October 2007 Archives

On Nov.1 (holiday here in France) and Nov. 2, the Editors Weblog will be away. We’ll be back on Monday Nov. 5 with plenty more news. You can contact staff by email.

2 new citizen journalism ventures are adding a new dimension to the US presidential campaign coverage, providing voices in addition to the mainstream media coverage of campaigns and at times giving a new perspective.

Khoi Vinh, design director of nytimes.com, wrote a posting about how print designers can adapt to web design, with both some practical tips and general lessons.

According to an industry group study the number of visitors to U.S. newspaper websites is on the rise. The study reported that during the third quarter the number of visitors increased by 3.7 percent.

In complement to the previous piece about the Press Association’s training programs, here are a few very practical videojournalism lessons gathered live from the video storytelling class taught by David Dunkley.

Rupert Murdoch opened the Eurocentral printing plant in Scotland, and claimed it to be the world’s largest and fastest plant – with full color capability.

A state court has ruled in favor of a request by The Dallas Morning News to obtain emails sent by city officials, including from their personal accounts or hand-held devices. This is the first case of the Texas Public Information Act being extended to (personal) emails.

Trinity Mirror has hired Rick Gleave, from News Corp’s Australian branch, to be its group head of interactive. More significantly, this move marks the publisher’s strengthened focus on providing mobile content.

Just a thought about content, as MarketWatch’s David Callaway vents against the trite notion of ‘content is king’. News can’t be contained, especially online, he says.

Bloggers and journalists have partnered to launch a new citizen journalism venture for the Scandinavian region, iNorden.org.

The Herald just launched a print redesign, which puts much focus on cross-promoting the print and online edition and increasing interaction with readers.

The British Press Complaints Commission (PCC) upheld a complaint against a paper that had published this headline: “Man attacked girlfriend’s lesbian lover.”

The French National Syndicate of Journalists (SNJ) issued a concerned statement after the freesheet Matin Plus featured on its front page a story about the visit of Cameroon’s president, Paul Biya. Why?

A few tidbits from our partner site, SFN Blog: the Philadelphia Inquirer is to launch its electronic edition in January, Tribune and Gannett are to expand their Metromix brand of entertainment websites, and the Chicago Tribune’s freesheet, RedEye, is to expand circulation to 200,000 copies for its fifth anniversary.

As newsrooms and readers change, so do the staff’s roles within the newsroom. Nowadays, the “data delivery editor” is responsible for constructing and organizing databases, which become increasingly relevant to local users.

(Sunday) newspapers are faring better than their circulation figures alone would suggest, as revealed by the latest National Readership Survey and its findings on time spent reading the paper.

NBC Universal and News Corp have launched their joint video venture, Hulu.com. The site features programming from both NBC and Fox networks, including hits such as ‘24’ or ‘The Simpsons’.

Should newspapers train journalists in-house or outsource the job? Do they have to send their journalists away for weeks at a time? Is online training the future? Tony Johnston, Head of Training for UK’s national press agency, the Press Association (PA), tells the Weblog of some of the organization’s training programs for papers, with comments from Daily Telegraph deputy editor, Rhidian Wynn-Davies. And as a bonus, you also get some practical tips gathered live from one of the PA’s videojournalism training courses, taught by David Dunkley.

More newspapers are trying to compensate declining ad revenues by creating ad-sponsored editorial sections. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) launched a new section about emerging technologies sponsored by Acura’s Innovation for Life campaign.