Results matching “correspondents and coverage what”

Despite widespread allegations of fear-mongering tendencies in British science and health journalism, the minister of science and innovation, Lord Drayson, has praised the high standard of reporting in this field.

The reporting of public health issues by mainstream publications has come under heavy criticism for its inflammatory tone and exaggerated content. The recent coverage of the swine flu outbreak, a pertinent example, has been interpreted as unnecessarily alarming. Yet, speaking at the World Conference of Science Journalists in London yesterday, Drayson came out in defence of the work of science and health reporters. He rejected claims that the reporting of stories such as swine flu amounted to no more than hysterical headlines, but rather,  it provides an essential public service. Journalistic coverage of disease and health risks helps people make educated decisions by bridging a gap between science and the public, Drayson argued.  

The FrontLine Club has launched its own quarterly title to sponsor independent journalism.  FrontLine: A Broadsheet, will comprise of foreign coverage, as well as articles investigating British culture and politics.  In fact, its creators hope to resurrect "some traditions lost from the British market".

The identity of these traditions is as of yet vague, however the publication's ethos has been made clear.   This, according to Vaughan Smith, founder and managing director of the Club, is "political, but party-politically-allergic, irreverent and iconoclastic".  The subject choice in the selection of articles for the first edition suggests that these values are indeed underwriting the content.  Up for discussion is Tony Blair's Catholic faith, the return of British sleaze and peacekeeping in Kosovo.

Yesterday CBS News revealed its new site, which aims to ease navigation and put more focus on video content. The CBSNews.com landing page now features a mix of the latest news articles, pictures and video, with prominent placement for CBS exclusive content from the site's blogs.

"The new design and platform looks to capitalize on the legacy and strengths of the CBS News' brands, while leveraging the web's ability to help us dramatically expand our coverage, showcase our strength in video, and drive greater engagement with our audience," said Joe Gillespie, executive vice president of CBS Interactive Technology & News.

Executive Editor Bill Keller of The New York Times, who filed some unexpected reporting on the Iranian elections, reveals his motivations in a couple of emails to Editor & Publisher. When the post-election uproar developed into sensational riots, Keller admits that it was his instincts that led him to take the plunge, leading to his notorious front-page editorial "Memo From Tehran (June 13). 

And plunge in he did. What with his front-page editorial this past Sunday, Keller's bold move to run a rare commentary on the politcal climate in Tehran (where he was most likely writing from), puzzled many newsroom pundits.

"Twenty years later, it is still impossible for the Chinese media to refer freely to the ruthless suppression of China's pro-democracy movement in June 1989" said Reporters Sans Frontières.  The report was initiated as concerns mounted towards the reactions of the Propaganda department and the political police to the internal and external media coverage of the Twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

The inexorable rise of the Internet in China has provided freedom activists, working both within and outside of the country with alternative platforms for expression and access to information, presenting serious challenges for the Chinese censor. China has an estimated 300 million Internet users.
                                                                                                                          

The Associated Press has recently announced two global additions: its newly created post of African editor, and a new bureau in Kabul due to open in August. Veteran AP correspondent Andrew Selsky has been appointed to the role of African editor and will be based in Johannesburg, overseeing the bureau there as well as those in Nairobi, Kenya, Harare, (Zimbabwe), Lagos (Nigeria) and Dakar (Senegal) and controlling a network of correspondents across 45 countries.

The new bureau in Kabul will open in time for the Afghan elections in August, forming part of existing newsgathering services in the region.  It comes under AP's outside broadcast production and transmission project, AP Global Media Services. It will provide studio space and house a team of engineers, camera crews and video editors, a good indication of the AP's range of multimedia coverage.

Several weeks ago, Robert H. Reid, Associated Press bureau chief in Baghdad, was appointed to a new position heading AP's coverage as news director for Afghanistan and Pakistan and bureau chief in Kabul. These recent moves display the AP's dedication to comprehensive international reporting; an area that has frequently been a victim of newsroom cuts in recent years.

Source: Guardian, Editor & Publisher

Andrew Stroehlein, communications director of the International Crisis Group has written an article in the Christian Science Monitor to express his concerns about cuts in international media coverage, which he believes are not being taken seriously enough. Recent moves include the BBC's cuts in Paris, Moscow and Brussels and the Chicago Tribune's decision to close its bureaus in Rome and Jerusalem. Stroehlein cites two recent developments to illustrate his argument.

First is the situation in Somalia, which Stroehlein feels has been neglected in the Western media, particularly in the US. The recent attention given to the capture of a US vessel by Somali pirates focussed on the fact that "a new president with the world's largest military at his disposal could defeat a handful of lightly armed thugs," and gave little attention to the arguably more important issue at stake: that "piracy is a symptom, not the disease, and lawlessness off the coast of Somalia will continue as long as anarchy is allowed to remain on land."

The LA Times and Chicago Tribune have revealed that they will begin to combine their foreign operations. Both publications are owned by the Tribune Co. and according to an LA Times press release, the move is in order "to provide Tribune papers and websites with the enterprising overseas coverage that has brought such distinction to both news organizations".

For the most part the joint operation will be run from Los Angeles where the majority of editorial staff are currently based, but in consultation with editors from the Chicago Tribune and other sister newspapers. The operation's staff will consist of Times and Tribune correspondents "strategically based around the world, who will emphasize original reporting delivered in a unique voice for print and online audiences".

"Democracy can't exist without newspapers" was the headline of former Scotsman editor Tim Luckhurst's article in the Independent on Monday. He was writing about the declining fortunes of two of Scotland's biggest national papers; the Herald and the Scotsman. Luckhurst charts the decline of the newspaper for which he "once hired foreign correspondents from Washington DC to Beijing", but "is now a parochial rag with meagre claim to influence in Edinburgh". He cites the 9.18% drop in the Scotsman's sales in the year ending January 2009, and a parallel figure of 9.7% for the Herald.

Many London based newspapers print Scottish editions, but "until recently Scottish newspapers were the only titles published outside London that could possibly claim national status." To survive, they had to cover Scotland better than their rivals, and cover world news to the same level as their London based competitors. However, recent spates of redundancies and a "brain drain" of talented journalists migrating from Scottish newspapers to their London counterparts has left the editorial quality of these two Scottish newspapers somewhat depleted.

Environmental journalism is currently in trouble, according to a panel on the subject hosted by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC last week.

Speakers Mother Nature Network columnist Peter Dykstra, Associated Press reporter Seth Borenstein, J-Lab Director Jan Schaffer and National Public Radio correspondent Elizabeth Shogren described how many environmental correspondents are losing their jobs, and blamed the situation on the economic downturn. Dykstra explained how environmental journalism becomes popular every few years due to a natural disaster, an oil spill, impending legislation or other similar factors, but then it loses the public's attention and dwindles.

The printed press needs a new business model.  Sliding advertising revenue, competition from the Internet and the cost of print are just three of the problems that the industry is facing at the moment.  Suggestions so far include not for profit newspaper organisations, personalised papers and online-only publications.

But Jeff Mignon has been theorising over the use of non-journalist writers.  He explains that local French daily Le Post uses between 70% and 80% amateur writers, whom they term 'correspondents'.  The correspondents send in articles which are always checked by copy editors (overcoming the problem of Internet unreliability) and are paid according to a points system (comparatively little compared to professional journalists, which overcomes the problem of high salaries).  The result is 'hyper-local coverage'.

He stresses that he is "not saying that the French system is perfect. It can be improved".  It doesn't provide a solution to the problem of online news, which is faster and free.  But with regard to lowering overheads and providing local coverage, its definitely food for thought.

Source: Media Café

GlobalPost has announced that the New York Daily News and the Star-Ledger are to run its foreign reporting in their print and online publications. GlobalPost, launched on January 12 2009, has a network of correspondents in more than 40 countries and offers coverage which it suggests is a complement to that provided by a traditional wire service, offering the background behind the headlines.

To mark the relaunch of the Editors Weblog, the World Editors Forum is running a special series entitled "Doing More with Less." The series highlights major trends that editors-in-chief are using to steer their newsrooms through the difficult economic climate. The third of the series takes a look at the new online-only international news service launching today, GlobalPost.

Amidst reductions in international reporting at newspapers across the US and Europe, GlobalPost, an American online-only international news service whose number of overseas correspondents is second only to the AP, launches today. The Editors Weblog spoke to President, CEO and co-founder of GlobalPost Philip Balboni and Senior Editor and Regional Editor for Africa Andrew Meldrum about the project, and asked the AP's John Daniszewski for his thoughts on a new news organisation that could potentially rival the Associated Press.

 
Filling the international gap

Balboni was passionate about his motives for founding the organisation: to fill a crucial gap in international reporting accessible to the American people. "I have seen the steady diminishment of foreign reporting in television and radio," he explained, added that this "has just been stunning." And he stressed his belief that "even the great American institutions that remain with a meaningful foreign staff are in jeopardy because of this devastating downturn in the economic underpinning of newspapers." Meldrum echoed his sentiments: "in the US, so much international news is being cut."

Daniszewski, AP Managing Editor for International News, was confident that the AP was providing "a comprehensive international news coverage," and that there was not a lack of information out there for people who were determined to find it out.  He was positive about the creation of a new service, however: "it's really good to have those eyes, ears and notebooks out there, and I am sure they have a lot to contribute."  

Complementing the AP and newspapers

Balboni insisted that GlobalPost intends to be a supplement to a newswire service, rather than a competitor. Balboni explained that the sort of "distinctive story-telling" that GlobalPost offers is very different to that of the AP, Reuters or AFP. "As a wire reporter, you chase the story of the day and there is a tremendous need for that, but it has become a commodity and you can find these stories everywhere."  And indeed, GlobalPost will also aggregate the top news agency stories of the day on its site. Its original reporting, though, will be different: "what we are focussed upon is the context behind the headlines," generally stories that will not be widely reported in English. Daniszewski was insistent that he does not see GlobalPost as a competitor to the AP because in terms of scale the AP is far larger. Rather he considers it a complementary service that will contribute to the "great need for the world to be informed."

"We hope to help newspapers, not hurt them"

Balboni also emphasized his hope to "help newspapers, not hurt them." He explained that GlobalPost is a "partner for newspapers," as part of its business model is to syndicate content to newspapers all over the world.  "We want to give them the opportunity to have high quality original reporting which they can print or publish online," he added.  He added that in the Web 2.0 world, it is less useful to put your content in a "walled garden, you have to let it be free to go where users want to find it."

Old-school correspondents

The 60 to 70 correspondents are essentially stringers, filing one piece a week.  As Meldrum described it, "this is designed to be a string that any correspondent could add to the other work that they are doing."  However, GlobalPost is making a significant commitment to correspondents, offering a guaranteed monthly salary and shares in the company, and hopes that its reporters will "feel that they are invested in our success," explained Balboni.   The correspondent group includes three Pulitzer Prize winners, among a mixture of experienced, accomplished journalists and those who are at an earlier stage in their careers.  

The correspondents will be on the whole country-based, meaning that they know the language and are familiar with the history and current affairs. The idea, Balboni explained, is that readers will have "the opportunity to follow developments from someone you can come to know and trust."  Daniszewski thinks GlobalPost is trying to return to the old model of a foreign correspondent, "that sort of authoritative, contextualized, interpretative voice, who adds different perspectives that people bring to a story with their own personalities." As "traditional newspaper correspondents out there are now acting more and more like a wire service," Daniszewski believes, there is a gap to be filled by people who can produce a more in-depth, time-consuming story.  

The five regional editors are working full time, or "more than full time," as Meldrum put it.  There are regional editors for Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and South America, and a team of half a dozen senior editors based at the HQ in Boston.  Seven beat correspondents will have a truly global scope, reporting on issues such as health, climate change and technology worldwide.  

"Journalists know best"

"The goal is for this not to be a top-down model, but a bottom-up model," Balboni clarified, as correspondents "know best about what the interesting and important stories are." Meldrum remarked that "it's much like a traditional foreign desk," with correspondents pitching stories, editors approving them and then editing once they are sent in. The content management system used means that correspondents are able to follow the story process "right from conception to completion."

Interactive multimedia from abroad

"These days a freelance journalist is always going to be multi-skilled" asserted Meldrum, and "we are all on a learning curve." Correspondents have all been issued with Flip Cams - video cameras the size of a mobile phone - which they are encouraged to use whenever possible, whether to produce narrated pieces or natural sound shots that will supplement their story.     Photos are also expected to feature significantly on the site, taken both by correspondents and by other photographers who will contribute.

Reader comments will be allowed on articles throughout the site.  "We want it to be as interactive as possible," Meldrum commented, explaining that they plan to respond to readers and adapt to how readers want to use the site.

Partnering with the best

According to Balboni, it is "imperative" for a new venture to form relationships with other news providers. And GlobalPost is already doing this, having established a partnership with the Huffington Post whereby some of GlobalPost's content is available on the Huffington Post's new world section. Correspondents are also appearing on 'World Focus', a night news programme on US television channel PBS, for a Q&A session with the TV anchor about whatever story they have covered that day. Balboni said that the organisation is also exploring similar opportunities with radio and in commercial television.  

Entrepreneurship drives online-only journalism

Balboni was enthusiastic about the potential of an online only publication. One of the main advantages is the "incredible distribution platform at a very modest expense." The Internet solves the problem of how to reach the audience.  He believes that there are "incredible opportunities as well if you can be entrepreneurial enough to create a new model, and if you can fulfil a need." By operating online-only and keeping distribution costs low, GlobalPost hopes to be able to produce a higher quality of product.

The other crucial point, he explained, is that serious news consumers are now looking mainly online to find their news.  He worries that newspapers have been "dumbed down" in an attempt to attract more readers, pushing many people online. It is not just about chasing numbers of viewers, and GlobalPost expects to have a "very high quality user population" of intelligent, well-educated people.  

Stamping "Passports" to profitability

"Paid online content will be the salvation of journalism if it can be worked out"

Balboni expects the site to become profitable in three years, and it will be funded via syndication, advertising and paid premium content.  He expressed his conviction that paid online content "will be the salvation of journalism if it can be worked out." GlobalPost's premium content aspect to the site will be called 'Passport' and will be available for an annual fee. The Passport area of the site will include a service called Foreign Desk, which will allow subscribers to write suggestions for stories that they would like to see.

The foreign news solution?

There is a gap in the market for this sort of well-investigated, foreign news, and as long as GlobalPost can find enough readers who are interested enough in the world around them this site has much potential.  The passion of the people behind it for international news is indubitable, and the model that they have chosen is forward-thinking and may well work. Being online only allows it to have a vast scope and reach with comparatively few resources. It will be particularly interesting to see how successful the paid content model is, and whether this can, as Balboni hopes, save journalism. 

Related links:

http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2009/01/globalpost-aims-to-resuscitate-foreign-correspondents-online008.html
http://www.journalism.co.uk/5/articles/533189.php
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/davidwestphal/200901/1615/
 

The current Israeli-Gaza conflict has proved ground-breaking in terms of the way that news is being spread. For a start, Israel has blocked foreign journalists from entering Gaza since launching its air attacks on December 27, so although Al Jazeera has been reporting extensively as it had correspondents already inside, as does the AP, many media organizations have no reliable source of independent information.  It is the perfect time for blogs, Twitter, and other forms of citizen journalism to show their merits.

 

The cost of covering global health issues is expensive which means that news organizations have been cutting back on their reporting.  In order to ensure coverage of their work in the health industry, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has offered a grant of $3.5 million to The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

The donation will help its correspondents produce 40 to 50 reports over three years on topics such as malaria, AIDS, tuberculosis, measles, neglected diseases and other global health issues, according to The New York Times.

The Huffington Post's recently launched World News page will contain content from "editorial partners with correspondents in more than 50 countries" including "foreign policy experts and advocates," according to Media Bistro.

Arianna Huffington believes that, "As the recent Mumbai attacks made so painfully clear, the international community is now more interconnected than ever, and readers around the world are keen to know what's happening beyond their borders."

Days after rival Washington Post announced plans to increase White House coverage, the Washington Times has also decided to up its coverage from one to three correspondents.  The Times has also launched a news wire service.

According to a memo sent to staff last week, "In the shadows of this historic election, we now must ready ourselves to shine again with our coverage of the new administration and the new Congress. The transition period is an essential time for us to 'source up' and be prepared for a new government come January. We're committed to providing our readers -- and our new wire service clients -- the broadest, fastest and most original report from the nation's capital each day, and that means putting substantial new resources into our coverage of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue."

Blogger Chris Cillizza will be The Washington Post's first Web-based White House reporter.  The paper is doubling its staff of full-time White House correspondents from two to four to "cover the incoming Obama Administration."

Following the presidential election, Managing Editor Phil Bennett said that the Internet has "become an integral part of our overall White House coverage and the leading edge of our breaking news coverage."

This appointment marks the first time that the Post has had a Web person as a "core" part of White House coverage.

Bennett added that Cillizza and reporters Anne Kornblut, Mike Shear and Michael Fletcher would replace the two current correspondents

Source:  Editor and Publisher

8, 000 miles away from the White House, a nation is celebrating President-elect Barack Obama's historic election win as a victory for a son of their country. 47-year-old Obama's father was born in Kenya and the celebrations following his win are ongoing from the streets of Nairobi to the village of Kogelo where Obama's grandmother still lives. Reflecting the importance of his victory, President Kibaki has declared a public holiday in Kenya to celebrate. The Kenyan media has reported every twist and turn of this nail-biting campaign, and its newspapers have covered this story on a scale never before seen for a US election.

The Editors Weblog spoke to Ian Fernandes, the head of Nation Media's Digital Division, about how Kenya's leading newspaper, the Daily Nation, followed the campaign, its importance to Kenya and the newspaper's future coverage of the USA.

Fernandes begins by saying that this election has captured the imagination of the entire country: "it has dominated the headlines for the past couple of weeks...the fact that someone who has his roots in Kenya can actually end up becoming the President of the United States." As victory was declared, inhabitants of Kogelo began singing "Jakogelo Yiengo Piny", which translates to "the one from Kogelo shakes the world".

Coverage online

From just a quick glance at the home page of the Daily Nation online edition, it is clear how important this election has been to Kenyans. The front page is dominated by a picture of President elect Barack Obama and his family taking to the stage for his post-victory speech under the headline "Win brings pride to Kenyan diaspora", with a lead article discussing the impact this victory has had on Kenyans across the USA. Feeder articles follow, as do photos of the election night and video footage from the Nation Media Group's NTV channel. Under the toolbar is a link for dedicated coverage, including the campaign, Obama's victory and the reaction in Kenya and the US.

The Daily Nation has an advantage on many news organisations in that it is part of media conglomerate, Nation Media Group, and one of the branches of this modern news organisations is a TV station: footage from the station has been an important edition to the Daily Nation's coverage.

Telling the story from a Kenyan perspective

Fernandes reports that the country and, in particular the village of Kogelo, has been inundated by news teams from across the globe. Expanding on this point, Fernandes says that most of these correspondents are based in London and only arrived in the country after the story had unfolded and thus found it difficult to cover it comprehensively, whereas the Nation's reporters were on the ground from the get go. The Daily Nation felt it was important to tell the story of Obama's campaign and victory from a Kenyan perspective, for example, the video footage section on the web edition not only includes Obama's speeches and footage of American reactions, there is also extensive coverage of the celebrations in Kenya following the result and reactions from Kenyan politicians. The small village of Kogelo in Western Kenya was at the heart of the Daily Nation's coverage and the site features interviews with Obama's grandmother and other members of his family who have had to rapidly get used to the media spotlight.

Increased resources, and now he has won?

During the campaign the Daily Nation had three reporters in the United States. Fernandes explains, "I think in order for us to be relevant - and just like foreign media houses having a presence in Kenya during the election - we decided that we should actually have our journalists in the USA, one following the McCain trail and one following the Obama trail, to know and to tell the story with a Kenyan perspective."

The newly elected US President will continue to be of interest to Kenyan citizens and Fernandes reports that the newspaper is considering maintaining a permanent presence in the US in the form of a full-time reporter or "at least a correspondent". He also confirms that the USA will now garner more attention from the Kenyan media, as citizens will want reports on how the new president is progressing.

Readership spike

Fernandes reports that 50% of the Daily Nations' readership is from the Kenyan diasporas across the USA and Europe.  The Daily Nation average 45,000 - 50,000 visits a day but it picked to about 90,000 visits on 4th November. The Daily Nation's coverage of an election thousands of miles away not only managed to cater to the audience at home, but also generated traffic from Kenyans located across the globe who sought a trusted name for the story of how a son of Kenya won the election to run the most powerful country in the world.

In what is being called a "marathon" of politics, UK newspapers are revving up their coverage for the 2008 US presidential election. The demand for both print and online coverage is resulting in non-stop coverage by the international media of this momentous election in the USA.

Compared with 2004, The Guardian has upped its video content from "the occasional video" to five per day, according to Harriet Sherwood, who has been directing The Guardian's election coverage from the US. The Guardian sent an additional 20 journalists to the 15 editorial and production staff already based in the US for the duration of the election, anticipating a 36-hour shift starting on Tuesday.

Global News Enterprises, a news company founded by journalists Philip Balboni and Charles Sennot, announced plans earlier this year to launch an online-only international news agency, GlobalPost.  The site will go live on 12 January 2009.

Multimedia content on the site will be supplied by 20 correspondents in 53 countries and will be available for free online.  Revenue will be generated through syndication deals with print and online news providers.

When it launches in 2009,  Global News will "provide the broadest global coverage of any U.S.-based news organization, second only to the Associated Press Consortium", according to its press release. The service is billing itself as the first fully web-based news organization.

It is positioning itself to plug the gap left by the cuts made to foreign and in-depth reporting. Global News will not be a wire service, it will offer, "the "who-what-when-where" of a breaking story"

It will offer clients customized, co-branded coverage from GNE correspondents, in-depth Sunday/weekend pieces, multimedia context for major stories and regional events, a private daybook of international story planning, and a co-branded "foreign desk" 24/7 box with links on client's website. It will be focused on the America market, providing news and analysis from what it calls, "an unashamedly American perspective."

Global News reports that its pricing structure will be competitive, but no set figures are as yet available.

The service will also take advantage of the latest video technology to offer a broad array of video reports from its correspondents, as well as from other international journalists with whom Global News will contract.

Source: Global News Enterprises

Demotix, a website that tries to link citizen reporters with mainstream media and their "professional" equivalents, was launched yesterday, reports the European Journalism Centre. The site will allow mainstream news outlets to buy content like video clips and images created by both professional and amateur worldwide correspondents.

In what is being seen as a deliberate snub by US Presidential hopeful Barrack Obama's camp, the New Yorker's Washington correspondent has been denied a press place on Obama's tour of the Middle East and Europe.

Obama's camp have denied that it is a deliberate snub and have stated that there is simply not enough room...

This action follows on from the New Yorker's publication of a cartoon that depicted the presidential candidate and his wife, Michelle, in a "terrorist" fist-bumping gesture.

Ryan Lizza would normally have been one of the 40 correspondents on the plane.

Media blogger Rachel Sklar wrote on the Huffington Post: "So it's gonna be like that, is it? Retribution for unfavourable coverage is a chilling thing to contemplate."

Source: Guardian.co.uk

An innovative approach to Olympic coverage is for newspapers to create a whole new site with interactive features. The Toronto Star has launched a new web site on thestar.com containing Web 2.0 tools (TOPS 2.0 platform, or Torstar Open Publishing System) that will cover the 2008 Beijing Summer Games, said a Media in Canada article.

The site will have editorial pieces, photos, videos, a searchable database, live streaming, a blog, a schedule, coverage of the qualifying games as well as stories on life in China. Users will be able to leave comments and export material to their own websites.

Eleven Star reporters will be in Beijing, including some "veteran Olympic correspondents" like Doug Smith and Dave Feschuk. Advertisement on star.com includes HNC's Wellers and The Bay, American Express and Chevrolet.

Other media outlets have taken a similar approach, such as NBC's Olympic coverage on nbcolympics.com.

Source: Media in Canada