Results matching “training.php/09/free online journalism training”

The Internet was responsible for Barack Obama's election to the White House, Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post claims. Although this statement will inevitably incite dissenting views, in the context of Huffington's talk on the power of the Internet it does not seem wholly unreasonable. Huffington was speaking at the Activate Conference 09, convened to discuss the social implications of the rise of the Internet and technology.  

The conference reiterated discussions of technological and cultural trends, which are conditioning not only how news needs to be presented, but how these new forms of diffusion can directly affect politics and society.

We live in a world, not a village

The directors of international journalism courses talked about the importance of internationalisation and giving students a chance to interact with other students from around the world in a bid to understand the effects of global media in a local context.

According to Eric Scherer at AFP, the future of journalism will lie in enterprising journalists and their efforts to come up with journalistic solutions that will facilitate the communication process and continuously revise the business models in place. He also believes that a new mindset will eventually need to replace the typical journalist's attitude of today, as well as in the value of a broad general knowledge base - something that internationalisation makes possible.

Tomorrow's journalists: multimedia experts, gadget geeks, engineers and entrepreneurs?

The afternoon was kicked off with a look at the way technological progress had irreversibly helped modify the journalist's job description, as well as society's expectations of the news and its relationship with this.

Everyone agreed that the Internet had become a vital part of the journalist's toolkit and Google was specifically singled out as an effective research tool, particularly as a powerful search engine. Although, Andrés Azócar, journalism director at Chile's Diego Portales University said that as students were becoming more reliant on Google, they were also becoming less capable of retaining information for themselves.

As online news becomes more and more prevalent, with an unimaginable amount of information available at users' fingertips and Internet now ranked as US consumers' top way to access their news, how can media organisations make sure that readers find their articles?  Part of the answer is search engine optimisation, which is becoming an essential part of the daily life of a newsroom. For the printed product, newspapers must try to sell the paper as a whole; online, articles can attract traffic individually as readers come across them while searching for specific topics. It is therefore important that each story, rather than simply the site as a whole, is 'optimised' to appear higher in search results. Aside from highly technical aspects like HTML meta tagging, URL structure or site navigation, what can a newspaper do to optimise its content for search engines?

How to introduce SEO to the newsroom

One major potential stumbling block is that journalists might view SEO as a way to manipulate their stories and take away their true value. So the way it is presented to staff is extremely important. And indeed, it is crucial that newspapers do not get carried away with prioritising SEO above all else. Even Google advises creating content "primarily for your users, not search engines:" it is important to make your site easily accessible to search engines but still remain focused on your visitors' needs.

Clearly, it is important for all reporters to be aware of the ways that they can make each individual article more search-friendly. After all, journalists have always wanted their stories to be as widely read as possible, in print as well as online, and are likely to be willing to help make that happen. And often, the principles of SEO echo the principles of writing a good story: such as the idea that the first sentence should be a summary of the rest of the article, containing relevant concepts or keywords. One difference is that less generic, more specific works for SEO in terms of names or concepts. Google recommends shorter rather than longer titles.

Esa Peltonen, who has been working as a web analyst at the largest Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat for three years, said that he has worked extensively with editorial staff, for example on how to use Google, to get an idea of how users will be searching and what kind of search words people are using. Head of audience development at the Telegraph, Julian Sambles, said in March that the paper was trying to give journalists "the knowledge and understanding that they need so they can apply it to their daily production process and make informed decisions about content when they're writing or publishing it." Thinking about SEO should be second nature, he added.

Papers must also consider their goals in optimising content for search engines. As Drew Broomhall, head of search at the Times explained, if you rank success by sheer volume of traffic, then you should "write the same as everyone else but more of it and more frequently updated." However, if you are looking to increase engagement on a specific subject you need more detailed keyword analysis and niche research.

One straightforward course is the need to stay ahead of the trends: predict what people are going to be talking about in upcoming months and provide appropriate content. "Fix SEO requirements into the editorial calendar," Broomhall suggests. Obviously much news is unpredictable, but there are some events that are year-in-year-out, or which are easy to prepare for in advance, such as an election or a festival. It is necessary to consider both specific, distinct events, such as religious holidays, and longer, less defined periods such as winter travel. Articles that contain links and that have been linked to by others appear higher in search results. Therefore, with annual events, it is beneficial to link to last year's coverage and make use of old content that already has inbound links to help promote the new content.

Hiring a SEO specialist?

As well as training all reporters to be aware of the principles of search engine optimisation, many newspapers have taken the step of hiring an in-house specialist. Ideally such a person would have deep technical knowledge combined with considerable journalistic experience, but such candidates might be hard to find. Peltonen comes from a business background, Broomhall from journalism and technology.

There are also many third party services available to news outlets, supplementary to the guidance of an in-house expert, such as Thomson Reuters' OpenCalais which recently announced deals made with the Huffington Post, DailyMe and the Mail Online. OpenCalais offers an 'Archive Express' feature which can tag an archive of up to 20 million documents in 24 hours. The service 'reads' and breaks down articles into their essential elements - who, what, when, where, how - and tags and sorts them so that it is easier to bring archived articles into 'related stories' sections and improve their search relevance.

Analysing traffic

A SEO specialist would be responsible for analysing traffic to a news outlet's site, looking at how readers find content, readership patterns and what methods of optimisation work best. Peltonen explained how he started off looking at basic data such as what are the top news stories, how many people are going where on the site, and started to work out how to increase traffic. His paper partnered with Microsoft to further analyse traffic data. Such traffic data analysis can be used to spot and develop potential niche verticals to focus on, for example, by looking at repeat visitor figures.  

Google keywords

Purchasing Google keywords to guarantee that news articles appear higher on search results is one of the more costly ways for news outlets to promote their content. Peltonen said that his paper frequently buys specific words, for instance for sports events, but stressed that it would be cheaper to improve the paper's SEO. Buying keywords could also raise ethical issues, depending on the words and their context. The Sun, for example, reportedly purchased the key words 'Natasha Richardson' immediately after the British actress's sudden death in March, in what appears to be a blatant attempt to profit from the tragedy. The Guardian came under considerable criticism last August when, apparently accidentally, it purchased the Google keywords "Madeleine McCann," giving any searchers the link to its coverage of the child's disappearance. The Guardian promptly relinquished the rights, and said it would review its list of keywords. Purchasing Google keywords in order to promote a product is common practice, but is it ethical for newspapers?

Evidently, SEO strategies are necessary in today's media landscape, not only to make more money but also to spread awareness of stories and help readers find what they are looking for and therefore should be embraced by journalists and editors as well as publishers. Search engine 'friendliness' should not be prioritised over good, accurate stories but it should be used to promote such content. Journalistic training is vital in order to optimise each individual article, and larger strategic steps should be taken by editors in conjunction with SEO specialists.

On Tuesday 23 June at 14.00 London time, Drew Broomhall, Head of Search at the Times of London will be speaking at a WEF webinar on "How to teach your journalists to write for the web." More details here.

The NYT is taking its citizen journalism project seriously. 'The Local', its online section dedicated to all things community based, is delegating reporting roles to eager citizens, asking them to cover local body meetings.  

The 'missions' are posted on the website, alongside instructions and relevant information.  To sign up, enthusiasts just have to express their interest on the site, and wait to receive further 'training' and directions.  

The BBC World Service's citizen journalism project, 'Your Story' has been axed due to lack of funding, reports journalism.co.uk.

"It's sad, but funding priorities make it so," said Nina Robinson, a senior broadcast journalist who headed the service.

"The media has a duty to wrongfully accused", wrote Eamonn O'Neil on the Guardian's website yesterday.  Sadly though,  journalists and editors, apparently fearful of the professional and legal implications of fact-finding missions, are increasingly shying away from performing this duty.  Whether this is due to a lack of journalistic confidence, the constant threat of legal procedures or a response to a lack in public demand, this avoidance has deprived not only the journalistic practice of the satisfaction of fulfilling one of its great original purposes, but social justice of what was once a highly effective tool.  

O'Neil's call to arms forms part of the Guardian's recently launched 'Justice on Trial' campaign, which "aims to highlight cases where there are major concerns of a miscarriage of justice."  The project is a result of the realisation that journalism is at risk of forsaking an arguable raison d'etre; its opening statement recalls the profession's past successes in contributing to the correction of infamous miscarriage of justice cases, such as those of the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four.   O'Neil, moreover reflects upon his own involvement in rough and ready evidence digging investigations, such as that of the Christmas Island nuclear test victims, while working at Scottish TV in the late eighties.

The future of printed media has become a major political issue in countries like the United States or France, even being debated in ad-hoc committees set up by the legislative or the executive powers. Discussions along the Potomac or the Seine rivers have been focusing on the impact of Internet and new technologies, or on the need for state subsidies.

Meanwhile, on the Vltava in Prague, a group of editors and reporters working for PPF Media, the recently created division of insurance and consumer banking group PPF, is already opening new ways of covering a whole country in what may be a newsroom of the future. With other journalists for the moment based in four provincial towns from the Czech Republic, they are launching the so-called "hyperlocal weekly" Nase adresa ("our address"), which combines print and online journalism with particular efforts to sustain high professional standards and get closer to the readers.

"It can only work with well prepared journalists who will be trained in the Futuroom, our central newsroom," explains Roman Gallo, 44, director for PPF's media strategies and conceiver of the project. "We are also opening newscafés in our local bureaus, which will facilitate the contact between Nase adresa's journalists and the public, to enrich the content of our newspaper and of its webpages," adds Matej Husek, 33, director of news operations.
 
The newspoints, combining local newsrooms and Internet cafés in often small, rural towns, may be the most visible originality of this new undertaking. A few weeks before Nase adresa's launch, for instance, PPF Media's already hired staff had the chance to taste two products, the first print prototype of the weekly, and a cake likely to be served in the cafés. "The project represents a special challenge in terms of logistics, of room for storage, as we will be managing dozens of bistrot-Starbucks-like coffee shops in local newsrooms," comments Tomas Chejn, 41, the manager of PPF Media's branded cafés, a food specialist hired for his long time experience in quality catering. Petr Vitasek, 38, the director and chief editor for the Moravia region, based in the eastern Czech city of Olomouc, thinks this effort is worth the investment, because these "well located newspoints will be critical in getting Nase adresa's journalists to work closer to their readers."
 

 
But the whole project is innovative at other, multiple levels. To start with, for the first time a newspaper's birth is tightly associated to the creation of a multi-media training center - with several international partners including Google, Atex and the World Association of Newspapers/ World Editors Forum. The Futuroom will be a newsroom in charge of assisting and training in-house editors, some having no previous reporting experience, as much as a real life teaching field for future journalists. These will include a group of students within another partnership with Brno's Masaryk University, in the second largest Czech town.

Nase adresa's approach could also become a school case due to the organization of the newsroom. "I like how the Futuroom is shaped. Journalists are not confined to one theme, like health or education, but to a way of reporting, and I enjoy changing topics," says Vendula Krizova, reporter in the "Human approach team" and young (25) like many of her new colleagues. Adds Radim Klekner, 50, who joined the "Institutional team" - after working for 10 different newsrooms - to do researches on European Union institutions in particular: "Vertical structures dominate in traditional newspapers, while in Nase adresa it is more horizontal. In my case, for instance, I will be covering many European issues based on the Czech reality."


Klekner had some doubts initially, however, because he has been covering foreign news in the past 15 years.  Why would he join a hyperlocal news project as an international editor, then? "There is a need for benchmarking with other European countries in all aspects of the Czech society, and with Nase adresa I will be able to give a EU presence in the remotest Czech villages", he believes. "Our role is to assess general issues like the lack of general practitioners in the country, compared to others, and connect them to specific cases brought up by the local newsrooms."
 

 
Local journalists with long intensive experience covering their community are also convinced they are working for an innovative project. Vitasek, in Olomouc, even tried a hyperlocal news concept on his own five years ago, called Olomoucky Tydenik. "It was a weekly published on Mondays and strong on local sports, like Nase adresa. We had to stop it after one year, but this time I have with me a 10-people team supported by PPF and by the Futuroom managers and trainers. Our office, in a central strategic area of Olomouc, will be a space for constant direct contact with readers and potential contributors."

Based on her 30 year experience in local journalism, Hana Vojtova, 52, the chief editor of the Teplice newspoint, in the north Bohemian city near the border with east Germany, also believes Nase adresa is a new improvement for community journalism: "We will get nearer to the people from the region, who are tired of politics and want to be informed on human interest stories," explains Vojtova, whose district is dramatically affected by problems like crime and unemployment. "We are going to cover better our readers's activities and their dreams!"
 

 
The project has attracted several other seasoned editors from all backgrounds, including Jiri Zavozda, 50, Nase adresa's head of the copy editing team. He just finished a seven year experience in major private television "Prima", as news editor-in-chief, after working more than a decade for national newspapers. "The TV experience was good because it teaches you how to write short, but I prefer print because it is less superficial," says Zavozda. There are other reasons why he joined the Futuroom. "I see my in-laws, who live in a little village in Moravia and who have only access to media not specifically targeted to them, national daily Mlada Fronta, newsweekly Tyden and the television. Only Nase adresa will inform them well on the Sunday afternoon firemen team's competitions, which are particularly popular in the Czech republic. We will get spectacular photos of fires being extinguished!"

Adds Peter Sabata, 48, the editor-in-chief responsible for the local newsroom: "I strongly believe in the hyperlocal level of information, with the combination of newspoints, and print, online journalism. The weekly will be a bridge from now to the near future, when everybody in the regions will be connected." Sabata just moved back to the Czech republic after eight years at the head of national Slovak paper Pravda's newsroom.

 
Other Nase adresa team members are particularly enthusiastic because of the new challenges specific to a project combining teaching and praxis, online and print journalism, so far never achieved at such a level. Ondrej Besperat, 31, who manages the photo-video team in a duo with veteran photojournalist Jan Silpoch, is well aware of the differences between shooting for a newspaper or for a website. Before joining the Futuroom, he was a photographer for national daily Hospodarske Noviny and then worked for Aktualne.cz, the successful, Internet-only Czech media outlet. "In printed media, you have to do one or two pictures a day, and you invest all your energy in the best one, while in Internet, you try more different perspectives as you know that several pictures are likely to be released for each story."

Besperat anticipates he is likely to spend two third of his time training reporters from the local newsrooms, at the beginning at least. "One of the main challenges will be to shoot sport with our standard high-end amateur cameras," he says. "The idea is not to have journalists who do everything all the time, but reporters who are multifunctional, able to provide good texts and images."

 
Nase adresa will also represent new challenges beyond the expertise usually expected from  journalists, especially for the local chief editors who will have to look after a coffee shop part of their time. "Ten years ago I had a short experience working for Coca Cola, but this will be new because I am not at all a food and beverage specialist," laughs Vitasek, in Moravia. Krizova, who is glad to cover very diverse topics, is also ready for another type of special assignment as a young reporter. She will be asked to take care of children visiting the Futuroom - turned into a "Junioroom" or "media camp" - to learn how to write an article or produce a video footage.


PPF Media's project will be preparing new generations of journalists and not just showing new forms of getting and providing the news.
 

BACKGROUND
The Czech Republic is a country of 10 million people living in 14 regions subdivided in 75 districts in total. Until 20 years ago, only the government and Communist Party related entities could publish newspapers. This was also the case for the regional dailies, and for more local publications at district or town levels. German group Verlagsgruppe Passau took over most of them in 1990 and after, under its Czech branch Vltava-Labe-Press which currently controls over 10 weeklies and over 70 dailies called Denik ("daily", followed by the name of the concerned locality). Nase adresa will have no direct competitors except in a few cases, because its editions will typically cover areas of 20-30,000 people while Denik and its affiliates are designed for larger groups, of over 100,000 inhabitants on average.

The Internet has affected newspapers in many ways, and though recent focus has concentrated largely on falling revenue due to reduction in print advertising, it has also given papers the chance to greatly expand their story-telling capabilities. As well as just words and pictures, there are now numerous different ways to enhance a story: through video, audio, slideshows, interactive maps and graphics, and more. But are newspapers making full use of the opportunities that the Internet offers to change the way that they produce their stories?

Upendra Shardanand, CEO and founder of Daylife, wrote in Paid Content about his belief that journalistic storytelling is "stuck in a rut." He describes how publishers he meets are eager to revamping many parts of their business such as distribution, and how do generate revenue, but "one aspect of their businesses that very few seem to question is the actual craft of writing and telling stories." The Internet offers so many opportunities that he feels journalists do not take advantage of, rather they leave it to sites such as Outside.In and Everyblock who "treat content like data and tear it apart just to reassemble it into infinitely browsable, non-linear experiences." He compares this process to the way that Amazon has "revolutionized" shopping.

What is the "Fifth Estate?" By definition, it could be any class or group in society outside the clergy, the nobility, the commoners, and the press--anything from trade unions to the poor to organized crime--and is often used in reference to media, especially in reference to outlets who consider themselves in opposition to mainstream media. In his book, Arthur Hayes claims Press Critics are the Fifth Estate: Media Watchdogs in America, whereas Stephen Cooper's book is titled Watching the Watchdog: Bloggers as the Fifth Estate and in The Political Pundits, Dan Nimmo and James Combs say that pundits constitute the Fifth Estate.

In his article "Who is the Fifth Estate and What is Its Role in Journalism's Future?" Poynter journalist Roy Clark discusses what he believes is, or should be, the Fifth Estate in the US: "a frame that sees that the freedoms and responsibilities of the First Amendment empower not just a professional caste of news gatherers and distributers, but potentially every citizen."

The Wilmington group announced the closure of the print version of their monthly magazine, Press Gazette. They posted the announcement on the PG website today saying that the May edition will be the last edition.

Wilmington bought the UK magazine in 2006 from administration and have since been trying to bring the magazine up to a profitable level. In August of last year the PG changed to being a monthly magazine after being a weekly for 43 years.

The press release announced that the website would continue, however, it is no longer publishing news content. Les Kelly, the managing director of Wilmington's media and entertainment division said, "there will be no journalism on the site [...] but we will develop the site to offer other services, such as training and freelance referrals."

Another magazine going online only in the next month is Maxim, the men's monthly.

Source: Guardian.co.uk

Ana Bernal Triviño recently completed her doctorate at the University of Malaga, Spain. Her choice of thesis, entitled "Design preferences of the young regarding journalistic information on the internet" has already attracted some interest from media commentators and professionals alike.

Bernal's research throws some light on the relationship between the young and their preferred choice of medium - the web - in particular, addressing issues such as the relevance of design, content and layout in attracting younger readers to websites.

The Telegraph and the Times are training their staff to optimise content in a bid to improve rankings by attracting users to their sites.

As part of general plans to overhaul newsroom operations, more and more newspapers are beginning to rethink their search engine optimisation strategies which not only improve the online experience for the user, but also lead to a rise in traffic, as the latest figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic (ABCe) show.

The American Society of Newspaper Editors embraces the technological age by holding a "virtual convention" in place of its cancelled annual convention that was scheduled for April in Chicago. So far ten Webinars have been scheduled to address media issues, such as shifting to the web or cutting back on print editions and staff, in order to help newsroom leaders deal with challenges ahead.

This February ASNE announced the cancellation of April's convention due to the stress of structural changes in their newsrooms, deep recession, and expectation of low attendance. This is only the second time since ASNE was founded in 1922 that the organization has not held a convention; it was also cancelled in 1945 during the last critical days of World War II.

The Society of Editors and the Newspaper Society have sent British Culture Secretary Andy Burnham a list of urgent action points to help the UK local media industry survive problems caused by the recession and the changing media industry. Nigel Pickover, Society of Editors president, and Michael Pelosi, Newspaper Society president, wrote the letter in response to a request from Burnham at a meeting with the presidents last week.

According to the Guardian, the chief concern of the two groups is that Google and other online news aggregators are profiting from paid local media content. "The biggest cost is gathering news in the first instance; comment may be free but facts are expensive," said Bob Satchwell, director of the Society of Editors. "If advertising is attracted to aggregators but not going to the people that originate the news, then the problem needs to be considered."

As part of the Financial Times' Newsroom 2009 plan to converge both its print and online operations, the FT has appointed four new "integrator" roles tasked with overseeing this transition.

Further details of the Newsroom 2009 plan were leaked yesterday, with managers outlining a three-stage editorial process consisting of creating, crafting and completing. Each news division will have its own integrator who will be responsible for carrying out the proposed changes.

This week in the Christian Science Monitor Jonathan Zimmerman, professor of history and education at New York University, proposes a remedy for the "demise" of the newspaper. Because of declining circulation and advertising revenues, Zimmerman says that gathering news has become too expensive, forcing newspapers to make staff cuts and leading to "less real reporting." As a solution, he suggests that university professors take over newspaper reporting free of charge.

Hearkening back to a hundred years ago when leading social science and humanities academics wrote for the popular press, Zimmerman maintains that professors should, once again, share their expertise with the layperson to save the newspaper. Most professors are not paid for their work in academic journals now, he asserts, and if research universities would provide incentives, many professors would consider writing for free. Though many do not have experience in journalistic writing, they will learn, he maintains, because professors "have a lot to teach, too, about nearly every subject that a paper might cover."

As many newspapers fold, make cutbacks, and focus their resources online, actual "newsroom" jobs are dwindling, requiring journalists to transition to online reporting to maintain their careers. Some newspapers are implementing retraining for their reporters to teach them how to approach Internet journalism, as the new industry requires different approaches to telling stories and delivering content than printed journalism, and also to provide technical training in using software.

According to former New York Times reporter Sharon Waxman in The Wrap, the New York Times is offering to retrain its print reporters to be producers for the web. Waxman calls this measure necessary: with "a skyscraper full of overpaid reporters and editors," low stock prices, declining print readership, and a need to maintain the "core intellectual capital," she believes it is time for the Times to make crucial changes.

Speaking to Journalism.co.uk, videojournalism pioneer and founder of RosenblumTV, Michael Rosenblum has explained his vision for journalism's survival during the recession.  He believes that the current necessity to cut costs in the media will lead to videojournalism becoming an essential skill for journalists, as the costs behind the medium continue to fall.

A partnership between RosenblumTV and telecommunications company Verizon at a local Washington TV news station has lead to a situation where 6 staff produce 30 minutes of original video news content a day.  Pitting the total cost to the station against the charge for 30 seconds of advertising indicates that the venture will at least break even, if not make a profit.  Rosenblum thinks that the best solution to current industry problems would be to empower journalists with training and more "streamlined skills".  Discussing newspapers and broadcasters at the moment, he says, "when they go into cost-cutting the first thing they cut is the journalists. That's a crazy thing to do."

The BBC intends to create more links to local media websites from its news websites in response to criticism and call for reform from the BBC Trust. The BBC also proposes in-video links to other local video providers and possibly video syndication partnerships and training collaborations with local media. Formal proposals for these changes and more will be submitted for consideration by the Trust later this year.

Various ideas to overhaul the business model of newspapers have been debated in recent weeks, such as the possibility of a return to paid online content, or a non-profit endowment scheme. Both have potential, but both are long term solutions that would take some time to implement, and for the immediate crisis at hand, could government help be the answer? At the end of January French President Nicolas Sarkozy approved a 600 million euro package of measures to save the beleaguered French press. Ideas for some kind of bailout plan have been floated in the US for several months now, following those for banks and the car industry, and similar discussion has taken place in the UK. Is a similar bailout likely to happen anywhere else? Could it save the struggling industry, or is such government involvement in the media too dangerous?

The French way

The French measures announced came largely from recommendations in a three-month study into the industry's health that was released in early January. The proposals were largely based on reducing productions costs, but the study also recommended that newspapers restructure their finances and that journalists be better trained for multiple forms of media, including online. Sarkozy's speech instructed newspapers to improve the content of their articles, bring in younger readers and transform business models

Arguably the most controversial measure was the decision to give 18 year olds a year-long subscription to a newspaper of their choice. This is clearly a direct subsidy, and one which many people do not think will work. It does seem optimistic to imagine that thousands of teenagers are going to find the time in their day to sit down and read a broadsheet rather than scan news online, and then be inspired to continue such a subscription. The package also included a major increase in state expenditure to support newspaper and magazine deliveries: 70 million euro from 8 million last year. The government will double its spending on advertisements in print publications. The state will also defer some fees the publications face, and Sarkozy announced a freeze on the cost of postal distribution and a reduction in payroll taxes for newsagents. He also extended tax breaks for investors in online journalism.

France's press is among the least profitable in Europe, with circulation figures of around half those of the UK and Germany, and national newspapers suffering particularly. According to the Guardian, it is "stifled by rigid communist press unions, a lack of kiosks selling papers and a declining readership far below that of the UK or Germany." Sarkozy has promised to increase points of sale, and work to improve newspaper delivery to both kiosks and homes. Another major problem is high printing costs, as presses are controlled by communist union Le Livre. Sarkozy announced that the state is aiming to reduce printing costs by 30-40 per cent by negotiating with the union.  

Sarkozy insisted that the aid package was not an attack on press freedom, the Guardian reported. "I don't understand how anyone could doubt the legitimacy of the state in this process," he claimed, comparing the press to any other industry in need of aid, such as the automobile sector. Incidentally, the French car industry just received a 6.5 billion euro loan from the government. And the French state already gives 1.5 billion euro in direct and indirect aid to the press each year. The Guardian asserted in January that "the public's trust in the media is at an all-time low in a climate where politicians rewrite their own interviews for publication and the president's powerful business friends, from construction to arms manufacturing, own several major papers or TV stations." Which does not really sound like ideal circumstances for the government to get further involved in the media. It is too early to assess the effects of the bailout on newspapers, though it seems to have been received favourably by editors.

UK's regional focus

Another country where public trust in the media is at an all time low is the UK. Research by the Media Standards Trust revealed on 9 February that only 7% of the public trust national newspapers to behave responsibly. "Without urgent reform we believe that self-regulation of the press will become increasingly ineffective at both protecting the public and promoting good journalism and, without prompt action, there is real danger that it will become increasingly irrelevant," said Martin Moore, director of the Trust. The report calls for government intervention to ensure press accuracy and to limit intrusion on people's private lives. But would such government intervention be accompanied by financial aid?

In response to Sarkozy's announcement of the French plan, a spokesman for publisher Trinity Mirror said: "We don't believe that direct subsidies are a safe or sensible way forward. There are two easy things for the government to do. The first is to indicate that they will intervene and allow consolidation of regional newspapers on public interest grounds. The second is to return to using local newspapers for public notices and public sector job advertising." Many papers have called for changes to competition regulations in the local and regional sectors to more easily facilitate mergers, and the UK's Office of Fair Trading has confirmed it is to launch a full consultation on the local media ownership regime next month. Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger went a step further and raised the question of public subsidies for newspapers in November 2008, arguing that as broadcasters compete for government funding, why shouldn't local newspapers too? "There has never been less certainty about the future of local news in this country," he said. Roy Greenslade, amongst others, criticised this view, saying that information should not all be funded "through the mechanism of the state."

American opposition

Across the pond in the US, Connecticut legislators sparked debate at the end of 2008 by petitioning the state government to help local papers whose publisher Journal Register said it could not afford to keep them open any more. Journal Register has been forced to close 'dozens' of newspapers in recent months. Connecticut's Department of Economic and Community Development is offering tax breaks, training funds, financing opportunities and other incentives for publishers, but not cash. According to economic development commissioner Joan McDonald, Connecticut does not see trying to find a buyer and offering tax breaks as exerting influence on the press. In January, the publisher of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News were in discussions with Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell about getting the two largest state employee pension funds to help bail out the papers.

But there has been considerable opposition to any such notion, as could be expected in a country which prides itself on its free market attitude. The Wall Street Journal asserted that a newspaper bailout was "the worst bailout idea so far," and stressed that "independent journalism is valuable, but only if it is truly independent."  Editor & Publisher editors warned that although it could be tempting to seek government assistance, "Uncle Sam's purse comes with lots of strings attached." Paul Janensch, a journalism professor at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, and a former reporter and editor, commented "you can't expect a watchdog to bite the hand that feeds it."

There is already some unobtrusive government assistance to American newspapers, for example the US Postal Service has offered discounted postage rates. Also, several cities have papers running under Joint Operating Agreements, created following the congressional Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970 to keep competing urban dailies viable despite circulation declines.

Can a bailout be justified?

It is possible that other European countries will follow the French example, but an American bailout seems to be extremely unlikely. The British people are used to the idea of public funding for news, given the prevalence of the BBC, so maybe they would be more open to the idea of more government subsidies. But it could also be argued that given the major presence of the BBC, there is enough government involvement in news already.

It is undeniable that as one of the main roles of the press in a democracy is to criticise the government, it must remain entirely free of any government influence, and there is always the risk that government support could lead to influence. The idea of the press relying on the government to any extent is extremely unappealing to many people. But another valid point is that given the importance to any democracy of an active press, it is the government's duty to support the press in time of need.

Making sure that press friendly laws are in place, rather than offering a cash injection, is probably as far as the government should go, in 'normal' circumstances. But perhaps given the current problems plaguing the industry, some limited, short-term government assistance could be justified, to help papers make the necessary adjustments to working online, until an appropriate business model can be found, or until the economy starts to recover. In any kind of bailout, help should be given in such a way where there would be no risk that it could be considered as an attempt to influence. It would be essential to ensure that any help offered to newspapers was offered country-wide, and that it did not give any papers advantages over others. And government support should not be a substitute for innovation, and should not stifle entrepreneurship.

The Huffington Post is experimenting with a technique know as 'crowdsourcing' to report on the lengthy but highly significant US Senate stimulus bill, and the differences between the original bill and the 'compromise' which was recently made available online.

The two documents total nearly 1400 pages and are dense, complex reading - too much for one journalist alone, believes HuffPost. Instead, the website has appealed to its readers to go through the two bills and point out "any significant differences," particularly "any examples of wasteful spending or corporate giveaways that aren't stimulative." Readers who sign up are sent an email from HuffPost which gives them an assigned portion of the bill: about a fifth, according to the Columbia Journalim Review, along with instructions.

An interview between the Arab Press Network and Lawrence Pintak has addressed the divide between Arab and Western reporting, focusing on a survey of 601 Arab journalists that produced occasionally surprising results. Pintak is the director of the Kamam Adham Centre for Journalism Training and Research at the American University in Cairo, as well as publisher and co-editor of Arab Media & Society, an online journal.

To mark the relaunch of the Editors Weblog, the World Editors Forum is running a special series entitled "Doing More with Less." The series highlights major trends that editors-in-chief are using to steer their newsrooms through the difficult economic climate. The first in the series studies newsroom integration at the UK daily, The Guardian, which has recently moved into a new building with intentions to combine its print and online staff.  

Guardian News & Media recently integrated its print and online operations, The Guardian, The Observer and the website Guardian.co.uk, having moved to new premises last month.  The Editors Weblog spoke to Paul Johnson, Guardian Deputy Editor and overall head of news, business and sport, and Nick Watt, Chief Political Correspondent, to find out details.

Changing offices was essential to the integration process.  Paul Johnson emphasized how "we couldn't make the big leap until we moved to the new building." Previously, five different buildings housed the Guardian's 1400 staff, including around 850 journalists. Guardian News & Media has now taken three and a half floors of the new King's Place development: a brand new building also housing a concert hall, with notable green credentials and which is, as Editor-in-Chief Alan Rusbridger described it, "a thing of beauty." Nearly all journalistic staff are now sitting together on one floor. 

The Guardian's new building is a "thing of beauty", according to Editor-in-Chief Alan Rusbridger.

However despite the integration, staff will work hard to maintain the different voices of the two papers and the website. According to Johnson, "we recognise that a distinctiveness is necessary. We are not attempting to bulldoze this into a flat surface." The Observer will retain eight dedicated journalists who will write for the Web but who will focus on the Sunday paper, and under the platform-neutral "heads of" there will be separate section editors for each platform which each subject area.

A group of 111 journalists, plus management staff, were involved in developing ideas for integration as part of what Johnson described as "a bottom-up, consensual process," very different to that of The Daily Telegraph, for example. One of the methods used to spark ideas was inventing different story scenarios and making journalists tackle them; from this it emerged that "we didn't necessarily have the right resources in the right place at the right time and we built around that," Johnson explained. 

Centralised but devolved

'Platform-neutral' is one of the key terms of the new newsroom: heads of national news, international news, business and sport are all described as 'platform-neutral.' Key to integration is the new newsdesk, which deals with both print and online and centralises operations. "It's a real hub," Johnson commented, seating 19 people, including both web and paper heads for national news, international news, and business news. Nick Watt explained how the very fact that these people are sitting together makes a huge difference, as when he is working on a story with the home news editor and the business editor, he now only has to call one number and the decision making process happens much faster. "You get rid of the 'us and them' element.

"Being in one building means greatly improved communication, said Johnson, "compared to being on four or five different sites, you feel a lot closer." A major communication point for the day is an open door morning meeting. Following a small meeting for senior staff in Rusbridger's office, anybody who wishes to can come to a larger meeting, which is broadcast on screens around the office. Incidentally, a management consultancy firm hired to help with integration recommended against the word 'meeting', so these gatherings are now known as 'checkpoints'. 

The devolved aspect of the newsroom, equally crucial to the integration process, is the "pods" system. Print and online journalists have been grouped together by area of specialization such as health, education, politics or media and technology, into so-called pods, which can then publish autonomously straight onto the Web site. The pods range in size from five people to 28, and usually include reporters, sub editors for the paper, site editors for online, and a head who is platform neutral. Nick Watt explained that the political journalists now all work in one pod and report to Will Woodward, head of politics, who works for all three platforms and decides which stories to follow and where they will go. 

In the "pods" system, print and online journalists of the same specialization are grouped together and are able to publish straight to the web.

This is a significant change from the traditional "funnel" structure of the newsroom where all stories would go through a single editor. Nearly all of the pods are in the main newsroom, a couple are on the floor above and some members of the politics pod are still based at the House of Commons. All of the arts journalists sit together in an area known as the culture hub.  

Multimedia focus

A multimedia training day was offered to all staff in advance of integration, and according to Johnson, the take up has been "extremely good in terms of numbers." Possibly surprisingly, it has not been just the younger staff who were enthusiastic; "some of the people who have been the best exponents of different styles of journalism have been some of the more experienced journalists and correspondents."

The new building houses what Johnson described as "a fantastic multimedia suite", with seven recording studios and 24 editing desks. And he says that so far staff have been showing a considerable "appetite for video, picture galleries and interactive graphics which are vitally important for us." The pictures desk is now fully integrated, and most of the photographers and a lot of the reporters are now trained in video. Video production is being taken seriously: in 2008 the Guardian was the first newspaper to win a Royal Television Society award.

No cost-cutting

An extremely positive side to the Guardian's integration process is that unlike, unfortunately, many other integrating newsrooms, the merger of print and Web teams has not resulted in layoffs. There have been some voluntary redundancies, but total staff numbers have not been reduced. "It's not a cost-cutting exercise," Johnson stressed. He explained that "we wanted to make this change within budget, without cutting our headcount."  The essential detail to grasp is that it is about reallocation rather than reduction: "what we have done is repositioned resources towards the web." Rather, the measures taking have been to maintain "journalistic excellence, and to free up some of the resources we have got to focus on getting our work out there." 

Success?

Johnson was very confident that integration is going well so far. The necessary changes in mindset were largely made over the year of preparation prior to the move, particularly during two integration "dry runs" which were implemented for the Olympics and the US elections. He claimed that "people seem to be embracing the changes and people have been very positive about it across the board."  One of the main reasons for this, he explained, is that journalists love to see their work published "in different forms and in different ways." After all, it is exciting to file a story and see it appear on the website almost immediately. Nick Watt was also enthusiastic about the changes: "it's much more collaborative and much more efficient."

It will be interesting to see whether the publications succeed in maintaining their distinct voices, and what sort of increase in multimedia content there is. As the Guardian is in the fortunate situation of being highly successful and run by a trust which reduces financial pressure, integration is a choice rather than a obligation, and the necessary time and effort has been spent to ensure a smooth transition.

In an interview with UK newspaper The Guardian, Telegraph Assistant Editor Brian MacArthur, British Journalism Review Editor Bill Hagerty, Society of Editors Executive Director Bob Satchwell and Nation Union of Journalists General Secretary Jeremy Dear.mused over the possibility of the government aiding the troubled newspaper industry.