Results matching “us the los ange”

Los Angeles Times writer James Rainey questions whether blogging sites like The Huffington Post would ever have original reporting instead of being solely a news aggregator focusing on the political left with the occasional scoop or two.

The site offers content on presidential candidates and a variety of comments ranging from the banal to the provocative, but it is still newspapers and other news organizations that do "heavy excavation" and provide investigative reports on secret terrorist prisons, illegal wireapping and other controversial state activities.

TechPresident.com's Joshua Levy said that investigative or educational journalism "takes lots of time and reporting and lots of resources."

"The real question is who is going to be paying for all of this work," said Arianna Huffington, the site's founder. "Where is the advertising and how quickly does it move online and how quickly do the rates increase. That is going to be key for all of us."

Source: The Los Angeles Times

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.  

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

Twitter reported this week that it is axing its SMS service outside India, the US and Canada, causing consternation across the Twitter community. Almost immediately after this was announced, reports emerged of IT entrepreneurs taking up the challenge to look for a solution. The Editors Weblog spoke to - we think - the first organisation to launch a solution to the Twitter SMS issue: Twitsms.

Twitter is a free social networking and micro blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users' updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.

The Editors Weblog spoke to Delia Timms and Jeff Bonnes (the founders of Twitsms) after receiving their email announcing the launch of Twitsms, which was just two days after our posting on the SMS issue. (Our interview with Delia and Jeff follows below.)

Twitsms buys the SMS in bulk in advance to keep costs low. Prices start at 7 pence in the UK and 11 cents in Australia per SMS.
 
The Editors Weblog also contacted Twitter, to find out how it feels about Twitsms and other such services helping out the Twitter fans that have been affected. Twitter has previously acknowledged that SMS is a key part of its service, saying: "We love SMS. The lowest common denominator aspect of this service is a defining part of Twitter."



Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter Inc, told me: "We do not officially endorse any one service. However, we are interested in seeing what the response to these services will be."

There has been a certain amount of annoyance in aspects of the Twitter community about how Twitter have handled this issue, especially following Biz Stone's blog on the Twitter website calling for "perspective" on the issue. Svetlana Gladkova (Vice President of Business Development at Profy) does not sugar coat her views in her blog on Twitter's reaction, stating: "In my opinion, the team over at Twitter has committed quite a number of mistakes in handling this situation."

Here at the Editors Weblog, we try not to dwell on the negative and focus instead on solutions to our readers' problems; and Delia and Jeff look like they might just have one:

What inspired you to launch this service?

We use Twitter ourselves to keep in touch with friends and family both in Australia and overseas.  Jeff is American and particularly liked Twitter for staying in contact with his friends overseas.  So we understood personally how important it was for some Twitter fans to keep getting their SMS - even if they had to pay a very small fee for it.  Living in Australia we already have to pay fees for our SMS, so it is not unusual for us to pay to get our Tweets too.  We felt Twitter fans should at least have the choice to get their SMS, rather than just being cut-off by Twitter altogether.
 
How did you manage to set this up so quickly?

Experience and enthusiasm. We have built a few other successful internet businesses and have gained valuable experience over the past few years.  So we were fortunate to start out with some knowledge, skills and code. Jeff was able to apply learning from previous projects to speed up the coding for www.twitsms.co.uk. One of our other businesses does messaging and SMS already, so we were one step ahead with this. We were also able to use hardware and hosting from our other internet operations. We crowd sourced the graphic design for a fast turnaround.
 
What technology are you using?

We use Java and a web development framework called Grails. This allowed us to build  a very robust site quickly.
 
Can you explain exactly what arrangement you have established with the mobile companies?

Currently we buy SMS in bulk to keep the cost for users as low as possible.  As the site grows, we will look for ways to reduce costs even further.
 
Have you had any contact with the Twitter team about your project?

No we have not made contact yet, but will in the future. We hope that Twitter is happy that www.twitsms.co.uk and www.twitsms.com.au are keeping their fan-base connected outside of the USA, Canada and India!
 
What have been the early indicators been for Twitsms?

Early business is very strong. We knew there was a solid Twitter community and we knew they were annoyed about being shut off.  But were not sure whether they'd pay for their Tweets. However we have been happily surprised by the immediate interest from Twitter fans. They are more annoyed about Twitter shutting their service down, than having to pay a few cents to get their SMSs. Another surprising aspect for us has been the global interest.  www.twitsms.co.uk has been live for 4 days now and we've had contact from customers in the UK, Australia, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Turkey, Israel, Russia and France (of course!).
 
The use of Twitter itself has been a great springboard for www.twitsms.co.uk.  Twitter is a handy and powerful tool for communicating and getting immediate feedback from customers! It is also an efficient way to keep our customers updated as we are responding to requests and developing new features quickly.
 
What is your competition?

There is one site that has launched in competition and several still 'coming soon'. There has also been one site that has stopped development before they released. We are not worried by competition; we developed www.twitsms.co.uk because it is a service that we needed and wanted to share with the Twitter community.  Being first to market has been great. The feedback and early input from our customers is helping us ensure that www.twitsms.co.uk is the best alternative for the international Twitter community.

Sources: Twitsms, Twitter, Profy

See also:

Twitter reduces its mobile service, ends SMS updates service

 

Citigroup analysts predicted that Amazon's Kindle e-reader sales are expected to grow to 380,000 this year, reported The Register today.

In the latest issue of the Columbia Journalism Review, Stephen Franklin writes about his experience coaching bloggers and journalists in Cairo. Although Franklin acknowledges that most journalism coming out of Egypt is currently written with a conservative Islamic bent, often on the defensive, he writes "I hope the tug of competition will gradually convince them that good journalism--not journalism in service of a cause--is their best bet, both commercially and in terms of helping their society."

There's reason to think "good journalism" will win out. Wael Abbas, an Egyptian blogger interviewed by Franklin, leaned close to tell the Chicago Tribune staffer, "I want to learn how to be credible. I want people to believe me. I want to know how you journalists work. I want to report news. Facts. No ideology."

Abbas' sentiments echo the findings of a study published this May by Lawrence Pintak, of the American University in Cairo, who found that Arab journalists see themselves as "agents of political and social change."

Franklin's report, and Wael Abbas' thoughts, are particularly poignant, given the recent four-year prison term sentenced to a 22-year-old former law student, who criticized President Hosni Mubarak on his blog.

Source: Columbia Journalism Review

Google News is testing a new design; the search engine is experimenting with a visually-rich design that shows images, videos, quotes, and popular stories.

There new design also contains a "featured photo" section that utilises images from AFP, The Associated Press, and Reuters. This is the first time Google News has promoted stories just because it has the permission to show associated images. The new interface personalises all the content.



In June, Google News blog announced: "Over the course of the next few weeks, you may notice a few changes to Google News... or maybe not. You see, we'll be running some experiments on the look and feel of our site, based on an accumulation of user research and feedback, as well as the evolving state of online journalism."

Source: Cyberjournalist.net and Google

In a note to readers, Publisher Guy Gilmore announced that the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press will be saving news pages by dropping to just one news section on Mondays and Tuesdays, which will combine local, national, international news and opinion; Tuesday's addition will also include business news.

Gilmore also said the paper will drop stock listings Tuesday through Friday and replace it with financial and market reports.
 
"Overall, [editor Thom] Fladung estimates the already-skinny PiPress will publish four to six fewer pages a week. However, he argues that story counts won't drop and most pieces won't shrink," reported MinnPost.com.

"We took every story [from an actual early-week A and B section] and consolidated them," said Fladung. "We had to trim some national copy, but we didn't lose any stories."

"As markets change, newspapers change with them. Newsprint is our second-largest cost, and newsprint prices have increased more than 30 percent this year. So, we are adjusting to this new business condition," explained Gilmore.

Sources: Editor & Publisher, MinnPost.com
 

Google has announced last Wednesday the launch of its Knol feature, a website dedicated to providing user-generated articles on a range of topics, similar to Wikipedia. 

Jack Schofield, a Guardian blogger, warned that Knol may harm the media industry since writers not only have the chance to sidestep editors but also be able to earn money from the ad revenues on their pages.



A "knol" or a "unit of knowledge" will offer articles on a wide range of topics, written by experts on those subjects. Individual knols will be treated like web pages, indexed in Google's search engine.

"The ultimate goal is: we want to improve search," said Cedric Dupont, Knol product manager.

The difference between Knol and Wikipedia is that the latter has anonymous articles that are edited a multitude of times, reported the Guardian. Knols stress authorship, according to Dupont.

Knols may be edited if the author opts for the "moderated-collaboration" mode, but he or she has the right to chose what changes may be made, reported ZDNet UK.

Google partnered with the New Yorker magazine to let authors add cartoons from the publication to their knolls, ZDNet UK wrote.

Source: CyberJournalist.net, The Guardian, ZDNet UK

US newspaper editors seem to have a positive outlook on their publications' futures, in spite of dropping revenue and job cuts that some papers experienced. As the news reallocates to the Web and other technology is being integrated, newspapers may find a way to balance themselves, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Database journalism and mobile reporting both grew, a survey by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. Staff blogs, micro sites, videography and online-only editing have all become more widespread across newspapers, demonstrating newspapers adaptation to the digital age.

Newspaper readership increased, thanks to the Internet, the survey showed. However, online advertising hasn't been able to bring in as much revenue as print.

The Internet is allowing for stories to be published faster and for updates to be more frequent, which may make the newsroom environment more demanding but also more dynamic.

"The newsroom staff producing the paper is also smaller, younger, more tech-savvy, and more oriented to serving the demands of both print and the web. The staff also is under greater pressure, has less institutional memory, less knowledge of the community, of how to gather news and the history of individual beats. There are fewer editors to catch mistakes," the survey said.

Larger papers consider it vital to preserve investigative journalism, something that distinguishes them from other new media such as blogs, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Database journalism and mobile reporting both grew, the survey found. Staff blogs, micro sites, videography and online-only editing have all become more widespread across newspapers, demonstrating newspapers adaptation to the digital age.

Source: The Los Angeles Times, Yelvignton.com, Knight Digital Media Center

See Also:
US: Study shows newsroom cutbacks are hurting coverage Part 1

More than 80% of top US newspaper sites experienced increased unique visitors since year-on-year since June 2007. Nielsen published a report on the average times that users spend on newspaper sites.

Time that users spent online grew for sites like the New York Times, USA Today, Newsday and Ottoway Newspapers. Time spent online nearly doubled for the Houston Chronicle,  the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

However, a decrease was seen on the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. Furthemore, nearly half of the top 30 sites reported a decline in time spent on their sites.

Below is the list of the time that users spent in June 2008, compared to June 2007, taken from Editor & Publisher:

NYTimes.com -- 0:29:00 -- 0:27:34
USATODAY.com -- 0:14:38 -- 0:12:45
washingtonpost.com -- 0:14:45 -- 0:18:34
Wall Street Journal Online -- 0:09:41 -- 0:15:57
LA Times -- 0:08:59 -- 0:10:24

Boston.com -- 0:08:24 -- 0:18:47
Chicago Tribune -- 0:07:30 -- 0:18:38
New York Post -- 0:06:45 -- 0:07:14
Daily News Online Edition -- 0:07:01 -- 0:05:34
SFGate.com/San Francisco Chronicle -- 0:15:37 -- 0:12:18

Newsday -- 0:04:03 -- 0:03:46
Atlanta Journal-Constitution -- 0:12:48 -- 0:21:12
Chicago Sun-Times -- 0:08:11 -- 0:07:20
International Herald Tribune -- 0:04:00 -- 0:02:12
The Politico -- 0:09:40 -- 0:05:04

Village Voice Media -- 0:03:45 -- 0:04:16
DallasNews.com - The Dallas Morning News -- 0:05:18 -- 0:04:55
The Houston Chronicle -- 0:29:50 -- 0:16:00
Seattle Post-Intelligencer -- 0:11:02 -- 0:06:01
The Seattle Times -- 0:09:10 -- 0:11:33

Star Tribune -- 0:30:18 -- 0:31:00
MercuryNews.com -- 0:04:03 -- 0:07:21
Azcentral.com -- 0:23:07 -- 0:26:28
tampabay.com -- 0:06:48 -- 0:09:39
MLive.com -- 0:05:27 -- 0:14:01

The San Diego Union-Tribune -- 0:04:08 -- 0:06:58
NJ.com -- 0:10:24 -- 0:07:25
Ottaway Newspapers -- 0:05:22 -- 0:04:41
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel -- 0:30:27 -- 0:17:54
KansasCity.com -- 0:07:39 -- 0:10:51

Source: Editor & Publisher