Results matching “us two websites”

Online video platform Brightcove Inc. announces a deal with OMS, Germany's Web-based sales and marketing network for regional newspaper titles, which will permit the latter to establish an online video network for member titles. Video content would be taken from international and national media outlets as well as from which is produced by local newspapers.

Hurricane Gustav in the US may have prevented some newspapers from publishing their print edition for two days, but not from having 24-hour online coverage on their websites.

New Orleans' The Times-Picayune and Louisiana papers The Courier and the Daily Comet all continued to report on their respective sites, reports The Guardian's Roy
Greenslade.


Source: The Guardian

Over 18 million watched live events of the Olympic Games on TV websites or on Eurovision (the pan-European video portal) according to figures released by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

According to EurActiv.com this increase in viewers will make it necessary to update networks to satisfy surging demand.

The Beijing Games has seen about the largest online audience ever recorded for an Olympics at European level. The 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin attracted an audience of less than two million, an audience that was still higher than for the 2004 Games in Athens.

The EBU believe that the growing audience is due to increased Internet viewing options (120 million broadband video streams were offered by EBU members for the Beijing Olympics in comparison to 23 million for the Turin Winter Games). An EBU representative, it is also reflects a "rapidly increasing acceptance of these new distribution mechanisms, especially among younger audiences."

A typical user visited the EBU video portal for 30 minutes, watching on average five different live streams per visit.

Source: EurActiv.com

Boston.com, the online edition of The Boston Globe, intends to be more "neighborly" with its visitors by boosting its local presence through a number of social networking projects while focusing on publishing, aggregating and convening, reports NewsAndTech.com.

The site's convening tasks will be improved through the upgrading of the forum and commenting abilities for stories. Readers will be able to track other users' participation with more ease, according to NewsAndTech.com.

BoMoms, a section geared towards young mothers in the Boston area, is available with articles and forums on topics that may be of interest to them.

Boston.com's user-generated content and social networking plan also includes a deal with Good2Gether, a non-profit organization, which will link viewers with local non-profit associations.

"The whole area gives us a chance to provide a platform for cause-based marketing," said Bob Kempf, vice president of Boston.com. "We know that a lot of our major companies locally have cause-based marketing messages they want to get across."

A hyperlocal platform is planned to be launched before the end of 2008, featuring Wiki-based websites discussing a town's news and information, to be written by Globe writers and external contributors.

"Newspapers tend to take some of those separate brands and products and keep them isolated and not integrated with the core content experience," said Kempf. "We need to get that mix exactly right. I think isolating your user-generated content in one place makes for a difficult business and audience proposition."

Source: NewsAndTech.com through IFRA Executive News Service

The iPhone, a combined phone, music player and computer, is flawed because of the absence of two common website programmes, Flash and Java.

As a result the iPhone cannot access the graphics, videos and games on many websites, including the BBC's, because of the absence of Flash. Java's absence prevents users from utilising website shortcuts, typically the copying of personal details on order forms.

This flaw has implications for Editors, as the content targeted at mobile-users will thus have to be adjusted accordingly.

IPhone have been prosecuted by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), as Apple claimed that the iPhone gave access to "all parts of the internet" in its advertisements, thereby misleading customers about its power as a web browser.

Source: The Independent

Philip M. Stone confronts a problem in his column for FollowTheMedia.com, the problem of the additional digital revenue earned from news web sites not covering the analog dollars lost by print products. Stone considers a solution: he advocates running additional web sites that have nothing to do with news but that can attract the real masses and hopefully new advertisers - such as social networking sites for the local community? This is what Mecom are doing.

David Montgomery, Mecom executive chairman, is convinced that newspaper companies need to make more than just the price of a newspaper from its readers.

"We are launching new websites at a rate of one a week," Montgomery said as his company announced disappointing results for the first half of the year. "A single copy of a newspaper per customer is no longer adequate. We have got to provide media in as many different forms as possible"

Source: FollowtheMedia.com

He may be an investigative journalist by trade, but Guardian (UK) writer Nick Davies is not shy to criticize his own profession. Davies made headlines across the globe with the February 2008 publication of his book, Flat Earth News, a searing indictment of investigative reporting and modern journalism. The book, which details issues such as illegal acts committed by journalists on the job and "churnalism", or barely fact-checked information rehashed from PR professionals and spin-doctors, turned the spotlight on the news industry, launching a debate within the ranks of news professionals about the challenges facing the industry.

Davies is the author of five books, has been named Journalist of the Year, Reporter of the Year, and Feature Writer of the Year. He was also the first winner of the Martha Gellhorn award for investigative reporting in 1999.

To launch our series on the Future of Investigative Journalism and the challenges ahead, the Editors Weblog spoke with Davies to see what all the controversy was about and to ask Davies his views on the future of his profession.

EW: What skills does it take to specifically be a good investigative journalist? How is it different to being a beat reporter or is it similar?

ND: In principle, the skills of investigative reporting are exactly the same as those of any other kind of reporting - because all reporting is investigative, all reporting is an attempt to get at the truth, so the distinction is a false one.

There is a sub-set of reporting where somebody is actively obstructing the reporter's access to information, which means the job will be more difficult and so the skills will be more obvious, but the key difference is not in the skills required but in the time that is required. The beat reporter is liable to be under pressure to produce several stories every shift and, therefore, will be unlikely to have the time to dig into anything which is being deliberately concealed.

EW: How has the business changed over the past 10 years, ie, skills necessary, training, and so forth?

ND: The big change in the business over the last ten years is precisely the reduction of time available for almost all reporters to do their work. The beat reporter as much as the 'investigative' specialist suffers from this, because so many news rooms have been taken over by profit-hungry corporations who have cut staff and increased output and thereby made it extremely difficult for any of their reporters to work effectively. The required skills have not changed (apart from the minor technical skills of dealing with websites).

The training, however, is in decline along with the industry as a whole, primarily because colleges now train students to fit with the demands of time-starved newsrooms, eg, the quick re-writing of press releases, the recycling of agency copy; and also because colleges set up courses with 'media' or 'journalism' in the title because they know it will attract student numbers even though they have nobody qualified to teach the course, so you have sociologists and literary specialists teaching the skills of a profession which they do not understand.

EW:  Is your job harder or easier with the advent of multi-platform news? Do you see podcasts and video content as useful?

ND: Multi-platform news has tended to make it more difficult for all reporters - beat, specialist, 'investigative' - to do their work because filing for audio, video and print
a) consumes precious time, and
b) dilutes concentration.
And I am not at all sure that our consumers are particularly interested in or attracted to the vodcasts and podcasts that we make available to them. Occasionally, there are stories where the print version is hugely enlivened by video - for example, the passenger video of the scenes inside the Qantas flight which blew a hole in its fuselage last month. But to make the production of audio and video versions a standard requirement for all stories is bad management and highly likely to accelerate the declining standard of our product.

EW: Do you use any of the new technologies in your reporting, ie, video, and mobile? Have these new technologies made your job easier or harder?

ND: As a reporter, I'm not concerned with the way in which my words are used. What I file may go into the print edition or onto the website or be subbed down for emails or mobile messages.

The one way in which electronic technology does impact me is my access to the worldwide web. That is a wonderful research tool, and I use it all the time. It is no substitute for dealing with human sources, but it enormously increases the amount of information that is available in the public domain. Personally, therefore, it has made my working life much easier.

However, for 'beat' reporters or for any reporter who has not been able to negotiate the time to do the job, the web does also represent a threat because it means they no longer have the benefit of a deadline at the end of the day: for most of them the deadline is always here and now because even if the printed edition is not calling for copy, the website is. Time - reporters can't do their job without it.

EW: What are your thoughts on lobby groups, such as the Taxpayers' Alliance, setting up investigative reporting units themselves and sending their articles direct to newspapers?

ND: The danger with funding by lobby groups is clear - that, at best, they will select story subjects and/or angles which suit their agenda and, at worst, that they will inject outright falsehood and distortion directly into them. But not all dangers are realised. I think most reporters would say that if they could find a lobby group which was prepared to back genuine journalism without imposing its agenda, they'd take it in a heartbeat.

The underlying point is that the inherent dangers of allowing corporations to take over ownership of news media are certainly being realised with highly destructive results for truth-telling journalism - and so any alternative is worth considering.

Over the coming weeks, The Editors Weblog will be examining how investigative reporting has been affected by multi-platform publication and the 24-hour news culture.  

A UK Government counter-terrorism unit is using news websites including the BBC to channel messages and plant volunteers in internet forums in an attempt to "taint the al-Qaida brand".

The Guardian newspaper broke the story after seeing a secret Home Office paper. The Guardian reports that government unit is deliberately targeting the BBC and other media organisations as part of a global propaganda push.

The operation is being conducted by the research, information and communication unit (RICU), which was set up last year by the previous home secretary John Reid.

The Guardian quoted directly from the secret paper, entitled 'Challenging violent extremist ideology through communications'. It said: "We are pushing this material to UK media channels, eg, a BBC radio programme exposing tensions between AQ leadership and supporters. And a restricted working group will communicate niche messages through media and non-media."

The unit has been set up due to the government's belief that al-Qaida's popularity is waning worldwide and is vulnerable.

The paper also reveals that the propaganda is aimed at "overseas communicators" in embassies and consulates around the world, people that work with influencers and opinion formers.

This unit's existence and actions raises serious questions question about editorial control and freedom in light of this government attempt to manage the media.

Source: Brand Republic and The Guardian

User comments on websites has become standard fare for most media organizations. But according to the Poynter Institute's Bob Steele and Kelly McBride, who spoke at the Unity: Journalists of Colour Convention, news organizations must make it easy and inviting for users to comment, otherwise they may inhibit the discourse they purport to initiate.

Editor and Publisher looked into the matter in order to see the mechanisms that newspaper sites were employing when dealing with user-generated content and found a range of methods.

The research found:

-All of the top 10 US newspaper websites reviewed have mechanisms to monitor the content, be it screening comments or urging users to report offences
-Some sites require registration
-Some sites preview comments prior to their publication
-Some used both

According to Editor and Publisher, the most "liberal" policy about user's posts is from the Wall Street Journal, since neither registration or moderation are used and readers are pushed to self-police and report offences.

The Los Angeles Times had the "most stringent" and "severely worded" rules that referred to discrimination, false advertising and interrupted online access:

WARNING: A VIOLATION OF THESE POSTING RULES MAY BE REFERRED TO LAW ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITIES.

This is exactly the kind of unappealing, and threatening phrase that Poynter's Steel and McBride warned against, saying that they could be perceived as "hostile."

Less "threatening" in tone, the Denver Post's Neighbor forum includes the following guidelines:

Think of Neighbors as a neighborhood gathering, where conversation is lively and civil. What's important to you is probably of interest to others - if your neighbors don't know about something, they will appreciate if you share your knowledge. The community and its users will decide what the site becomes, but it is not intended to be a free-for-all.

Retaining more "civility", the New York Daily News writes:

Be nice. Think about others. People often say things on boards that they would be ashamed to say to someone face to face. Please treat other users with respect.

Source: Editor and Publisher

A judge in New Zealand has banned news websites from naming two men charged with murder. He has allowed newspapers, radio stations and TV networks to name the defendants.

Judge David Harvey he did not want the public searching for the information online when the case comes to trial. He said he was "concerned about someone Googling someone's name and being able to access it later". He also stated that he was, "concerned about the viral effect of digital publication".

University of Canterbury media law expert associate professor Ursula Cheer said she is not aware of a suppression order like this before. Dr Creer said it could reflect the judge's view that new media is taking over "old media" in terms of reader numbers.

"Suppression orders are usually intended to make sure a significant number of people don't get to see certain information and he could be saying: I think those who might be wanting to rush to the internet might be out-numbering the others now, it's just a guess. On the other hand it does look absurd in a way. Why bother to take it off the internet? Once it's out, it's out," Dr Creer said.

Source: nzherald.co.nz

Northcliffe Meida regional dailies like the Nottingham Evening Post, Lincolnshire Echo and South Wales Evening Post have now joined the 48 titles that revamped their thisis site, as the publisher gets closer to transferring all online content on its "Next Generation" platform, reports Holdthefrontpage.co.uk.

"Not only are we upgrading the network to introduce evolutionary design changes and enhanced multimedia content aimed at maximising interaction with end users, but we are also enlarging it to more than 150 sites in total," says Robert Hardie, strategy director of content for Northcliffe Media,
 
A number of the revamped sites have hyperlocal "sub-sites" which present users with news content covering a particular small town or village.

Weeklies from Kent and Sussex joined the redesign. According to Hardie, the "big winners" are users from Kent since they now have 30 sites covering their region, which is a progression for Northcliffe's businesses in Kent and the ones obtained from Trinity Mirror in 2007.

The revamped sites have permanent archives to which around 10,000 articles are added each week.

In addition, searches have been optimized so search engines can drive more traffic to Northcliffe Media websites.

"As journalists get even better at writing SEO (Search Engine Optimization)-targeted headlines and adding specific keywords, the scale of that uplift will continue to grow," Hardie points out.

Source: Hold The Front Page
 

The average time spent per person on nearly half of top 30 US newspaper websites in July 2008 has decreased year-on-year, according to Nielsen Online data.

The figure for the Houston Chronicle increased from 14 minutes to 25 minutes and from 12 minutes to 16 minutes for the San Francisco Chronicle/SFGate.com. Growth was also seen at NYTimes.com, USAToday.com and the Wall Street Journal website.

The average time spent per person at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution site dropped from 23 minutes to 10 minutes and from 18 minutes to 9 minutes at Boston.com.

From Editor and Publisher, here is a list of average time spent per person in July 2008 on newspaepr sites, ranked by the number of unique visitors per site:

Time per Person (mm:ss) July 2008 vs. July 2007

NYTimes.com -- 32:03 -- 27:21
USATODAY.com -- 16:17 -- 11:48
washingtonpost.com -- 14:31 -- 17:55
LA Times -- 07:39 -- 08:26
Wall Street Journal Online -- 18:28 -- 12:17

New York Post -- 08:13 -- 09:00
Boston.com -- 09:01 -- 18:37
SFGate.com/San Francisco Chronicle -- 16:04 -- 12:17
Daily News Online Edition -- 05:18 -- 05:04
Atlanta Journal-Constitution -- 09:55 -- 23:09

Ottaway Newspapers -- 03:34 -- 06:13
Chicago Tribune -- 08:11 -- 15:55
Newsday -- 03:29 -- 03:30
International Herald Tribune -- 02:39 -- 01:48
Chicago Sun-Times -- 07:04 -- 06:32

The Houston Chronicle -- 25:21 -- 14:20
Politico -- 06:56 -- 06:14
DallasNews.com - The Dallas Morning News -- 04:50 -- 03:29
NJ.com -- 06:09 -- 08:21
Village Voice Media -- 04:58 -- 04:45

Philly.com -- 05:27 -- 06:58
The San Diego Union-Tribune -- 05:33 -- 04:44
MercuryNews.com -- 03:49 -- 04:32
Seattle Post-Intelligencer -- 14:48 -- 13:02
Baltimore Sun -- 09:43 -- 10:20

Star Tribune -- 36:39 -- 22:36
Kentucky.com -- 02:02 -- NA
Boston Herald -- 05:35 -- 05:15
The Detroit News -- 09:35 -- 14:09
OregonLive.com -- 04:27 -- 08:46

Source: Editor and Publisher through IFRA Executive News Service

The biennial Pew Research Center has revealed in its report that Yahoo, MSN and CNN are the three most popular web news destinations.

Traditional media brands are still favoured, including the New Yorker, The Atlantic and the BBC, the Pew survey of 3,600 adults found. But only 47% watch TV news on an average day.

Users gave many of the leading mainstream media websites low credibility ratings. Only 6% said the Huffington Post was very highly credible and just 13% said the same of Google News, which aggregates news from mainstream news organisations.

The report presents a picture of a steady decline in the US newspaper industry, with the percentage of Americans who regularly read print titles falling from 58% in 1993 to 34% in 2008.

"For more than a decade, the audiences for most traditional news sources have steadily declined, as the number of people getting news online has surged," said the Pew report.

15% of Americans have a smart phone, such as an iPhone or a Blackberry. More than a third of the owners of these devices (37%) say they get news from their phones.

The report highlights the changing news audiences, describing 13% of the US public as "net newsers" - web users under 35 who read more political blogs than watch national news coverage, rely heavily on web-based news during the day and are interested in technology and technology news.

Net newsers are generally wealthy and 80% are graduates, making them a highly desirable demographic for advertisers.

The research also found that the proportion of young people in the US getting no daily news has increa