The Guardian is launching a team focused on multimedia aspects of breaking news stories. The project will deal specifically with sources of technology and crowdsourcing that will ameliorate the newspaper's ability to tell stories online.

Reporter Paul Lewis was promoted within the Guardian to lead the new multimedia team. He was distinguished for using sources of multimedia to cover in-depth details pertaining to the death of Ian Tomlinson at the 2009 G20 protest in London. As a result of his investigative work, Lewis won reporter of the year at the 2010 British Press Awards along with the Bevins Prize Rat Up a Drain Pipe Award for outstanding investigative journalism.

According to Press Gazette, a Guardian News & Media representative stated "Plans for our new special projects team are still being developed. Dan Roberts, who takes over as the Guardian's national news editor next month, will be working with Paul to appoint a small number of staff with a range of relevant skills from within the newsroom and we will be advertising internally for these posts shortly."

The new Times and Sunday Times websites were launched today, offering a free preview for about a month before going behind a paywall in June. Already, users must register to go beyond the homepage.

As reported last week, the home pages of the new websites look more like their print counterparts and have a stronger multimedia focus. The Sunday Times in particular puts much emphasis on multimedia, leading the homepage with a large photo/video box and accompanying each story with a picture, as well as offering an index of multimedia galleries high up on the page. "We hope we've designed a site that focuses on showcasing that journalism in the cleanest and aesthetically pleasing way possible," said a Times staff member in a live chat.

It is easy to link between the two sites. On the Times site, main stories are accompanied by a 'behind the story' section with links to other articles. Plenty of live chats are offered, both with journalists and with other cultural, business or political figures, such as author Yann Martel. Layout is clear and colourful, with easily-identifiable sections.

It is a tense day for the British public as they await news on what yesterday's inconclusive election results mean for the future of the government. And how do news outlets cope with this?

For newspapers, what to lead with in their print editions must have been a difficult choice. Clearly, by the time that the papers reached their readers, many of the latter would already be highly well informed on more up-to-date news from TV and Internet news sources. And with little clear idea of the outcome, offering firm analysis of the situation was difficult. Exit polls (after voting ended at 10pm) predicted a hung parliament with the Tories in the lead, and this is what most papers focused on. Once again, the Guardian helpfully provided screenshots of national papers' front covers.

Some papers, such as the Times, have produced multiple front pages throughout the day/night, with bold headlines such as "The X factor," "Election chaos" and "The cliffhanger." The Daily Express marked editions with "2am latest," "3am latest" and "4am latest," switching from "Brown is on the way out" to "Brown just can't go on" between 3 and 4am. Special late editions of the Sun at 6am and 9am pronounced Gordon Brown to be "Unelected, unwanted, untenable"

The Social Media Club France recently blogged about how the diversification of mobile devices which give readers access to the internet has obviously changed the way users access information. As a result, Social Media Club France recommends that journalists adopt a method of presenting news that is not only interactive but also adaptable to the non-linear diffusion of media.

Prior to the proliferation of smart phones and tablet PCs news was released in a fairly straightforward manner starting either with print or online and slowly working it's way outward. As previously mentioned, though this has changed journalists have not effectively adapted their methods of distribution to capitalize on the way users are consuming data.