The Sky News website has today published an insight into how its chief sub video editor performs his job. Shirish Kulkarni covers everything in his blog posting from editorial judgement to time management. It's a fascinating insight into a newsroom role.

Click on the link below for the full piece.

Source: Sky News

True Knowledge - the groundbreaking new search engine - announced today that it has received $4m (£2.02m) in funding today, which will enable it to develop its "answer engine".

True Knowledge relies on its own database of known facts, which the system then uses to compose an answer. Most search engines present a list of results based on keywords and phrases in the search terms.

Cambridge-based True Knowledge is complementary to traditional search because it operates as a more intelligent service that is capable of learning and assessing the information it delivers.

The site is in a private beta period with 10,000 testers and is preparing to launch publicly in the first half of next year.

Source: Guardian.co.uk

Journalists going to Beijing for the Olympics have just learned that China intends to censor internet access at the Olympic venues as they do in the rest of the country. And, in the run-up to the Olympics, China has time and again reneged on its promises to allow free reporting.

Journalists trying to do their jobs in China are not the only people concerned -- in recent weeks, some 3,500 newspaper readers have written to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao calling for the release of all jailed journalists in China.

Those readers were responding to public service advertisements from the World Association of Newspapers, published in newspapers in 20 countries, drawing attention to China's failure to honour its Olympic promises.

Something to think about as you watch the Olympics this summer: China is the world's biggest jailer of journalists, with 30 journalists and 50 cyber-dissidents behind bars.

Source: WAN

Phil Bronstein, former Editor and current Editor at Large of the San Francisco Chronicle, said yesterday on Beet.TV that the integration of citizen journalism into mainstream media has not yet happened on a large scale.

During a discussion panel on Beet.TV about the issue, Charles Tillinghast, president and publisher of msnbc.com agreed with Bronstein that the integration of citizen journalism into mainstream media is yet to happen.

For the full debate on the issue click on the link below and watch the video clip.

Source: Beet.TV

Telegraph Media Group (TMG) has signed a deal with Google, after a six-month trial, which will enable its journalists to access email and share documents and other information through Google's applications, journalism.co.uk reports.

This deal is part of TMG plans to move towards a "cloud computing" model."

"The flexibility of having applications online is of special interest in the media sector where journalists need to be able to collaborate with others on copy," said Robert Whiteside, head UK and Ireland for Google's enterprise division.

Source: cyberjournalist.net

India has a booming newspaper industry, but one cloud has been seen on the horizon, the explosion in television news channels. However, P.N. Vasanti, a director of New Delhi-based Centre for Media Studies, states that there is an unexpected twist to this development: those who watch the news on TV are more likely to read a newspaper.

Essentially, the TV news provides what Vasanti refers to as an "appetizer effect", meaning they get the outline of a story from the TV and they look to newspapers for the full story.

Vasanti also reports that, "what most people, including many media pundits don't know, is that research increasingly shows newspapers are still considered as the more credible source of news."

Source: livemint.com

In a recent On the Media interview with Carole Tarrant, the Roanoke Times editor defends the place of user comments online - an embattled subject in recent weeks, one taken up by blogging heads Gawker and BuzzMachine, alike.

While many have pointed to a void of thoughtful discussion in the comment box, as Gawker's Sheila McClear recently said, "...There is no interesting discussion. Almost never. Not even from the mythical supersmart New York Times readers."

Tarrant disagrees, saying that users moderate themselves once the community has been defined.

"...When you've been doing it long enough, I think the community of people participating, they know what the ground rules are. And I really believe if you're a newspaper online and you don't allow this, you're not really online," said Tarrant. "We have a whole generation that's trained to expect to be able to voice their opinion, not just to read the news but to talk about it or share it, and that may be ugly or it may be really provocative, but I want to hear it."

Journalists heading to the Beijing Olympics will not be able to have complete access to the Internet, despite Chinese officials earlier assurances, Associated Press report.

The 5,000 reporters working in Beijing for the games will not be able to access any site with Tiibet in the address or such sites as Amnesty International.

Chinese officials told International Olympic Committee members in April that Internet censorship, which is routine in China, would be lifted for journalists during the games.

IOC members issued a clarification yesterday, stating that unrestricted Internet access only applied to websites related to ''Olympic competitions.''

Source: European Journalism Centre

British Sky Broadcasting (Sky) is going to work with social media provider Pluck on embedding social media tools across the company's digital properties. Sky intends to boost audience interactivity by incorporating social networking features.

"With over 1 billion monthly page impressions and many millions of unique visitors, the Sky portal needed a social media platform that could support the high-volume needs of our growing network," said Andy Jonesco, Managing Director of BSkyB, the Online Business Unit.

Sky News will be the first of Sky properties to launch such tools, including blogs, discussion boards user comments and a citizen journalism section. Other Sky properties such as Sky.com, Sky Entertainment and Sky Motoring would follow suite, reported Market Watch.

Users will be able to use a single profile to access the various Sky websites, allowing for better integration.

Source: MarketWatch

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: Media Week

Google News is experimenting with new design elements, which will include more images, videos, quotes and highlighting most popular news stories.

According to the Google Operating System blog, in the new layout, "There's a 'featured photo' section that uses images from AFP, The Associated Press, Reuters, marking the first time when Google News promotes stories just because it has the permission to show associated images... If you are logged in, the new interface personalizes all the sections, not just the front page, and you can switch to the non-personalized version to see the differences."

Source: Cyberjournalist.net