Results matching “web 20 le post”

The twice-weekly Sonoma Index-Tribune in California is to convert to a "hybrid news medium" in the next six to 12 months, after launching an electronic edition in addition to its website.

According to its publisher, the move is motivated both by cost reduction and environmental concerns.

The community newspaper currently offers, in addition to its home-delivered print edition, a subscription e-edition, a paperless "SmartEdition" produced in partnership with NewspaperDirect (which also produces electronic editions for The Washington Post, The Daily Telegraph in the UK or Le Figaro in France).

"We already use recycled newsprint and soy-based ink and recycle every bit of waste we can," said Index-Tribune publisher Bill Lynch.

"We cut back on the number of sections and pages we print and deliver by more than 30%. But the most important change, the one that can really make a difference, is getting our readers to join us in the biggest green revolution in the history of newspapers -- going paperless."

The e-edition already offers a number of useful features, according to Editor&Publisher: subscribers can read their newspapers from PCs and Macs, smart phones and iPhones. Suscribers will have access to up to 90 days worth of previous issues, can listen to news stories thanks to an audio function, and use an "add to my blog" function to reproduce content on their own outlets.

"NewspaperDirect's SmartEdition is loaded with features that will make this transition easier. But we know it will take time for many of our subscribers to get used to it," Lynch added. "The other part of the hybrid model is our Web site, which we will continue to improve as well."

Source: Editor & Publisher through IFRA Executive News Service

Today, The Liverpool Daily Post is giving its online readers a unique chance to peek into the paper's editorial process.

The Post will be running a live blog throughout the whole day, until next morning's edition goes the presses.

Thanks to technology from Bambuser and Qik, the Post's journalists will stream video of themselves via their mobile phones, as they conduct interviews or work in the office.

The day's main editorial conference was also streamed online.

Readers of the live blog can submit ideas for stories and questions for journalists, about editorial decisions, design and more, both for the print and online editions.

"The success of the live blog during our local election coverage proved that our readers enjoy being a part of the newsgathering process, asking questions and sharing information," said Mark Thomas, Liverpool Daily Post editor.

"Now we want to take this a stage further and invite people to get involved in the production of their newspaper."

Congratulations to the Post for this innovative way of engaging the audience in the news process and behind the scenes.

Go take a look!

Source: journalism.co.uk

Political newspaper and news site Politico has partnered Yahoo and will carry today the first-ever video interview of George W.Bush exclusively for an online audience.

Start political reporter Mike Allen, now at the Politico, will conduct the interview.

"It's the first time he (Bush) has granted an interview exclusively for an online audience," said Tony Fratto, deputy assistant to United States President George W. Bush and deputy press secretary.

"This interview is a natural progression in political news coverage, mirroring the change in the habits of Americans, who are increasingly turning online for their news," said Alan Warms, vice president and general manager, Yahoo! News.

Without a doubt, this interview is representative of a major shift in the habits of the audience and the credibility that is given to the Internet as a platform of distribution.

Last September, Yahoo! News had teamed with the Huffington Post to host the first-ever online presidential debate. In February, Yahoo and Politico had already partnered to conduct video interview with GOP candidates before Super Tuesday.

It seems both parties have benefited from this agreement: Yahoo! News is the most-visited overall online website, Politico can offer very in-depth and reactive political coverage.

Source: Politico.com - MediaChannel

The St. Petersburg Times, owned by the Poynter Institute, is going through a major revamp on May 19, in an effort to emphasize content valued by readers and cut down costs.

The daily features section, Floridian, will be published on Sundays only. The business section will merge with the B section metro news.

TV listings, comics and games, and some other syndicated elements from the features section, will be moved to a new section called Baylink.

As mentioned though, the move is (primarily) aimed at cutting costs, and a few elements will disappear from the paper, including items such as stock listings (many papers have eliminated them), the Parenting column and the Working section.

Staffers have worked to create "a more streamlined paper during the week, eliminating material readers may not value so much, and, in the midst of a serious recession, cutting costs," wrote Times media critic Eric Deggans in a blog post.

As Deggans is honest enough to admit, "It's a tough spot for a media critic to negotiate; I'm not an ombudsman with a contract guaranteeing employment no matter what I write, so I've tried to respect the organization's need to plan while pulling together this blog post."

In the end, it seems that even newspapers with a nonprofit model (the Times is in fact for profit, but has a peculiar ownership structure) are getting hit by the struggles of the US newspaper industry.

"We're not insulated from the pressure, and these changes are evidence of that fact," said Deggans.

A good share of comments to his blog post came from unhappy readers.

Source: TampaBay.com The Feed

Looking at the latest figures from The Teesside Evening Gazette's network of community websites, it seems a hyperlocal focus drives online traffic.

The five largest of the Gazette's 20 hyperlocal websites (a figure which is set to increase) have a five-figure monthly unique user count not much lower than the number of households in the post-code size areas they serve, reports blogger Martin Stabe.

The largest of the websites, based in Redcar's TS10 postcode, has 16,366 monthly users in an area with 16,396 households. And Redcar's users are obviously not a captive audience; on the web, they could go anywhere. Instead they choose to use a service carrying content with a more personal dimension.    

Teesside has also capitalized on the high user numbers by reverse-publishing the community sites into hyperlocal print publications, a scheme which has proved profitable, according to Evening Gazette editor Darren Thwaites.

The moral of the story: while too much hyperlocal news may not be "sophisticated," it might just boost traffic.

Source: The Wire through David Black 

The Shanghai Daily, an English language newspaper in China, has launched an e-paper edition compatible with Amazon's Kindle E-reader.

The Daily says it is the first paper in Asia to release an e-paper version for the Kindle, reports Journalism.co.uk's Laura Oliver.

With the addition of The Shanghai Daily, Amazon's number of e-paper titles, including the Washington Post and The New York Times, now stands at 18.

Source: Journalism.co.uk

Lessons on the brave new world of citizen journalism via cell phones are coming from the unlikeliest of places: Disney World. Using a new website called Twisney.com, anyone strolling around a Disney park can upload live updates and images from their phone.

Believe it or not, Twisney is not a Disney project nor the work of a venture-capital incubator. Rather, it was created by a 34-year old software developer with two kids who was taking his son to Disney World on a guys-only trip, and wanted to be able to update his wife and daughter back at home.

Twisney users can send short messages to an email address provided on the website, where the messages appear overlaid on an aerial view of the theme park provided by Microsoft's Virtual Earth map. Twisney is also tied in with Twitter; all you have to do is send a Tweet to the Twisney feed. 

The posts on Twisney are a mish-mash. While some users post trivial information such as their locations or their photos, others are sharing information valuable to navigating the Disney World parks.

And therein lies the potential of these types of sites, which offer instantaneous information sharing. Writes Wall Street Journal blogger Tom Weber, "The next logical step for Twisney is to have users consistently share real-time intelligence throughout the parks."

As these services evolve and become more popular, there's an opportunity for companies like Disney "to encourage passionate customers and even participate directly in the electronic conversation." There is also a risk for logistical headaches. Imagine one person sending a message to Twisney saying that a ride has a small line; pretty soon all the park will have descended on one place.

The Twisney experiment does, however, illustrate a key truth about today's citizen journalism: it's getting easier to participate. That will inevitably increase the numbers of people who do, changing the landscape of journalism along the way.

How do newspapers cope? The most effective model, like so much in journalism at the moment, remains elusive. Some news organizations like CBS and CNN have launched their own citizen journalism websites. But offering a chance at participation alone is not enough; a good business model is equally key, as Dutch cit-J site Skoeps recently discovered. The only thing newspapers can't do is bury their head in the sand and ignore the increasing levels of amateur participation.   

Source: Wall Street Journal  through I Want Media
  

The following is a brief narrative of the last World Editors Forum Study Tour in the US. We accompanied 26 newspaper editors through some of the most advanced newsrooms in the area, including Reuters, the Associated Press and The New York Times in New York, The News-Journal in Wilmington, and the Politico and Washington Post Newsweek Interactive in Washington D.C. (not all are depicted).

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

It seems the only way to make captions appear is by clicking on the pictures - and pausing the slideshow. Captions are included below too:

- After having visited Reuters, AP deputy managing editor Tom Kent and others gave us the tour of the Associated Press' new integrated newsroom...
- ...which spans over plus 100,000 square feet on an open-floor plan.
- The main feature of the new design was spatial flexibility...
- ...and, at times, the newsroom may resemble a construction site. But, Kent assured, this didn't disturb journalists' work.
- Another feature at AP: editors have two working spaces. They can work outside the closed office, preferably, to be closer to their staffers...
- ...but they can also use their private office if need be.
- The tour ended by AP's video production control rooms.
- At the New York Times...
- ...editors got a glimpse of the brand-new newsroom...
- ...and its modern design and architecture.
- NYT Futurist Michael Rogers treated us to the Times' top-floor research labs...
- ...lined with tech gadgets...
- ...that thrilled the editors.
- On our way to D.C., we stopped by Gannett's innovative News Journal...
- ...where editors greeted us warmly around the central hub...
- ...showed us their video studio...
- ...explained the editing work...
- ...and how the website has set up databases...
- ...and implemented mobile journalism.
- In Washington, we visited the Washington Post's online newsroom.
- Here again, a hub-like centre...
- ...and plenty of video equipment.
- The tour ended with a visit at the recently inaugurated Newseum...
- ...and the editors flew home.

TechCrunch has become the latest blog network to go mainstream. The blog has finalized a syndication deal with WashingtonPost.com, and TechCrunch stories are already appearing on the Post's technology section.

The Washington Post, which already runs stories from paidContent.org and mocoNews.net, is the first mainstream source to sign a deal with TechCrunch.

It's an equally beneficial partnership; in the words of MediaGuardian's Jemima Kiss: "TechCrunch wants to reach a more mainstream audience, and WashingtonPost gets niche coverage from an authoritative source."

Sources: MediaGuardian, Wired

The New York Post has been slowly shrinking in the past two weeks, reducing from a height of 34 cm. to 30 cm. The smaller paper now appears almost square.

However, the size change has not been implemented with all published copies, and the smaller Posts were only available in certain locations, according to Editor & Publisher.

"Just like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, the NY Post will be making the size of the daily paper slightly smaller effective tomorrow," spokeswoman Suzanne Halpin said in a statement to the New York Times' City Beat blog on April 21.

Although Halpin did not touch on the reason for the reduction, an expert on the field said that such a reduction can save a publication millions of dollars on printing costs, reports Le Monde.

Sources: Editor & Publisher, Le Monde

News Corp. has announced plans to further integrate its redesigned Wall Street Journal website and its News International holdings in the UK, such as the Times Online.

"It will be partly about tools, partly about deep linking to each other's content," said Anne Spackman, editor in chief of the Times Online. Spackman also suggested that similarities between The Sun and The New York Post may lead to integration between the two.

The Times had first announced plans for cross-selling advertising opportunities with WSJ. It now seems, however, that the integration will touch editorial as well as advertising content.
 
Speaking at the PPA conference, Spackman said: "We are increasingly linking to them around subjects of common interest. Our friends down under at news.com.au - we link to sport with them on cricket and rugby; with the Wall Street Journal, it will be the same on business. It will be an extremely useful thing in a way that it would never have been when we were only selling to our home audiences and when there was no power of the link."

In other news from the PPA conference, The Times, published since 1785, announced the beta launch of 200 years-worth of archive content on the web. The archives, which are supported by search technology from FAST, will be free to users initially, although subscription plans may be introduced down the line.

The Telegraph also unveiled plans to introduce user-generated content across its website.

Sources: PaidContentUK, Journalism.co.uk

Prompted by an e-mail from Bill Densmore of the Media Giraffe Project, who is participating in a panel called "What to do when blog comments go awry," Poynter blogger Amy Gahran offers up some solutions for dealing with vitriolic commentators.

-Monitor new commentators by configuring the system so that a user's first three comments require approval. If they are "well-behaved," then their comments can be given automatic approval.

-Post a clear, easy-to-understand comment policy that spells out what's tolerated, and the consequences for breaking the rules. Gahran recommends a three strike policy; three offenses and the user is then permanently expelled from the site or forum.

-Contact users personally and find a way to work with them if inappropriate comments are due to "passion, culture clash, or misunderstanding" rather than maliciousness.

-Monitor the forum or site regularly, an idea which The Telegraph has taken to heart in appointing a Head of Comment and Community."Otherwise you get a dynamic like in a high school class where the teacher never shows up," Gahran writes.

-Be ready to set up intensive emergency moderation if a hot-button issue prompts an influx of commentary.

Other solutions have also been put into practice; Philly.com took another route to manage a crisis with negative comments in early March.

Source: E-Media Tidbits

In the past, there has been much debate as to whether bloggers could be considered journalists and what the distinction meant. Regardless of the possible answers, in today's context, blog editorial practices have influenced those of traditional news media online - whether it's writing styles, tones or formats.

"Blog pioneers, those 'non-journalists', have revolutionized our approach to news," writes Benoit Raphaël, who blogs and is editor-in-chief of LePost, an experimental UGC venture launched by Le Monde interactif. Many of aspects described below are currently being tested at LePost.

Here's his list of 10 things that bloggers did that fundamentally changed media's approach:

- Conversation: there are now few newspaper sites that haven't opened their articles to comments and conversation. "A story, nowadays, is not only the journalist's article but the article + the feedback from readers," write Raphaël.
- Perfectible news: as a consequence of conversation, online articles are now constant works in progress. There are pros and cons though. Among the negatives, journalists can be tempted to publish improperly checked content.
- Buzz: born with blogs, all online journalists must now be aware of online buzz.
- News without a hierarchy or anti-chronological news: an increasing number of sites such as 20minutes and Le Figaro are now including news feeds, which list news items as they come in, in reverse chronological order. But nearly all traditional media sites continue to set a hierarchy to their news.
- Indexation: because of the structure of blogs, bloggers had to be good at search engine optimization when writing headlines and such, in order to make their content visible. These concerns now also affect journalists. Although "this doesn't mean that journalists must only write to be referenced," write Raphaël.
- Trampoline news: not all news articles need to be long-winded, or on the contrary, be held within a limited amount of space. With blog news, postings can be lengthy and complex, but also simply link back to external content.
- Aggregation: many blogs don't produce original content - they simply refer and point to existing content. Simply look at the Huffington Post, which has been built around aggregation.
- Lists: it's an extremely simple and efficient editorial format that is widespread in the blogosphere...
- Layered writing: thanks to hyperlinks, but also infographics, videos and more, articles can be written to be seemingly shorter, but they actually point to more in-depth layers of related content.
- A new tone: the tone of conversation.

There are certainly other fundamental ways in which bloggers may have changed traditional media coverage online. But few online journalists would still deny that blogs haven't influenced - improved - their own journalistic practices on the Web.

Source: Demain tous journalistes (link in French)