GPO was ahead of its time

Brilliant.pictures by digital pulsation and how the businessman will no longer need to go to his office

Ht-Comment Central

The power of print key findings

Poynter Online carries a summary of the meeting of new executives in Barcelona this week to explore "the power of print."

These were some of its key findings

1. Since consumers "will choose the cheapest available product with comparable value," the potential to capture even two-thirds of what's charged for news in print is severely limited by widespread availability of free news online.

2. Although most consumers say they're most interested in general news, that's not the news they're inclined to pay for. Highest potential for paid-for news involves "specialized, targeted and relevant information."

3. Consumers are more inclined to pay for news provided by "high value, topic-specific publications (as opposed to) newspapers providing general news only."

4.Readers of online news "expect to be part of the intellectual debate and to be able to contribute to 'their' newspaper, both in terms of commenting on stories and in providing content."

Even the Antartic has a newspaper

Mark Luckie reveals nine things that you didn't know about newspapers.

One being that there is a newspaper in the Antartic,the Antartic Sun.

Part of the US antartic programme it is funded by the National Science foundation.

Not surprisingly its top story this week is about the rising sea levels

A new study in the journal Science challenges the long-held idea that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) would raise sea level by as much as five or six meters if it were to collapse.
Instead, the authors contend the ice would increase sea level by 3.3 meters, about half of previous estimates, with coastal areas around the United States most severely affected. The study authors used models based on glaciological theory to simulate how the ice sheet would respond if the floating ice shelves fringing the continent broke free.

Phew what a scorcher

It is not very often that the Express and the Independent agree on their front page but both are happy that the sun is shining.

For the Express,

SCORCHING sunshine and signs of an upturn in the economy brought the feelgood factor back to Britain this weekend.

Whilst the independent reveals the medical reasons for lapping up the sun

Boosting levels of vitamin D could cut the incidence of breast cancer by a quarter, bowel cancer by a third and it should be offered to the population as part of a public health drive, scientists say.

White House Press secretary doesn't like British newspapers

The American's are obviously not that keen on the British newspapers at least according to this report from journalism.co.uk when Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary said

“‘Let’s just say if I wanted to look up, if I wanted to read a write-up of how Manchester United fared last night in the Champions League Cup, I might open up a British newspaper,” he continued. ‘If I was looking for something that bordered on truthful news, I’m not entirely sure it’d be the first pack of clips I’d pick up.’”

You can watch the video here

Boyle saves ITV

Maybe one swallow doesn't make a summer but ITV after all their problems must be happy with the final week of Britain's got talent.

Writing in the Spectator Simon Hoggart says

So it could be that ITV is saved not by a cigar-chomping, hot-shot show-biz executive but by a spinster from a Scottish village. The appearance of Susan Boyle in the first semi-final of Britain’s Got Talent (ITV, all week) was greeted with adoration — and audience figures — that would have been apt if Maria Callas had returned from the dead.

The backpages on United's defeat

Jon Slattery does an round up of the back page headlines which accompnnied Manchester United's defeat in Rome on Wednesday night

That's another fine Messi - Daily Mail

Lionel Flair is perfect 10 - Daily Star

Thrown to the Lionels - Daily Mirror

Fergie in a right Messi - Daily Express

Just Messimerising - Daily Record

Catalan v Matalan- The Sun

The wave is coming.

The latest in communication collaboration was announced yesterday by Google.


Being not particually technically brilliant I will refer you to the post from Martin Bryant who is so much better at explaining the latest technological developments.

He writes that

Wave allows groups to work together in the same web environment, throwing images, photos and videos into a shared conversation stream. The concept is essentially the same as a FriendFeed group, with the same realtime multimedia flow. However, while FriendFeed is geared up for threaded discussions similar to the bulletin boards of yore, Google Wave seems like it will be more suitable to an on-going teamworking environment. Interestingly, a ‘replay’ function is available, allowing the evolution of a conversation to be reviewed later.

Martin believes that the potential is huge

One market that will be likely to lap this up is journalists who could collaborate on the same story from multiple locations, all into the same stream. Wave-powered election night coverage, for example, could be highly effective. Group gaming is another area where Wave could be useful.

Secret meetings and paywalls

Over at the Huffington Post,James Warren breaks the news of a secret meeting in Chicago with various media organisations.

The subject apparently is how to get people to pay for content.

"Models to Monetize Content" is the subject of a gathering at a hotel

he reports adding that

There's no mention on its website but the Newspaper Association of America, the industry trade group, has assembled top executives of the New York Times, Gannett, E. W. Scripps, Advance Publications, McClatchy, Hearst Newspapers, MediaNews Group, the Associated Press, Philadelphia Media Holdings, Lee Enterprises and Freedom Communication Inc., among more than two dozen in all.

Twitter and journalism down under

Mark Glaser takes a look at how Australian journalists are using twitter over at Mediashift.

The twitter platform he says has been Incorporated into the mainstream news services with coverage of the Victorian bush fires and more recently the flooding on the North East coast.

But there has been resistance,the medium being described as not being journalism.

However

Professional journalists are using Twitter to enhance and augment traditional reporting practices. It's another tool in their kit and many journalists,

and

image conscious journalists are gaining awareness of Twitter's power as a branding and marketing tool.

as well as its value in interacting with the audience and as he says

subverting the increasingly dominant modern PR machine.

New magazine blog

A new magazine blog has been launched,(thanks to Laura Oliver for the spot)

Called Magnation it promises to focus on the journey of creating a magazine retail Brand.

What we will blog about is the magazine “industry”, and how it translates through to consumers from a retail and Brand perspective. We will talk about supply and distribution, niche publishing, what’s hot, and philosophical crap such as the future of print. However, more than anything else, this Blog will document our story as we try to build a Brand and ultimately a successful business.

Should be one to watch

No newspapers is like taking a cold shower

Marshall McLuhan, the late communications theorist and provocateur, once quipped: "People don't actually read newspapers - they get into them every morning like a hot bath." If the closing of daily newspapers continues unabated, however, readers may find they have to make do with the cold shower provided by radio, television, and the Internet.

writes Walter Fox at the Philidelphia Inquirer as he attempts to demonstrate the unique qualities of the printed word and adds that

Unlike books or magazines, newspapers are a communal medium. Traditional newspapers - if they are well-edited - force readers to confront the whole community whether they want to or not. Readers may purchase a newspaper to read the sports pages or find a good used car, but in the process they are forced to learn about a wide range of important issues, if only as headlines.

Good point

ht-newspaper project

Should bloggers get paid?

There is an interesting piece by Josh Bernoff who looks at the issue of bloggers and the ethical problems of product promoting and payment

Some bloggers are journalists, and some others act like journalists -- those will adhere to tight ethical standards on gifts. Other bloggers will take money to write anything, and have no credibility -- you don't want to pay them, since no one believes them.

he writes but as in traditional journalism there is a very fine line between the two.

there's a whole class of people now with a following, bloggers who just write what they believe. These bloggers are already reviewing products in exchange for loans or donations of sample products. Bloggers gotta eat, too. Should they take cash to write about products? Should you pay them?

Some reflections on being online and offline

I do worry sometimes whether I spend far too much time online.

I have always been a bit of an information and news junkie.Before the internet came along I would readily devour the newspapers and listen to the news mostly via the radio.

The advent first of the internet and now the technology to keep up instantaneously with information has meant that it is extremely easy to keep oneself wired 24/7 so to speak.

Since I began my journalism degree three years ago,began blogging and more recently got addicted to twitter,it has been increasingly more difficult to draw myself away from being constantly plugged in.

Last week I was away in Cyprus for the week.I took a decision not to take my blackberry,to rarely switch my mobile phone on and to try not to pick up the news.

The first two I kept to,apart from three twitter updates,the latter was I am afraid broken with sojourns to Sky news and buying the Guardian on a couple of occasions.

But I kept to the online policy and after withdrawal pangs in the first 24 hours,I didn't miss it.

On my return it didn't last too long but then I came across this piece from Rob Horning who spent a week on a road trip in Idaho including Yellowstone National Park

I had expected it to be restorative to be out in nature for a while, unplugged, but instead it seemed to throw me into a kind of existential confusion. I had expected that the time away would allow to forget about online sharing and all that, but instead it brought out how much it had been lurking int he background, shaping my social self and the ways I’ve come to stabilize it and even recognize its existence

That all sounded a little bit familiar and he goes on

as I was out hiking, I would think of this dormant blog and wonder how I’ll ever manage to catch up, a nagging thought that filled me with vague, unshakable uneasiness. Being adrift in the natural world had come to feel very unnatural; the serenity seemed like a taunt. This seems to me the inverse of the interconnected feeling I take for granted in the time I spend online, and I understood for the first time why people would do something as inane as Twitter their hikes from their iPhones or something. I tried to feed this anxiety by taking lots of pictures with the idea of sharing them later, but this only aggravated the feeling. I couldn’t possibly take enough pictures. Eventually I had to try the opposite tack and take no pictures at all.

So maybe some time to reflect on this online,sharing,social media society that we inhabit.

The blunt logic of online strategy

Maybe this American publication has got the balance right between online and print?

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette is selling more weekday copies than a decade ago and the reason could be that they've been giving free access to their Web sites only to people who subscribe to the printed edition.

Via Huffington Post

The blunt logic is starting to resonate with many newspaper publishers, who are preparing to erect toll booths on parts, if not all, of their Web sites. They hope the switch brings in more online revenue and gives print subscribers another reason to keep buying the newspaper.

A decline in perspective

With each month, newspapers look less like a business and more like a lost cause

was the beginning of the editorial in yesterday's FT.

It's worth a read and puts some of the issues into perspective

The degree to which the travails of papers are a threat to an informed democracy can be exaggerated, particularly by journalists. The internet has made print less profitable but has also made new forms of information-gathering and commentary possible. Bloggers get a bad press but low-cost publishing helps new sources to emerge.

and we should remember that

The profitability of papers in the late 20th century, when they had a monopoly of classified advertising, was an anomaly.

This last point is important.I was tslking to an ex journalist a few days ago who said that profit margins of 20 per cent plus were never going to be sustainable.I reminded him that in my previous existence,we were happy with 5 per cent.

To tweet or not to tweet?

There are some interesting perspectives on the grey area between private and public consumption as regards our continued use of social media over at the New York Times.

I particually liked this piece from Susan Mernit ,former AOL vice president who writes

Is there such a thing as the overuse of social networking tools? Absolutely! The acquaintance who twittered one hour after her baby was born and the woman who twittered during her gynecological exam during a recent earthquake give a whole new meaning to crossing the public-private divide.

Oops-New York Times let Watergate slip

The New York Times had the first scoop on Watergate before the Washington post but let it slip.

That's according to an article in the paper this morning which says that

almost 37 years after the break-in, two former New York Times journalists have stepped forward to say that The Times had the scandal nearly in its grasp before The Post did

One of the journalists concerned says that two months after the break in during a lunch meeting

the acting director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, L. Patrick Gray, disclosed explosive aspects of the case, including the culpability of the former attorney general, John Mitchell, and hinted at White House involvement.

but

In the days after that 1972 lunch, the Times bureau was consumed by the Republican convention,

They must feel like the man from Decca who turned down the Beatles

A chance for the fourth estate

Having been away and missing quite the bulk of the slow devaluation of Parliament,my thoughts are this may be an interesting time for the media.

All the talk of its demise affecting its position as being the fourth estate can now be put to the test as we get the chance to debate our constitutional and political future.

Where will this debate take place?In the conventional media led by our daily newspapers,maybe by the local press as they scrutinise their local MP's or maybe in the blogosphere or on twitter?

As Andrew Grant-Adamson writes

There is a smell of revolution in the air and it gives British journalism its biggest challenge for a very, very long time

adding that

Will a media which has long been a part of the Westminster village be able to act as a moderator of the debate? In the age of the internet it is much better placed to do so than before as most now have areas where readers can join in debates.

Kelner comes out fighting again

There is an interesting interview with Simon Kelner in Media Guardian this morning.

Kelner is not a great fan of the publication seeing it as constantly sniping at his empire.

It is worth noting though his comments about the business state of the Indy titles

This on the rumours of going free and/or online only

"We make tens and tens of millions in circulation revenues," he says. "To have only one source of revenue leaves you very exposed. And that goes for the idea of online only too."

and this about the losses at the paper

He is furious about Media Guardian's use of the phrase the "loss-making Indy" when, he claims, the title loses less than many of its peers including the Guardian. It is, he says, "a form of journalism that would make Pravda ashamed".

Taking a break

Well today was the end of University at just after 12.30 time out was called on the Public Administration exam.

So apart from handing in my portfolio and my project that is it

Nearly three years on after my life changing career change now comes the next stage.

But first a week out.I and this blog will be taking a break in the sunshine of Cyprus.

Hopefully will be back blogging on the 26th May.

Be careful what you write

We have heard the case of the Independent Herald and Times taking away journalist's identities as they move their online archives.

However it can sometimes work the other way as this post over at the Chronicle of Higher Education tells that as

college papers have begun digitizing their back issues, their Web sites have become the latest front in the battle over online identities.

Why?

Youthful activities that once would have disappeared into the recesses of a campus library are now preserved on the public record, to be viewed with skeptical eyes by an adult world of colleagues and potential employers. Alumni now in that world are contacting newspapers with requests for redaction. For unlike Facebook profiles — that other notable source of young-adult embarrassment — the ability to remove or edit questionable content in these cases is out of the author's hands.

Why newspaper front pages are special

Terry Connor thinks that the print edition of a paper is special.

Writing at the Newspaper project he says that after remembering

The heartbreaking moment caught in time when firefighter Chris Fields carried the body of baby Baylee Almon from the rubble of the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995.
The fiery Twin Towers just seconds after two airplanes crashed into them and minutes before the buildings collapsed into an enormous cloud of dust on Sept. 11, 2001.
The smiling face of then President-elect Barack Obama holding hands with wife Michelle and daughters Malia and Sasha as thousands cheered on election night 2008.

adding

There are few, if any, of you reading these words who cannot recall those photographs or other front-page images that made an impression yesterday or yesteryear. Whether they have national or international impact or are as local as a hometown high school celebrating a state championship, memorable front-page photos are part of our culture and will be for many more tomorrows.

Social media and fundraising

The Telegraph's Shane Richmond shows how social media can be used in fund raising and charity work.

He writes that

Unicef is running a campaign to raise money for vaccines to eliminate newborn tetanus. It's a completely preventable disease that kills a child every three minutes.

adding that

A colleague of mine, Nancy Cruikshank, is at a fundraising evening in Geneva where she and her fellow attendees have been challenged to raise £25,000 by tomorrow, using social media to spread word of the campaign. So they're turning to blogs, Twitter and so on in an attempt to drive people to their JustGiving page. So far they've raised almost £2,500.

The future of journalism turns to an attack on bloggers

Last night's Journalism leader's forum was billed as a discussion on the future of journalism.

Maybe the topic was a little too big to be dealt with in a little over an hour and might have benefited from more of a structured agenda.

Not many answered were given and it became a attack on the BBC and bloggers.

You will be pleased though to know that Joanna Geary stood up for the blogger and has quickly put together this post on her immediate thoughts

This is something I’ll put more thought into tomorrow, but I needed to post this in order to sleep!
It was prompted by a panel discussion at the Journalism Leaders Forum today where, once again, the “blogs are rubbish and can’t be trusted” mantra was trotted out by some of the panel members.
Why? Why are we still even having this debate.
Why is it that when you talk about blogs to some journalists, the images that pop into their heads are of the celebrity-obsessed, the political rumour-mongers or the batshit insane?
Why don’t they think about the first hand accounts of conflict, the well-respected tech news sites, the local community information or those producing focused industry analysis?

Well said Joanna

Social media and search engine optimisation

Yesterday I was priveleged to attend the Digital Editors Network at Uclan.

I will write more after I have got final year exams out of the way but in the meantime,take a look at thsi presentation from Patrick Altoft who is Director of Search at Branded3, on the tie up between Search engine optimisation and Social media

Digital Editors Network

View more presentations from guest38a088.

Government intervention-a warning

David Carr,writing in the New York Times raises concerns about the proposals for the governemnt to intervene in the newspaper industry in the States.

I’m all for journalists swarming the Hill, especially now that about half of the reporters who used to work there are gone, potentially leaving much of government to its own devices. But to leave our industry tin-cupping its way around a government it covers seems desperate and ill-advised: a cure that might be worse than the disease.

he writes adding that

Government bailouts, including special tax status, seem likely to kill independent journalism, not save it. A free press that serves at the pleasure of its government is a diminution of the intent of the founders and not, by the way, a free press.

Blogging up take lags in the corporate world

Blogging has infiltrated the corporate world at a far slower rate if this survey from Fortune is to be believed.

The study looked at the Fortune 500 in an attempt to quantify the adoption of social media by identifying those with public-facing blogs

The results seem to show that the Fortune 500 have taken to blogging at a slower rate than charities and higher education institutions and that the smaller the company,the less likely you are to have a blog

Reporter tweets as he is shot

Alison Gow ,Exec Digital Editor for the Liverpool Echo and Liverpool Daily Post, recounts how a reporter in the city tweets about being shot.

Tony McDonough was unfortunate enough to be downing a diet Coke in his local Liverpool pub when armed bikers opened fire on the doorway in a “ride by” shooting. Some of the pellets hit him in the face, and he ended up needing an ambulance ride and hospital treatment.

Ht-Paul Bradshaw

Essential skills for journalism training

Frédéric Filloux in his Monday note takes a look at the issue of journalism training.

Comparing the attitudes of this year's crop whom he sees as far more realistically centred he concludes that five areas should be considered when training journalists

1. Production skills. Scripting, staging a story are now key elements in modern journalistic storytelling.

2. Dealing with complexity, handling datasets, from public statistics to GIS. These are key instruments to spread knowledge in an increasingly visual society.
3. Enroll pure technologies competences. Journalists need to learn how to deal with techies. Cross-pollination between the two is crucial.

4. Encourage nerdy tendencies among students or rookies journalists. In doing so, they will dramatically increase their employability.

5. Teach them how to sell their work, skills, passion. This ranges from setting pro-like blogs to — yes — creating their own tiny company, the commercial vehicle for rising above the crowd and monetizing their work.

Telegraph succeeds in social media

Quite remarkable figures from Julian Sambles who has revealed to Malcolm Coles that the Telegraph Group gets 8 per cent of its traffic via social media.

Julain is head of audience development at the Telegraph group

The Telegraph got about 28 million unique visitors in March, which means social sites are sending it almost 75,000 unique visitors a day.

The figure says Malcolm show

1. How important social sites are becoming as a source of traffic.

2. And how well the Telegraph has engaged with them, with functionality like its Digg widget (EG see my post 'Telegraph tops Digg list') and Twitterfall box (despite the recent Twackdown with the Guardian).

Standard Relaunch

Thanks to Press Gazette,a first look at the bigger and redesigned London Evening Standard

Fourth Estate or Political agenda?

It is quite surprising how journalism ethics seem to have been conveniently pushed aside as the public is subjected to days of information on MP's expenses.

Let's not though forget the basics.A national newspaper has paid money for information that has been obtained by illegal means

As Charlie Beckett says

Cheque-book journalism by a right wing newspaper has laid a Labour Government low and yet no-one seems to be blaming the media with any success. The charge of corruption, indifference and disdain levelled at the politicians of all colours seems to have too much resonance for anyone to worry seriously about the messenger.

Yet the implications could be far reaching.There is even some talk of a general election having to be called.

Let's just examine the Telegraph.

It could be accused of cynically exploiting the timings of its release to undermine a Labour government.Release Labour figures for the weekend papers to mull over and when the public has had enough,release the Tory ones which by all accounts are as bad.

Secondly release information that could be seen to be misleading,and without giving its victims a right to reply.How many codes of conduct does that break?

Yes there is the public interest aspect.This information will be portrayed as the fourth estate keeping our political masters under scrutiny as is its role.Yet I question whether this was done for that fact or to play a particular political agenda by the Telegraph

A model that might work

I get the feeling that micropayments are going to be the talk of the day along with Rupert Murdoch as the WSJ announces that it will introduce payment for individual articles and premium subscription for its website later in the year.

The move is not a surprise as noises have been made by the paper for some time.

And before we all jump on the bandwagon about this opening the floodgates,perhaps one should look at the unique content of the paper which provides value added information for a niche market.

This is the paid model that may well work.

Even if you could charge.......

Whilst on the subject of the Paywall there is a good piece on Paid Content giving reasons why it will be difficult for media organisations to charge for content.

1.People are used to getting content for free-as they say the genie has already been released from the bottle.

2.That there is oversupply of information and the simple economics of supply and demand necessitate free content.

3.The BBC acts as a fly in the ointment in that the competition would be with what people will see as being intrinsically free.

4.that it will destroy the current advertising model

5.that nothing is really copyright protected anyway and even if the software is developed,it would only be a matter of time before someone cracked the code

The search for something for nothing

Rupert Murdoch's hints that the net will soon start charging for content have stirred up the pundits including a piece in the Observer this morning.

I quite like its conclusion though

The mechanics of the web are shifting, too, with new search engines and linking algorithms likely to make their presence felt soon. One thing is certain though: the public's search for "something for nothing" will go on forever. In the words of the Roman poet Juvenal, one of the oldest pundits available on the web: "All wish to possess knowledge, but few, comparatively speaking, are willing to pay the price."

Heffer on Bragg's impending retirement

Simon Heffer reflects on ITV's decision to axe the South Bank show when Melvyn Bragg retires over at the Telegraph blog

ITV will be to high culture what Poundland is to Chateau d'Yquem.

The show he says

opened doors to the curious and allowed them to peek inside. It was the more remarkable for doing so because, being on ITV, it might reach people not already bitten by the culture bug, but who had that spark of open-mindedness to allow themselves to be bitten. From next year, that opportunity will be lost.

But as channels have proliferated in the digital era the mainstream have moved away from the culture prefering to leave it to the niche operators

We seem to have lost the Victorian understanding of the benefits of opening up culture. If television channels that attract mass audiences do not put in their schedules the occasional opera, or interviews with great novelists, artists or playwrights, or programmes about great buildings, then of course these things will be considered elitist.

Universities are not controlling information any more

It appears now that we have a digital divide in our universities according to the findings of the Committee of Inquiry into the Changing Learner Experience:

Ht-Mark Comerford

This report in the Times higher education supplement says that

The evolution of the internet has produced a generation of students with "a preference for quick answers" and a "casual" approach to the evaluation and attribution of information,

One academic

expressed "strong reservations" about students' ability to critically evaluate information from the web.

and another said that

"Universities are not controlling information any more. What they should be doing is supporting students in becoming much more critical thinkers."

Jeecamp-bring on the revolution

There were two conclusions that could be drawn for yesterday's Jeecamp down in Birmingham(and thanks to Paul Bradshaw for organising a great event)

Firstly that journalism or at least its traditional model is finished.By that I mean that journalists working full time for media organisations producing one dimensional output and being divorced from their audience,that model is effectively over.

Secondly that journalism is standing on the cusp of a dramatic change(Not that it hasn't changed already.)

This change will blow away the model that has stood the test of time in the developed world since industrialisation.Instead,with easy tools of publication,it will become almost a cottage industry,reverting to localised and niche driven output,well written and targeted at a particular audience.

Journalists will become largely self employed and will survive by adding value to their content and acquiring the skills of publication and selling as well.

It could be a frightening prospect but it provides opportunities for those willing to innovate and experiment.Those not willing to change will fall by the wayside

There will be some fallout from the industry.It will not be able to sustain the overhead and administration cost that it does at the moment.The days of the large media company are over.

I am optimistic as were many others who attended the event.

Bring on the next few years and join the revolution

Off to Jeecamp

I shall be attending Jeecamp tomorrow.

Organised by Paul Bradshaw,it is growing by the year with over 70 people attending.

I must admit that looking at some of the attendees is rather daunting but am looking forward to its immensly.

There will no doubt be a great deal of twittering and blogging coming out of the day down in Birmingham.

I think that I will concentrate on the event itself and take in as much conversation and discussion as possible.

Next week is local newspaper week

Via John Slattery

Next week (11th-17th May) is Local Press Week

You can find all the details here at Newspaper Society website

The theme is

Building Stronger Communities, highlighting the important role of local papers at the heart of their cities, towns and villages, working with local people and businesses through the recession to emerge fitter and better than ever.

Rather apt in the current climate

Creating a digital divide?

This blog has talked about the digital divide before and if you are interested take a look at this presentation from Helen Milner (Ht-Paul Bradshaw)

Amongst some of the highlights.

The fact that 29 per cent of adults don't use the internet.35 per cent of homes haven't got it and that 49 per cent of D&E households don't have access to it.

Rather frightening.Are we creating a digital divide

Helen Milner Digital Inclusion The Evidence April 2009 National Digital Inclusion Conference London

View more presentations from Helen Milner.

Express and Star experiments with part free

It look like Wolverhampton's Express and Star is going to test the part paid newspaper model according to the report by Hold the Front page this morning.

From next month, the Stafford edition of the Express and Star is to be delivered free to homes and business in the mid-Staffordshire area on Wednesdays only, while remaining paid-for the other five days.

Social networking and disaster planning

I am sure that the debate over the role of social media during the current Swine Flu crisis will continue for some time.

It is though worth reading the comments of Charlie Edwards in the New Statesman who says that

Little has been made of the important role that individual citizens can play during such times of crisis and crucially the value of social media in the whole process.

He raises the point that government communication policy may have to be revised in the light of the ever expanding social networks and that

Broadcasting messages offers information, in the form of advice and guidance, to the public. Social media changes that equation by inviting us to take part and share information with others. This is crucial when it comes to disaster management and emergency planning.

A vast opportunity but first you need a business plan

I think that Christopher Wink has got this spot on when he looks at the market for the young journalist.

Job prospects are rare and uniquely competitive now.
So, of course, it’s the perfect time to start your own venture. Will it fail? Maybe, but when you’re young, with fewer responsibilities, the chance at making something of your own is a wonderful one.
But first things first, you need to be able to write a business plan

It is strange that more journalism courses don't teach something of this aspect but perhaps the changing environment will produce some new ideas

Ht-Josh Halliday

Internet under threat in Cuba

Cuba is once again cracking down on the internet.

This from Marc R. Masferrer via Global voices online

Apparently not satisfied with Cuba being only the 4th worst place in the world to be a blogger, the Castro dictatorship has cracked down on one of the few ways most Cubans can use to access the Internet.
Cubans, including superstar blogger Yoani Sanchez, had been able to buy access cards that they then could use at Internet cafes located in tourist hotels. But reports are now that Cubans are now barred from buying the cards.
Another Cuban blogger, Claudia Cadelo, told CubaEncuentro.com, said now Cubans "have to ask a foreigner to buy the car, and then enter the hotel with them to get access with a laptop, via wi-fi, from the lobby."

Emily Bell looks to the future

There is a good round up of Emily Bell's talk last night at the University College Falmouth in which that sacred topic the future of journalism is discussed.

Emily says that in ten years time

journalism will have some or all of the following characteristics:

1.journalists will need to take their stories out to where the readers and viewers are.

2.Journalists will need to act as hubs, rather than destinations.

3.Enabling readers to comment publicly on stories means that journalists can no longer get away with shoddy work

4.Journalists will need to be ready to share information

5.Thanks to advances in mobile phone technology, nearly everyone carries digital recording equipment now, so there are 'digital witnesses' everywhere

Ht-Adrian Monck

Morals of competition in newspapers

Chris Anderson looks at a free newspaper model that didn't quite work over at his Long Tail blog

He tells the story of

“Nyhedsavisen”, a new Danish daily newspaper hit the streets. The newspaper would feature an editorial mix prioritizing both prize-winning critical journalism and stories close to the everyday life of ordinary Danes.
The pricing of Nyhedsavisen was simple: it was free. And, as something entirely new: it was going to be delivered to the homes of all Danes – at no cost. Not only the newspaper itself was free, delivery was free as well. It was in effect “double-free”.

which was launched in October 2006.

The paper targeted three revenue streams in Denmark,the traditional one funded by advertisng revenue,the second being distribution of printed advertisement catalogues and brochures alongside the distribution of the paper itself.

The third was to act as a news wire to other Danish news outlets.

What happened is that the competition decided to fight back and the market was flooded with free newspapers,forcing the price of advertising down.

This free newspaper war went on for over two years and caused the entire industry to bleed. On top generally declining circulation for all (paid) printed newspapers the cost of producing and distribution additional free newspapers added significant losses to the financial results.

Life under Rupert Murdoch at the WSJ

It is a year since Rupert Murdoch took control of the Wall Street Journal.

At the time it was,at least in some quarters seen as the end of financial reporting as we knew it.

The Columbia Journalism review has taken a look at the journal in its latest magazine and has discovered that

It’s clear from conversations with reporters on a range of beats, throughout the newsroom, that the emphasis on breaking news, coupled with the shrinking space for stories, means the paper is less committed to this sort of journalism. “We’re getting down to four hundred/five hundred words,” says one reporter. “You can barely introduce what you’re talking about. What’s the point?” Within a week in March 2007, the Journal published a dozen stories over two thousand words in the front section; within the same week in March 2009, only three stories exceeded that length.

However its readership is growing no doubt in part as a response to the financial meltdown of the past year and its policy of discounting.

There now appears more of an emphasis on news as opposed to business news and according to Liza Featherstone,

While the Journal has excelled in some areas—its coverage of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns comes to mind—it was caught short in others, notably the aig bailout and coverage of Henry Paulson’s Treasury department. Worse, the paper has failed to explicate the big questions—what happened and why—ceding the role of authoritative explainer and investigator to,

The goal of Western media in the Middle East has failed

There is an interesting piece in the Huffington Post that questions the resources that are channeled into the Middle East by the Western broadcasters (Ht-Adrian Monck)

Nadim Hasbani argues that there has been a

widespread failure of Western-owned Arabic TV channels to establish themselves as credible news sources with Middle Eastern audiences living under dictatorship regimes.

He continues that

Arabs are watching news and entertainment programmes from Arabic satellite channels like Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, MBC, and LBC. But they are not watching the news stations Western governments are funding to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year: BBC Arabic, the American Al Hurra, France 24 Arabic, and Deutsche Welle Arabia.

and the reason why according to Hasbani

Middle Eastern audiences regard American and European Arabic language television with deep suspicion. They suspect them of hiding "Western agendas" behind programming, particularly when it comes to political content. This perception reflects distrust of Western foreign policies in the Middle East and often seems justified if you follow what these channels are broadcasting.

"If you want to find out what's going on, buy it. Don't try and get it for free".

Paul Waugh does a good round up of Private Eye editor Ian Hislop's take on blogging.

He was appearing in front of the Culture, Media and Sport select committee as Paul says.

was clearly unimpressed by bloggers. He made the point that the McBride emails scoop was published first by national newspapers rather than on Guido's own blog, partly because it was the papers that took the legal risk and partly because of the wider exposure and impact.

adding that

that "a lot of what is written on blogs would never get into newspapers" because of legal problems.

The most pessimistic profession?-Journalism

Who is most pessimistic about the UK’s economic prospects over the next 12 months? “The most miserable bastards in Britain are in fact the journalists, 96 per cent of whom think Britain is going to get worse,” says Ben Page, managing director of Ipsos MORI. “Out of all the audiences we look at – businesses themselves, consumers, employers, the people who are most negative are the journalists.”

writes Brian Groom over at the FT.

Who suspects that the reason is

the sceptical attitude journalists routinely need as they try to get at the truth – summed up by the BBC’s Jeremy Paxman as: “Why is this lying bastard lying to me?” It does not encourage a rosy perspective.

The Standard-first of many?

For some it might seem a risky policy in an age when regional and local newspapers are under immense pressure but the Evening Standard's editor Geordie Greig has decided to challenge the paper's critics head on.

Responding to a survey which told the paper that Londoners considered the paper to be too negative, not celebratory enough and guilty of failing to cater for the capital's needs,he has launched a campaign aimed at saying sorry.

Public transport in the capital will now be carrying banner adverts saying sorry for losing touch, sorry for being negative, for taking you for granted, for being complacent and for being predictable.

Perhaps this is a portent for all regional and local papers who could well be accused of the same crimes that the Standard has put its hands up to?

Journalism and the Apocolypse

Some thoughts on the covering of the Swine flu courtesy of Christopher Oriz

Journalists like to cover pandemics because there is a chance they are covering the end of the world, and Armageddon is the ultimate story any journalist can ask for.
Pandemics always make for sensational coverage.
When covering a pandemic, journalists are reminded of the immense power they possess when it comes to covering such events. With one stroke of the keyboard that mentions “swine flu” and “pandemic” in the same sentence, thousands of people go into panic mode

Myth and Reality

At Least according to Michael Learmonth over at the Newspaper project.

The myth is that

newspapers stuck their heads in the sand and just hoped the internet would go away.

The reality says Michael is that

newspapers took some of the biggest, earliest swings on the web, most turned out to be misses, and then got steamrolled by Google just like everyone else.
The nation's print media may be on life support, but some are quietly building digital portfolios again -- albeit on a smaller scale -- and some are starting to bear fruit.

Tipping point has been reached for old media

According to Arianne Huffington we are close to the tipping point where new media takes over from the old.

The Huffington Post founder interviewed by Tribune media services said that

We are certainly at a turning point leading to the tipping point -- an exciting prospect in my view.

adding that

Today we live in the linked economy, not a walled-off content economy. The challenge is to find different ways to monetize links among media through advertising or micropayment or whatever, not subscription for exclusive content. In this environment, good journalism will survive, and even flourish, though most newspapers -- except for a handful of the very best papers and magazines in every national market -- probably will not.

But these are optimistic times

A self perpetuating cycle of writing

I have just been reading Ian Jack's piece in yesterday's Guardian in which he effectively says that the age of making money from writing is at an end.

Ian maintain that this age has only really been prevelent in the last 20 years but now the ease of publication and the demand that everything be free on the net has brought it to an end

we can all be authors now and publish ourselves on the web. What you might call the moral and aesthetic case for writing - to think, imagine and describe and then communicate the result to an audience - can be satisfied online. It just doesn't make any money. The age of the gifted amateur is surely about to return.

But really grabbed my attention was the last part of his piece in whih he wonders why there are growing numbers of people still applying for writing and journalism courses?

Why do young people apply? Because they think they can be the next Zadie Smith. Why do universities encourage them? Because money can be made from fees. Is this responsible behaviour? We need to weigh the smashed hopes of creative writers against the financial needs of their tutors, who are themselves writers, and earning the kind of money that writing would never supply. A closed little dance: tutors teach students who in turn teach other students, like silversmiths in a medieval guild where a bangle is rarely bought though many are crafted, and everyone lives in a previous world.

consumers are growing more accustomed to spending small amounts of money casually for digital content

There is an interesting piece in the Ft this morning looking at the increasing amounts of small transactions that are taking place across the web.

Consumers’ growing willingness to pay small dollar amounts is matched by a payments infrastructure that is finally robust enough to accommodate demand.

and adds that

Consumers’ growing willingness to pay small dollar amounts is matched by a payments infrastructure that is finally robust enough to accommodate demand.

This is an excellent example of how the web can be used to monetise transcations in a way that though insignificant to the individual can soon add up for the corporate entity

Analysts say consumers are growing more accustomed to spending small amounts of money casually for digital content.

Guido more profitable than the Indy and the Guardian

I see that Guido reckons that his blog is now more profitable than both the Guardian and the Indy following a successful month in which he broke the Damien McBride story.

Writing on his blog today he announces that

April saw a total of over 3.6m pageviews from 1,382,879 visits by 347,994 visitors making 2,995,765 pageviews plus 680,207 views via RSS feed readers. Not bad for one guy with a laptop, Blackberry and a penchant for Guinness. With traffic averaging over 100,000 pageviews daily this blog puts traditional political publications like the New Statesman in the shade,

and adds

Many thanks to you the readers and the advertisers who make this blog more profitable than both the Guardian and Independent combined.

On demystifying social media

David Murray over at the Bivings report argues

that it is our responsibility to help those who are less familiar with this landscape make the transition. Sounds great, but how do we do that? We start by demystifying the smoke and mirrors that have been built around social media.

and adds that

We can not simply throw a life line and yell, “Swim!” By taking on the task of helping others responsibly, we start building bridges. And as the communication builds, the doors begin to open.

The secret ingredient which makes hyperlocal pay

Has someone found a hyper local model that generates revenue?

This guest post from Richard M. Anderson,over at Reflections of a Newsosaur suggests that this may indeed be the case.He

has found a way to generate as much as a fifth of his ad revenue through hyper local websites featuring, among other things, blogs that are sponsored and maintained by local merchants.

So what is the secret.Well Richard says that he has

stepped back and re-focused on hyper local population centers of 20,000 to 50,000 people in four communities in Maine. Why? Because it is in these places, whether urban neighborhoods, suburban villages or ex-urban towns, that citizens are most closely engaged in the practice of democracy at its root level.

The model consists of two products – branded web sites called VillageSoup and separately branded weekly newspapers.The secret ingredient is

sponsored postings that businesses can buy. The posts, which run right next to the ordinary editorial content, are not controlled by us. No fetters, no filters

Burma tops the list of places not to blog from

The committee to protect journalists has produced a list of the 10 worst places to blog from in terms of press freedom

Executive Director Joel Simon says in their report that

“Bloggers are at the vanguard of the information revolution and their numbers are expanding rapidly.But governments are quickly learning how to turn technology against bloggers by censoring and filtering the Internet, restricting online access and mining personal data. When all else fails, the authorities simply jail a few bloggers to intimidate the rest of the online community into silence or self-censorship.”

Issued to coincide with World Press Freedom Day,on May 3,Burma tops the list of countries where it would be better not to commit thoughts to screen followed by

Iran,Syria,Cuba,Saudi Arabia,Vietnam,Tunisia,China,Turkmenistan and Egypt

Is the media over hyping the Swine Flu epidemic Part 2

Charlie Beckett over his Director's blog puts up a smart defence of the media's reporting over the last few days.

it is also the job of journalists to rush to where potential stories break. I would rather an over-eager media than a complacent press corps. Our job is to be the canary in the coal-mine, the first draft of history. We need to be much better at understanding and explaining risk, but it is hardly an exact science. While the experts argue, it is the journalists job to dig and to question.