Results matching “follows guardian in publish”

The Guardian has just moved from partial to full-text RSS feeds.  According to the Google Blog, they are they first major newspaper in the world to do so.  Publishing 2.0 believes that the Guardian is the "first media company to actually take RSS seriously" by making it something people want to use.

The feeds will include the full content from each article with embedded related links.  However, there will be no images or cartoons.  Advertising will be placed within each full-content feed.  

Other mainstream media companies publish their RSS feeds as a brief title or caption from the article, which forces readers to go to the site to read the rest.

Sources: Guardian, Publishing 2.0, Google Blog

Telegraph.co.uk now has an integrated finance channel rather than the previous separate business and personal finance sections.

The newspaper is also moving sections of its website onto Escenic, its new in-house digital publishing and content management system. This new publishing platform enables the newspaper to publish to the web and mobile services simultaneously.

In the latest stage of the newspaper's web development programme, the new finance site will allow telegraph.co.uk readers to create and manage their own portfolios.

A new finance blog called Economic Pulse will be introduced, written by Edmund Conway, and carry regular analysis from breakingviews.com, following the deal announced between the two companies last week.

This latest development follows a process that has been running for months at the news provider, which began with a revamp of the homepage back in July.

TMG has also developed a financial iPhone application, a widget for social media sites to display financial news from its website and TV services, and an online tool called Questor to offer share tips.

Source: Guardian.co.uk

Even as technology becomes more and more available in India, the oldest handwritten Urdu-language newspaper Musalman preserves its "old-school look" and continues to employ an Islamic calligraphy style, reports WSJ.com. The paper's four-page issues include coverage of local and international news, editorials and a weekly Urdu poetry feature.  

Jack Schofield, of the Guardian, questions Google's choice to ignore its predecessors when creating Knol.

"While Knol is based on the same idea," writes Schofield, "inviting users to create pages on topics they know about - HubPages looks better, reads better, and is better organized."

While Knol debuted just this December, HubPages has already passed its second anniversary and Squidoo is even older.

The major difference between Knol and Wikipedia, the site it is so oft compared to, is that Knol encourages competition, not collaboration. Knol, which identifies authors, who take full responsibility for their pages, also offers these authors the chance to make money. "A thousand people can all create pages about the same topic and hope the best one wins," says Schofield.

Schofield's major complaints:

-Knol is painfully academic and "dull;" HubPages invites users to "Publish your passion"

-Hubs are easier to browse than Knols and separate pages with tags like Love, Finance, Business and Health. You can also search by author, vote for hubs you like, comment, become a fan of authors, and request hubs you can't find.

The question remains with HubPages fate, since, as Schofield points out, "it also makes more than 90% of its revenue from Google Adsense advertising, and Google features HubPages as a case study. For a small start-up, this is success. Can that success continue now that Google has invaded its turf?"

Source: Guardian.co.uk

The long-standing journalism magazine, Press Gazette, will no longer publish weekly. The 43 year-old magazine is going monthly from 28 August.

Press Gazette and Guardian.co.uk report that Wilmington Group, Press Gazette's owner, will be formally announcing the change later in the day.

Breaking news will appear on the website and the new magazine will contain interviews and features.

The option of going exclusively online has been rejected for the moment. Wilmington Group is keen to ensure the future of the British Press Awards, the main money spinner for the title, by maintaining a year round presence in print and online.

Management have entered a consultation period with Press Gazette staff.

Source: Press Gazette and Guardian.co.uk

Although the concept of e-readers isn't new, Mayo Nissen's roll-up version that uses flexible e-ink technology for the display is taking things further. To be unraveled around 2015, the electronic paper is predicted to offer a helping hand to national newspapers like The Guardian, amidst their diminishing readership.

The e-reader will allow you to scroll through the day's news and as the screen is further unfolded, detail on the headline stories will pop up. Nissen's version claims to offer more control over what news one reads, allowing the user to choose what news to look at, reported The Design Blog.

Publishers face the challenge of immediacy in reporting news stories, according to Electric Pig. However, e-readers may help bridge the gap and allow journalists to publish stories right after they happen.

Source: The Design Blog, Electric Pig

See also:
New folding screen e-reader, Readius, to be released
Are we headed for all-electronic papers?
A paperlss world?

The Financial Times (FT) website experienced a service disruption problem yesterday after equipment was stolen from the Watford technical contractor. FT was unable to update the site for hours and switched to using the company's New York servers, but the UK office could still not publish material.

The Guardian wrote that "the problem has slowed the speed of the site and impaired the search function and new subscriber tools." Meanwhile, the Alphaville blog remained running, publishing comments and news stories.

"We are in the process of investigating the incident and have deployed specialist engineers to work on restoring full services to affected customers as quickly as possible," said FT.

Source: The Guardian

Staff at leading German newspaper Berliner Zeitung have placed an advertisement in a rival publication seeking a new owner. Berliner Zeitung is owned by Mecom, a leading European newspaper and content company.

The advertisement appears to be a reaction to the announcement last week that a quarter (130) of the editorial staff at Berliner Zeitung will be made redundant.

In a recent interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel the Chief Executive of Mecom, David Montgomery, played down the problems that his company is having in Berlin.

Montgomery said that the issues have been caused by, "isolated rabble rousers who are trying to stop time". He went on to say that times have changed for newspapers.

Under the title, "Publish Wanted", the advertisement stated the journalists were looking for a "serious buyer who doesn't just produce a paper to make money".

The Berliner Zeitung's editor-in-chef Josef Depenbrock has been a controversial figure at the newspaper ever since Montgomery gave him the dual role of managing editor and editor-in-chief.

The paper's editorial department failed in an attempt to bring proceedings against Mecom and Josef Depenbrock on Wednesday. They argued that his dual role at the paper went against the paper's statutes. The case was thrown out of court.

Sources reported to MediaGuardian.co.uk that a strike by Berliner Zeitung is likely later in the month.

Mecom announced last week that it will cut up to 465 jobs at its Dutch regional business Wegener.

Source: Guardian

See also:

Netherlands: editors-in-chief complain to Mecom, concerned over editorial quality

Germany: Montgomery continues to incite anger at Berliner Zeitung

Part 1 discussed how the planned changes at The New York Times and International Herald Tribune will help the NYT's continuous news offerings, and how these changes could affect the organization and interaction between both newsrooms.

Part 2 examines how The New York Times intends to:
- Further compete against the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal internationally, and ways in which newspapers can reinforce their international reach.
- Use the strength of its online brand while safeguarding the IHT's popular print brand name.

The Weblog spoke to Jim Roberts, Digital Editor at The New York Times, and Martin Gottlieb, who was appointed to the newly created position of Editor, Global Edition.

How newspapers can become international brands, the NYT joins the race

Until now, the Times hasn't specifically catered to overseas advertisers and readers.

"We need to be agile," said IHT publisher Stephen Dunbar-Johnson, "to compete much more aggressively, nose to nose, with The Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and anybody else who is competing for our readers and advertisers."

No doubt that the Times actually borrowed the continuous news outpost idea from the aforementioned competitors, which have been relying on their foreign bureaus to provide round the clock coverage.

The staff memo reaffirmed the NYT's "ambitious plans to expand in the region (Asia), particularly in India." In June, the IHT announced a partnership with the India-based Deccan Chronicle to print the Tribune's world business section in the Financial Chronicle.

With the rise of digital publishing, many news organizations are seeking to grow a previously inaccessible international readership by:

- launching a print edition abroad: several papers have rolled out editions away from home this past year, such as the FT's recently launched Middle East edition in Abu Dhabi, WSJ's partnership with business paper Mint in India, the Daily Mail's partnership with India Today to publish the Mail Today, or The Times of London's Polish edition.

- investing in an online international section: In Germany, referential weekly Der Spiegel launched an English-language International edition on its website in 2004. Five fulltime staffers are dedicated to translating Der Spiegel's content and rewriting it with an international perspective, as well as doing their own international-minded original reporting (the full case study is featured in Trends in Newsrooms 2008). The Guardian adopted a different approach, by launching a separate, foreign-based, US website, Guardian America. The Guardian is reportedly considering similar ventures in other regions.

- simply reinforcing their focus on international news in their regular coverage: the Daily Telegraph's website in the UK, which was neck to neck with the Guardian in terms of traffic in April, claims nearly two thirds of its visitors are from overseas. A well-indexed website helps to brings in a significant number of 'light' international users through search engines.

Merging "co-branded" websites but not print: a branding issue

The NYT's approach is a combination of the first two strategies: the print IHT now serves as The Times' 'global edition' (see picture), while maintaining its trademark brand name. With the proposed online merger, the NYT could also follow the second route, by hosting an international edition online, without having to extensively change its workflows (see Part 1).

The rationale to merge the websites is clearly explained in the memo: according to WebTrends, NYT's website boasts a strong international audience and 58 million global users, compared to iht.com's seven million.

"The global landscape for online news is highly competitive, making scale, speed and resources essential to success. Therefore we have determined that the best future online for the IHT and the NYT globally is through a joint international presence," said the memo.

However, the memo doesn't explicitly say why this won't be the case in print:

"The IHT should become the international print edition of the NYT, whether it is formally branded that way or not."

The main issue at stake is one of branding. "In print, there have been at least a couple of studies that show that among Tribune newspaper readers there is a great identification with the brand, that the brand means something to readers," said Gottlieb.

"More than the name, what accompanies the name, an international perspective, a sense of calling the best stories from The Times and augmenting them with unique reporting," was a combination that many readers liked.

As news organizations seek to grow their international reach, this consideration probably holds true for many that have established a reputable brand name on a local or national scale. However strong the brand name, its association with a particular place or country can potentially play against that news outlet on the international scene.

Source: New York Times - Media Bistro - Jim Roberts, Digital Editor The New York Times - Martin Gottlieb, Editor, Global Edition

The National, a "western" paper recently launched in the United Arab Emirates, has overcome cultural difficulties to achieve success, the Guardian's Roy Greenslade reports.

Despite the inherent challenges of being a western publication in the Middle East, the National is distributing over 65,000 copies daily.

"We have made waves," a senior executive said.

The project of former Daily Telegraph editor Martin Newland, the National was founded approximately two-and-a-half months ago, and was viewed by many experts as a risk. The analytical reporting that marks "western" papers is markedly different from the reporting of UAE papers, which are subjected to government censorship and often publish press releases verbatim.

The National has encountered some resistance as a result of its reporting. The paper has published articles on issues normally left untouched by the UAE press. Examples include pieces on inflation, traffic problems, and the lack of low-cost housing. Though mild by Western standards, the paper's critical articles have bristled the business community..

"In truth, this country and the commercial operatives here have never been audited by the press," said one foreign journalist.

While the National has made leaps of progress, the paper is managing its expectations. Their mission, after all, is unprecedented.

"You have to see this more as a political and social operation than a commercial one," the executive said.

Related:

More National news: The paper recently launched "UAE's first weekly, Arabic-language financial newspaper", SFN Blog reports.

Source: The Guardian

There is ongoing debate about the credibility of celebrity news and their utility, especially as some major news organizations recently upped their celebrity coverage (think of Associated Press and Britney Spears). At the Future of Journalism conference organized by the Guardian was brought forth the idea that "celebrity is a cultural currency that fulfils a role."

Understanding the way why celebrity news are of importance seems to be hard for some, especially when teamed with paparazzi photos and gossip. Meanwhile, others, like Popbitch Camilla Wright creator , accept it to be a "defining part of our culture that won't go away."

Mo Tkacik, feature editor of the "girly" Jezebel blog, showed disbelief over the way that photos of celebrities like Britney could be printed with ludicrous titles.

Like with 'hard' news, newspapers and web sites are facing the question of whether they should publish a celebrity article or not, keeping in mind that publishing it might get them more readers.

"The rule is we follow not who they are but what they have done. They shouldn't just appear because they are famous, but if they say something funny or interesting. It's a qualitative judgment," said Hugh Muir, the Guardian's diary writer.

Muir also added that she wished that people who read the Guardian would be "interested in the whole spectrum of life-not just politicians."

According to Wright, people are still interested in celebrity news but the format in which they are presented changes.

James Robinson, editor of Observer, mentioned Daily Mail's strategy of publishing articles online that are different from the print version. That site has brought a significant number of traffic through its celebrity photo gallery. Wright said some sites have "complex routes" to these galleries, which may discourage viewers.

Marina Hyde, the Guardian's columnist, thinks that "journalists have become lazy" and that the best stories are those that require "getting out and digging" and not solely going to events planned by publicists.

Readers are worried that their newspaper will feature more show business articles than issues like Darfur or China. The Guardian writes that even if "academics" read the paper, they "might be just as guilty of a sneaky five minutes" about the latest Brangelina update.

As Chicago Tribune's Tim McNulty recently said, "For features, I want reviews and criticism and real substance but also utility." Like Tkacik, most editors however, seem to share the view that "there's no utility" to celebrities.

In a world where newspapers are getting shorter, the question of celebrity news is conflict-ridden.

Source: The Guardian

Guardian News and Media is merging operations of its online and print outlets, The Guardian, Guardian.co.uk, and The Observer. The move replaces the traditional "funnel" structure of the newsroom - all stories going through one editor - with a new layout, dubbed "pods in a matrix" by Guardian Editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger.

"The jargon is now, I'm told, we're a 'matrix' organisation. That means you will have to get used to the fact that you are working for two people [a section head and a head of news, sport and business]," Rusbridger says.

The new system will preserve some of the traditional positions in a newspaper, such as an overarching editor, but not all reporters will have to pass their stories through the funnel. Journalists working in "pods," or groups covering a common subject, will publish directly online.

"I've always thought that news editor on a newspaper is an impossible job - all your correspondents are trying to get the attention of this person. And in the end all their copy has to come through this tiny, narrow funnel.

"That's what I mean about releasing the creativity, so these people don't go home pissed off because they didn't get their story in the paper," Rusbridger says.

The Guardian's efforts offer a glance into the future newspaper's infrastructure, a system of micromanagement designed to facilitate media convergence, connect readers with the information they seek, and make the news as timely as possible.

"Everywhere you look in the world a similar thing is happening," Rusbridger says, "It's not seven-day publishing, it's going over to something much more ambitious."

Source: Press Gazette through IFRA Executive News Service

Managing offensive journalists is easy; if the journalist pushes the envelope too far, terminate his or her employment. But since papers can't fire readers- nor would they want to - newspapers must learn how to manage the questionable user-generated content that inevitably comes with increased interactivity.

Guardian.co.uk's Sean Dodson looks primarily at the example of The Telegraph's MyTelegraph service, which gives readers the opportunity to publish their own stories under the paper's masthead. The service has won The Telegraph accolades, but the year-old service has also put the paper in the middle of the debate over how to best manage and develop UGC.

MyTelegraph, which will launch a redesigned version this summer, boasts some well-written, t