Results matching “that news media transpare”

Separate op-eds have been published, in The Globe and Mail and on the website of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), addressing what the authors perceive as the watering-down of press credentials and its impact on the recent G20 protests.  In a Globe article entitled Self-anointed G20 'journalists' should get real, Christie Blatchford writes that "just as you are not a physician or a lawyer merely because you say you are, much as you may want to believe it so, neither are you a journalist because you and your friends say you are or because your "writings" appear on a website."

In the past, media mogul Rupert Murdoch has lambasted search engines and news aggregators on various occasions for making profits off of content they did not produce. At a lecture to celebrate copyright's 300th birthday at the University College London yesterday, Murdoch's son and News Corp EMEA CEO, James Murdoch joined in his father's footsteps and criticized search engines for not making any contributions to newsgathering.

"Search companies and aggregators skim content from a thousand sources, sell it to clients, scoop up advertising revenues and put little or nothing back into professional newsgathering."

Paid Content reports that Murdoch criticized the long-standing status quo that most content online "wants to be free," adding that this imbalance between search engines and aggregators needs to be redressed.

Yesterday the user-funded news site Spot.Us launched a 'community-centered advertising' feature that allows users to answer questions posed by a sponsor in exchange for credit to use on the site, reported Poynter's Bill Mitchell.

Spot.Us invites readers and journalists to propose stories and readers are asked to donate to those which they view as worthwhile, once a price has been set. It publishes an average of a story each week, according to founder David Cohn in February.  

Robert Rosenthal, executive director of the Center for Investigative Reporting recently released a statement highlighting the recent successes of California Watch's distribution model.  Created by CIR, California Watch is a relatively new reporting initiative which continues the center's efforts to develop a successful method for distributing their reports and stories.

It's a question that can get lost in all the talk of business models and content creation: how might journalism best serve the public?

In Australia, the latest group to ponder this is The Foundation for Public Interest Journalism, directed by a group of journalists, editors, academics and members of the community. Part of the Institute for Social Research at Swinburne University in Melbourne, it is setting up a project called YouCommNews, modeled on the American site Spot.Us, which will allow the audience to commission the stories they want to see.

The Editors Weblog spoke to Dr Margaret Simons, chair of the foundation, and to David Cohn, founder of Spot.Us.

The past few years has seen the explosive growth of social networking sites Twitter and Facebook, and a dramatic downturn in advertising revenue that has set about ravaging the newspaper industry. PoynterOnline has now reported new enterprises between the two industries however, which could prove profitable for both.  

Few news outlets are without their own Twitter account these days, using the site's micro-blogging capabilities as a means to distribute stories and attract a wider audience. The Austin American-Statesman is using theirs to sell tweets to local business, which can advertise their enterprises on the newspaper's Twitter account.

The Australian media regulatory body is set to start using social media, having appointed a former newspaper editor to create its social media strategy.

Tom Burton, former executive editor of broadsheet newspaper the Sydney Morning Herald, has been appointed to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to oversee its government 2.0 and social engagement strategies.

Burton was previously working in the US as the Communications and On-Line Director of The Center for American Progress. His role involved implementing web 2.0 and Gov 2.0 practices, that is, changing how the government used social networking sites, blogs, video sharing sites and wikis to interact with the public. He has also worked as a ministerial adviser to a former Australian Minister for Communications.

National Public Radio has released a set of guidelines for its journalists about how they should use their private social media. Certainly not the first organisation to do so, NPR differs in that it's guidelines present an alternative perspective to the use of services such as Facebook and Twitter, than those given to The Washington Post staff, for example.

NPR, whilst stressing the importance of maintaining journalistic integrity: "First and foremost- you should do nothing that could undermine your credibility with the public, damage NPR's standing as an impartial source of news or otherwise jeopardize NPR's reputation," states the memo- then continues on to acknowlegdge the value of such sites as a source for journalists. 

"Social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter have become an integral part of everyday life for millions of people around the world. As NPR grows to serve the audience well beyond the radio, social media is becoming an increasingly important aspect of our interaction and our transparency with our audience and with a variety of communities. Properly used, social networking sites can also be very valuable newsgathering and reporting tools and can speed research and extend a reporter's contacts, and we encourage our journalists to take advantage of them.

The Washington Post is the lastest in a series of publications to release a set of guidelines for its journalists to follow in their use of social networking websites. The move comes after a managing editor of the Post, Raju Narisetti, tweeted two messages which questioned his impartiality as a journalist.

Andrew Alexander, ombudsman for the Post, revealed the two messages raising eyebrows in his Omblog:

"We can incur all sorts of federal deficits for wars and what not," read one message. "But we have to promise not to increase it by $1 for healthcare reform? Sad."

Then another from last week: "Sen Byrd (91) in hospital after he falls from 'standing up too quickly." How about term limits. Or retirement age. Or commonsense to prevail."

Alexander writes : 'In today's hyper-sensitive political environment, Narisetti's tweets could be seen as one of the Post's top editors taking sides on the question of whether a health-care reform plan must be budget neutral. On Byrd, his comments could be construed as favoring term limits or mandatory retirement for aging lawmakers. Many readers already view The Post with suspicion and believe that the personal views of its reporters and editors influence the coverage. The tweets could provide ammunition.'

Though Narisetti was using his private Twitter account, and stressed the messages were 'personal observations' intended to be read by some 90 friends and associates, he said he now realises that his tweets were 'unwise' and that his opinions reflected on his position as managing editor of the Post.  

He has since closed his Twitter account.

The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is embarking on a study of online news distribution amid rising concern about the news industry's financial troubles which have been exacerbated by the global economic downturn. It is part of the Working Party on the Information Economy's ongoing work on Digital Broadband Content. Last month, to launch the study, representatives from OECD countries and interested organisations heard four several presentations on how news production and distribution is changing, and what the future might be .

Crises and a broken business model: how a news agency reacts

Eric Scherer is director of strategy and external relations at Agence-France Presse, and founder of AFP's Mediawatch blog. He explained to the OECD the nature of the crisis which he believes is taking place, and the steps that an outlet such as AFP is taking.

He sees a situation where five simultaneous crises took place, in terms of economics, business model, attention, training and authority. The economic value of the traditional press is going down as the mainstream tries to adapt to new trends. The current business model is "broken," he believes: it was based largely on advertising and a small amount of circulation revenue but in the past two to three years there has been a "historic decoupling" of advertising and newspapers as classified ads have moved online. The old media now has to run after attention as it faces competition from new. Training is a "huge problem" according to Scherer: it has to be done quickly but people at the top are not sufficiently aware of the challenges. And finally, the authority of old media is declining quickly as the top-down relationship falls apart.

What is more, Scherer believes that a process of disintermediation has taken place in news: the media has been cut out, as those who want to get their message out go straight to the people. He cited Obama's election campaign and use of new media as a "symbol" of this, pointing out that the future president used every single internet and Web 2.0 tool to communicate with the public. And the people responded: at every Obama demonstration there were attendees talking photos with their digital cameras or phones which they then uploaded and posted online. Sports stars are also speaking directly to the people, Scherer pointed out. This is the main development in the media in recent times, that the people who were deprived of production and distribution tools now have them. Hence, old media's monopoly is over, what used to be scarce, is now abundant.

The Internet has led to the "atomisation of content," meaning that readers can 'snack' on content as they are always one click away from something else, according to Scherer. Print and online are mutually conflicting business models, but going online-only is not necessarily the best idea, he explained, referring to a City University study on online-only Finnish paper Taloussanomat. 

These problems have all be exacerbated by the financial crisis, Scherer said, which makes it so much harder to finance the transition period and find a business model. Before the crisis hit, it seemed as if news outlets would have time to adapt, but now they are "below the poverty level."

So, how can news organisations finance their work? Is it possible in the current climate to find a way to finance an investigative journalism network and a Baghdad bureau? Scherer described how AFP has been tackling these challenges of the new news ecosystem. AFP produces all the main "bricks of content" and now needs to be able to link them together an add technical context. Rather than just providing editorial content, the agency now offers its traditional media customers both content and services, such as video, mobile or user-generated content platforms.

Due to the increased competition for breaking news, as the Internet means that newspapers and other outlets can effectively act as wire services and AFP's competitors are no longer just Reuters and the Associated Press, AFP has chosen to increase its national and international coverage and rely and focus on its branding. Amongst all the "noise on the internet," Scherer believes that people feel safer when they know their news comes from a trusted brand.

The Internet has also meant that AFP has become not just a business to business operation, but also has a direct relationship with the consumer, as its articles are available online under the AFP brand, via search engines such as Google or Yahoo. Incidentally, the Associated Press, which has also traditionally kept the audience at a distance, is going a step further and seeking to create search "landing pages" on news topics for its readers.

The evolution of the Internet as a journalistic tool

Thomas Crampton's presentation on the value of new technologies for communications was delivered true to style: it was recorded on a mobile phone video application while the writer went through security in a Hong Kong airport. 

Crampton's career path has developed simultaneously with the evolution of new technologies as a communications tool: as a correspondent at the International Herald Tribune and the New York Times, he always tried to capitalise on available online and digital tools to ensure that his reporting was always at the cutting edge of news provision. Nonetheless, frustration with the reticence of the traditional media to embrace alternative outlets to their full potential pushed him to leave the print industry for fear of "being left behind".  He is now the Asia Pacific Director of Digital Influence at Ogilvy. 

The responsibilities of this position convey Crampton's conviction and "passion" for the new media. In this role he works with multinationals to tap into new technology, which enable companies and individuals to reach and communicate with a huge audience. The progressive outlet of other industries reinforces Crampton's dismay with what he sees as the reluctance of news providers to work with these possibilities. 

To illustrate his conviction that technological evolution is a great but unavoidable asset for news provision, Crampton outlined the developments of the relationship between news reporting and the Internet:

• - 1995-99 Communications: During this period, the Internet facilitated the internal communications of news providers; for example correspondents could communicate with the home bureau through email, greatly reducing time. The web, however, was not at this point seen as a way to distribute or research news.
• - 2000-2004 Research: The Internet developed into an information finding tool, enabling reporters to assemble facts for stories that would otherwise be unattainable. Applications such as Google Cache allowed correspondents in the field to find elusive information and file updates, reducing their previously pressing need to continuously collaborate with the home office. Moreover, as information became accessible from anywhere in the world once connected to the web, newsrooms found that they could function without some foreign bureaus or correspondents. 
• - 2004 to present Social Media: The emergence of social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter have affected not only the way news is reported, but how information is distributed.  As a result, traditional roles in the information stream dynamic are merging: the audience are now sharers, publishers and broadcasters as much as they are consumers of information.

It is in this current situation in which Crampton suggests news providers have lost their direction, apparently overwhelmed by the challenges thrown up by the proliferation of platforms and the attendant dissolution of information monopolies. To surmount these problems, news providers needed to proceed with a flexible, open attitude to the creation of new business models. However, Crampton indicates that their wariness led to the internal creation of limitations, citing the ongoing debate about online subsidies and paid for content as a detrimental and futile drain of resources.

Crampton felt that the traditional frameworks were restricting journalists from making "headway" in the wider field of communications and reporting. He began to "push boundaries, both externally and internally". The launch of his own blog enabled him to create his own "digital identity", establishing a persona beyond that of his employer. Indeed, the importance of 'branding' in the journalism professional was highlighted by the anecdote that when Crampton's name was typed into a search engine, whilst still at the IHT, his personal blog was listed before that of the publication. Once Crampton had left the paper, he devoted himself to diffusing information through new technologies, unrestrained by company rule and protocol. The results have been 'liberating', allowing the writer to establish a "complex and rich dialogues" with otherwise "unreachable audiences". 

Crampton offers a shining testimony to the current and potential value of new technologies in communications. It is a strong message to news providers that innovation is necessary.  Due to the use of multiple media outlets, Crampton perceives himself to be at the "front line of communication". Yet, whilst Crampton's departure from the printed press has produced exciting results, the feasibility of this as a career pathway for the majority of journalists, especially those just starting out is questionable. 

Before becoming digitally "independent" Crampton had established a reputation as a reporter, during a decade of front line correspondence for prestigious titles. These experiences, gained thanks to the printed press, would have allowed Crampton to obtain a readership, a sum of which have presumably continued to follow and recommend him as changed outlets. It may be that if reporters are to succeed on the digital and online scenes, without having the safety net of affiliation with an established publication, they need to have more ammunition than just writing ability. With the abundance of breaking news online, there is increasing demand for critical, in depth pieces written by experts.  In short, there are signs that markets are becoming more "niche" which is requiring journalists to assert their value by finding a speciality.

Could stakeholder journalism be the future?

Mark Hunter, a founding member of the Global Investigative Journalism Network and Senior Research Fellow at INSEAD spoke about what he sees as the declining credibility of traditional news and the subsequent rise of 'stakeholder journalism.' He believes that concentration of ownership has contributed to reduced credibility of traditional media as readers will increasingly question whether owners have their own agenda. Hunter sees the news industry's current problems as a vicious circle starting with this: declining credibility leads to declining audience, leading to declining revenue and hence declining capacity.

Investigative journalism is a field which is already moving out of the grasp of the media, Hunter pointed out. Sixty per cent of investigative journalism is funded by foundations rather than media, and this which leads him to suppose that stakeholder media - in other words, news generated by organisations that have an interest in the story - might be taking over the role of watchdog. Greenpeace, for example, has a long history of such journalism, such as during its confrontations with Exxon.

Stakeholder journalism differs from traditional journalism in several ways, Hunter explained. For one, it targets a different audience, focussing on informing particular communities and insiders rather than a general audience. Its expertise is narrower but deeper, concentrated on environmental or political issues, for example. Stakeholder reporting aims to accomplish a different objective: telling people what they should do, rather than just what to think about. It is transparent about where it is coming from and what it thinks is 'right,' rather than trying to present a balanced argument.

Hunter believes that the news industry will continue to shrink, and that government bailouts, for example, will not bring the public back. This will leave a growing void which stakeholder journalism will fill, heralding the return of partisan media, according to Hunter. With this comes a need for new journalistic training, as it dispels with the idea of objective media, and the need for enhanced legal knowledge. This is where OECD analysis and policy can help, he believes.

In terms of research requirements, Hunter believes that there is an "urgent need" for investigation into new business models for watchdog journalism, something which the INSEAD Social Innovation Centre and the Global Investigative Journalism Network are looking at. He also sees an "urgent need" for new codes of ethics and professional standards adapted to stakeholder media, where objectivity is no longer a core value.

Few would deny the importance of investigative journalism and the need to find a business model to sustain it. Public interest journalism, exposing wrongdoing and corruption, is clearly crucial to a democratic society. But could this be effectively carried out by interested groups rather than by an objective media presence? Stakeholder journalism has the benefit of being clear in its motives, and transparent about the fact that it is not offering a balanced argument: its bias should be obvious to readers. And more investigative stories are undoubtedly beneficial to society if they are from respectable organisations. However, it is important for the public to be able to understand both sides of a case and this is when independent, neutral third party reporting is essential. Stakeholder media can be an extremely useful supplement, but it should not replace traditional media coverage.

by Emma Heald and Christie Silk

Poynter's Steve Myers has conducted a thorough interview with Amanda Michel, who is ProPublica's editor of distributed reporting, charged with developing crowdsourcing and collaborative journalism methods to report on the impact of the federal stimulus bill. In the interview she explains how she is building a network of citizen journalists and how this is operating.

Michel explained to Myers how she is building "a corps of pro-am journalists" to be part of the ProPublica Reporting Network, launched in May, and how they are being integrated into the work of ProPublica. She plans to coordinate "collaborative reporting projects," which will mean allocating specific assignments to citizen journalists that will draw on the insight and experiences of many people.

UK current affairs documentary series, Panorama, is tonight scheduled to air a programme entitled the "Death of Kiss and Tell", which looks at investigative journalism from both the side of newspapers and their subjects.

The BBC programme features Max Mosley, president of the Fédération International de l'Automobile. Last year, the News of the World revealed footage of the Formula One boss in a compromising situation with prostitutes. Despite the controversy that followed, the tabloid eventually lost a High Court battle to Mosley and was ordered to pay £60,000 in damages.

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger and Labour MP Tom Watson go head-to-head on Twitter, as Watson and the Daily Mail accuse the centre-left paper of going too far. Last week, the newspaper went ahead with a front-page editorial urging the British PM Gordon Brown to resign.

Daily Mail obsessed with idea of Guardian 'putsch' (in collusion with BBC?). A question of media ethics, apparently. http://tiny.cc/7Wp3M"

And so went the tweet that started it all, with Rusbridger linking to the Daily Mail article, in which Stephen Glover asks "Was it [the Guardian] trying to orchestrate events so as to secure the resignation which it had called for in its editorial?"

The 2009 regular session of the Indiana State General Assembly has passed a bill regulating the rules of publication of government notices in newspapers.  This relates to issues of transparency and accountability- notices include budget figures, other information surrounding the spending of public money and the conduct of government business.  

"Who guards the Guardian?" went the headline in last week's edition of political magazine, New Statesman, who asked if the Guardian was abusing its status to damage commercial rivals.

The New Statesman referred to the Guardian as "influential" "imposing" and "corporate" and suggested that the MediaGuardian, in particular, was being used by owner Guardian Media Group as an editorial battleaxe to discredit competitors.

US President Obama and his team seem to be trying to circumvent the traditional White House press corps by directly communicating with "liberal commentators, local reporters and ethnic media," according to Politico, as part of "a much larger strategy" to address more sympathetic audiences. Politico blogger Michael Calderone pointed out that at his second East Room news conference today, the President "skipped over the nation's top newspapers" and took questions from a wider variety of outlets, such as "Spanish-language television, a military news outlet, and black-oriented media."

Obama's decision to call upon a Huffington Post reporter at his first press conference was widely reported, as was the move to give an interview to "progressive" radio host Ed Schultz. Politico also notes White House budget director Peter Orszag took a conference call with liberal-leaning writers on the day Obama released his spending plan; Jared Bernstein, VP Joe Biden's economic adviser also held a call with "friendly" reporters and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has done conference calls with black and Hispanic media outlets. And according to an administration official, Obama plans to meet with liberal bloggers.

At last week's Journalism That Matters: Adapting Journalism to the New News Ecology conference organized by Poynter Institute and Media Giraffe Project, journalists gathered "to help create, define and populate the next digital newsroom wherever it takes root." The three-day conference was a multimedia event with constant Twitter updates from participants, live chats, and video feeds of speakers.

The conference's objectives were first to determine the new roles of journalists and to define the relationship of the media to the public and then take action that will help promote journalism in a changing industry. On his way to the conference, Mark Briggs, CEO of Serra Media, tweeted that his hopes for the conference were to "develop a Code of Innovation to guide new-era news orgs. Then build one."

The question of paid online content is very much on the newspaper industry's lips at the moment. Though as many newspapers have already tried and failed with online subscription models, alternative solutions such as micropayment or cable TV style packages have been proposed. Bill Densmore, former publisher, journalist and director/editor of the Media Giraffe Project at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, with the help of an $80,000 fellowship from the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism, is working on a possible scheme which would accommodate both these concepts. His initiative, the Information Valet Project, is an "effort to rally U.S. news and information-industry publishers to participate in a shared-user network for Internet demographic-privacy management, enhanced advertising services and subscription/per click content options." The Editors Weblog spoke to Densmore to find out more about his far-reaching and complex idea.

Not your average online payment scheme

The Information Valet project proposes that all information providers, such as newspaper websites, join together to be part of the same shared user network. A user would have an account with one paper, which would be their 'information valet,' and he or she would use this account to access other sites around the network. Depending on how much information about themselves the user agrees to provide, both the content and advertising on websites in the network would be customised to a certain degree for the individual user, based on demographic data or a user's past preferences. For those users who provide some information about themselves, relevant advertising would be shown, and users would theoretically have their account credited for looking at such ads, in a system similar to that proposed in late January by the Nieman Journalism Lab. .

In practice, Densmore envisages users paying their information valet a set fee per month to have access to a bundle of content from multiple websites, and the advertising revenue would be absorbed by the valet. It would probably be possible, however, to buy some information "a la carte." Any account with an 'information valet' would be portable, so users could move their account to a different provider if they chose, and providers would offer competitive proposals.

Densmore outlined details of the type of non-profit organisation he believes should run the network. "We are exploring the idea of calling it the Journalism Trust Association," and its broad social aim would be to sustain journalism. It would probably own a for-profit association that would actually run the network: it would manage the log in of consumers across the user network, and would "have a facility to make it easy to pay you as a consumer when you look at sponsored information, and charge you for information that you receive as part of a subscription bundle."

The ins and outs for readers, newspapers and advertisers

Consumer
So for the consumer, it would mean that "rather than having breadcrumbs of your persona spread all over the internet with multiple logins and passwords, you can have a relationship with your most trusted information valet."

• Readers agree with this valet on what details they are going to provide about themselves and their preferences, and what packages of information or other services they would like.
  
• Densmore explained that it would thus give the user more control over their privacy as they would know who sees what information about them and they would have the option to block certain websites from seeing their details. And if they wanted, they could choose a 'Swiss bank' style service, where they would not need to provide any details.

Newspaper
For the information provider, the network would allow them to "forge a new kind of trust relationship with the consumer where you are helping them find and have access to the information that they need to get their jobs done in their daily lives." And crucially, it would allow them to receive income from readers as well as from advertisers.

Advertiser
And finally for the advertiser, it means the ability to approach specific people with advertising that is very relevant for them, rather than potentially wasting money on a mass market.

• Advertisers would be marketing to "individual users who are both anonymous yet identified."
  
• Densmore stressed that users will not exclusively see advertisements that correspond to what they have told the system they would like, as often people will find that they are in fact interested in a product that they did not expect to be interested in. 
• Existing advertiser-information provider relationships would be able to continue.

Will it work?

The Information Valet project has already been developed in some detail, and Densmore is working with US newspaper chain Lee Enterprises which has agreed that one of its newspaper sites will demonstrate the 'notion' of the network in April in at a press conference in Washington DC. The Associated Press has agreed to provide Densmore and his team with access to its AP exchange database, which is a very detailed tagging system for content.
 
So the project is well on its way, and Densmore explained that technologically, there should be no difficulty in establishing such a network. However, to be effective, the network has to be virtually all encompassing, so the challenge is "simultaneously convincing a large number of content providers, advertisers and users that this network is valuable and that they should be a part of it." Densmore believes that creating a trusted organisation to manage the network is essential, as is making the network an attractive proposition for the consumer, which would also make it more appealing to the content providers. Densmore hopes that newspapers and other information providers "will ultimately realise that the challenge of having all these essentially incompatible protocols, like railroads with different gage tracks, is not a useful paradigm for them or for consumers," and will all join in.

To charge or not to charge for content

The big question for the media industry is, and the one that would undoubtedly be a crucial factor in its chances for success: could it save newspapers? The complexity of the system, and of the concept itself, appears likely to be one of its first stumbling blocks. People will not be persuaded to use a system that they do not understand. But, if Densmore and his team can take these complicated blueprints and hide them behind an easy-to-use consumer product/interface, they may just be able to pull it off. Whether it will make enough money to support newspapers is another question. As Densmore explained, it is extremely hard at the moment to tell when the idea has not been thoroughly tested.

Considering the current debate on paid content, Densmore's proposal is particularly relevant. Under his scheme, it seems that users would pay for their news, but content would be 'bundled,' meaning no individual subscriptions. Media commentators are fiercely divided between those who insist that paid online news is the only way, and the right way, to succeed, and those who assert that consumers will never pay, and that charging for content is an old fashioned idea that newspapers are returning to to make up for a lack of new entrepreneurship.

The question, as Observer writer Peter Preston put it, is "can content be put back on its pedestal again? Can original investment bring a reward?" He concludes, as the Editors Weblog has, that there is not much that individual content providers can do on their own: "only working together will work." Gordon Crovitz wrote in the Wall Street Journal, one of the few papers which successfully charges for online content, that "people are happy to pay for news and information however it's delivered, but only if it has real, differentiated value." He believes that the question is not "will people pay to access my newspaper content on the Web?" but rather, "what kind of journalism can my staff produce that is different and valuable enough that people will pay for it online?" The Real Clear Politics blog calls for a US industry-wide adoption of a pay wall, managed by the Newspaper Association of America.

Lauren Rich Fine, on the other hand, (writing somewhat ironically in Paid Content) is like many others convinced that paid online content is not the solution, and suggests instead that newspapers try to become the "local ad network that is so sorely missing from the mix," and "prove they are the best editors by pouring all their limited resources into great local stories and investigations, while complementing it with links to the best content on the web." She admits, though, that this will not restore newspapers to what they were financially, and indeed, as yet, the non-profit model or community ownership aside, other feasible alternative money-making schemes have been lacking.

So it would seem that there might be room for a project such as the Information Valet, as newspapers are in dire need of more income. The scheme would involve industry-wide collaboration, which appears to be essential if people are to be persuaded to pay, and the bundling idea would to an extent respect the openness of the Internet. More transparency with regards to the use of consumers' information is also likely to be greatly appreciated, in a time when this issue is also under scrutiny for companies such as Facebook. But Densmore and his team will have to prove that it will be simple enough for the consumer to grasp, and most importantly, that it will generate a significant amount of revenue for newspapers.
 

It is a common belief that well-researched, in-depth investigative journalism is in danger as newspapers worldwide are forced to cut costs in order to survive. By its very nature, investigative journalism is time-consuming, resources-consuming and not as likely to rake in readers as breaking news stories. But it is also one of the most crucial areas of journalism with regards to its impact, and necessary if the press is to maintain its vital role as watchdog over governments and powerful institutions in a democratic society, and therefore arguably essential to save. Guardian writers Bruce Ackerman and Ian Iyres recently wrote that solutions to the newspapers industry's woes should focus exclusively on "the collapse of investigative journalism, not the fate of particular delivery systems." The Editors Weblog spoke to Brigitte Alfter, director of a new European fund, which is doing just that.

The European Fund for Investigative Journalism was launched last week, as a project run by the Belgian Pascal Decroos Fund, although it hopes to become a separate entity in the future. It seems as if there is an increasing need to fund investigative reporting separately from other forms of journalism. "Media is in a time of change," explained director Brigitte Alfter, "and recently investigative journalism has not been a high priority for editors and publishers." So the Fund aims to fill this gap, to "keep the quality up." Europe has been lagging behind the US in terms of finding alternative ways to fund investigative journalism: the US boasts national non-profit investigative reporting outfit ProPublica and local operations such as the VoiceOfSanDiego or MinnPost, as well as more established funds such as the Fund for Investigative Journalism. Why this is the case is not immediately clear and would require some research, but Alfter suggested that part of the reason was America's "strong philanthropic tradition, that we don't have in Europe." It is also possible that the number of newspaper readers has fallen faster in the US, due to more widespread internet usage, among other things, and therefore newspapers have been less able to fund such investigative journalism themselves.

"In Europe we can see that politics, business, even organised crime all cross borders, while journalists and their coverage are often focussed purely on a national target group and are reluctant to cross borders"

The Fund will seek to promote European investigative journalism that crosses national borders, which Alfter sees as a very important aspect of such a project, and one that has not so far been emphasised enough. "In Europe we can see that politics, business, even organised crime all cross borders, while journalists and their coverage are often focussed purely on a national target group and are reluctant to cross borders," Alfter explained. Along this lines, the grants should provide enough money for the travel and translation costs that such a multi-country story would generate. Stories would be published on a national level, in the countries of those journalists who have contributed, and excerpts or even full stories will appear on the fund's website.

The plan is to invite proposals for stories on a quarterly basis. The first round of funding is 20,000 euros, provided by Norwegian foundation for freedom of expression, Fritt Ord. The proposals will be assessed by a four-member jury, who will serve for two years and remain anonymous throughout this time. Their anonymity is intended to be a kind of buffer that would mean that they cannot be influenced in their choices, and hence strengthen the credibility of the organisation, believes Alfter. She stressed the care that the fund has taken to make the criteria for choosing pieces public and transparent. Stories which give added value to mainstream coverage will be valued highly, as will those which have relevance to society, and those which involve collaboration between colleagues. One of the issues with investigative journalism is its lack of immediate newsworthiness, and Alfter explained that newsworthiness is not one of the most important criteria that the jury will be looking for. She commented that rather, she hopes that the outcome and impact of stories would be news in itself.

Investigative journalism is evidently more likely to succeed in attracting funding as it represents public interests, and society could suffer significantly without it. If the non-profit, endowed model of news-gathering is to become more prevalent, it is very possible that it would primarily support investigative reporting, to protect it from economic difficulty. Brigitte Alfter expressed her hope that one day the traditional media will once again find enough money to fund a suitable amount of investigative journalism, and explained that she would be delighted if this fund could serve as an inspiration for that. But for now, it appears that it must be funded separately, and she and her team are focussed on providing an impetus to European journalists to take on projects that "go beyond the day-to-day agenda and thus live up to one particular task of journalism, which is to be a watchdog and to provide relevant information to the public debate, that otherwise would not have got out." Hopefully, they will succeed.

Following increased discussion in the media world of the non-profit model as a potential saviour for newspapers, the idea of paid online content has returned to the forefront of the debate, and different ways to implement this have been proposed. What most of the arguments are lacking, however, is an acknowledgment of the free spirit of the Internet and the necessity to maintain this. If the tides are to be reversed and people are to be persuaded to pay for information again, any online payment program that is established should not erect pay walls between publications. Paid online content would be a huge step for newspapers, and a reversal of current policy, so great thought and care are required to ensure that it is a step taken in the right way. But as online advertising revenue slows, and newspapers' very survival is threatened, could paid online content indeed be the solution?

The current micropayment debate

Walter Isaacson's article in Time which first spurred the debate makes the valid and interesting point that maybe returning to paid content would actually be a positive change for the industry in terms of the way that journalists work. Charging readers for content is based on very different principles to charging for advertising. When seeking income from advertisers, readers become less of a priority: "eventually you will weaken your bond with your readers if you do not feel directly dependent on them for your revenue." Isaacson believes that the key to attracting online revenue "is to come up with an iTunes-easy method of micropayment," that would allow impulse purchases of individual articles, rather than having content available purely by subscription. As many newspapers have already tried and failed to generate income via paid subscriptions, it would seem that micropayment is definitely worth considering.  

Steve Brill's memo to the New York Times that was published in Poynter, advises the paper on "how to get off the free-content treadmill", calling for the NYT to lead the way in establishing a new paid content model. He points out that "getting an average of just $1.00 a month (3.3 cents a day) from each visitor [who currently uses the site] would yield $240m in new annual revenue." He outlines a plan whereby online articles will cost 10 cents each, a day pass for all articles would cost 40 cents, a month would cost $7.50 and a year $55. Passing on an article would cost 5 cents. This combination of subscriptions and the possibility to purchase individual articles makes sense, but there are flaws in this proposal.

All newspapers in one payment plan?

First, an industry-wide simultaneous switch would undoubtedly be a preferable solution, and arguably the only one that has a chance of succeeding. Any newspaper that unilaterally decides to start a paid content system for information that can be found elsewhere is bound to suffer from a lack of readers, as people will simply go elsewhere. Few people who get their news online have undying loyalty to one or two individual publications any more. Brill suggests "a new marketing campaign would promote the fact that the Times alone among daily newspapers (until the others follow) is charging for its content because 'you get what you pay for.'" Obviously it is possible that this would work, but it would be a huge risk and it is likely that many readers would immediately be lost, and content would be isolated, as TimesSelect content was during its brief period behind a pay wall. The idea of paying to forward an article further fortifies this wall. Forget traditional concepts of competition: newspapers need to come together so that paid content will work for everybody.

Along similar lines, offering subscriptions to each individual paper is unlikely to work anymore. Online readers have become accustomed to looking at many different sources of news each day: one of the greatest advantages of online news is that you can move freely between publications, and papers are becoming more willing to link to each other's content. This is something that should be maintained, setting up walls around individual papers is inconsistent with the benefits of the web. So papers should join together and implement a system by which users can use the same payment method for many, or ideally all, publications, whether subscription-based or micropayments. In discussion with Isaacson, Daily Show host Jon Stewart suggested a cable TV style model, whereby newspapers group together to form packages. This would definitely be preferable to individual publications proceeding alone, and might provide some healthy competition. But the user would benefit more from just one universal system, as it would be simpler to access more publications in a way that is more coherent with the current way that people use the web. Choosing between different 'packages' could be a confusing and frustrating exercise and there is the risk that media companies would align along partisan lines and further polarise the industry politically.

In line with the idea of free movement, costs would have to be lower than Brill suggests for individual articles. An ideal system would be one where costs are so low that people will not hesitate to read as many articles as they like. Any payment system developed will have to be created with the less tech-savvy user in mind. It must be extremely easy to use, unobtrusive and transparent with regards to costs. The importance of ease cannot be over-estimated; it is essential not to put people off by making registration too complicated.

iTunes or iNews?

Countless parallels have been drawn between the newspaper industry and the music industry. Obviously the two industries are very different and purchasing a song is not the same thing as buying an article: not least because you are likely to listen to a song again and again while as you would often only read an article once. Consequently, any pricing structure for newspaper content must reflect this difference, with articles costing a tiny fraction of the 99 cents that iTunes, for example, charges for a track. But there are some lessons that newspapers can learn. A crucial point to understand is that a site such as iTunes is so popular because you can buy a huge amount of music there, from many different record labels, and the pricing strategies are very simple. Once a user has set up their account and entered payment details, it is very easy to make purchases. Although newspapers may not want to lump their articles all in one place, but rather retain their individual websites, one payment scheme for all definitely seems as if it would be the most usable. A pre-paid account, or a system whereby you just needed to register your card details would probably be easiest to use.

One issue that people have often pointed to when comparing the newspaper and music industries is that many people are still prepared to buy songs legally even though they can frequently be downloaded free. According to NewspaperDeathWatch, it is the artists themselves who "drove transformation" and persuaded their fans that their music was worth paying for, and made clear the damage they cause to the industry by downloading free songs. "It's up to reporters and the emerging breed of online news organizations like Talking Points Memo to convince their fans to fork over a few pennies to consume their stuff." People feel guilty about getting free music from their favourite artists, maybe people's consciences can be evoked over consuming newspaper content free if it is damaging their favourite journalists?

The value of newspaper content

So is a return to paid content the answer for newspapers? Not everybody thinks so. New York Times op-ed contributor Michael Kinsley compares the amount of money to be made from charging online NYT readers of the $2 a month to that currently made from advertising and circulation, and as the paid online sum is so much smaller he concludes that "$2 a month is not going to save newspapers." But with more and more readers moving online, and advertising and circulation revenue dropping, it is something worth considering. Advertising can still be used to generate additional income, as long as it remains relatively unobtrusive and inoffensive.

A world-wide, newspaper-wide paid content system would undoubtedly be complicated and costly to set up, but if it could provide the vital extra income needed to save the industry, it might well be worth it. A system that allows people to move freely between publications in the way that they can now, and encourages newspapers to link freely to one another so as to make best use of the advantages of the web, is essential. And hopefully readers will not only think that newspaper content is worth paying a small amount for, but learn to value this content more.

Following speculation that 'YouTube president' Obama was going to bypass the traditional media in favour of going directly to the public via the White House website and social media sites, it seems that Obama has actually made a concerted effort to interact with the press. "The president has been strikingly accessible," according to Washington Post writer Howard Kurtz, "sitting for interviews or fielding reporters' questions virtually every weekday."

Photos are doctored, enhanced or manipulated by news organizations on a regular basis - and not necessarily maliciously.  Sometimes a photo needs to be "enhanced;" for example, a journalist makes tonal adjustments or noise filters to more accurately reflect the environment in which a photo was shot.

Photographer Mark Hamilton offers a new way to describe "enhanced" photos that gives a reader a clear idea of what's been done.  Adopting a system that readers understand, "in terms they understand," is the next step toward "transparency" for journalism, establishing a level of honesty about process and allowing readers to "judge veracity."

SpinSpotter, a new tool designed to spot media bias launched on Monday, 8 September. The program is designed to work with a toolbar users download called Spinoculars, which is used to spot words and phrases that are considered bias.  

SpinSpotter is available through Firefox and scans web pages to spot indicators of bias and highlights phrases that it finds bias in a big red box. Users can then click on the box to get more information on why SpinSpotter found the phrase biased.

The framework is based on algorithms set to identify six key tenets of spin and bias as defined by the Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics.  The six tenets are a reporter's voice, passive voice, a biased source, disregarded context, selective disclosure, and lack of balance. In addition, it will highlight phrases that are similar to the language used in the press release.  

According to Todd Herman, SpinSpotter's founder, the technology will rely heavily on the input of its users, much like Wikipedia, allowing users to flag instances of spin. SpinSpotter seeks to highlight bias in order for users to draw their own conclusions and to keep the press' power in check and to "makes news media transparent."

Sources: Business Week, Media Channel, SpinSpotter,New York Times

After The Capital in Annapolis, Maryland announced a "partnership" with the Anne Arundel Medical Center (AAMC), where AAMC paid the paper to provide all the content for the newspaper's health page once a month, two major journalism groups have responded, issuing a joint warning to news outlets on the ethical complications of creating to cozy of a relationship with hospitals, according to Editor & Publisher.

In March, on the Capital's website, the paper explained, "... Partnering with the hospital on the Health page seemed to make sense. We don't have a health reporter to write about medical issues and often use stories from syndicated services that quote doctors from other cities.... Instead of generic stories originating from another city, the reader will have local news featuring people they recognize (and) doctors they use."

In their release today, the Association of Health Care Journalists and the Society of Professional Journalists state they "are concerned about news media that publish or broadcast stories, reports, news releases and interviews prepared or paid for by hospitals."

"The ethics codes of the Association of Health Care Journalists and the Society of Professional Journalists call for fair and accurate reporting and editorial independence. But editorial cutbacks, along with pressure on hospitals to market profitable services, may be eroding these standards."

Despite these challenges, the groups asserted, "our journalistic mission requires us to hold doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and government agencies accountable to the public. In doing so, we commit to fair and transparent reporting of medical issues.

The statement also included these guidelines of media outlets to abide by:

• News organizations should fully disclose the source of any editorial information not independently gathered, whether video, audio, photograph or print material.

• News organizations should not run prepackaged stories produced by hospitals unless they are clearly and continuously labeled as advertisements.

• News organizations should not favor advertisers or sponsors over competing health-care providers when choosing sources or story topics and should strive to employ a wide variety of sources.

• News organizations should develop guidelines for the public disclosure of sponsors and advertisers.

• These guidelines should prohibit news personnel from appearing in or participating in sponsored programming or advertisements.

Source: Editor & Publisher