Results matching “and more on itu”

According to photographer Maggie Steber, former director of photography at The Miami Herald, the problem with newspapers, especially in the US, is that photojournalists think in a manner that is "formatted and formulaic", which may not correspond to today's world. The answer may be to use strong imagery to help newspapers that may be struggling.

"We live in a visual culture, audiences are sophisticated, and images can be more complicated, less traditional. Photography has changed, progressed, explored. Newspaper photography has not kept pace. Evocative, telling, forceful images can help prolong the life of newspapers, both print and online," said Steber.

She mentioned that numerous papers use photos that are "banal" and "repetitive", encouraging photojournalists to be "brave" and "smart".
 
She pointed out that agreement between designers, art directors and photographers is important and that brainstorming involving the photographer or photo editor should be a habitual newsroom activity.

Source: Garcia Media through IFRA Executive News Service
 

Jody Rosen's recently Slate piece, Dude, You Stole My Article, has sparked renewed the debate in the blogosphere about plagiarism, fair use and the link economy.

Rosen recently chronicled the discovery that one of her articles had been plagiarized (four paragraphs nearly verbatim) in a small alt-weekly, The Bulletin, published outside of Houston, Texas. It turns out Rosen's Jimmy Buffet article was just the beginning - as Rosen dug through the Bulletin's archives, she quickly realized most, if not all of the articles, were mosaics of stolen prose, lifted from Slate, USA Today, The Dallas Observer, Rolling Stone, the Boston Globe, and more.  

Although the Bulletin seems a clear cut case - "the greatest plagiarism scandal in the annals of American journalism" writes Rosen - more often, bloggers and journalists are at odds when "Fair Use" borders on abuse.

Tammi Marcoullier of Publishing 2.0, recently wrote about having quotes lifted from her article without attribution, during her tenure as a Washington Post blogger. Nick Carr has been widely criticized for not including links in a recent Atlantic article, by critics who argue that mentioning an author or source (without a URL) isn't sufficient when a hyperlink is so easy. And it seems the AP controversy over Fair Use, which had the self-righteous of the blogosphere so enraged, has only just subsided.

So how can journalists and bloggers play "fair"?

ePluribus Media recommends the following:

-Summarize the article and attribute it to its original source, including title, date, publication, author and URL

-If you need to quote from an article and you're unsure if your use constitutes as Fair Use, contact the copyright owner and simply ask permission. For example, for the AP:

    E-mail: apdigital@ap.org
    Fax: +1-212-621-5488.

-If you are unable to find contact information for the copywright holder, post a disclaimer, citing "fair use" under Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 with your contact information

-Last, if a copyright holder asks you to remove material, do so in a considerate and timely manner. If you don't? The copyright holder may contact the ISP the offending material is hosted by and the entire site can be disabled.

Sources: Publishing 2.0, Slate, ePluribus Media

Earlier this week, Pam Platt, now former public editor for The Courier-Journal, wrote her final column, announcing that the paper - the first in North America to have an ombudsman - will no longer have a public editor to act as a reader representative. Platt is now a member of the paper's editorial board.

"These are very difficult times... and we are having to make tough decisions," said Executive Editor Bennie Ivory. "The position has been a very valuable part of the newspaper, but I felt the need to move the resource to another area. I didn't think we should weaken the editorial voice of the newspaper."

Recently, there has been much discussion about the need, or lack there of, for the ombudsmen.

In addition to the Courier-Journal, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, The Orlando Sentinel, The Hartford Courant and The Palm Beach Post have all eliminated the position from their payrolls.

The New York Times, which first added an ombudsman in 2003, following the Jayson Blair scandal, when it was discovered that the New York Times reporter had fabricated and falsified dozens of stories, made waves in 2007 when the paper considered eliminating the ombudsman.

Daniel Okrent was revered during his tenure as the Times' first Public Editor, however, the paper's second PE, Byron Calame, proved less popular. Slate wrote, "Like many ombudsmen, Calame assumed the voice of a writer who thought the standing title of his column was 'What I Would Do If I Were Editor of This Newspaper.'"

According to the New York Observer in 2007, near the end of Calame's term, "Mr. Keller wrote in his e-mail that 'some of my colleagues believe the greater accessibility afforded by features like 'Talk to the Newsroom' has diminished the need for an autonomous ombudsman, or at least has opened the way for a somewhat different definition of the job.'"

The Times opted to keep the position, which is now filled by Clark Hoyt.

Platt writes her last column as, "an obituary for a position that has mattered to The Courier-Journal and its readers for 40 years, a position that has mattered to world news media for that long, too."

Source: Poynter

Amidst the current economic troubles in the US newspaper industry and the increasing migration towards the Web, the focus shifts to selling more online ads. Publishers should look into expanding online by "partnering with or buying" niche ad sites, according to Media Week.

Mike McHale, media company Cleverworks founder, mentioned that he is interested in seeing papers designing editions for phones, PDAs and more online content like videos.  According to him, 'daily isn't soon enough".

Strategies that bigger regional papers have adopted, such as focusing more local news, have been a "bust", according to Media Week. What papers should have done was increase coverage by publishing newsletters on singular topics.

Papers are more accommodating to different ad rates and more likely to use formats that shift the ad-edit line, according to Media Week.

Watermark ads that are placed under editorial copy are becoming more common in different parts of a paper. As a result of more ad choices, some advertisers increased or stabilized their newspaper expenditure.

Nonetheless, the total amount of advertising is plunging for the third year in a row, reported Media Week. Newspaper's increasing rates, frequency needs and production issues may put off advertisers.

Source: Media Week

The Palestinian-Israeli media's objectivity and editorial quality is questioned and discussed in an article by YNet News. Ruham Nimri, the coordinator of the media-monitoring sector at Palestine's Miftah organization, goes as far as to state that Arabic-language newspapers based outside the Middle East may be more reliable.

Since media outlets may have difficulties in being properly informed, news may be created. Competition may drive some media to have reporting that is "sensational", "tabloid" and "entertainment-oriented", according to Yizhar Be'er, executive director of the Keshev Center for the Protection of Democracy in Israel.

"The problem with the Palestinian media is that they don't have their own reporting. What you read in the Palestinian papers is news taken from Israeli sources and international agencies, so there's nothing much new when you read a Palestinian newspaper," said Nimri.

Palestinian media may be affected by political opinions and have less independence, according to Be'er.

Meanwhile, Israeli media is "more professional", free and "more pluralistic", Be'er pointed out. The problem with Israeli reporting is that stories may be edited to the point that the final content differs vastly from the initial report journalists provided.

"We see the editors frame the reports in a way that highlights the responsibility of the Palestinians and downplays the Israeli responsibility. The main narrative is that the other side is to blame for the situation we're in," Be'er said.

Source: YNet News

The Sacramento Bee plans on revealing its revamped look in over a week. The redesign includes a more compact paper with new typefaces and a new nameplate, reported Sacbee.com.



Local investigative reporting, California events and health care will all get more emphasis in the new Bee.

Overall, the size of the story content will not change, aside from the obituary section that will be in larger type and shift to a six-column grid.

The makeover will also feature the addition of daily color comics, doubled stock listings and increased local coverage.

Top stories will be summarized on the front page, which will make the paper easier to navigate, Sacbee.com wrote.

"Our Region", a regional section with a business page (see image above), will be added, including both national and international coverage.

A lifestyle section featuring topics like Books & Media, Food & Wine and Style will be added as well.

The Sunday edition will have a new section on travel and arts, as well as remodeled opinion pages.

Source: Sacbee.com

US newspaper editors seem to have a positive outlook on their publications' futures, in spite of dropping revenue and job cuts that some papers experienced. As the news reallocates to the Web and other technology is being integrated, newspapers may find a way to balance themselves, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Database journalism and mobile reporting both grew, a survey by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. Staff blogs, micro sites, videography and online-only editing have all become more widespread across newspapers, demonstrating newspapers adaptation to the digital age.

Newspaper readership increased, thanks to the Internet, the survey showed. However, online advertising hasn't been able to bring in as much revenue as print.

The Internet is allowing for stories to be published faster and for updates to be more frequent, which may make the newsroom environment more demanding but also more dynamic.

"The newsroom staff producing the paper is also smaller, younger, more tech-savvy, and more oriented to serving the demands of both print and the web. The staff also is under greater pressure, has less institutional memory, less knowledge of the community, of how to gather news and the history of individual beats. There are fewer editors to catch mistakes," the survey said.

Larger papers consider it vital to preserve investigative journalism, something that distinguishes them from other new media such as blogs, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Database journalism and mobile reporting both grew, the survey found. Staff blogs, micro sites, videography and online-only editing have all become more widespread across newspapers, demonstrating newspapers adaptation to the digital age.

Source: The Los Angeles Times, Yelvignton.com, Knight Digital Media Center

See Also:
US: Study shows newsroom cutbacks are hurting coverage Part 1

Non-professional photography gets a boost, as the motto "right place, right time" becomes the guideline. Guardian.co.uk blogger Ravi Somaiya has shown that it doesn't take much to snap photos of celebrities, relating back to the Getty Images-Flickr deal that might turn the everyday person into a photo source for publications.

"Because the imagery is not shot for commercial services, there is more authenticity. Advertisers are looking for authenticity," said Jonathan Klein, co-founder and chief executive of Getty Images.

"Citizen journalism" such as including yourself alongside a celebrity may "work" better because it shows interaction, said Rob Bennet, a New York Times photographer and Photojournalism professor at Columbia University.

"You need good information or a good sense of where celebrities are going to be. Situations develop quickly so you have to be able to use your camera to be up and firing very fast. A certain tactfulness can go a long way, coupled with a willingness to take calculated risks. You're also going to have a lot more luck outdoors in the daytime than indoors," said Bennett.

Although the economic explosion that lead to the wide-spread availability of cameras gave a more "authentic" feel to photographs, editors may have to put more effort into verifying that a photo wasn't taken under illegal circumstances, such as a breech of privacy.

Source: Guardian.co.uk

See also:
New software detects doctored photographs

More than 80% of top US newspaper sites experienced increased unique visitors since year-on-year since June 2007. Nielsen published a report on the average times that users spend on newspaper sites.

Time that users spent online grew for sites like the New York Times, USA Today, Newsday and Ottoway Newspapers. Time spent online nearly doubled for the Houston Chronicle,  the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

However, a decrease was seen on the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. Furthemore, nearly half of the top 30 sites reported a decline in time spent on their sites.

Below is the list of the time that users spent in June 2008, compared to June 2007, taken from Editor & Publisher:

NYTimes.com -- 0:29:00 -- 0:27:34
USATODAY.com -- 0:14:38 -- 0:12:45
washingtonpost.com -- 0:14:45 -- 0:18:34
Wall Street Journal Online -- 0:09:41 -- 0:15:57
LA Times -- 0:08:59 -- 0:10:24

Boston.com -- 0:08:24 -- 0:18:47
Chicago Tribune -- 0:07:30 -- 0:18:38
New York Post -- 0:06:45 -- 0:07:14
Daily News Online Edition -- 0:07:01 -- 0:05:34
SFGate.com/San Francisco Chronicle -- 0:15:37 -- 0:12:18

Newsday -- 0:04:03 -- 0:03:46
Atlanta Journal-Constitution -- 0:12:48 -- 0:21:12
Chicago Sun-Times -- 0:08:11 -- 0:07:20
International Herald Tribune -- 0:04:00 -- 0:02:12
The Politico -- 0:09:40 -- 0:05:04

Village Voice Media -- 0:03:45 -- 0:04:16
DallasNews.com - The Dallas Morning News -- 0:05:18 -- 0:04:55
The Houston Chronicle -- 0:29:50 -- 0:16:00
Seattle Post-Intelligencer -- 0:11:02 -- 0:06:01
The Seattle Times -- 0:09:10 -- 0:11:33

Star Tribune -- 0:30:18 -- 0:31:00
MercuryNews.com -- 0:04:03 -- 0:07:21
Azcentral.com -- 0:23:07 -- 0:26:28
tampabay.com -- 0:06:48 -- 0:09:39
MLive.com -- 0:05:27 -- 0:14:01

The San Diego Union-Tribune -- 0:04:08 -- 0:06:58
NJ.com -- 0:10:24 -- 0:07:25
Ottaway Newspapers -- 0:05:22 -- 0:04:41
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel -- 0:30:27 -- 0:17:54
KansasCity.com -- 0:07:39 -- 0:10:51

Source: Editor & Publisher

The Los Angeles Times' website drew 115 million page views in June, just short of its all-time traffic record of 120 million PV set in May.

A quick glance at the list of most-read stories and most-viewed multimedia features in June gives a good idea of readers' favorite topics of interest - namely a push towards celebrity news and away from global issues and traditionally important topics such as the general elections. The lists also show that, despite newspapers' widespread emphasis on blogs and videos, these platforms still account for a minimal share of total traffic.

Furthermore, these lists provide some indications about how reader interests may vary from one platform to the other (news, blogs, videos, picture galleries).

If one supposes that latimes.com readership isn't too significantly different from average online newspaper readership, then these numbers hint toward which formats work best for different topics (Skip to 'Insights' for a brief summary).

Text - Top articles:

1. Alex Kozinski suspends L.A. obscenity trial after conceding his website had sexual images (Scott Glover)
2. Mega-mansions are L.A.'s really big show (Jessica Garrison)
3. Oliver Stone and 'W.,' a story of President Bush (John Horn)
4. Fourth day of triple digits sends crowds to L.A. pools, beaches  (Tami Abdollah)
5. Packing in public: Gun owners tired of hiding their weapons embrace 'open carry' (Nicholas Riccardi)
6. Envisioning a world of $200-a-barrel oil (Martin Zimmerman)
7. Judge orders TMZ to remove sex tape of actor Verne Troyer (Harriet Ryan)
8. Lakers have a collapse for the ages (Mike Bresnahan)
9. Offshore oil drilling opponents are rethinking (Richard Simon and Bob Drogin)
10. Obama leads in battle for Latino vote (Peter Wallsten)


The first thing that strikes us when looking at the list is how few stories relate to 'global' issues or to the general elections in the US: ranked 6 is a column about rising oil prices and the only story directly related to the elections is ranked 10. The majority of stories have mostly local relevance about Los Angeles.

(Only) one of the top 10 stories concerns sports - a usually strong section for most newspaper websites although June isn't the biggest season for sports in the US - and the Lakers' basketball team's demise in the championship finals.

The top three stories (and 7) revolve, more or less closely, around issues of sex and the cult of celebrities and entertainment. Number 3 is a story about the making-of Oliver Stone's latest movie about President George W. Bush. Granted, considering Los Angeles' prime location in the movie and celebrity industry, it isn't particularly surprising that many latimes.com readers are going for those stories.

But this doesn't necessarily mean that readers of latimes.com news articles prefer 'softer' content compared to readers of other online newspapers. In fact, this distribution is probably representative of a move towards celebrity news by mainstream media and the audience in general.

Limitations: This is a very cursive overview of readers' favorite topics for news stories only looking at the top 10. A more in-depth study would possibly show that while a few select individual stories about sex and celebrities receive many hits, the sections for 'hard' news (World, Business, National) on the whole generate substantially more traffic than Entertainment.

Top blogs:

1. Top of the Ticket  -- 1,743,178 PV
2. The Dish Rag  -- 1,437,462 PV
3. L.A. Land --  652,605 PV
4. Lakers Blog      
5. Show Tracker                
6. L.A. Now         
7. Technology Blog (first month out, and in the top ten)       
8. Gold Derby      
9. Web Scout      
10. Countdown to Crawford (launched June 17)


Now a look at the top-10 list of blogs gives a more intricate perspective: compared to news stories, the blog format seems to draw more readers to 'serious' topics such as politics and the general elections.

The political blog Top of the Ticket is in the lead, and Countdown to Crawford (a blog that covers the final steps of the elections) has made it to the list although it was only launched in mid-June. Ranked 6, L.A. Now covers general news about California.

It may seem counter-intuitive that readers prefer the blog format, usually associated with a more conversational tone and less formality, to read stories about politics. On the other hand, this preference could also be explained by the fact that those readers precisely prefer a format open to opinion and debate to read about those topics. Since blogs typically allow for more author disclosure, they can also be seen as a more transparent medium.

The last two blogs revolve around technology and developments in the digital landscape, a thematic that was absent from the Top 10 news stories.

Limitations: Again, this is hardly a scientific procedure, and the top 10 blogs on latimes.com account for less than 5% of total page views on the site. To put this in further perspective, five of the ten blogs relate to 'softer' content - three revolve around celebrities and the movie industry - one is about the Lakers and number 3 is a blog about real estate (note the parallel with the news story about mansions ranking 2).

Furthermore, The Dish Rag, ranked 2, is edging close to Top of the Ticket, so that in reality the number of users consulting LA Times blogs for soft and hard news is probably equivalent.

Pictures - Top photo galleries:

1.  Celebrity and sports collide in L.A.
2.  Universal Studios fire
3.  Celebrities' real names revealed (Denise Martin and Stephanie Lysaght)
4.  Hollywood hunks before they were hot (Elizabeth Snead)
5.  Celebrities by The Times
6.  Celebrity shots
7.  Midwest flooding
8.  Top 9 cars women buy more than men
9.  Hollywood's unwedded bliss list (Elizabeth Snead)
10. R-rated firsts (Susan King)

Unsurprisingly, the list of most popular photo galleries is also dominated by celebrities, even more so than for news stories or blogs (seven out of ten).

Of the three remaining picture galleries, two are big general news stories with obviously strong visual content: ranked 2 is the Universal Studios fire and ranked 7 is a gallery about floods in the Midwest.

Video - Top videos:

1. Dogs orphaned in China's quake find a home - 132,239 streams - AP
2. LAPD goes green: Maya Sanchez reports - 112,375 streams - KTLA
3. Tsvangirai on Mugabe - AP
4. Local update: Moe the chimp escapes cage -  KTLA
5. Amanda Beard heads to Omaha for her fourth Olympic swim - LAT
6. 17-year-old decapitated by Six Flags ride - AP
7. Australia marks Iraq withdraw with parade - AP
8. Evening update: USC student sentenced to time served in baby's death - KTLA
9. Fires grip parts of California - AP
10. Bush pleased with war spending bill - AP

The top-10 list for videos also delivers its share of lessons. First of all, despite newspapers' wild rush to boost video content, videos generate a limited amount of traffic compared to most text stories.

Many of the videos in the list are 'soft', but don't relate to entertainment especially. Instead, they are often emotionally-driven (dogs orphaned in China, 17-year old girl decapitated at a fair park). A lot of these popular videos are visual anecdotes with a potential for virality (Moe the chimp escapes cage).

'Hard' news, ie. a Congress debate about legislation or a business acquisition, does not typically constitute a popular pick for videos, as it is often poor visually.

The majority of successful video content is syndicated, generally provided by the Associated Press (only one of the top 10 videos was produced by the LA Times). Considering the average PVs for videos, and although CPMs for video ads are usually higher than for regular PVs, it is still often (too) costly for newspapers to produce their own quality videos.

Insights

In short, here are some of the insights brought by latimes.com's Top-10 lists:

- The Los Angeles Times has strongly emphasized 'soft' news, which is becoming increasingly popular among regular news stories.
- On the other hand, its blogs seem to attract many viewers interested by politics - although half of the blogs in the list deal with lighter content.
- The blog format is also popular when they deal with technological issues.
- To an extent, it could be inferred that the latimes.com is fulfilling its role as a newspaper by focusing on 'local' stories: Hollywood, celebrities and the entertainment industry being part of that local context.
- The photo galleries are overwhelmingly dominated by pictures of celebrities. The only two 'hard' news stories are obviously visual: a fire and floods.
- Video content must also be visually rich, but the most popular videos are those that are emotionally-driven and potentially viral (ie: humorous anecdotes, shocking stories).

The purpose of this piece was simply to make some observations as to the types of topics preferred by online users, depending on the format they were published in. The goal wasn't to quaintly warn editors against the risks of chasing eyeballs at the expense of news judgment.

However, these Top-10 lists are clearly representative of the trend, adopted both by editors and by the audience, towards more celebrity-type news, or 'soft' news in general. In January and April, when the Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times announced that they were beefing up coverage of Britney Spears, at the same time as newsrooms across the nation couldn't afford the expenses of covering the elections, many newspaper editors were outraged by this rush towards more catchy, entertainment-driven, stories.

According to others, celebrity is a cultural currency that fulfils a role in the press. But at what cost?

The growing market for e-paper technology will soon welcome a device with a foldable, flexible display screen, to be released this fall. The Readius' foldable format is predicted to prompt developments in mobile reader screens, the New York Times reported.

"Flexible displays are the crucial enabling technology for a new generation of portable devices that are mobile, but also have compelling user interfaces," said Jennifer Colegrove, analyst for iSuppli Corporation, a Californian market research company.



The Readius is geared towards reading books, newspapers, magazines and e-mail on a 5-inch diagonal screen that can be folded and reduced to a pocket size.

Karl McGoldrick, CEO of Polymer Vision, the Dutch company that developed the Readius, said that although it displays only shades of gray, its "active matrix" technology might be developed to include colour and videos.

The Readius will come out in this fall in England, Italy and Germany, and in early 2009 in the United States. According to many analysts, the market for e-paper will really begin to boom in 2009.

(For more information about the functions of the Readius, see more about Polymer Vision)

Source: