http://www.editorsweblog.org/ en Copyright 2010 Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:49:10 +0100 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification Press Association, the national news agency in the UK, will send its largest-ever Winter Olympics team to this month's games in Vancouver, Hold the Front Page reports.

PA Sport sent two reporters to the last winter Games in Turin in 2006, but will send 13 this time, including, for the first time, two video journalists.
]]> http://www.editorsweblog.org/newsrooms_and_journalism/2010/02/uk_more_press_association_reporters_to_c.php http://www.editorsweblog.org/newsrooms_and_journalism/2010/02/uk_more_press_association_reporters_to_c.php Newsrooms and Journalism news agency Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:49:10 +0100 The MediaNews Group has released details of its plans to charge for content online, announced in November last year, Bloomberg reports. The publisher will adopt a metered system similar to that planned at The New York Times.

Two newspapers, the Daily Record in York, Pennsylvania, and the Enterprise-Record in Chico, California, will start charging in May. They will give users access to up to 25 'premium' articles a month, after which they will be required to pay a fee. Print subscriptions will include access to the website. Premium content may include some columns and investigative reporting, MediaNews president Joseph Lodovic said.
]]> http://www.editorsweblog.org/newspaper/2010/02/medianews_group_to_adopt_metered_paywall.php http://www.editorsweblog.org/newspaper/2010/02/medianews_group_to_adopt_metered_paywall.php Multimedia Newspaper bankruptcy business models Guardian paid online content paywall Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:48:58 +0100 Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter has announced that it will cut between 100 and 120 jobs after sustaining multi-million euro losses, The Local reports. This amounts to almost one sixth of the newspaper's workforce.

The company employs 580 people, with half of these in the newsroom. Most of the cuts are expected to affect editorial staff, with more than a third of these set to go.

The newspaper reported losses of 97 million kronor, or around €10 million, last year. Despite this, union official Hans Arbman said that the cuts were unexpected.
]]> http://www.editorsweblog.org/newsrooms_and_journalism/2010/02/jobs_to_go_at_swedish_daily.php http://www.editorsweblog.org/newsrooms_and_journalism/2010/02/jobs_to_go_at_swedish_daily.php Newspaper Newsrooms and Journalism cutbacks job cuts Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:08:00 +0100 Political Management master's degree program at the George Washington University surveyed 371 print and web journalists from September to October of last year, with the aim of establishing to what extent social media tools are used in the research and distribution of articles.

The results of the online survey, reported on the university's newspaper website, found that 56 percent of those surveyed said that social media was important or somewhat important for reporting and producing stories, with the overwhelming majority citing the internet as the starting point for their research- despite the fact that 84 percent said news and information delivered via social media was slightly less or much less reliable than news delivered via traditional media. ]]> http://www.editorsweblog.org/multimedia/2010/02/survey_finds_majority_of_journalists_use.php http://www.editorsweblog.org/multimedia/2010/02/survey_finds_majority_of_journalists_use.php Multimedia Newspaper Facebook student newspapers Twitter Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:42:45 +0100 German publisher Axel Springer has made good on its promises and put up online paywalls for two of its German newspapers, Paid Content reports.

Two of its newspapers, the Berliner Morgenpost and the Hamburger Abendblatt, are now charging for online content. It now costs €4.95 a month for access to all content on morgenpost.de. By contrast, abendblatt.de has a mixture of free and premium content, with a premium subscription priced at €7.95 a month. It appears to charge extra for content specific to the Hamburg region while providing national news for free. Subscriptions for both sites are renewed on a monthly basis.
]]> http://www.editorsweblog.org/multimedia/2010/02/german_news_websites_put_up_paywalls.php http://www.editorsweblog.org/multimedia/2010/02/german_news_websites_put_up_paywalls.php Multimedia iphone paid online content paywall subscriptions Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:40:11 +0100 Non-profit investigative journalism outfit ProPublica is taking advantage of the Super Bowl to dig into the fundraising efforts of politicians, Poynter Online reports.

Reporter Marcus Stern planned to use the football game, held yesterday, to spot members of Congress who were attending and figure out how they obtained their tickets. But since he knew that trying to contact 535 members of Congress would be too big a task for one person, he turned the investigation into a crowdsourcing effort and asked professional journalists and the public to help collaborate.

"To some extent, this is going to be a test of the privacy or the openness of members of Congress when it comes to fundraising," Stern told Poynter Online.
]]> http://www.editorsweblog.org/newsrooms_and_journalism/2010/02/propublica_investigates_politicians_supe.php http://www.editorsweblog.org/newsrooms_and_journalism/2010/02/propublica_investigates_politicians_supe.php Newsrooms and Journalism investigative journalism newspapers and democracy non-profit Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:07:34 +0100 The Newspaper Guild of New York has accused Thompson Reuters of imposing illegal pay cuts, the New York Times reports. The news comes just two months after the agency made clear its plans to cut some 240 jobs in its legal divisions across North America.

According to a complaint filed by the union on Friday, the news service is wrongly cutting the pay of some 420 employees by an average of 10 percent through various measures, including no longer contributing to staff retirement plans, health care, out of pocket expenses, as well as increasing the number of hours staff members must work in order to receive overtime. Automatic annual pay increases will also no longer be guaranteed. ]]> http://www.editorsweblog.org/newspaper/2010/02/reuters_accused_of_imposing_illegal_pay.php http://www.editorsweblog.org/newspaper/2010/02/reuters_accused_of_imposing_illegal_pay.php Multimedia Newspaper cutbacks Reuters Twitter union Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:03:02 +0100 News applications for iPhone have met an undeniable success with French readers, but the task of monetising this through selling content, services and advertising still remains, according to Les Echos.

The director of electronic editions for Libération, Ludovic Blecher, said that the iPhone had revolutionised the consumption of news on mobile platforms. The Libération iPhone app was launched in the autumn, as was that of Le Figaro, and they have been downloaded 400,000 and 600,000 times respectively. "Around 30,000 people open it every day," Blecher said. Figures for Le Monde are even higher: it launched its app in November 2008 and has just reached 1.3 million unique downloads, attracting between 200,000 and 250,000 hits a day.
]]> http://www.editorsweblog.org/multimedia/2010/02/mobile_news_gains_ground_in_france.php http://www.editorsweblog.org/multimedia/2010/02/mobile_news_gains_ground_in_france.php Multimedia advertising digital editions iphone mobile technology paid online content revenue Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:48:19 +0100 Following a week of much speculation over whether the new London freesheet existed, and if so, if it would launch at all, the London Weekly is finally here, says Guardian.

The launch of the new freesheet was announced in November of last year, with its website opening in December. Executives at the Global Publishing Group, the company responsible for the publication, initially announced the freesheet would launch on February 1st, but later pushed back the start date to February 5th.
]]> http://www.editorsweblog.org/newspaper/2010/02/freesheet_london_weekly_is_here.php http://www.editorsweblog.org/newspaper/2010/02/freesheet_london_weekly_is_here.php Newspaper blogs business models circulation closures distribution editorial quality free newspapers launch newspaper Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:30:52 +0100 Australian public broadcaster the ABC has launched a new digital initiative called ABC Open to feature user-generated content on existing ABC local websites.

The initiative aims to develop the digital skills of local communities to tell their own stories. The reports produced through the project will be published on the broadcaster's local websites and other sites, and may also be distributed on radio, television or mobile platforms.

More than 50 editors and producers, based in local radio offices around the country, will be charged with helping communities design and develop media-rich local stories.
]]> http://www.editorsweblog.org/multimedia/2010/02/what_will_abc_open_mean_for_newspapers.php http://www.editorsweblog.org/multimedia/2010/02/what_will_abc_open_mean_for_newspapers.php Multimedia Newspaper Australia broadcast citizen journalism communities online-only user-generated content Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:07:02 +0100 The launch of Apple's iPad has garnered much optimism in the newspaper industry, driving hopes that the innovative tablet computer will be able to breathe some new life into an industry battered by an advertising downturn.

Much speculation has placed very high hopes on the capacity of the iPad and a slew of new generation e-readers to revamp the industry and bolster its business model. But, as Poynter Online's Bill Mitchell reports, the iPad will probably not be the solution to all of the newspapers' woes, but this sleek electronic device could play a substantial role in the migration of users from a cost-heavy past to a more efficient future.
]]> http://www.editorsweblog.org/multimedia/2010/02/ipad_changes_the_story_for_newspaper-sub.php http://www.editorsweblog.org/multimedia/2010/02/ipad_changes_the_story_for_newspaper-sub.php Multimedia Newspaper advertising Apple business models circulation distribution e-reader innovation journalism Kindle mobile technology multimedia newspaper NYT subscriptions tablet Wall Street Journal Washington Post Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:55:17 +0100 Facebook is rivaling Google News and Google Reader as a distributor of news content on the internet, according to recent data from Hitwise.

Hitwise online analyst Heather Hopkins reports that Google Reader accounted for .01% of visits to news and information websites in late January - roughly the same figure as a year ago. Meanwhile, Google News accounted for 1.39% of upstream visits and Facebook for 3.52%.
]]> http://www.editorsweblog.org/web_20/2010/02/facebook_emerges_as_threat_to_google_new.php http://www.editorsweblog.org/web_20/2010/02/facebook_emerges_as_threat_to_google_new.php Multimedia Web 2.0 advertising Facebook Google revenue Yahoo Fri, 05 Feb 2010 13:55:40 +0100 Local newspaper the Northampton Chronicle and Echo is today running a day-long live discussion with readers about what's going on in its newsroom.

Using the liveblogging software Cover-it-Live, which the newspaper has previously used to cover sporting events such as the away games of local teams, editorial staff plan to interact more directly with readers.
]]> http://www.editorsweblog.org/web_20/2010/02/local_newspaper_liveblogs_its_own_newsro.php http://www.editorsweblog.org/web_20/2010/02/local_newspaper_liveblogs_its_own_newsro.php Web 2.0 blogs innovation local news Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:59:25 +0100 The Guardian is developing a new feature for its website, Zeitgeist, which organizes content into trends based on the attention of users. Instead of tracking articles by the number of page views, Zeitgeist analyzes the 'social signals' or behavior of visitors to Guardian.co.uk by looking at the websites they come from, the sites they visit after, the amount of time spent on each page, and which stories they post on social networking sites.  

The data for each story is then analyzed together for a value of "Zeitgeistiness." Stories that attract more attention than normal are then posted on the Zeitgeist page in color-coded blocks according to the section in which they first appeared in the Guardian, making it easier for readers to notice trends throughout the week. Each article is only compared to others published on the same day in the same section.
]]> http://www.editorsweblog.org/multimedia/2010/02/guardians_zeitgeist_tracks_social_signal.php http://www.editorsweblog.org/multimedia/2010/02/guardians_zeitgeist_tracks_social_signal.php Multimedia Newsrooms and Journalism Guardian innovation online-only Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:31:00 +0100 Staff members at The Guardian have voted to oppose proposed changes to their pay and conditions, including cuts to sabbaticals, and instead claimed a pay rise for editorial staff.

The Guardian reported that the local branch of the National Union of Journalists for The Guardian, The Observer and website guardian.co.uk voted against proposals to outsource technical support and some work involved in the production of sponsored supplements.

Parent company Guardian News & Media (GNM) also has plans to cut rates paid to casual staff and to end journalist sabbaticals, currently set at a four week paid break for every four years of service. Union members opposed these proposals.
]]> http://www.editorsweblog.org/newsrooms_and_journalism/2010/02/guardian_staff_oppose_changes_to_pay_and.php http://www.editorsweblog.org/newsrooms_and_journalism/2010/02/guardian_staff_oppose_changes_to_pay_and.php Newspaper Newsrooms and Journalism business models cutbacks Guardian union Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:57:45 +0100