Results matching “ap and reuters”

For its July magazine, Press Gazette has compiled the top 50 best scoops in UK journalism from 1922 to 1995. The original impetus for the list was the Daily Telegraph's stunning work covering the MPs' expense reports, and draws from suggestions by Press Gazette readers.

Unfortunately, the complete rankings are only available to subscribers, but editor Dominic Ponsford has put together his personal top five, in chronological order:

There is a crisis in trust and communication between the British public and the mainstream media, a new report has concluded. The gulf between public expectations of news provision and the actual nature of articles, which oscillate between esoteric or irresponsible, leaves readers feeling confused and excluded.

The report, entitled 'Public Trust In The News' was conducted by researchers from Manchester and Leeds Universities and was published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. It investigated the dynamics of news production and consumption, to ascertain if there is a difference in what "the public expects from news media and what journalists mean by serving the public".  The paper highlights the underlying causes of an apparent widespread disenchantment with the media and the detrimental effects this is having on the standards of reporting and civil participation in democracy. Thankfully, the report offers several propositions for a new journalistic direction, which could refresh the reader-writer compact.

YouTube today launched its Reporter's Centre, an online educational platform where journalists offer advice on reporting and news gathering techniques to would-be citizen reporters.

The centre offers a selection of how-to videos with some of the industry's leading figures giving seminars on core reporting methods, such as how to conduct interviews, how to verify facts and, lessons on maintaining standards and ethics. (See below for a list which reads like a who's who of the news sector.)

The drastic measures employed by the Associated Press to stanch the flow of deserters to its service, along with DPA's recent loss of a 2-million-euro subscriber, demonstrate that news agencies have some serious soul-searching to do in terms of what they offer their customers and at what cost. Writing for followthemedia.com, Philip Stone asserts that wire services need to significantly cut their content and thus their prices in order to retain clients.

Stone, a former managing director at Reuters Europe, Middle East, and Africa media division, uses DPA as an example. Each day the agency sends out 800 stories through its main service and 100 stories from each of its 12 state services, along with 700 news photos. Clearly, there is no way any one newspaper would use all or even a quarter of those articles.

As online news becomes more and more prevalent, with an unimaginable amount of information available at users' fingertips and Internet now ranked as US consumers' top way to access their news, how can media organisations make sure that readers find their articles?  Part of the answer is search engine optimisation, which is becoming an essential part of the daily life of a newsroom. For the printed product, newspapers must try to sell the paper as a whole; online, articles can attract traffic individually as readers come across them while searching for specific topics. It is therefore important that each story, rather than simply the site as a whole, is 'optimised' to appear higher in search results. Aside from highly technical aspects like HTML meta tagging, URL structure or site navigation, what can a newspaper do to optimise its content for search engines?

How to introduce SEO to the newsroom

One major potential stumbling block is that journalists might view SEO as a way to manipulate their stories and take away their true value. So the way it is presented to staff is extremely important. And indeed, it is crucial that newspapers do not get carried away with prioritising SEO above all else. Even Google advises creating content "primarily for your users, not search engines:" it is important to make your site easily accessible to search engines but still remain focused on your visitors' needs.

Clearly, it is important for all reporters to be aware of the ways that they can make each individual article more search-friendly. After all, journalists have always wanted their stories to be as widely read as possible, in print as well as online, and are likely to be willing to help make that happen. And often, the principles of SEO echo the principles of writing a good story: such as the idea that the first sentence should be a summary of the rest of the article, containing relevant concepts or keywords. One difference is that less generic, more specific works for SEO in terms of names or concepts. Google recommends shorter rather than longer titles.

Esa Peltonen, who has been working as a web analyst at the largest Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat for three years, said that he has worked extensively with editorial staff, for example on how to use Google, to get an idea of how users will be searching and what kind of search words people are using. Head of audience development at the Telegraph, Julian Sambles, said in March that the paper was trying to give journalists "the knowledge and understanding that they need so they can apply it to their daily production process and make informed decisions about content when they're writing or publishing it." Thinking about SEO should be second nature, he added.

Papers must also consider their goals in optimising content for search engines. As Drew Broomhall, head of search at the Times explained, if you rank success by sheer volume of traffic, then you should "write the same as everyone else but more of it and more frequently updated." However, if you are looking to increase engagement on a specific subject you need more detailed keyword analysis and niche research.

One straightforward course is the need to stay ahead of the trends: predict what people are going to be talking about in upcoming months and provide appropriate content. "Fix SEO requirements into the editorial calendar," Broomhall suggests. Obviously much news is unpredictable, but there are some events that are year-in-year-out, or which are easy to prepare for in advance, such as an election or a festival. It is necessary to consider both specific, distinct events, such as religious holidays, and longer, less defined periods such as winter travel. Articles that contain links and that have been linked to by others appear higher in search results. Therefore, with annual events, it is beneficial to link to last year's coverage and make use of old content that already has inbound links to help promote the new content.

Hiring a SEO specialist?

As well as training all reporters to be aware of the principles of search engine optimisation, many newspapers have taken the step of hiring an in-house specialist. Ideally such a person would have deep technical knowledge combined with considerable journalistic experience, but such candidates might be hard to find. Peltonen comes from a business background, Broomhall from journalism and technology.

There are also many third party services available to news outlets, supplementary to the guidance of an in-house expert, such as Thomson Reuters' OpenCalais which recently announced deals made with the Huffington Post, DailyMe and the Mail Online. OpenCalais offers an 'Archive Express' feature which can tag an archive of up to 20 million documents in 24 hours. The service 'reads' and breaks down articles into their essential elements - who, what, when, where, how - and tags and sorts them so that it is easier to bring archived articles into 'related stories' sections and improve their search relevance.

Analysing traffic

A SEO specialist would be responsible for analysing traffic to a news outlet's site, looking at how readers find content, readership patterns and what methods of optimisation work best. Peltonen explained how he started off looking at basic data such as what are the top news stories, how many people are going where on the site, and started to work out how to increase traffic. His paper partnered with Microsoft to further analyse traffic data. Such traffic data analysis can be used to spot and develop potential niche verticals to focus on, for example, by looking at repeat visitor figures.  

Google keywords

Purchasing Google keywords to guarantee that news articles appear higher on search results is one of the more costly ways for news outlets to promote their content. Peltonen said that his paper frequently buys specific words, for instance for sports events, but stressed that it would be cheaper to improve the paper's SEO. Buying keywords could also raise ethical issues, depending on the words and their context. The Sun, for example, reportedly purchased the key words 'Natasha Richardson' immediately after the British actress's sudden death in March, in what appears to be a blatant attempt to profit from the tragedy. The Guardian came under considerable criticism last August when, apparently accidentally, it purchased the Google keywords "Madeleine McCann," giving any searchers the link to its coverage of the child's disappearance. The Guardian promptly relinquished the rights, and said it would review its list of keywords. Purchasing Google keywords in order to promote a product is common practice, but is it ethical for newspapers?

Evidently, SEO strategies are necessary in today's media landscape, not only to make more money but also to spread awareness of stories and help readers find what they are looking for and therefore should be embraced by journalists and editors as well as publishers. Search engine 'friendliness' should not be prioritised over good, accurate stories but it should be used to promote such content. Journalistic training is vital in order to optimise each individual article, and larger strategic steps should be taken by editors in conjunction with SEO specialists.

On Tuesday 23 June at 14.00 London time, Drew Broomhall, Head of Search at the Times of London will be speaking at a WEF webinar on "How to teach your journalists to write for the web." More details here.

Adding credence to the notion that more than ever people are relying on the Internet as their primary source of news, the latest poll by Zogby International shows a majority of Americans view the web as the best source of information. When presented with a scenario in which they had to choose only one source of news, 56% of adults picked the Internet.

Where Americans are getting their news on the web is striking. Nearly half said the web sites of national newspapers are important and 43% said the same for national TV sites. Internet-only operations fared much worse. Less than 30% stated that blogs that shared their political views were important, and just 14% said the same for blogs with the opposite political view. And social networking sites? Forget it. Ten percent of adults named Facebook as an important source of news, and a mere 4% said the same of Twitter.

French regional La Provence just announced that it is dropping its subscription to the Agence France-Presse news wire. The paper came to the decision after realising that it uses only 20 dispatches per day for an annual cost of 550,000 euros, a journalist for the Marseille-based paper told Le Monde.

AFP CEO Pierre Louette played down the announcement and said he is ready to negotiate. "I am not convinced that the rupture with La Provence is definititive," he commented. "We are ready to make an effort for the regional press, which we feel bound to almost like a cooperative." In fact, six out of the 15 members of AFP's board are from the regional press. However, it represents only 7% of the organisation's turnover.

Westminster announced yesterday that the length of time government records had to be kept secret would be cut from thirty years to twenty.  Additionally, Justice Secretary, Jack Straw is considering the extension of the Freedom of Information Act to more bodies responsible for the handling and spending of public money.


The proposals require that all official documents be available to public access after twenty years of their production.  This does not, however, include documents deemed 'sensitive', Royal family or Cabinet papers.

"Twenty years later, it is still impossible for the Chinese media to refer freely to the ruthless suppression of China's pro-democracy movement in June 1989" said Reporters Sans Frontières.  The report was initiated as concerns mounted towards the reactions of the Propaganda department and the political police to the internal and external media coverage of the Twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

The inexorable rise of the Internet in China has provided freedom activists, working both within and outside of the country with alternative platforms for expression and access to information, presenting serious challenges for the Chinese censor. China has an estimated 300 million Internet users.
                                                                                                                          

News Corps CEO Rupert Murdoch yesterday reiterated his conviction that newspapers must charge readers online, and expressed extremely strong opposition to the idea of a government bailout for newspapers. He was speaking on the News Corp-owned Fox Business Network.

"We would never take money from the government," he declared, as this would mean giving up "our freedoms and everything else to criticise or to play our full role in the community." He added that he did not think that "even the New York Times would," and expressed doubt that the government would even try to offer money. Debate about government intervention in newspapers has grown following a recent US Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet which discussed whether to help newspapers become non-profit or whether to relax antitrust laws. Obama then told those at the White House correspondents' dinner that "government without a tough and vibrant media is not an option for the United States of America."

Apture has created technology that aims to make flat web pages more three-dimensional: the third dimension being boxes that pop-up to show the reader further multimedia assets relating to an article. At first glance it does not sound too ground-breaking, but taking a closer look, the implications for both readers and publishers are considerable. The Editors Weblog spoke to co-founder and CEO Tristan Harris about how Apture works and how it can help publishers.

Harris described what inspired him to start working on Apture. He and his co-founders came up with the idea while studying at Stanford, during conversations with the Knight Fellows. Frustrated with the fact that despite the web being "truly the richest medium we have ever had to communicate with, with all the computational power and multimedia assets" it has "this flat characteristic of flat story-telling," they decided to try to do something about it.

Easy access to multiple multimedia sources

Apture has created a media search engine that allows writers to "quickly leverage all the media that's available on the web, in many different APIs and digital libraries," Harris explained. The journalist highlights keywords in the text, such as the name of a person, place, event, or a certain topic, and a box will then appear with a list of possible media assets to link to. These include reference tools such as Wikipedia, IMDB, Amazon, Twitter search, even the US Congress, photos from Flickr or Yahoo, videos from YouTube or Daily Motion, maps from Google Maps, documents from Scribd, and the journalist can pick what assets they feel are apppropriate - possibly more than one - and set up a link.

When the reader clicks on the hyperlink, instead of opening in a different browser window, another small box appears to display the article snippet, video, photo or map which the reader can consult without losing their place in the original article. And as Apture allows journalists to clip a specific section of a video or link to a certain quote in a book, the box will hopefully offer them only the most relevant information. Readers can click through to the original site by clicking on a link within the box.

For individual publishers, their own archives and assets can be incorporated into the search engine. Apture has also developed deals with some clients so that any Apture users can access their archives: for example Reuters videos, or snippets from New York Times, BBC or Washington Post articles. Apture just added Google Books and NPR audio podcasts to the asset list.

The technology is free to blogs and websites with fewer than 5 million page views per month. Harris added that as the company is "getting a lot of valuable information from people using it," meaning that the system is getting better and better. Larger publishers pay "hundreds and thousands a month" to use Apture, however. Harris explained that they are willing to do this because the tool creates a "more compelling experience on their websites," as shown by the fact that there is "a proven difference" in user's engagement with pages.

Benefits for publishers

According to Harris, putting one or more Apture links on a page leads to 2 or 3 minutes added engagement time. Looking at Comscore media matrix data, he clarified, it appears that 20 to 30% of publishers' traffic is lost to search. If a paper does not answer a reader's questions, it is extremely easy for the reader to just leave. Harris believes that if journalists are thoughtful and thorough about the links they add throughout a whole site, you could imagine that the publication "may well be able to double the amount of time spent on the site." And obviously, more time spent on the site means more advertising money.

As well as this financial benefit, Harris described a less tangible but arguably equally valuable advantage of using Apture: the fact that it allows newspapers to be a more effective guide for their readers and to offer them a more coherent reading experience. When a paper sends their readers away, either by linking to an external source or just not providing enough information, it is "severing its relationship with you as your guide to that information." By using Apture to supply necessary background information in multiple different formats while keeping the reader on its site, a news organisation can "be the guide to an entire web's worth of resources, but retain a relationship with that reader," Harris asserted. The fact that publishers are "the owners of that relationship" puts "a lot more power in their hands," he added.

For those publishers contemplating offering their content back to Apture, one concern might be that by displaying their content in boxes on other sites via Apture, they could end up losing traffic. Harris stressed, however, that readers can always go back to the source, and that rather than trying to remove traffic from websites, Apture sees its role as "providing an opportunity for those media partners to get their content in front of new eyeballs that they would not have seen before."

What next?

"What we are really doing is creating an efficiency in the market that really wasn't there before," Harris concluded. Apture is connecting information "in a way that wasn't possible before." He said that the company intends to improve its current product by continuing to integrate new content partners and bring costs down. He also hopes to create new products that will "transform the medium, changing the way that people interact with the web," and which are "not constrained to the two dimensions that we've had up until now."

The advantages offered by online journalism are numerous, and products such as Apture's should be welcomed by journalists striving to find better ways to tell their story in a multimedia environment. The fact that the Internet allows us to see, hear or find out more about pretty much anything and consequently make a story richer and more meaningful is something which papers should take advantage of. Arguably, going a step further and creating their own new multimedia experiences should be a priority for newspapers, but using existing content to supplement their articles is a good start. 

Yesterday, the recently founded Media140 held its first Twitter and microblogging conference. Held at London's Southbank Centre - a venue in the heart of the UK capital synonymous with innovation - the event largely focussed on the effects that Twitter and micoblogging are having on the news gathering process and was attended by journalists from Guardian.co.uk, TimesOnline, TechCrunch, BBC, Aljazeera, Reuters and Sky News.

Kicking off discussions, associate editor of the Sunday Herald and author of 'The Play ethic', Pat Kane, opened up the conference with a keynote presentation on the way breaking news services were dramatically changing the face of journalism: "Reading a newspaper on a street corner might be seen as banal. What's becoming just as banal is producing news on that street corner," said Kane. You can access his slideshow from the presentation here.

According to the pressgazette.co.uk, Thomson Reuters has launched a new resource for small businesses, which it has added to its website.

By visiting the site at reuters.com/smallbusiness, users will be able to access breaking business news stories, commentary as well as audio and video content from a variety of Reuters' business journalists and content partners, including content from specialist US business publications such as BNET, which provides intelligence for managerial professionals, Entrepeneur, Greener World Media which offers environmental responsibility advice, IDG's CIO business technology publication, PC World, Network World, Computerworld and Wired magazine.

Speculation has been rising on why billionaire investor David Geffen is interested in buying the 19.9% stake in the New York Times Co, currently held by hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners, and what he would do with the company's flagship paper if he had control. Geffen's first approach to Harbinger was declined, but commentators think he may well make another. The company has lost many millions this year already and given that the advertising market, on which the company depends on significantly for revenue, shows little sign of recovery, buying such a stake (likely to cost around $200 million) seems a risky investment at the moment.

BusinessWeek's Ron Glover and Newsweek's Johnnie L. Roberts both believe that Geffen is fully aware such a purchase would not be a good investment, and that he would buy the paper out of a sense of civic duty. According to Glover, Geffen already contributes large sums to arts and hospitals and would see his purchase as "a financial contribution to a national institution that likely will never be a large money maker." It would be a "deeply personal" investment for a man who was born in New York and grew up reading the paper, Glover believes. The paper is also "an impassioned voice for the liberal causes that Geffen likely holds dear." The billionaire tried to buy the Los Angeles Times back in 2006: this is not his first attempt to get involved in the newspaper world.

USA Today has launched an application for Google's Android phone, available to download free in Android Market. The paper, like many others, already offers an iPhone application and is one of the first newspapers to embrace the newer Android platform.

The application includes headlines, a photo slideshow of the day's best images, interactive polls, sports scores and weather forecasts, tailored to a user's exact location via GPS. Articles can be shared via email, text or Twitter. Matt Jones, vice president of mobile strategy and operations for Gannett Digital said that "USA Today continues to develop innovative mobile products and services and the Android application is an excellent way to extend our reach to the latest emerging platforms."

Google has introduced a new feature which enables users to search for the most recent and relevant results. In future, it will be possible to search for results within the past 24 hours, or 7 days - which renders Google more relevant than ever in terms of up to the minute news, and places it in closer competition with 'real time' search features, such as the tool on Twitter.

Google recently created a news time line, another feature which allows users to search a particular topic in context of date. It has also reportedly been in talks with the Washington Post about a potential collaboration. The company has, however, recently come under fire about its use of online newspaper articles from publishers frustrated with the company benefitting from their work .

Source: Reuters

The Daily Telegraph's recent revelations of British MPs expense claims have caused outrage amongst British taxpayers, reluctant, for example, to see their taxes being spent on moat cleaning or swimming pool maintenance. However, the revelations have also raised eyebrows due to the manner in which the Telegraph reportedly obtained the data.

In March, Labour MP Sir Stuart Bell claimed that the CD containing all the controversial information was being offered for sale on Fleet Street for £300,000. Newspapers including the Times and the Sun refused the offer, and although the Telegraph has so far refused to confirm or deny whether, and how much, it paid for the disc, the sum is thought to be between £70,000 and £300,000.

MarketWatch has redesigned its site, "showcasing the breadth and depth of its original content" and the market data and "valuable tools" it offers to investors, according to a press release. The site is part of the Wall Street Journal Digital Network, published by Dow Jones.

The new design features new navigation, "expanded content and features and better surfacing of the site's leading personalities and columns." Within the site there are two new tools, a "Terminal Header" at the top of each page and the "Dock" which is a floating tool bar. Both can give "on demand quotes, news and customized data and charting," A new advertising element has also been introduced, the "Kiosk," which offers "a blend of content and advertising delivered dynamically in a rotator format." There is also increased coverage on emerging markets and key European, Asian and Latin American markets.

In what the Financial Times describes as "a first step towards charging for its content on smartphones", Thomson Reuters has launched overhauled its mobile applications. The new apps contain video and market data, as well as headlines. Whilst remaining free for the moment, Alisa Bowen, head of consumer publishing at the company added "It would be a logical conclusion that there would be a paid element in time... The ability to launch premium services is our ultimate goal."

Similarly, the Wall Street Journal's iPhone and Blackberry applications remain free - despite content being charged for on the publication's website. However, Rupert Murdoch recently revealed that users of the paper's iPhone application would soon be required to "pay handsomely". Journal editor Robert Thomson also revealed that it will launch "a sophisticated micropayments service" for the main website this autumn.

Following the Evening Standard's controversial 'Sorry' ad campaign, which came hot on the heels of its Russian takeover, new editor Geordie Greig has spoken out - and so has former editor Veronica Wadley. The publication has just revealed the second part of its publicity blitz with a 'We Promise' campaign, assuring readers that in future it will celebrate London, listen to its readers, be fair, be politically independent and be surprising.

Since Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev bought the publication and recruited former Tatler editor Greig, the Standard has decided to take a more positive editorial line and launched a somewhat controversial 'Sorry' ad campaign apologising for its previous mistakes - for losing touch, negative reporting, taking readers for granted and being too predictable.

Canwest Global Communications Corp announced a plan to stop publishing the National Post's Monday edition for nine weeks during the summer months. The cost-cutting move should start in June with no layoffs or content changes, according to spokesman John Douglas.

The Post already had to reduce some of its presence in Western Canada, while Canwest faced 560 job cuts and a C$4 billion debt. The company is also planning to continue cutting costs by selling some of their stations and its stake in Sports Media.

Despite the apparent difficulties Canwest faces, David Akin, of Canwest News Service published an article in The Windsor Star that said Canadian papers were better off than American papers. Akin makes the point that throughout the recession, Canadian businesses always seemed to be doing slightly better than the US. For example, about 73 percent of adult Canadians read the printed version of a daily newspaper at least once a week, while American readership lags a little more.

Reuters is using new technologies to boost business and reader engagement by pairing up with Apture, a company that aims to reinvent web pages into multimedia experiences. The company announced today an agreement with Reuters.com.

The site will offer easier viewing experiences for readers, allowing Reuters to incorporate videos, maps, images, sideshows, documents and audio into their stories. The changes will help readers explore content without having to leave the page they're in. Reuters Fan Fare blog displays some examples of the changes.

Apture also works with BBC News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and San Francisco Chronicle. At the end oast year, Apture partnered with WashingtonPost.com to help them create pop up links that would not make readers jump out of their view page.

Source: Apture Press Release

Google News has jumped on the Twitter bandwagon and will now be posting links to "top stories" from over 25,000 news sources on the @googlenews Twitter account, according to the Google News Blog. Clicking on a headline takes users directly to the site which published that story.

Google News' 'tweets' also cite the source of the link. So far, the updates seem to be appearing about once an hour and it is unclear how the "top stories" are selected, or which sources they come from. Sources are the most major news outlets such as the BBC, the Guardian, CNN, Reuters and the New York Times. Most if not all of the news sources used are likely to have their own Twitter accounts already and users can easily find and follow them, but Google must feel that there is some value to adding its aggregation expertise to the service.  

As conflict between Google and publishers continues, spurred by Google's decision to place ads alongside Google News search results and publishers' moves to fight against misappropriation of their copyrighted content, Google is continuing to improve its news search service, now offering a Timeline as well as the standard search function. The addition of a Twitter account is unlikely to generate copyright controversy as the 'tweets' only include headlines and a link, but how the system chooses its stories may come under scrutiny if publications feel that their articles are being ignored in favour of those of competitors.

Source: Google News Blog

In the last few days, the top trending topic on Twitter has been "Swine Flu" (with "Mexico" in third). Thousands of blog posts mentioned the outbreak and Google reported that "Swine Flu Ohio, " "CDC" and "Swine Flu Symptoms" were in the top 100 searches. The news has spread faster than the epidemic itself, breeding a paranoia more severe and contagious than the actual disease.

British papers exemplify how the news creates a "pandemic" by publishing the swine flu as more severe than it really may be. Several tabloids purposefully generate fear in the public with phrases like "Prepared for the Apocalypse" in the Independent or, The Express with, "around a third of all humans could easily die off" as it compares swine flu to the black plague, SARS and the avian virus.

The Fair Syndication Consortium, a partnership between Silicon Valley start-up Attributor and a group of publishers, held its first meeting since the project was announced on Thursday. The group aims to target online advertising networks and request a cut of the money made of ads alongside reproduced newspaper content, with Attributor acting as a middleman. Editor & Publisher associate editor Jennifer Saba asks 'now what?' and establishes what exactly the public knows about it so far. The answer, it seems, is not very much.

Attributor found that for every one visitor who reads content on the original site, five find it in full elsewhere: figures that should be enough to persuade publishers that this issue should be addressed. "We don't presume the top publishers are going to move entirely to this model," Pitkow said. "We are just here to unlock inventory for these rights holders." If ad networks do not cooperate, Pitkow said that "the copyright holders can request those ads be removed," as once a copyright owner alerts a source of illegal use, any "safe harbour" disappears.