integrated future. By introducing a digital editor, a web editor and a social media editor La Stampa hopes to make the transition to fully integrated newsroom a reality in terms of people and workflow.
Media links of the day
7 February 2012 - 5:13pmAOL wants to hire a new advertising agency to promote consumers perceptions of its brand and remind them "why people should care about AOL again". AdAge writes that AOL is hoping to select an agency at the beginning of next month.
Poynter reports that Steve Buttry, director of community engagement at the Journal Register Company and Matt DeRienzo, group editor of the JRC's Connecticut papers, have set a quiz for staff to check that they properly understand the ethics of linking and attribution. Employees who got any of the answers wrong will have to take part in a training session about plagiarism.
Broadcasting & Cable writes that, for the first time, NBC intends to launch a documentary series on an iPad app . The series, Hidden Planet, will at first be made exclusively available on the app, and will then be released on RockCenterNBC.com a week later.
GigaOm argues that giving away content on the web for free was not news organisations' version of original sin.
French journalists were detained by military in Jos, Nigeria, and then kicked out of the state, the Associated Press reported.
For more industry news please see WAN-IFRA's Executive News Service
Event: The Media World After WikiLeaks and News of the World
7 February 2012 - 11:24am16-17 February 2012, Room IV, UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, France
The conference "The Media World after WikiLeaks and News of the World" aims to gather leading media representatives, professional and "citizen" journalists and media law experts to exchange views on these issues and to discuss good practices in traditional professional journalism and citizen journalism in the digital era.
With a stunning 2 billion persons estimated to be using the Internet and producing 156 million public blogs in 2011, there has been a surge of social networks, user-generated content and micro-blogging that has enabled all Internet users to become public communicators. Along with the spread of the Internet, WikiLeaks' release of a massive number of classified government documents and its initial collaboration with traditional news media has modified the media landscape and raised crucial questions for journalism.
Non-profit journalism site launches in Australia: The Global Mail
7 February 2012 - 8:48amThe Global Mail,
a non-profit news site that aims to "deliver original, fearless,
independent journalism", has launched in Australia this morning, reports
Journalism.co.uk.
The Global Mail is funded by philanthropist Graeme Wood,
founder of the accommodation website wotif.com. Wood has donated over
$15 million to the new publication, which should be enough to support
the site through its first 5 years, says editor-in-chief Monica Attard.
Attard, a former broadcast journalist for ABC, said in an interview with The Australian that there will be a separation between the site's benefactor and its editorial content. "Graeme is chairperson of The Global Mail board. He has no editorial input whatsoever," she asserts.
For more on this story please see our sister publication www.sfnblog.com
Media links of the day
6 February 2012 - 5:02pmAccording to a new survey, more than half of tablet owners are interested in reading digital magazines, Mediapost.com reported (via MediaMe).
Journalism.co.uk reported that The Globe Mail, a new nonprofit online journalism startup, launched today in Australia.
The U.S Pulitzer-prize winning ProPublica is its model, said Editor Monica Attard, a former ABC broadcast journalist.
Does the Internet boost freedom? Rebecca MacKinnon's new book, Consent of the Networked, said no, not automatically anyway, as CPJ reported.
For more industry news please see WAN-IFRA's Executive News Service
Guardian, FT and Mozilla on how to tackle online video
6 February 2012 - 3:46pm"Thank God we've moved away from the time when you think you can just put television online," said David Hayward, head of the journalism programme at the BBC College of Journalism, opening a session on online video at news:rewired in London on Friday.
John Domokos, video producer at the Guardian, elaborated on this sentiment, explaining that a newspaper can't hope to beat TV for the polished version of a story, thoroughly edited with a highly-structured narrative, so it is better to focus on what it can do that is different and complementary. He often adopts a "microcosm" approach, aiming to create a three or four minute film that gives viewers a window onto a specific world.
Social media at The New York Times: aiming to be different and meaningful
6 February 2012 - 11:06am"Be strategic, be different, and strive for meaningful interactions," advised Liz Heron, social media editor at The New York Times, speaking about social media at news:rewired in London on Friday.
The social media world is changing fast and 2011 brought social media into the mainstream, Heron stressed. "In early 2010 we in the social media team were evangelisers, by 2011 we were highly in demand," she said. The team has set up social media trainings, put together guidelines and experimented as much as possible with the paper's flagship accounts, she added.
Introducing Social Pulse: Reuters' new social media hub
6 February 2012 - 8:38amFacebook's $5 billion IPO filing
this week has left the world in little doubt about the growing
importance of social media in our lives. Now, both adapting to this
trend and looking at its power, Reuters has launched a social media hub with a special focus on the interaction between social media and business.
Social Pulse,
as the new hub is called, contains a curated selection of news from
across Reuters' social media networks. The top section, titled The Hit List, features the most popular stories shared by people followed by Reuters accounts and Reuters journalists on Twitter. In a blogpost
about Social Pulse, Reuters stresses that it follows influential
"newsmakers", to bring its readers stories popular with the people who
are setting the news agenda. The section is managed through the curation
company Percolate, also used by IPG and American Express.
For the rest of this article please see our sister publication www.sfnblog.com
Media links of the day
3 February 2012 - 3:07pmIn the UK, journalists at Thompson Reuters have voted to strike for the first time in over 25 years in response to a below-inflation pay offer. Journalists will strike for 48 hours next week, just as Thompson Reuters publishes its full year financial results, reports The Guardian.
Africa Times News reported that the first African tablet device, which was presented at the Africa Web Summit in September 2011, has been launched in Congo on January 30. Way-C, which means "starlight" ("lumière des étoiles") in a North Congolese dialect, is the first in the history of these new technologies on the continent, the article says.
Zimbabwe's media commission said on February 2 that it will ask authorities to
ban foreign newspapers that are not registered to operate in the
country, news24 reported. Commission chair Godfrey Majonga singled out South Africa's Sunday Times newspaper as having failed to
comply with the rules, which require all journalists working in the
country to obtain accreditation from the commission, the article said.
For more industry news please see WAN-IFRA's Executive News Service
New York Times and Wall Street Journal launch new daily video offerings
3 February 2012 - 11:26amWith video becoming increasingly important to consumers, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have each announced they are launching new daily video programmes. The New York Times has launched a new daily business-related programme while The Wall Street Journal has started a new daily lifestyle show.
On 1 February, NetNewsCheck reported that the New York Times has launched a new program called "Business Day Live."
In a related press release, the New York Times stated that "the program is broadcast live from The Times newsroom, and offers the insights and analysis of reporters and columnists from The Times's business, media and technology desks."
Media links of the day
2 February 2012 - 4:56pmA School of Data Journalism will be held in Perugia, Italy, between 25-29 April, during the sixth edition of the International Journalism Festival. See the programme here.
Continuing on the path of transparency, the Guardian announced it will open its doors to readers "hosting a weekend at the end of March for a festival of ideas, innovation and entertainment."
Editor Alan Rusbridger explains what visitors can expect from the Open Weekend project.
As the Leveson inquiry continues, self-regulation of the press is under scrutiny. The Hold the Front Page reported what the chairman of the Press Complaints Commission told the inquiry about the possibility of having a "totally new body" to oversee the industry.
For more industry news please see WAN-IFRA's Executive News Service
How clean is your data?
2 February 2012 - 4:37pmWorking with numbers is becoming more important than ever for journalists.
Vast amounts of data are being collected online, investigative journalism outfits like ProPublica are doing more and more work with large sets of publicly available data,
and data visualisations are increasingly becoming a standard part of
reporting. At the end of last year, Amy Webb, CEO of Webbmedia, named 'Big Data' as her first prediction of a major tech trend for 2011.
Tools already exist for journalists to exploit this growth in data. Nieman Lab
reported earlier this week on Weave, an open-source internet platform
for creating visualizations of "any available data by anyone for any
purpose". Another example is Tableau Public, a data visualization tool that was billed by Journalism.co.uk
as requiring "no technical ability" and being "easier to use than the
wizard options that allow you to create graphs in Excel".
Media links of the day
1 February 2012 - 3:34pm"La Tribune bids you farewell" said the paper's frontpage on January 30, the day of the last printed edition of the French newspaper La Tribune, which will now be entirely digital. Benoît Raphaël on Le Social NewsRoom reflected on what this closure means.
According to Paid Content, the state-owned Chinese telecommunications company China Telecom will start selling the iPhone4S by the end of this month or the beginning of the next. This is the first time that the company will offer an Apple smartphone.
The Trinity Mirror has proposed 75 more editorial redundancies at the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and People. Press Gazette reports that the company is creating a "centralized reporting and production hub" for reporters across all three papers, but also promises to maintain "bespoke editorial teams" for each title.
The Washington Post is encouraging its own journalists to get more involved in the comment threads on its website. Comments from Post staffers are marked out by "WP staff" insignia, and their involvement may do something to soften the tone of discussion, writes Nieman Lab.
Britain's Royal Statistical Society has launched Getstats, a campaign to promote the proper teaching of numeracy and statistics in journalism schools. Journalism.co.uk writes that former journalist David Walker, who is heading the initiative, has proposed 12 points about statistics that all journalists should be taught.
For more industry news please see WAN-IFRA's Executive News Service
The Guardian continues to open up with Newsdesk live
1 February 2012 - 2:37pmby Hannah Vinter
"So... What are you working on?"
Now some Guardian journalists are prepared to give us the answer to that question, as yesterday the paper unrolled Newsdesk live,
a blog that promises to "bring you the news as we break it, explain how
we choose what we report and why - and ask you to get involved."
This new blog from The Guardian's
national news team puts the audience at the heart of the news-writing
process, asking them to get in touch via comments, emails or Tweets to
provide editors with ideas and information to help create stories.
The blog builds on The Guardian's Open Newslist, launched last October,
which published a selection of the stories that journalists were
working on, and allowed readers to Tweet at those journalists in real
time.
For more on this story please see our sister publication www.sfnblog.com
Media links of the day
31 January 2012 - 5:23pmJim Romenesko has published an interview with Tom Curley, the departing CEO of the Associated Press, on his blog. "The Internet has ushered in a world where there is more chaos, but that's good for us because our values are strong and we have earned a reputation for getting it right," says Curley.
The BBC's Community Reporters Scheme, which was launched in London last year, is set to be rolled out in Salford and Glasgow too, reports Journalism.co.uk. The scheme aims to give training to budding journalists at the same time as highlighting local stories in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics.
Nieman Lab has published a write-up of Weave, a piece of data visualisation software that has "a lot of potential for journalists".
The African National Congress said on Tuesday that an independent media appeals tribunal is the most effective way to regulate print media, news24 reported.
"The ANC believes in independent regulation. This may differ with
the interpretation that is commonly assigned to our proposal, which has
been misinterpreted as having state regulation of the media" said ANC executive committee member Jessie Duarte.
For more industry news please see WAN-IFRA's Executive News Service
Media links of the day
31 January 2012 - 5:23pmJim Romenesko has published an interview with Tom Curley, the departing CEO of the Associated Press, on his blog. "The Internet has ushered in a world where there is more chaos, but that's good for us because our values are strong and we have earned a reputation for getting it right," says Curley.
The BBC's Community Reporters Scheme, which was launched in London last year, is set to be rolled out in Salford and Glasgow too, reports Journalism.co.uk. The scheme aims to give training to budding journalists at the same time as highlighting local stories in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics.
Nieman Lab has published a write-up of Weave, a piece of data visualisation software that has "a lot of potential for journalists".
The African National Congress said on Tuesday that an independent media appeals tribunal is the most effective way to regulate print media, news24 reported.
"The ANC believes in independent regulation. This may differ with
the interpretation that is commonly assigned to our proposal, which has
been misinterpreted as having state regulation of the media" said ANC executive committee member Jessie Duarte.
For more industry news please see WAN-IFRA's Executive News Service
Twitter - cutting out the middleman?
31 January 2012 - 4:26pm"No comment".
Business executives had become more and more adept at hiding behind this phrase, argues David Carr of The New York Times
in an article published on Sunday. Not only that, but major figures in
business are often obscured by "communications" teams that are anything
but communicative. But now, suggests Carr, "Twitter has the potential to cut past all that clutter".
Carr writes that thanks to Twitter "there's a chance to get a glimpse
into the thinking of otherwise unapproachable executives, and sometimes
even have a real dialogue with them".
For more on this story please see our sister publication www.sfnblog.com
Media links of the day
30 January 2012 - 6:15pmThe New York Times' Nicholas Kristof reports on the two Swedish journalists serving and 11-year prison sentence in Ethiopia.
PBS Media Shift has published a guide to crowdfunding public media projects.
Gavin Aronsen describes being one of the six journalists arrested at the Occupy Oakland protests.
A former editor of Cosmopolitan, Helen Gurley Brown, has given $30 million on behalf of her late husband to establish an institute for media innovation at Standford and Columbia, reports Poynter.
For more industry news please see WAN-IFRA's Executive News Service
WashPo taps into growing Twitter trend in run-up to US elections
30 January 2012 - 6:05pmThe Washington Post announced last Friday that it was launching campaignreads.com, a new section of its site "completely powered by our readers" where it shares a curated selection of Tweets with links to coverage of the US presidential election.
Post Politics wrote that, for the past few weeks, it had been asking readers to share links to their favourite election coverage by tweeting @PostPolitics or with the hashtag #campaignreads. The Post's political team now curates these Tweets using Storify, and publishes them on its new page.
The initiative has potential benefits for Post journalists and their readers. Firstly it helps the Post "filter the deluge of campaign coverage" by asking its users for selection of the articles they enjoyed the most. Secondly it gives readers prominence by crediting them on the campaignreads.com if the Post uses articles that they've shared.
For more on this story please see our sister publication www.sfnblog.com
Twitter to start selectively blocking Tweets by country
30 January 2012 - 1:53pmby Hannah Vinter
Twitter has announced that it will begin selectively blocking Tweets in some countries.
"Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country -- while keeping it available in the rest of the world. We have also built in a way to communicate transparently to users when content is withheld, and why."
Twitter writes that it will withhold access to Tweets in certain countries "if we receive a valid and properly scoped request from an authorized entity". As an example of illegal material it names pro-Nazi content, which is outlawed in France and Germany.
For more on this story please see our sister publication www.sfnblog.com
