April 2008 Archives

The Online Journalism Blog (OJB) has created the European News Interactivity Index, adapting Joanna Geary's analysis of interactivity on UK business news websites to newspapers across Europe.

The index itself is interactive; in a feature created by Nicolas Kayser-Brill, users can compare head-to-head the interactivity ranking of different European countries (go here to see the tool). The results look like the image to the left of a comparison between BBC News and El Pais.

The European Index conserves most of Geary's original interactivity indicators, including RSS, Bookmarking, Twitter, and easy to find contact information. By morphing into a group blog, the OJB has recruited contributors from various countries across the continent. In order to expand the service, it is continuing to invite further contributions and analysis about any European paper.

Source: Online Journalism Blog through IFRA Executive News Service  

Press freedom appears to be shrinking in eastern Europe, as evidenced by a series of recent laws constraining free speech rights.  

The latest repressive legislation comes out of Slovakia, where a new media law, set to come into practice on June 1, will give anyone named in an article "sweeping rights to an equally prominent rebuttal," reports the Economist.  Media watchdogs have condemned the law and Slovakian newspapers are protesting by publishing issues with blank, black-framed front pages.

Right-of-reply rules are common in some European nations, but Slovakia's is the most punitive. While the Slovakian government insists the law will make the media more responsible, the concern is the potential exploitation of the law by Slovakia's Prime Minister, Robert Fico, who has a tumultuous relationship with the media.  

Bulgaria and Romania as well have laws on the books that criminalize defamation of public figures. In 2007, 100 cases went to court in Bulgaria for attacks against "honor and dignity," up from 60 the year before. And as of last year, Romania's constitutional court restored legislation making "insult" illegal, although press freedom is also curtailed by the ownership of mainstream media by politically active tycoons.   

Moreover, the annual report of Freedom House, a New York-based lobby group, shows the sharpest decline in media freedom in the world in eastern Europe, behind Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Granted the situation is not as bad as in Russia, where Vladimir Putin shut down a paper after it ran a scandalous story on his love life. It is though a worrisome trend in a region has prided itself on its newfound freedom.

Source: Economist   

When the Telegraph recently posted a sizable online traffic surge for the month of March, the paper attributed the success to better new stories and successful multimedia strategy.

That may be part of the explanation, but the Telegraph figures are also an example of the imprecise nature of online traffic measurement. According to MediaGuardian, audit certificates published by the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic (ABCe) reveal that the site switched its internal measurement tool between February and March this year, replacing HBX SiteCatalyst with WebTrends 7.

A source said that the site had been under-reporting its figures for sometime because certain page views were not being recorded. Richard Foan, the ABCe managing director, did not directly comment on the Telegraph's audit but confirmed that a publisher could be under-reporting its traffic if it had not tagged all the pages on its site.

Edward Roussel, the digital editor for the Telegraph Media Group, maintained however that the different measurement system had little effect on traffic figures because "both systems use the same methodology."

"The old measurement system missed some users, as did the new system. But the new system still showed rapid growth in user numbers," Roussel said. "There was leakage on both systems because we weren't able to tag everything with WebTrends during March."

Source: MediaGuardian

Northcliffe-owned daily newspapers in the East Midlands are pooling together resources to publish a new regional business website, thisisbusiness-eastmidlands.co.uk.

Participating papers The Evening Telegraph in Derby, Leicester Mercury, Lincolnshire Echo, Nottingham Evening Post and The Sentinel in Stoke will all provide business stories to the site in an effort to give readers a complete picture of the business events across the region.
 
The main focus is local, allowing users to search stories by region and providing access to a special commercial property section. The site, however, plans to balance out frequent updates on East Midland business news with a dose of national and international news, which is in line with the recent caution by a Washington Post business columnist that too much local news can be unsophisticated.

Source: HoldtheFrontPage

Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post business columnist Steve Pearlstein has a word of caution for newspapers that are planning to jump on the hyperlocal bandwagon: "Too much local news is not sophisticated."

Speaking at the Society of American Business Editors and Writers annual conference, Pearlstein maintained that while local news was important, it can't come at the expense of a business section.

"Every newspaper should have a business section. If your business page is not as good as USA Today's business page, there ought to be a good reason for that."

Pearlstein questioned why editors would choose to run copy written by a "young journalist writing about a local news story" in lieu of a syndicated business column from a well-respected source.
 
"You may feel good as an editor because you're localizing a story... and you have done the best with the resources you have, but it is a mistake to confuse what you can do with the resources you have with what your readers want and need," Pearlstein said. "And what they want and need is a single source every day, basic comprehensive file of news and analysis from a credible source in convenient form."

He also offered up an assessment of the newspaper industry and more specifically the business news field, contending that "there are too many newspapers." In Pearlstein's view, a reduction in the number of newspapers will lead to improvements in business journalism because, in a hyper-competitive journalism market, business sections are the first to go in the name of cost-cutting.
 
"Things will probably get worse [for newspapers] before they get better, but they will get better," Pearlstein said. And they will get better because people will pay for news. Not everyone. We won't have as many customers as before, I suppose. But we will have customers, and they will pay more."

Sources: Poynter Romenesko,  Talking Biz News

A FAITHful voice blog details "The 11 Layers of Citizen Journalism, a step-by-step approach in dealing with the changing landscape of journalism by integrating the professional with the amateur."

1) Opening up to public comment: This gives the newspaper an interactivity and enhances the news story with things the reporter may have missed or with additional sources. 

2) "Citizens add-on approach:" Citizens can add personal experiences or information to a story. These can be made into a side bar.

3) Open source reporting: Citizens can be part of the reporting process by researching, interviewing, reporting, and writing.

4) "Citizen Bloghouse:" Invite "outstanding and prominent bloggers to blog for your news website." Then your news site will not only have quality blogs, but your online traffic will  probably increase. 

5) "Newsroom citizens transparency blog:" An online ombudsmen who will respond faster to you.

6) "The stand-alone citizen-journalism site - Edited Version:" For more localized and specific news, let citizens blog with minimal editing.

7) "The stand-alone citizen-journalism site - Unedited version:" Citizens have complete freedom to blog and moderate themselves

8) "Add a print edition:"  Publish the best stories and photos in different sections, like a newspaper. This may motivate the bloggers to work harder.

9) "The hybrid:" Both professionals and citizen journalists work together on news website content.

10) "Integrating citizen and pro journalism under one roof:" Both professionals and citizen journalists "work alongside each other to complement the content of the paper."

11) "Wiki-journalism": Horizontal structure where everyone is an editor and journalist.

A FAITHful voice concedes that these layers are truly ideal and questions if they will work in reality. A citizen journalist site Scribblesheet had shut down earlier this month because of financial troubles.

Source: A FAITHful voice

Next Monday, 24-page Indonesian newspaper Koran Jakarta will be available at newsstands with a target of selling 80,000 copies.

The paper is published by PT Berita Nusantara and will have a special economics section.

"We're not head to head with any other newspapers because ours is unique. It is a morning newspaper with more news on the economy," said chief editor Marthen Selamet Susanto.

According to Selamet, 40% of the paper will focus on business.

"We have a concept and we offered it to businessmen. There are at least 10 businessmen providing us with capital, but they don't determine our editorial," he said. Instead, Selamet says the paper belongs to its reporters.

The newspaper's readership would be people "with salaries above Rp 1 million with at least a high school education," according to Selamet.

The newspaper will be available in Greater Jakarta, South Sumatra's Palembang, and West Java's Bandung.

Source: JakartaPost.com through IFRA Executive News Service

Last week, Nebraskan newspaper the Grand Island Independent used live blogging tool CoverItLive after the relaunch of its site for a live Q&A session between readers and web staff. It remained available for an additional two days because of its popularity.

The feature was advertised in the print edition of the newspaper and as a link on the site's homepage. It garnered a lot of reader feedback, including reports of glitches in the new site, which were quickly fixed, according to Stephanie Romanski, web editor of the Independent.

"The whole errors issue surprised me and was an unexpected bonus to holding the Q&A. I mostly expected either 'Love it/Hate it responses or a lot of 'I can't find...' questions. I think we impressed some readers by being able to respond to their issues so quickly," said Romanski.

The Independent may be experimenting with other tools for sports and political coverage and for setting up a regular weekly chat with staff.

"I believe that newspapers that embrace the web and the awesome and often free tools available out there will be the newspapers that make it through the current slump the industry is experiencing and will thrive in the future," Romanski remarked.

Source: Journalism.co.uk through IFRA Executive News Service

The Norwegian press is experimenting with innovative Google news mash-ups and online databases, an effort that is spearheaded by, among others, Epsen Anderson, who is charged with modernizing NRK 's (Norway's public broadcaster) flagship program Brennpunkt,  the Norwegian equivalent of Panorama.

Andersen, who regularly designs new technology methods for "doing journalism", feels that "computer programming is also journalism." He is a strong advocate for making programming know-how a necessary and commonplace skill in a newsroom. 

His latest project for NRK is Politikerdatabasen (see image), a database that currently contains information on all members of parliament in Norway and will expand to include information on the country's 11,000 local politicians in May, reports Journalism.co.uk's Kristine Lowe.
 
"I think it is absolutely key to bring programmers into the newsrooms so they can get involved in journalistic projects at an early stage," Andersen said. "Programmers can create solutions to process large quantities of information, e.g. from public sources, and present it in an engaging and orderly manner."

Before working with NRK, Andersen created several high-profile online databases and mash-ups for local newspaper Budstikka, discovering along the way that maps which touched on issues close to readers found the most success. Examples included a map of parking fines showing the parking lots with the highest fines, and one detailing which parts of the region were troubled by snails killing off plants, a concern for gardeners.

Andersen is not the only Norwegian on the cutting edge of multimedia journalism; two journalists at VG were recently honored for a complex multimedia project focused on domestic homicide.

Source: Journalism.co.uk

During the week, Florida's St. Petersburg Times will drop its stand alone business section but will combine its Sunday business section with the paper's metro section.

The paper will have a full page for business news, but will cut its stock listings and use three-quarters of a page for market data, modeled after the Associated Press. The bottom of the market data page will be used for jumps and briefs.

The St. Petersburg Times will also cut its Floridian features section during the week and combine it with the metro section.

The changes is expected to occur with the May 19 paper.

Source: Talking Biz News through LA Times News Alert

Twitter, which Jeff Jarvis calls the "next evolutionary step in blogging," has been put to good use for a variety of different types of reporting. Add sports coverage to the list, thanks to an initiative from local UK newspaper The Evening Leader.

The Leader used Twitter to provide live coverage of Wrexham FC's April 26 home match against Accrington Stanley, reports Journalism.co.uk. The tweets, texted every few minutes by deputy editor Martin Wright, appeared both on a widget on the Leader website and on the paper's Wrexham Twitter account.

"I go to as many Wrexham home games as I can, but inevitably I end up missing some," Wright said. "When I'm at work this can be a bit of a problem because I want to know the score and what's happening all the time - not just when the final whistle goes."

Source: Journalism.co.uk through IFRA Executive News Service

BBC's first phase of integrating their news operation across media was completed on Monday with a common newsrooms in which journalists from the corporation's television news service started to work with their colleagues from radio and television news bulletins.

This move is due to a  "smaller than expected lisence fee settlement," according to Press Gazette journalist Martin Stabe, which made BBC want to "reduce duplication of its newsgathering operations."

"The number of roles has been reduced significantly because we've had to make these big savings," said BBC head of newsroom Peter Horrocks. "We've introduced some multimedia roles, but as people develop multimedia skills and once we've got all the platforms sitting alongside each other they can work together most effectively."

There is a a centralized "Media Wire" desk, which monitors audio and video feeds, then transfers stories to the most appropriate outlets, and there is also a centralized planning desk that controls assignments. There will also be a senior editor who will be the "multimedia editor," who will coordinate the different media and mediate conflicts. Each desk will also have a "web conversion producer," who will be responsible for extending stories that were originally produced for online platforms.

The next steps include integrating journalists from the BBC's international news channel, BBC World News, and those responsible for the text-based sections of the BBC News website.

In June, BBC Online journalists will join the converged newsroom, then the online news operation will split into two sections: one will cover world news and move to the second floor of the newsroom with the BBC World News television team, and the other will be the UK operation on the first floor, producing domestic radio and television bulletins.

Most journalists will "continue to work primarily in the media that they have traditionally worked," says Horrocks, "though over time, producers will increasingly work across television, radio and online as staff are put through a training program."

Source: Press Gazette through IFRA Executive News Service