Murdoch decides Sun, Times, NYT, to charge for online news

After the release of their annual figures, NewsCorp have finally announced that they will be charging for news online by next summer.

The figures themselves don't make good reading: a $680 million quartley loss, overall revenues down 7.8%, and a $3.4 billion loss at the end of June, compared to a $5.4 billion profit the year before.

PaidContentUK have some more figures:

News Corp. reported both its full fiscal year and quarter results today—swinging to a loss for both. For FY09, the company showed a net loss of $3.4 billion, compared with net income of $5.4 billion in FY08. Revenues were down 8 percent, to $30 billion from $33 billion. News Corp. took a pre-tax impairment charge in FY09 of $8.9 billion for goodwill and intangibles.

It appears that Rupert Murdoch has chosen to announce his online charging plan on the same day NewsCorp's figures are released. This gives him the opportunity to show a wider content as to why users will soon be paying for material they used to receive for free. From Media Guardian:

"Quality journalism is not cheap," said Murdoch. "The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive distribution channels but it has not made content free. We intend to charge for all our news websites."

The Australian-born press and television baron was speaking as his News Corporation holding company slumped to a $3.4bn (£2bn) net loss for the financial year to June, hit by huge writedowns in the value of its assets, restructuring charges and a dive in commercial revenue.

It seems that David Simon, who created somewhat of a blogosphere storm with his recent article in the Colombia Journalism Review, 'Build the Wall', has got his wish:

If the only way to read the Times is to buy the Times, online or off, then readers who clearly retain a desire for that product will reach for their wallets. And those comfortable acquiring their news at a keyboard will be happy to pay much less than they do for home delivery.

Bobbie Johnson sees a clear divide in the media between those charging for content, and those advocating a free model where journalism becomes something else entirely. This might be an overly simplistic way of analysing the debate - few media platforms will be all free, or all charged for - but it's worth a look at the full article:

Proponents of free news say it is impossible to succeed by charging readers when there are so many competing sources of information prepared to give their services to readers for nothing, echoing the words of the famous futurist Stewart Brand, who said "information wants to be free".

So far at least, history is one their side: while specialist news publications such as the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and the Economist charge for access to some of the information they publish, few mainstream publications have managed to succeed in implementing pay walls.

Of course, the kickback will be that users won't pay for the content, but Murdoch believes he has found a simple solution:

The News Corp boss pointed to the Telegraph's recent run of scoops about MPs' expenses as an example of journalism readers would pay to read: "I'm sure people would be very happy to pay for that."

Rarely afraid of a confrontation, Murdoch made it clear that he was gearing up for a bruising fight: "Our policy is to win.

In the age of 24 hour news channels, and 24 hour newspaper online publishing, how often does a scoop like the Telegraph's come along? For those slow news days, when papers are reporting the same stories, with similar quotes, figures, and pictures, will users will be willing to go to The Sun, The Times and the News of the World?

Unsurprisingly, Jeff Jarvis is having a field day, and points out one of the biggest problems with charging online - even the smallest cost allows you to be undercut by a website offering content for free: a business model where there is no direct charge to the user:

Charging for content brings marketing and customer-service costs. Online, it reduces audience and the advertising they justify. Putting content behind a wall cuts it off from search and links; they cut off your Googlejuice.

When publishers build those walls, they open the door for free competitors, who can now enter the content business with virtually no barrier to entry. Publishers who fool themselves into thinking pay will save the day only further forestall the innovation and experimentation that is the only possible path to success online.

If their content is behind a pay wall, NewsCorp will of course be looking into protecting their material, to a drastic extent. This from the Inquisitr:

Harold Mitchell, the founder of one of Australia’s largest advertising groups and a man connected to News Corp locally, said in a radio interview Thursday (local time) that News Corp. is preparing to sue Google and Yahoo to stop both from linking to, and quoting News Corp content.

Stopping Google linking to your articles, which will already be behind a pay wall, could have a substantial effect on online advertising revenue for NewsCorp websites. But will the subscriptions or micropayments they receive be enough to compensate?

Charlie Beckett reckons Murdoch could be going down one of three paths:

1.‘Asset-stripping’: get as much cash out of these businesses as you can without completely killing the customer base to pump up the balance sheet while other media organisations burn their capital and plunge further into debt.

2. ‘The gamble’: If a few titles go down that just proves their weakness. Whatever is left standing will dominate a depleted market as the rivals follow in the wake of News International. In the same way that putting the price up of the Sunday Times actually strengthened its market dominance. If you are a sector leader - such as The Sun - then you have the brand community to set the pace and help dictate consumer behaviour.

3. Genius: Murdoch understands that enough of the public want to preserve their source of news and will be prepared to pay. They realise that they have had a free ride.

Although this business path is not inevitable, it needs to be experimented with - and if anyone can try it, it will be Murdoch. But if nothing else, as Matt Wells says in the Guardian - it is one hell of a gambe.

Observer abandons TV guide due to falling revenue

From Journalism.co.uk, news that the Observer has stopped printing it's TV guide, and is facing a backlash from readers. This is Stephen Pritchard, reader's editor:

The figures are stark. With advertising revenue set to plummet 26 per cent this year and circulation down 6.9 per cent on last year, the Observer, like other newspapers, is having to make painful decisions about what it can afford to print. Loyal readers have displayed remarkable forbearance recently as the news, business and sport sections have gradually slimmed down but they could contain themselves no longer when the TV guide disappeared.”

I've always been a greater fan of Saturday Guardian's pocket-sized Guide, but that's not quite the point. What other supplements will the Sunday's be cutting back on in an attempt to reduce print costs?

New York Times surveying on charging for content

In addition to The Times asking readers whether they'd pay for content, all be it in a very small, subtle way, the New York Times is also surveying it's readers on charging for content. In an article which also mentions the possibility of Disney, Ask.com and Match.com charging online, Bloomberg mentions the NYT:

"New York Times said in a survey of print subscribers this month that it’s considering a $5 monthly fee for access to its namesake newspaper’s Web site. The company also asked whether existing print subscribers would be willing to pay a discounted fee of $2.50 a month for access to the site. Nytimes.com, the most visited among newspapers’ sites, is currently free."

£5 a month actually sounds vaguely reasonable, and would perhaps be prolific enough to overcome the link economy - would a large enough group of people have subscriptions due to the website for linked to material not be consistently hidden behind a pay wall?

But in reality, it would probably have a detrimental effect, especially on an international website where those outside the USA would have no option but to pay the full $5. It would be interesting to see what the potential revenue would be, bearing in mind also the effect it would have on web ad revenue and print subscriptions.

Hat tip: jeffjarvis Old media moguls never die. They just keep threatening to charge. http://bit.ly/GvdYl

Online poll and the Times Online charging on 'The Bugle'

As reported by Media Guardian, 'The Bugle', which is Times Online's satirical podcast, asked how much you would be prepared to pay for access to it each week, followed by an online poll.

Coming on the back of Murdoch's determination to start charging for content, it makes one wonder whether the Times is sending out feelers to its users regarding paid for material.

You should be able to see the poll below:



This gives me an opportunity to plug my own online poll, with all of six questions about how much you'd be willing to pay for content (and what content), and your current charging for-content-habits (if you have any). Here's the link on Survey Monkey, it's only take two minutes so have a go!

New ABCes figures on newspaper websites

The Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronics published their new rankings of newspaper websites for the month of June.

Obviously, the higher the number of website visitors, not to mention the amount of time they spend on the site, what they click through on and what features they use, will have an impact on online revenue through advertising.

The Daily Mail was first, with 29,373,379 unique users, an 83% boost on June last year. The Guardian was second with 28,966,942, with the Telegraph a bit further behind on 27,175,233.

The Independent, whose website is widely regarded as a big step down from its competitors, actually suffered a drop in unique users last month, at 9,352,369. However, it still gained a year-on-year rise.

These figures do not tell the whole story by no means - the differing business strategies mean that more users don't simply translate into higher web revenue: it will depend on many adverts, how much is being charged, how smart that advertising is and whether the websites are charging for any services.

Charlie Beckett on equality in the media

• Should internships be banned?
• Who is actually using new media?
• The middle class domination of the media
  

Charlie Beckett, who is the Director of POLIS, a journalism and society think-tank at the LSE, has an excellent post leading on from yesterday's report in social mobility in the UK, specifically looking at the media. An extract:

"To get a job in national news media you much more likely to have to intern at some point for some time. It is much easier for middle class young people to work for free. Their parents or relatives are more likely to have the cash or spare room in London to support them.

And new media hasn’t done much to redress the balance. As far as I can see, pretty much all the people in social media or new media are the same middle class people who worked in mainstream media. But it’s still early days, so it is difficult to judge."

He is correct of course. The Social Mobility report yesterday also highlighted how journalism has become a 'more middle class' profession. I'm not sure there was a golden age of working class journalism, but it's not hard to believe that local and national newsroom are stuffed full of people with similar backgrounds.

Internships

Beckett's point on internships is spot on too - there are perhaps a dozen work placements I have seen, unpaid, in London over the past few weeks. I couldn't possibly afford to live in London for three months without any salary, and I've got no base there. The world of unpaid internships, which almost seems to be a requisite for entry into certain industries now, only reinforces a London-centric elite. Especially with the house prices and cost of living, breaking into the capital seems more difficult than ever. Polly Toynbee is right:

The rise of unpaid internships gets the blast it deserves. It's free labour slavery for the young who can afford to do it and yet denies access to all without parents to support them. All kinds of professions gladly take in bright graduates for free, so their CVs shine with experience their less fortunate contemporaries lack. It should be banned under employment law.

There's nothing wrong with paid internships, beyond just expenses. It is worth noting too that, by no means, are all placements based in London.

New media

Beckett's second point is one I've been thinking about for a while. I look at those whose blogs I read, and who I follow on Twitter. A good proportion are white, male, between my age and 40 or so, and talk primarily about new media. Like myself then.

The culture of 'new media' lends itself to being a multi-platform, new technology exalting...inward talking shop. So much of the discourse appears to be about new media, using new media tools to share the same ideas. Of course, there are examples - like the Iranian election, the Hudson river crash and some sporting events - when new media is used for external content. But especially when it is used extensively in anything political, as much of the discussion seems to be about that very trend as it does the content itself.

I'm not going to suggest I'm not implicit in this - most of the posts on my blog could be summarised as such.

New media may open up journalism to the masses - but which masses? Those with camera phones, Internet connections and the time to commit? That's hardly the working population of the UK, or indeed the world. When, in five years, everyone has phones with full online capability and the current iphone looks outdated, will we have reached a point of new media equality then? Because of the ever advancing development of technology - no bad thing on the whole - it's unlikely: a new gadget or device, or a faster connection which is beyond the affordability of most will become the only way to communicate on the edge of new media. And the exclusion of all but the upper-middle class and very wealthy continues.

TNTJ post on whether we have fallen out of love with blogging

I've got a post on TNTJ, Tommorow's News, Tomorrow's Journalists, which is part of Journalism.co.uk. It stems from Dave Lee's post about whether we have fallen out of love with blogging. Here's an extract:

Since picking up the habit again, my new blog has slowly evolved into not only somewhere to highlight my own work (blogs are almost always, to some degree, self-promoting) but comment on the media industry. It’s gone beyond ‘ranting’ you see, now it’s ‘commenting’. Similar, only more professional – I need the justification.

To answer Dave’s question, have I fallen out of love with blogging? I think you get to this point where it starts being a chore and nothing else. Where you feel the need to post on a topic of the sake of doing so, rather than having any active desire.

I’ve fallen into this framework frequently myself. I’ve gone six weeks without posting anything, occasionally real world commitments like my past month’s work experience have an impact, or the demands of my course.

Twitter is an easier platform

There is no doubt Twitter has had an impact too. It’s just easier – I can stay logged in on the same programme. I could retweet and comment on ten different items in the same time it would take me to write a blog post on one of them. When writing a blog post, I feel a pressure to source multiple opinions, defend my own, refer back to previous posts and put some multimedia in there. With Twitter, I can’t, but ironically this allows me to communicate more.

Not to mention that far more people (not including the random advertising/job/self-proclaimed marketing experts) follow me on Twitter than read my blog. You’re more likely to get a response as well, be they retweets, reactions or counterarguments. It’s all present on one easy programme, and unlike blogs it doesn’t need to be confused by leaping from one separate page to another.

Lionel Barber, Financial Times Editor, on charging for content online

This is a post which will contribute towards the website on new business models in print I am designing. I am publishing them both on this blog, and on one which will exist on the website itself.

Lionel Barber, who has editor of the Financial Times knows a thing or two about a successful business model which allows a paper to charge for online material online, has predicted that 'almost all' news organisations will, within a year, be charging for content online.

Speaking at a Media Standards Trust event, Barber said that:

"...we must go back to first principles and make the case for journalism. This is partly because the recession and the Internet are undermining the business model that has sustained news gathering since the late 19th century. The worldwide web has disrupted revenue streams and dramatically lowered the barriers to entry to the news business. As the Economist noted: “The business of selling words to readers and selling readers to advertisers, which has sustained their role in society, is falling apart.”

'Disrupting the revenue streams' makes the Internet sound like an inconvenience to the news industry, rather than an unparalleled opportunity which they can't very well prevent regardless.

Peter Preston is less certain than Barber about what line the great newspaper giants will fall on when it comes to charging for content

The [New York] Times, which invests so much in content, may be able to charge successfully for some or all of it. But its unique user count (see Ken Doctor's warning) is bound to decline, taking online advertising down with it. If there was a widespread, concerted change, then perhaps it could be contrived without too much loss. But current monopoly law makes such an organised commercial shift impossible.

Marks Potts thinks that readers won't pay, simply due to the poor quality and lack of diversity on newspaper websites:

Most newspapers and their sites are full of content that's widely available elsewhere—wire copy, stories covered by competitors, etc. In the flattened world of journalism in the Internet era, where monopolies are shattered and readers are a click away from countless alternatives. it's just too easy for readers to look elsewhere—especially if you stick a pay wall in front of them.
Think newspapers are full of unique content? Well, sit down some day with a copy of just about any paper and circle what's truly unique and unavailable anywhere else. The result isn't pretty. Do the same thing with the paper's Web site, and you quickly realize that the problem is compounded by presentation that just isn't very compelling, to put it charitably.

Now, misguided, desperate leaders like the FT's Barber somehow think the answer is to somehow convince readers to pay for something that, sadly, doesn't have enough value to justify charging. Readers are smarter than that, and that's why Barber's notion that "almost all" news sites will soon be charging for access is a hopeless dream. Sure, they may charge—but readers won't pay, at least not in anything resembling sufficient numbers. Not unless they see significant quality and value. And based on the current track record, there's no reason whatsoever to believe that will be the case.

Jeff Jarvis is, unsurprisingly, almost desperately unsympathetic:

In what other industry do companies feel entitled to revenue just because they used to have it or they think they deserve it because of who they are?

But newspapers think that companies that served their customers better – Google or craigslist – owe them money because they lost those customers for serving them badly and ripping them off for years.

Of course, Barber and his paper are in a rather unique position, seeing as how they are afford to charge for content. They have a rich client base who require the unique financial information which, along with the Wall Street Journal, they provide. So Barber can state that:

'figuring out what is special, distinctive and original is the vital first step. The second is to establish an online platform capable of charging for content, whether on a payment per article basis or a package subscription.

But few papers are in a similar position: and being the only paper to cover say, a small market town isn't enough of a unique base. Peter Preston evaluates the options for some of the main national papers:

"The Telegraph, with a huge print subscription base, has one set of possibilities. The Express, with no subscriptions and not much of a website, has none - except price-cutting and seeing its print possibilities grow. The Guardian, leading the unique user pack, has advertising possibilities to lose if its user count slides too much in a charging switch - but jam the day after tomorrow doesn't help if the teacake is burning today."

With any luck, someone will call on Barber in 12 months and see where we are. But editor of the FT is a privileged position to make such pronouncements from.

Warnings on media profits

This is a post which will contribute towards the website on new business models in print I am designing. I am publishing them both on this blog, and on one which will exist on the website itself.

From the Media Guardian, warnings about the profits on UK media companies:

The past six months have seen the greatest number of media companies issue profit warnings since the dot com crash of 2001, according to Ernst & Young.

Rudberg pointed out that during the slump of 2001, 21 UK listed companies made profit warnings in the first half of that year - but the trend saw a "sharp increase" to a record level of 18 in the third quarter.

Ernst & Young concludes that the decrease in profit warnings between the first and second quarters this year is due to cautious financial forecasting by smaller AIM-listed media companies rather than a sign that the industry is stabilising.

"If anything the second-quarter 2009 profit warning figures suggest that the downturn has started to impact the larger listed media companies," Rudberg said.

"In the 12 months to the end of March, 75% of the media companies that warned [on profits] were listed on AIM. [This compares] to the majority [of companies reporting profit warnings] being FTSE companies in the second quarter this year".

The number of warnings being it's highest for eight years only highlights the need for print media to find a new business model, whether they be small scale local papers or FTSE companies. Trinity Mirror's declining advertising revenue plots a similar sense of urgency:

Trinity Mirror reported today that advertising revenue at its regional newspaper division fell by 36% year on year for the period to 26 April, with sectors such as recruitment and property advertising falling by more than 50%.

Overall Trinity Mirror, owner of the Daily Mirror and more than 140 regional newspapers, said that group advertising revenue declined by 30% year on year.

The regional division fell 37% in January and February and 35% in March and April. Display advertising was down 24% for the period, recruitment down 50%, property down 54% and automotive advertising down 35%.

Given that much of their advertising can now be placed online, and for free or virtually any cost, it is hardly surprising that classifieds are down by such a dramatic rate. When we talk of competition for newspapers, we no longer simply mean news websites, but those competing with their business: Craiglist being one frequently mentioned.

Malcolm Coles on Newspaper websites and RSS feeds/Twitter

Re-posted on Journalism.co.uk, Malcolm Cole has a post on why newspapers should turn off their RSS feeds.

An extract:

'...only 3 of the 9 national newspapers have an RSS feed with more than 10,000 subscribers in Google Reader.

And most newspaper RSS feeds have readerships in the 00s, if that.

Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips has just 11 subscribers to her RSS feed (maybe there's hope for the UK population yet ...).

Despite having virtually no users, the Mail churns out 160 RSS feeds and the Mirror 280. All so a couple of thousand people can look at them in total...'

I'm not too well versed in the technical elements, but surely a news organisation would need to balance the amount of time and effort that goes into creating and maintaining RSS feeds - which may be very little once you've got them ingrained into the fabric of your site - with the number of readers using them. If maintenance is low, then perhaps that could offset the fact that, as Coles found out, a small proportion of readers are using them.

I've personally used Google Reader, and Bloglines beforehand, for a couple of years. I've become irritated when I come across a blog or site I like to find it's without RSS feeds, and I'll be unlikely to visit it again, if only because I don't utilise my 'Favourites'.

RSS feeds are from perfect, and it's good to see the Online Journalism Blog supporting a 'BBC Free' campaign to try and persuade the organisation to publish full RSS feeds (i.e. with the entire article, pictures and video), rather than simply the title and summary. There seems, on the face of it, no reason not to include full posts on an RSS feed.

However, there is a potential problem for newspapers and revenue-generating sites. Although it is possible to advertise on feeds, very few sites do: I can only think of a handful from over 150 feeds I have that do. On occasion, it can cluter the post to the extent of putting the user off.

But, if full posts are included in an RSS feed, there is no reason for the user to click through - and thus, they don't see or interact with any adverts. Therefore, the site generates no revenue from those users viewing that post. Obviously this isn't a problem for the BBC, but it RSS feeds were used even more widely then it potentially could be, or would at least have the effect of forcing more advertising on feeds.

Coles suggests newspapers should use their Twitter feeds instead of RSS feeds, giving the following reasons:

• Wheat vs chaff As a reader, you can see which stories other people are RTing and are therefore popular.
• Context There's space in 140 characters for newspapers to give some background to stories as well as the headline (well, there is for those that don't just stick the first few words of the standfirst after the headline).
• Promotion Followers can RT newspaper stories, promoting the paper - they can't do this with elements of an RSS feed.
• Tracking Stories' development can be tracked on Twitter - you can't usually tell what's changed in an RSS feed.
• Conversation You can take part in a conversation on Twitter. People only talk to their RSS feed when they swear at it. The journalists behind the story can tweet, too.

From a personal perspective, I prefer to keep the two separate. If a Twitter page simply repeats links to blog posts, I see no reason to subscribe to it if it's already in my feed reader. Take, for example, Andrew Sullivan's 'Daily Dish' (@dailydish): probably my favourite blog, which I read daily. Subscribe to the feed, but the Twitter page simply reproduces the blog posts. I see no reason to clutter up an already busy field of posts with little more than a mini RSS feed. I prefer to subscribe to individuals, or some organisations. If I had to follow all the newspapers, commentators or websites I've got my RSS feed on Twitter, I'd probably more than double the number of Twitter feeds I'm following. It can be hard enough to wade through it at the moment.

Coles mentions promotion: although I admit that it's not in the same class as it's not public, but Google Reader has a very easy share or email features on every post, allowing the user to instantly promote it.

However, I think the most important reason for using RSS feeds rather than Twitter for newspaper and website articles is one I already mentioned - clicking through. Few stories can be told in 140 characters, and therefore a link is provided to the site. In the case of what we could call 'complete' RSS feeds, the full post already appears. Therefore the full text, subheadings and multimedia is in front of the user, not necessitating a click through. This removes an additional barrier between the user and the material.

Matt Wardman, writing at The Wardman Wire, has fisked Coles' post, here's just some points:

8 - If newspapers want to turn off their feeds as part of a “circling the wagons” strategy to try and guard their revenue model than they are simply taking a blind leap 10 years backwards and will vanish down a deeper black hole than the one they are already in. In one way, as a news and politics blogger, I’d be delighted if some of the competition went away. If they must restrict the content, then let them move to Excerpt or Headline feeds.

9 - One point you haven’t addressed - RSS is archiveable, and I can read it offline if I use a suitable reader.

As Matt also notes, there is no reason not to use both. I don't expect newspapers to be that interactive with their RSS feeds, and I'm not sure I'd want their Twitter feeds to be as Coles recommends. Twitter works because of it's ability to act as a platform for a conversation, for recommendations and refutations. RSS feeds work because they offer a complete picture and a simply means of keeping track of your favourite sites. I'm happy keeping them separate for the sake of usability.

Sheffield Online - Where to look and 'Sheffield Made Us'

Where are the best places to go for information, news and opinions about Sheffield as a student?

A city with two universities, a massive student population and a revived, thriving cultural scene. So what are the best websites, blogs and twitter feeds to follow for Sheffield?

An exhaustive list would be pushing anyone's abilities, so I'll highlight the best I know - but please let me know of any other suggestions!

Sheffield Blog, of course, deserves a mention. With fairly regular updates it should be the online starting point for anyone coming to the city, including students. Be it bands, events or flash mobs, Sheffield Blog manages to cover most major events. It may not tell you all the latest news or about the politics of the city, but it offers interesting pieces on the past and particularly on music. Also has a useful map of free wi-fi hot spots in the city.

Most importantly, Sheffield Blog also has a considerable list of Sheffield Tweets, be they bars, university departments or local government.

For my part on Twitter with regards to Sheffield, I follow:
@FUSE_forgeradio (student radio)
@sheffielduni
@unsheffield (which was a creative and digitial industries conference which took place earlier in June)
@clicketyclicks (a student-run photography company)
@shftelegraph
@Forge_Media (student website and paper, the feed for which I helped set up)
@filmunit (student film society which presents films at the union for a very reasonable price)
@sheffieldunion
@sheffieldblog
@nick_clegg (who is also MP for Sheffield Hallam)

Obviously Facebook remains the primary organising tool for students in the city, as with any UK university. A brief history: facebook first hit Sheffield in 2006, when I was in my first year in halls. I joined in around March, and within a year it's coverage was pretty much complete. I get the impression it grew into an essential in Sheffield much faster than other unis.

Now, students are on facebook years before they come to University. Student-wise, I could name one person I know who isn't on it.

It's become essential for organising committees, events and for anyone running in student elections.

Having said this, that doesn't mean there aren't other useful sites for Sheffield. The Sheffield Union site highlights all the goings on, be they the latest campaign or club night.

With any luck, the Forge Today website, which was revamped this year, will become the focal point for student news in the city. Its potential is massive but it will require real commitment to be successful.

I've also found Sheffield Daily Photo an interesting take on the city. Barely a month old, it posts a photo a day from the city, sometimes taken with little more than a camera phone on the way to work. But the author manages to show unusual angles of the city and gives some history about buildings that you wouldn't give a second look to. You can follow them at @sheffieldphoto.

I'll confess to another reason for this post. It's a build up to a project I'm hoping to do. The University is running a competition, called 'Sheffield Made Us'. You can see a video about it through the link. It's a competition to make a video about the following:

How has the University of Sheffield helped you to Discover and Understand? Record a film showing us how your experiences at the University of Sheffield shaped you and you might walk away with £3000 - roughly equivalent to a year's tuition fees!

'To Discover and Understand' originates from the University motto Rerum Cognoscere Causas or, 'To Discover the Causes of Things' from Virgil's Georgics II, 490.

I've got the skills, I've got the software, and my have I got some ideas about this video. It's a maximum of three minutes long. How can I tell you about the city and the University in that time? Wait and see.

-For more of my photos of Sheffield, I've got a set of them on Flickr:

A fellow Journalism student on shorthand, the industry and business models

Not me, but Rich Parsons, a postgrad print student at the University of Sheffield. It's good to vent every now and then:

On shorthand:

"The common argument is that its easier than electronic recording. Bollocks. We're not in the 90's anymore, recording audio onto a cd or a casette with only a fast forward and rewind function. Modern technology is valued by its UI, and as such, recording audio in digital format is a piece of cake. Recording devices will subdivide audio into tracks and subfolders, you can paste it onto a laptop and organise it on any number of programs. Also, recorders are much smaller than a notebook and easier to take with you. You also don't have to worry about losing your pen or it running out of ink. For goodness sake, the technology is so prevalent that most mobile phones can record a decent-ish amount of audio themselves"

I know there are counter arguments: namely that people are more put off by being recorded, that batteries can run out, that recorders can't be used everywhere. But I sympathise with the sentiments. Rich also wrote about the dying print industry (for a more detailed look, see the recent Economist article):

"It frustrates me beyond belief that the business models for journalism are so stuck in the past. Editors think they're screwed now, wait till mobile browsing really takes off and kindles become affordable to everyone. Then lets see people justify cutting down 70,000 trees for a week's production of the New York Times."

I couldn't speak for a generation of journalism students anymore than Rich can, but I think it's likely his frustrations (I hope he doesn't mind me calling them that, or highlighting his whole post!) are shared by many. I'm off to go and complete a survey about journalism education... Rich's post has certainly given me some comments to mull over.

TNTJ Post on advice and questions for young journalists

I've got a post on TNTJ (Tomorrow's News, Tomorrow's Journalists), part of Journalism.co.uk, on advice I'd ask other journalists - and continuing a wider theme on the future for journalism students.

An extract:

"My advice, much as it’s worth? There’s still a lot of journalism students with a minimal online presence, so maximise yours. But don’t forget that whatever tools you can use, web pages you can re-design or exam marks you can achieve, content is still king - keep writing.

In addition, continue to make as many contacts as you can: it’s one of the reasons I’m going along to the Media 140 conference on May 20th.

Ill-qualified as I am to give advice to others graduating this year, the more we talk to each other, the better chance we have of navigating this scarce job market."

See the TNTJ post on the topic, and Dave Lee's post on his advice to journalism students: 'J-students must stick around and clear up the mess'.

Related posts
TNTJ post and the future for journalism students

Deepti Bharthur on technology, complacency and new media

Committee to Protect Journalists Capitol Hill Press Conference

Some notable extracts from Joel Simon, CPJ Executive Director, speaking at Capitol Hill at a conference on press security, marking Press Freedom Day. Simon spoke about the number of journalists being killed in conflicts across the world, and why this trend is getting worse:

"In terms of imprisonment, the numbers are also alarming. The number of journalists in prison around the world skyrocketed in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, jumping from 81 to 137, as repressive countries around the world launched opportunistic crackdowns often appropriating the language of the war on terror to justify these repressive measures. While the world's leading jailer of journalists are China, Cuba, and Eritrea, it is important to note the United States has appeared on CPJ's annual lost of imprisoned journalists every year since 2001. At least a dozen journalists were held in U.S. military custody in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for extended periods of time without due process. One is still being held by the U.S. military in Iraq - a freelance photographer for Reuters named Ibrahim Jassam."

Find details of Ibrahim Jassam's arrest here. An Iraqi court ruled in December that there was no evidence against him.

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Top 10 Worst Countries to be a blogger

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has published a list of the worst 10 countries to be a blogger. They are, in order:

1. BURMA

2. IRAN

3. SYRIA

4. CUBA

5. SAUDI ARABIA

6. VIETNAM

7. TUNISIA

8. CHINA

9. TURKMENISTAN

10. EGYPT

CPJ asked a series of questions to determine the list, including whether a country has an agency that monitors the Internet, whether bloggers have to register with the government and the degree of self-censorship.

For the CPJ, bloggers are defined as those:

" whose work is reportorial or fact-based commentary to be journalists."

However, I think there does need to be a greater distinction here between professional journalists working for specific organisations - many of whom blog - and those bloggers for whom the process of blogging is undertaken in a 'citizen journalist' basis.

The problem being, that this is no longer an easy distinction to make. What makes a blogger professional: being paid, being hosted by a media group? If you take a look at a detailed list of the top ten, most of the individuals CPJ mentions cannot be firmly defined as a citizen or a professional blogger. Is a jailed Egyptian blogger a citizen or professional? What if some of his work, some of the time, was published on an independent website for the Egyptian community in the West? It's not a simple dividing line.

Still, the fact remains that professional journalists, bloggers, citizen journalists, reporters, photographers and those in every role inbetween in the media are still subject to harassment, censorship and in the worst cases, torture and death, from regimes all over the world.

Groups like the CPJ are though, in a good position to raise awareness through the very same online community those suffering are part of.

Sarah de Crescenzo on why there won't be one new business model for journalism

Writing at the University of California, San Diego's 'The Guardian', Sarah de Crescenzo discusses why there won't be one answer to the major problem faced by the media: what a new business model will be.

An extract:

"Proponents of specific business models — whether it be citizen journalists, or nonprofits — must recognize printed newspapers will not be replaced by another, single model. We saw citizen journalism in play when a plane crash-landed in the Hudson River, which was first reported by a local man on Twitter. While this can’t be a replacement for traditional newspapers, it does provide useful supplementary, firsthand information."

When we discuss the 'business model' problem faced by the media, we are referring to a universal problem. Namely: declining advertising revenues, the inability of most news organisations to make money online, the drive away from the print platform, the appeal of new media and the fact that this is exacerbated by the economic recession.

Considering however, the unique geographic, financial and societal position of each media organisation, it should come as no surprise that there cannot be a universal business solution.

de Crescenzo also dampens what can sometimes be the over-zealotory of new media advocates (which is in itself an absurd phrase - I don't think there is that clear a distinction to be made is there?):

"Do you want someone to monitor your politicians? Or, would you rather do it yourself? In choosing a new business model, you should ask yourself why journalism exists in the first place. Even if you live in Washington D.C., your nine-to-five probably doesn’t come with days off to explore exactly what those guys in the White House are doing. Thanks to journalists, you don’t have to."

Despite my enthusiasm for new media, this is an unavoidable analysis. As one my tutors pointed out to me, without the media who would, truly, go along to the local council meeting on a wet, dark Thursday evening in November? This presumes the media are fulfilling this role already and digging deep, which is obviously debatable.

The full article, at least as a general and sensible summary on the issues, is worth a look.

Hat tip: Nikhil Moro at Civic & Citizen Journalism Interest Group

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University of Sheffield Postgraduate Journalism Production Week

What is Production Week?

For the fourth year in a row, Sheffield journalism postgrads undertook a 'Production Week', during which two newspapers, a website, a magazine and daily radio and TV broadcasts are produced and published (or aired).


Normally, this takes place during the local elections - however, there are none in Sheffield this year, much to my disappointment. It was decided that June 4th, when the European elections are taking place, was too late in the term and therefore, we would cover the news the week beginning Monday 27th April, with the website going 'live' the day after.

I say this because unfortunately, the website is not public facing. This is for two related reasons: namely the use of PA photos, who we have a deal with, and broadcast's use of BBC and Sky bulletins to supplement their national coverage. Licensing agreements don't allow us to actually publish or broadcast his material. I've taken a few screen shots of the website though, and hopefully fellow postgrads on the other courses can put some pictures of their platforms finished results up.

To re-cap, Sheffield Uni. Journalism department has four main courses: Print, Web, Broadcast and Magazine.

The website and working with the courses

Unlike the print group, those of us on the web course rotated roles every day (as did broadcast), meaning I undertook positions as Local News Ed, Reporter (though also did some Features stuff), Home News Ed and lastly Web Editor.

For the first time I believe, we had a 'web first' policy, in which getting news online first was a necessity. However, there was a never a formal structure in place throughout the week and this relied greatly on good communication between the courses. The web team had 2 broadcast students working with us everyday, who ensured that the multimedia content got uploaded.

For the web team, our week mostly consisted of getting content from our own reporters, receiving even more content from print (especially on local news and sport), publishing our own content on national and international stories (mostly re-written from the wires) and making continuous editorial decisions on the layout and priority. We also worked closely with broadcast to get A/V content on the stories.

See below screenshots of the Local News section, and the 'Quirky' News section which we added on Friday:And Quirky:

We managed to cover a wide range of stories, including the minor earthquake in the Lake District which I spotted on Breaking Tweets, the attack on the Dutch Royal family and from the print students, the death of a 19-year old Chinese student in a car accident in Sheffield last Saturday and from print and broadcast, a by-election in East Ecclesfield. In all, with contributions from all the courses, approximately 189 stories were published by the website in 4 days.

A converged production week?

I'm told that in contrast to previous years, this was the most integrated production week we'd had. Largely, this was my experience. We worked with print on a constant basis and they provided us with plenty of copy, especially local. They wanted to save some stories for their editions, especially that which was going on their front page. It's a constant dilemma in multi-platform media, and personally, I would have preferred all content to go on the web first.

But I can perfectly understand holding some things back for a print edition and considering how well we worked together, I can hardly begrudge them! Particular thanks go to Mike Trudeau and Jasmine Coleman, who were always very willing to work with the web (and for asking me to do a comment piece on the East Ecclesfield by-election for the paper).

Broadcast were also very co-operative and were willing to upload their content as soon as it had gone out on their bulletins. They often wrote the stories accompanying their multimedia packages as well. We did get fewer stories from the 'Duck' magazine, which was out at the end of the week. I understand the need to hold back some material for a print edition, but it did leave our Features page looking a little bear at some points - though it was populated by contributions from the paper and web students.

This could also be a problem at the Forge Press - we've recently re-launched our website, and a new team are coming onboard. The roles are now entirely converged - next year's Comment editors are also the Web Comment editors - but a fortnightly production cycle doesn't led itself to instantaneous online publishing. Comissioning articles on a Monday, then having them in by a Friday and publishing them a week later is far away from a web first policy.

As I mentioned, the lack of an overall system by which stories were researched, written and uploaded did lead to a few mishaps. For example, we had a web student and a print student write the same story. But overall, we were getting there and the 'web first' policy was working.

I think we could have done a lot more with the website. We had a Twitter feed, @jusnews, though all the links would have led to a closed site for external users. It would have been good to incorporate a Google Map with locations for the stories, and perhaps inbed video within the stories - something that was considered, but only later on in the week. This is just the tip of the iceberg to what we could have done, but each of us was under a lot of pressure to write, sub and publish stories while working with each other and the different courses. Even as editors, it would have been hard to put these widgets or extras into CMS without much more forward planning. And regardless, 189 stories with pictures, video, audio and links isn't half bad.

It was tiring, fairly stressful, time consuming and occasionally frustrating. But we couldn't have had a better departmental experience for what it's like to be in a newsroom.

I must thank too all the departmental staff who helped, including Hadrian with the website, and Christine for all the online advice.

TNTJ post and the future for journalism students

I've got a post on TNTJ (Tomorrow's News, Tomorrow's Journalists, part of Journalism.co.uk) about being a journalism student given the current state of the industry. I've expanded on some of the ideas here.

An extract from the post, which is part of the April 2009 debate on what your summer/post-graduation plans are:

"I’m under no illusions as to how difficult and how competitive it will be to find a job in journalism right now. Every day I read or hear of cutbacks, closures and even graduate schemes no longer going ahead. Whether we like it or not, many of those graduating from journalism courses this year will have to decide if continuing down their apparent career path is worth it, considering the difficulties in the industry.

This is all the more alarming given the 24% rise in applications for journalism courses this year."

It's difficult to know where to begin. Those studying journalism are clearly not all going to end up being roving reporters for local papers or in one of the dwindling numbers of graduate schemes. As well versed as we are in new media and the Internet, there appear to simply not be enough jobs. Jon Slattery reports on the situation here.

Much as we may look for scapegoats, from Google to national newspaper websites, none of it will resolve the fact that there are too many journalism students for journalism jobs. Fellow Sheffield postgrad Natalie Bowen summarises the graduate journalism job market:

"As another door slams shut, the chances of finding meaningful employment in this sector I so dearly want to work in seem slim. Already this year, the Telegraph and Guardian have canceled their schemes, and Trinity Mirror froze their trainee recruitment last year, although interestingly their website doesn't mention this. I guess Dianne Reilly had a lot of students to disappoint."

More from Slattery:

"Some students are being advised to consider going into public relations or to look at ways of using their skills in alternative fields because the jobs market in journalism is so bad. Even the competition for low-paid jobs is higher than usual because there are more experienced out-of-work journalists trying to find a position."

None of us can deny the difficulties, that we have chosen to get on the first rung of an industry that is both dying and changing in a myriad of ways. Given the competition from other journalists and from other graduates - there are more now than ever - no journalism student could be criticised for looking further afield in future employment.

Ben Spencer, another fellow Sheffield postgrad, retains some optimism, at least through the need for journalism itself:

"There aren’t many jobs, old hacks (like Sara Lacy) are telling us that journalism degrees aren’t worth the paper they are written on, and it still requires a healthy bank balance to gain entrance to the fourth estate. It’s a competitive industry, and always has been.

But in the last week Britain’s chief anti-terrorism police officer and a senior Downing Street advisor have been forced out by stories dug up by journalists. News still matters, and journalists will always be needed."

As Ben points out, contributing to the journalism industry does not require you to work as a journalist - arguably, this is already the situation for many students. Michael Haddon, who has also contributed to the TNTJ debate, comments:

"It is obvious there are just not going to be enough staff jobs to support the amount of graduates hoping to pursue work in the media industry, so it makes sense to try and gain freelance work which might be in more plentiful supply."

Now thoughts of walking into one of the best graduate schemes are gone and the aim must be making sure we are best placed for that elusive job which should eventually show up. I plan to continue blogging, interacting using twitter and revitalising that LinkedIn presence where a personal profile might be able to help career ambitions."

There's only so much that can be said but I'd recommend Michael's post in particular on this issue. It's also worth asking what the implications will be for journalism schools across the country, and how courses will change in structure and popularity. Mark Duell, a Sheffield Journalism undergrad, speculates that the difficulties faced in the industry might remove some of the 'lesser' (his word) media degrees:

"By studying journalism practically at a top university, you are taught how to be a good journalist, and leave fully qualified and ready to go. By cutting out these 'lesser' degrees, we might ensure that only people who really want to get into journalism and the media go to the top universities and get the jobs everyone wants."

I'm not convinced that going to one of the top journalism schools - or more accurately, going to one of the 'lesser' ones - necessarily means you are more or less likely to 'really want' to go into journalism. It might be the case that the best teaching is a mixture of these degrees, rather than one standardised way of teaching all those entering British journalism.

Journalism needs new, fresh faces to keep it afloat. Hopefully they'll be able to partake in an industry that, despite the difficulties, they would desperately like to be part of. Otherwise, such a development will only be negative for the media arena in the long run.

Jeff Jarvis' fake speech to the NAA

Jeff Jarvis on the speech he would give to the NAA (Newspaper Association of America), at their conference in San Diego.

Jarvis, on his usual 'changing industry' high (which is brilliant), chastises the old barons of the newspaper industry in the USA for not changing. Some more names than Murdoch would be welcome, and again, there is some vagueness over new web business models - but there always is, that's the point.

An extract:

"Yesterday, you delivered a foot-stomping little hissy fit over Google and aggregators. How dare they link to you and not pay you? Oh, I so want Eric Schmidt to tell you today that you’re getting your wish and that Google will no longer link to you. Beware what you wish for. You’d lose a third of your traffic overnight. If other aggregators (I work with one) and bloggers (I am one) and Facebook all decided to follow suit, you’d lose half your traffic. On most of your sites, only 20 percent of the audience in a day ever sees your homepage and its careful packaging; 4 of 5 readers instead come in through search and links."

As I mentioned in reaction to Henry Porter's article, Google doesn't have to link to news sites - and nor do the rest of us. Jarvis is pretty accurate on user experience of websites too, from my perspective. I have about four news websites I look at everyday (BBC, Guardian, Telegraph, CNN), and most of my other links and news come from Google Reader and it's subsequent links, (or not, seeing as how I often can see the whole post through Reader: there are plenty of the websites themselves I rarely look at).

Another extract:

"You all remember the quote from a college student in The New York Times a year ago, the one that has kept you up at night. Let’s say it together: “If the news is that important, it will find me.” What are you doing to take your news to her? You still expect her to come to you - to your website or to the newsstand - just because of the magnetic pull of your old brand. But she won’t, and you know it. You lost an entire generation. You lost the future of news.

You blew it."

As long as someone is linked up with the tools, perhaps the news will come to them, though they need to allow it to reach them first.

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Deepti Bharthur on technology, complacency and new media

Writing for TNTJ (Tomorrow's News, Tomorrow's Journalists), on Journalism.co.uk, DeeptiBharthur briefly explorers why new media journalists continue to lack credibility

Bharthur states that:

"In a way it’s related to the loss of a few traditional news gathering skills. The technology available to journalists have led them to circumvent any real field work, or face to face interaction. While this is completely justified given the short deadlines they work under, its given rise to a lot of surface scratching and incomplete research, where we’re only as knowledgeable on a subject as Google allows us to be."

There is, on the face of it, some truth in this. The unfortunate thing is we are yet to reach the point where 'web journalists' are less those sitting at desks cutting, pasting and importing videos, and more those writing the stories, editing the copy and shooting the video. But it's an ideal we should be aiming for. Research should be more than an advanced google search and as many links as we can muster (some elements of self-reflection coming in here...)

Bharthur also states:

"Even as more and more people are turning to the web for independent news and commentary, the question of credibility does give them pause. Who is this random blogger who reports from his or her community and why should I take his/her word?"

However, what Bharthur doesn't mention here is the ability of the online (and offline) community to give collective credibility. It's not a foolproof system by any means, but the blogosphere (which must be an increasingly redundant term due to the nature of 'official' blogs and non-bloggers online) has a way of wiggling out the truth. That which is inaccurate will be weeded out, refuted and argued against; the truth however, will be promoted, re-blogged and re-posted.

So the random blogger reporting from their community - along with other local bloggers - can be given credibility or refuted, and thus their word can be taken. With the right tools, such as Digg, one would hope that credibility can develop.

However, the more people in this community - the more local bloggers to give credibility, the more rating or promoting a story, and the more people familiar with the tools that rate stories, the easier it will be for the credibility to be clearer.

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