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Journalism is going to survive this era of creative destruction
This is a pragmatic and interesting post from George Brock, who won my over with his opening line about disruption being ‘no fun if your livelihood or beloved newspaper is being destroyed’. Some commentators sound as though they relish the pained thrashings of the Press industry as it struggles to find a new way to exist; others can sound as though blind faith and love of the job will find a way. Also, this: “Journalists worrying about “paradigm shifts”, “network effects” and “post counts’ can often forget that, in many parts of the world, adapting journalism to disruption is not the big issue. Keeping reporters and cameramen alive and out of jail remains a priority for many news organisations. In 2012, 70 journalists were killed worldwide in direct relation to their work, making it one of the worst years since records began to be kept. The imprisonment of journalists reached a record high in the same year, with 232 individuals behind bars because of their work. In many places, journalists confront risks, obstruction and threats that are a feature of any society not accustomed to press freedom.”
Category: Uncategorized
My ‘interesting reads’ roundup (weekly)
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The emerging news and information eco-system – Journalism That Matters
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Too Many Local Journalists Are Missing The Big Story: Revenue | Street Fight
Getting passionate about revenue is the message to journalists from this post. Not in a ‘WHERE is the money?’ hand-wringing sort of way, but in a community-linked approach. I think maybe there’s a bit of a leap in this post – a hyperlocal startup approach to commerce isn’t the same as the big regional media company strategies, but certainly some interesting thoughts raised by successful entrepreneurs who have cut it in the space… “There are so many new, often interlocking components of business thinking that have to be integrated into digital journalism: big data, social media, third-party ad exchanges, geo-location of the user and, increasingly, the user’s behavior right wherever she is at the moment.”
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Hideous and hilarious all wrapped up… “I put out a tweet about it and then when I got in the queue, and a member of staff approached me and asked if she could have a quick word,” Leiser explained. “She said she understood I’d said something on social media about easyJet and then told me they were not allowing me to board the flight.”
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What are the digital priorities for local and regional newspapers?
12 regional and local editors talking about their own digital consumption, and what form the shift is taking in their newsrooms and strategies. Really interesting read.
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While I’m sure a lot of useful, relevant information and idea-sharing went on at #SMWLDN, I prefer to catch up via the snarky Tumblr. Joy.
My ‘interesting reads’ roundup (weekly)
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Skills every aspiring journalist should learn | IJNet
This would be my list too: “Employers and recent graduates are telling me that the current job market demands that job applicants know: Multimedia storytelling skills. Producing slideshows with sound, shooting and editing video and photos, writing for the web. Data and statistical skills for storytelling. Collecting, editing, analyzing and interpreting data to produce compelling interactive maps and graphics. Audience development skills (formerly known as marketing and circulation) such as managing online communities, interpreting data on audience behavior, crowdsourcing for information, interacting with the audience. Basics of programming. How to create compelling pages that attract web audiences. The business of media. Journalists can help a news organization generate revenues without compromising their ethics, and today that skill is more important than ever.”
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Stop feeding dead content to phantom news consumers
“During the last decades, the digital evolution has opened the possibilities of sending personalised content to many receivers. A combined user data unit/developer team/newsroom could create, if not individualised news feeds, then at least more personalised selections, serving relevant content and services at the right time. You’d be doing that, if you had one of those newsrooms. But most of you don’t.”
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Data scraping tool for non-coding journalists launches | Journalism.co.uk
“Import.io lets you extract data from any website into a spreadsheet simply by mousing over a few rows of information.”
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How to Use Google Trends for SEO
Including some essential advice for those about to Newsjack… Choose a trending topic. Blog about it. Tweet it (using the established hashtag). Don’t be a moron (e.g., don’t try to capitalize on tragedy).”
My ‘interesting reads’ roundup (weekly)
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Spike the gloom – journalism has a bright future
Agreed. “First, it’s not a given that today’s big journalism “brands” will go under: they face a horribly difficult task of adapting to radically changed circumstances but institutions will not fall. That’s what happens in deep disruption: some organisations adapt and survive, some don’t. Second, the insurgents of news publishing fully intend to become the giants of the future. A few will, most won’t. In America, where newspaper income fell faster than in Europe (largely because profitability rested more heavily on small ads), there is now a solid if small group of online news businesses which cannot yet match the giants of print but have a viable business – and have done so for several years. The poster girl for this group is the Huffington Post, but there are a cluster of other sites which have been in existence for a decade or more, don’t depend on grants or philanthropy and have a base of income and users solidly built.”
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Journalists tend to confuse journalism with major daily papers. The “golden age” of newspaper journalism in the second half of the 20th century was, in reality, a long commercial decline. British national papers reached their peak total circulation in the early 1950s; the Daily Mirror’s highest sale ever was in 1966.
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On the death of journalism – and my Indy career | Christina Patterson
Heartfelt piece on what it’s like to lose the job you love. But I don’t believe in the death of journalism; I do believe journalism will change but that doesn’t mean it disappears. Nevertheless, a good read. “We all know that the clock is ticking. Even Rupert Murdoch knows that the clock is ticking. During the Leveson report, he gave newspapers five to ten years. When I was asked, last autumn, to speak about Leveson at the Battle of Ideas, I tried to think about what newspapers should and shouldn’t do, and what readers should and shouldn’t want, but actually all I could think was this: we are fiddling while Rome burns.”
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Social media disaster: What I learned when EVERYTHING went wrong
Honest and darkly funny account of what happens when the wheels fall off. IT really does not come out of this well. “I created something based on what I read on the web, not based in reality. I ticked off the list with things other people told me I would need. I did not take the company culture into account. I did not secure executive sponsorship. I did not look at realistic, measurable goals based on the capabilities of the company. I did not create a compelling story for what I was trying to accomplish and I did not use the company business plan as a guide.”
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Wristband Turns Your Heartbeat Into A Unique Password, Unlocks Multiple Devices
On the one hand I think it’s amazingly cool, on the other I’m pretty sure that within 24 months it will be considered old tech. The pace at which developments happen still amazes and delights me. “Developed by biometric technology company Bionym Inc., the Nymi wristband identifies its wearer by their heartbeat and uses it as a password for multiple devices, from a computer to a car. The Nymi technology is based on the fact that “like a fingerprint, your heartbeat is unique”—after putting on the Nymi wristband and activating it, you stay authenticated with your devices until you take it off. “
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Pocket : Choose Your Journalists Wisely…
Interesting read on the perceived differences between foreign correspondents, and journalists parachuted in by newsdesks to cover conflict. “Here in the journalists hostel there are lots of jackets hanging on the ends of beds with too many pockets and zips. One Japanese guy has a metal helmet with ‘PRESS’ written in large letters across the front in white Typewriter correction fluid. Some of them laugh during the night in their sleep. Is there something funny going on here, in Jerusalem, during this second Intifada? Maybe it’s just an escape. Maybe not though, perhaps they’re just insane. War clearly sucks but the core of western journalists who report on it seem to consist mainly of people who have no concept of the seriousness of the situation they’re involved in.”
My ‘interesting reads’ roundup (weekly)
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When Twitter Goes Horribly Wrong
A lovely read from The Awl, with some great, good-humoured responses from those early adopters who found their Twitter handle backfired on them a little. “Jeb Boniakowski is one of the lucky few people who possess a short, apposite Twitter handle directly related to his name: he’s just @jeb. He’s also one of the unlucky people who happens to share his Twitter name with someone or something else that people tend to tweet at on accident.”
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A definite Interesting Read on analytics, why they rock… and why they aren’t always your friend. “There’s nothing like a dashboard full of data and graphs and trend lines to make us feel like grown ups. Like people who know what they’re doing. So even though we’re not getting any real use out of it, it’s addictive and we can’t stop doing it. But after a while you just don’t get quite the same high from your dashboards that you used to. You’ve habituated. We still look at Google Analytics, but at this point metrics like “unique monthly visitors” bore us. They were always useless, but now they’ve stopped being fun, too.”
The republic of Local
While most U.K. media went gaga over Prince George, the @dailypostwales stuck to its digital mission. My latest post: http://t.co/STIzYEyrAm
— Jake Batsell (@jbatsell) August 27, 2013
We had a distinguished (and transatlantic) visitor at Daily Post towers recently – SMU professor and the Knight Foundation’s Texas Tribune Fellow Jake Batsell, who dropped by for a couple of days to talk about audience engagement.
Over the course of his time with us he chatted to several team members including Executive Editor (digital) Dan Owen and Head of Audience Engagement, Helen Harper, about the hows and – more interestingly, I guess – the whys of our approach to content and audience. Jake’s currently in the throes of penning a book on the subject, and from what I learnt of his research so far it should be a must-read for any news media executive who wants to know about the opportunities already being explored, and future business models.
Jake’s blog post on the visit to North Wales (he also brought the start of the heatwave with him, so the region’s tourist board owes him Big Time) is here – on the new-ish NewsBiz blog, and you can indeed see from his Post screengrab that while George’s arrival was documented on our site, we were more interested in stick-in-the-muds and ponies.
There is a popular view that Content is King and Collaboration is Queen – both these terms are good to keep in mind, as a reporter, but where does Local fit in the hierarchy?
Without Local – and local is scale-able – there’s no kingdom for the two Cs to rule, after all.
So maybe Local is a republic. Personally, I like the sound of that.
My ‘interesting reads’ roundup (weekly)
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As much as companies spend HOURS training people how to use social media, and most journalists have a code of conduct, the same level of ‘Consider before you publish’ just doesn’t seem to apply to email. Consequently, numpties like this end up in the Daily Mail… ‘We are now consulting on the final stage of our restructure and you may or may not be directly impacted… If you are involved I can fully appreciate the concerns you will have and just ask for your patience…On the home front; off to a punk rock festival in Blackpool this Friday. The Damned, Stiff Little Fingers and the Buzzcocks are amongst the acts playing so those old enough may remember them. I am really looking forward to it as it forms a big part of my past.’ ” Deary, dear me.
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Does this study on print vs digital consumption really say what is being reported?
A good consideration of a report that told the industry what it most wanted to hear – print is doing Just Fine. The point I most agree with is that the data is old, in technology and disruption terms. 2011 – it’s another country.
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20 search tips and tools for journalists | Journalism.co.uk
Curated by Sarah Marshall, this is a really useful reference round up of different ways you can improve online search.
My ‘interesting reads’ roundup (weekly)
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Why Unmemorable Title is Now a Guest Post Free Zone
ZING! “No more guest posts. It’s over. You’ve ruined it. I will no longer be accepting unsolicited guest posts from people I’ve never met, heard of or spoken to, that want to put a spammy article on my blog just for the backlinks. That door is closed. And if you’re a blogger with any sort of reputation to uphold, I suggest you do the same.”
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Five traditional and non-traditional revenue strategies that are working for publishers are outlined in this article: Becoming an agency; producing events; building audience; embracing digital; valuing print.
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New York Times And Future Of Journalism – Business Insider
“Why does that mean we never have to worry about the future of journalism again?” asks Blodget, in an article littered with exclamation marks. ” Because a $400 million digital business is a healthy business, one that will support a large, talented newsroom. Even if the New York Times’ print paper, which still generates most of the company’s overall revenue of about $2 billion a year, were to shut down tomorrow, the company would still be able to fund an excellent newsroom” Because a $400 million digital business is a healthy business, one that will support a large, talented newsroom. Even if the New York Times’ print paper, which still generates most of the company’s overall revenue of about $2 billion a year, were to shut down tomorrow, the company would still be able to fund an excellent newsroom
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Journalism and disruption: Change is easy and hard | Strange Attractor
Disruption is so often used as an excuse for the failings of the mainstream media. Change is easy and hard, as Kevin says in this post that is that most over-used of phrases: A must-read. For me, the real disruption is the people working within the structures and organisations that exist; we’re the ones struggling to adapt. As is so often the case, the real challenge at the heart of our disrupted industry is how we cope with change.
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Canterbury thief Charlie Cooper gets told off by mum after claiming his human rights were breached
The joy that is Open Social Media Discourse, captured brilliantly here by KentOnline as a mum berates her thieving, and unrepentant, son on Facebook.
Storytelling readers lives through pictures
The Daily Post’s head of audience engagement (or Helen as she’s more commonly known) this week introduced a lovely initiative for reader involvement.
Called ‘My Week in Pictures’ it’s a friendly challenge to readers to sum up their week through the several photos that best capture it.
First up was a local farmer who is probably best known for his social media chronicling of the tragedies his farm suffered during the snow earlier this year.
So it was really great to show another side to his life – I especially like the goat and the terrier having a scrap.
We have regular Flickr photo features, and a Flickr photo of the day on the letters page, but I like this because it’s so informal, and with the right guidance, curation and design it makes a really striking piece.
Called ‘My Week in Pictures’ it’s a friendly challenge to readers to sum up their week through the several photos that best capture it.
First up was a local farmer who is probably best known for his social media chronicling of the tragedies his farm suffered during the snow earlier this year.
So it was really great to show another side to his life – I especially like the goat and the terrier having a scrap.
We have regular Flickr photo features, and a Flickr photo of the day on the letters page, but I like this because it’s so informal, and with the right guidance, curation and design it makes a really striking piece.
My ‘interesting reads’ roundup (weekly)
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Pocket : Newsroom Diversity: A Casualty of Journalism’s Financial Crisis
Mobile, we are constantly told, is the New Thing. Good post on the NYT drills down into the rise of mobile picture messaging and what it means for communication – and for those fast enough to get on a gathering trend “Images sent between cellphones are on the rise as text messages continue to fall, according to CTIA, the trade association for the wireless industry. An industry report released this year said 2.19 trillion text messages were sent and received in 2012, about 5 percent less than a year earlier. In comparison, MMS, or multimedia messages that include photos and videos, grew by 41 percent to 74.5 billion in 2012.”
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Newsroom Diversity: A Casualty of Journalism’s Financial Crisis – Riva Gold – The Atlantic
The Atlantic looks at the less-discussed aspect of media disruption – the loss of diversity in newsrooms. Really interesting read; I’d be interested to see what the UK situation was. Why does it matter, from the business perspective, if newsrooms don’t reflect society at large? Because publications need readers. Robert Hernandez, assistant professor of journalism at the University of Southern California, attributes a decline in reader engagement to the fact that so many people don’t see themselves reflected in coverage. “When I left The Seattle Times, I was the last Spanish speaker on staff,” he says. “There would be crime stories– and I’m the web guy– and they called me over to translate interviews in Spanish.”
Headlines and Deadlines 