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

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.

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.

Related posts
Top 10 Worst Countries to be a blogger
Why Journalists matter
Congress and the Internet

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

Related posts
Deepti Bharthur on technology, complacency and new media
Churnalism, Nick Davies, New media and the crisis of journalism
James Poniewozik on the 'Media Apocalypse'

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.

Related posts:
Henry Porter on Google
Walter Issacon on the Daily Show
Tim Luckhurst on buying a newspaper 'for democracy'

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.

Related posts:

Tips for changing newsrooms and reader demand

Bas Timmers on updating the news online

New Blog: Through the Middle East

I have a new blog on journalism, globalisation and development in the Middle East, called Through the Middle East

As part of my course, I've started a new blog, this time on Word Press.

As you can see from my previous posts, I've had a keen interest in the Middle East for some time. I've intended for some time to make a blog exclusively about the region, especially as this blog is increasingly becoming dominated by the media.

So I'll no longer be posting about the Middle East at this blog, instead it will transfer over to the new one.

To clarify this is NOT a replacement blog - I will keep posting on both regularly!

I'll be making a Twitter feed for it soon as well.

Darren Thwaites, Editor of the Evening Gazette, at the University of Sheffield

A talk by Darren Thwaites on regional journalism leads us into questions about the role of user-generared content in local news and 'The Local' project by the NYT.

In another of the guest lecture series, Darren Thwaites, editor of the Evening Gazette in Teeside, spoke to journalism students on 3rd March about the projects his paper is undertaking. He promised a bit of optimism in an otherwise depressed sector, and largely delivered.

To summarise some of Thwaites key points: he felt that the role of a regional publisher had now moved from educating, informing and entertaining to 'attracting audiences with content', and that competition was less in the form of other journalistic media, but anything - from the BBC to a Wii - that could contend with the Evening Gazette for the time of their users.

Thwaites gave five key points through which the Evening Gazette website has grown to approximately 200,000 unique users a month:
1. Treat print and digital with equal value
2. Strengthen the brand and grow audience
3. Publish breaking news earlier and later in the day than ever before
4. Get readers more involved than ever before
5. Delve deeper into their core communities.

Importantly, the Evening Gazette has managed all this while increasing their print audience by 6,000.

The last point leads onto the hyperlocal community sites that the Gazette is developing. Based on postcode areas, the project has extended the role of a community correspondent and recruited over 450 bloggers and is making use of user-generated content (UGC). Along with a group on Flickr, search engine optimisation, live web chats, a mobile site, podcasts, a cashback site and sponsored videos, the site and it's hyperlocal branches could offer a new realm, and perhaps a business solution, for regional papers.

I asked Darren whether or not the paper was making any money from the website, and he admitted that only around 5-10% of their revenue was from their online material. Of course, if the website contributed towards higher circulation, which it no doubt does, then the real figure would be greater.

In subsequent correspondence, I also asked Darren whether or not their site could have been so successful without the newspaper brand as a base. I've always been intrigued as to whether it would be possible to simply set up a sustainable website, using both professional journalists and UGC focused on a hyperlocal area without a pre-existing brand as a base, similar to the Bayosphere project attempted by Dan Gillmor.

Darren responded that:

"I don't think our hyperlocal sites could have been as successful without
the Gazette brand (in print and online) sitting above it. We're able to
signpost a massive audience towards an added value product and we're also
able to use our own professionally-generated content to help populate the
sites. We're a trusted local brand and that's an essential starting point."

Ben Spencer, a fellow journalism student at Sheffield, raises his own concerns about the project:

"My concern, however, is that this could develop into journalism on-the-cheap. If editors can get content direct from their readers, could this provide further excuses for cutbacks?"

However, considering the content I don't feel this will be a problem. Even with twice the number of dwindling staff many regional papers have, they couldn't cover such small geographical areas in as much detail as readers can.

These stories - the potholes, the cake sale, the planning permission, the reducing hours at the post office - have a fairly good chance of simply not being reported without UGC. Better to have members of the public report them, with some editorial guidance and increase the number of visitors to the site (which should increase the revenue) and give users more reasons to look at the site (therefore increasingly familiarity with the brand, and hopefully increase circulation) rather than simply ignore the potential for stories.

In all, I see such local community sites using UGC as complementary to regional newspapers, rather than replacing the reporters and therefore risking cutbacks. Most users don't have the time to investigate, to go to the council meeting, develop the contacts or make the phone calls (though the more that use it, the easier it would be to find out more). What is reported is perhaps journalism on the cheap, but that doesn't mean it is either not worth reporting, or is a direct threat to traditional reporting - especially if the subjects have previously been ignored.

However, as Ben mentions, the project requires a lot of attention with very little revenue generated as a result thus far. But regional papers need to be experimenting.

On the other side of the pond, one of the biggest newspaper names, the NYT, is launching a project called 'The Local', in collaboration with students at the City University in New York .

Jeff Jarvis on the project, which he is heavily involved with:

"We have to move past the old newspaper notion that one will - and can afford to - “own” a town. Those days are over. Instead, we’ll have ecosystems of local news linked together, and to support them we need complementary content and coverage and networks to sell ads into and for all the players. In a network that links to its own members all ships will ride with the tide of links."

This sparked a debate between Jeff Jarvis and Howard Owens other whether it was essential that those running the sites were professional or local amateurs. No doubt we'll see how well it works over the coming months, and it will continue to generate discussion either way.

Above all, despite the interest of my generation in world affairs and an apparent antipathy with local news, it should be remembered that, as stated on Springwise:

"Billions of people may inhabit this planet, but when it comes right down to it, most of us are still primarily interested in what's going on in our own backyards."

There will always be a place for local journalism. It might just end up being smaller, more focused, more frequent and on more platforms than the weekly paper we've been used to.

Related posts:
Media Convergence Week at Sheffield University
BBC local video news websites decision
Tim Luckhurst on buying a newspaper 'for democracy'

Advice for young journalists from Digital News Affairs Conference in Brussels

Paul Bradshaw at the Online Journalism Blog reports from the Digital Affairs Conference in Brussels, where he asked a range of industry figures what their advice was for young journalists


Among them were:

Dardis McNamee, who is editor in Chief of the Vienna Review:

"You need to learn how the world works, study political economy or science, as well as the tools of journalism. A skill that never goes out of style is to learn how to think or how to learn. Learn how to organize your ideas and communicate them. Be brave."

Matt Cowan, a technology reporter with Reuters: "Learn the different facets of the job. The more you can do, the easier it will be to find a job. If you learn to perfection one world, for example broadcasting, that will limit your possibilities. Even if you want to create documentaries, don’t shy away from news. One more thing: Look for mentors and listen to them!"

See the link for the full list. Having a range of skills, outside knowledge and not specialising seem to be the major points.

Related posts:
Media Convergence Week at University of Sheffield

NewsCred founder Shafqat Islam and interactive news gathering

Newscred seems a feasible idea - crossing Digg with Google news/reader - but will it extend beyond the MSM and famous blogs, and what wider questions does it ask?

Paul Bradshaw at the Online Journalism Blog has an interview with Shafqat Islam, who has co-founded Newscred, which is described as a 'digital newspaper that will give you all the world's credible sources in one place.'

Essentially, you can design your page to give you news from MSM sources and credible blogs you then vote, in a similar way to using Digg, on whether you think they are credible and quality or not (something which they say distinguishes them from Digg, which is concerned with popularity). This is then displayed on the page.

It has therefore become 'a platform where readers can voice their opinion and join in discussions about the credibility of news media.'

I'll be giving this a go. But my doubts about it are just how the credibility system will work.

NewsCred say:

Our community votes on the credibility of articles, authors and news sources, and we apply our CredRank algorithms to ensure you only get the highest quality news from the sources you love.

Obviously one role of bloggers/citizen journalists (what to call them? those not part of the MSM - amateurs?) is to check up on media reporters, and on each other. But what criteria exactly will be used to deduce how credible a source is, especially if we don't have access to the same material (I suppose the reply would be that we should have access to this material as well, and we will therefore be able to check).

I simply think there is a danger that blogs will be ranked by favouritism, and it will be subsequently hard for bloggers without a large following already to 'break-out' into consistent popularity.

Chacha at T&M News also raises a concern about Newscred:

'Credibility doesn’t work when you only have a set number of blogs, which most of are already found to be highly creditable. If you view the analytics for the entire site, most sources don’t go under 90-95%, and if 1/3 of them don’t even go below 99.60%. Basically, all you are doing is telling everyone that The New York Times is credible. (Did anyone doubt that before?) In order for credibility rankings to be effective, you need to have it be spread over a lot of sources, probably thousands, that there is actually a question whether they are credible.'

Focusing on amateur blogs, hyperlocal and niche citizen journalism projects rather than the best-known websites could make Newscred a more useful source. However, such a project of this is as much driven by those who use as those who run it.

Newscred continue:

'We firmly believe that a transparent and credible media industry is vital to the health of the world democracy. We've also done our research, and there are hundreds of surveys and papers that show that the public continues to fault news organizations (both traditional and online) for a number of perceived failures, with solid majorities criticizing them for political bias, inaccuracy and failing to acknowledge mistakes.'

As with so many online tools, the more users it gains the more effective it will be. It's still in a beta version right now, but I shall be trying it, and good luck to both its founders.

Related posts

'In defence and explanation of Twitter.'
'Churnalism, Nick Davies, New Media and the crisis of journalism.'
'Bas Timmers on updating the news online.'

The Final Rocky Mountain News Cover

The Rocky Mountain News, of Colorado, publishes its last edition.

Charles Apple has the final cover the Rocky Mountain News, which has been covering Colorado for nearly 150 years. It finally had to close, with its last issue today. Click here for a larger picture, and here for their website.

(Picture credit to Charles Apple and Kathy Bogan, presentation director of the paper).

There are rumours that the San Francisco Chronicle could close within weeks. Let's hope we don't see another final cover from a classic American newspaper soon - but this seems unlikely.

Hat tip: newspaperescapeplan

Media Convergence Week at Sheffield University

• Ed Roussel, Telegraph on digital media
• Ben Hazell, Telegraph on search engine optimisation
• The Twitter debate!
• Audio/Broadcast training and more lectures
• How do you make money out of the web?
  

Convergence Week

Here on the print, web, broadcast and magazine courses at the University of Sheffield journalism department, we've just come to the end of 'convergence week'. Essentially, in line with broader trends in the media, each course has training in aspects of the media they are unfamiliar with - for web students, this meant broadcast training, for broadcast it meant web training and for print and magazine it meant both.

Why bother? Because virtually every media organisation now wants multi-skilled journalists happy working on all platforms. Although we learn many aspects of the media together, the four courses are by nature restricted to their own domain. If I'm honest, I don't know how much longer the department will be able to preserve such a structure, without also offering (or entirely replacing all the courses with) a postgraduate degree in multimedia journalism.

I'd imagine there are conflicting views at the end of convergence week, although those of us on the web course seem to have had a largely positive attitude towards it.

I've already done a post on Twitter, a debate started by Peter Cole in the first lecture on Monday. I seem to be finding new people on all the courses on it everyday now, as well as a flurry of new blogs.

Ed Roussel
On Tuesday, in our ordinary guest lecture slot we heard from Ed Roussel, the Telegraph's Digital Editor. The success of the Telegraph online is no secret, and it was a surprise to hear that despite the latter's obsession with it, the Telegraph gained more hits on Obama's inauguration day that the Guardian.

Ed pointed a quick picture of the media: NYT suffering a 60% drop in share price, the LA Times having 3 rounds of job cuts since July (though as I have written about already, their online revenue has reached a critical point) although the Telegraph has remained profitable for 2 years.

Due to their growth online, Ed feels that the reach of newspapers has, in fact, not diminished even though print circulation is down. In essence, the talk focused on what new business models the media could use to profit from journalism online - more on this later.

I asked Ed what role citizen journalism and user-generated content had to play in such new models, as I'd been surprised he hadn't spoken about it more. He replied that it was 'critical' that readers felt they were part of the process, and stated that his colleague Jeff Randall had become 'obsessed' with reading the comments on his pieces. Ed went on:

'Can you make money from it? Right now, no. But if you don't do it, you'll loose audience and therefore loose money.'

In response to another question, Ed stated that regional newspapers, which are still held in such high esteem by journalists (and journalism students) with a more traditional outlook, were 'firmly headed down the wrong path.' Their problem is, in fact, in the title - hyper-local is now more effective that 'regional'.

Search engine optimisation
Ben Hazell, also from the Telegraph, was a student on the web course last year. He gave us a talk about search engine optimisation (SEO), which has given me even more ideas about re-designing this blog and setting up my next one.
In response to a question about Google (I'm looking forward to reading Jeff Jarvis' 'What would Google do?' when it comes through the door), Ben replied that it is not providing facts, it provides information. At university, it's been banged into us for years to be sceptical about online sources of any sort. What's needed is a different attitude, and a better approach to how to find those sources, what to trust and how to check them.

Lectures and Training
As web students, we actually had a minimum of training this week compared to other courses. We had already done the video training so essentially underwent a re-fresh on the camcorders and Abode Premier. The audio training was quick, but comprehensive enough that I'm sure we'll cope.

During the lecture on online magazines, I realised a point about online revenue. Liz Nice asked who used RSS feeds for magazines, and I replied that I did so for the Economist but obviously didn't pay for any of this. However, this got me thinking. I'm not a fan of ad blockers, simply because if they become too prolific, advertising revenue for websites will reduce and may even cause some to shut down. But is using RSS feeds any different? A tiny minority of the feeds I receive also show the adverts from the website (Mark Halperin and Time's 'The Page' is one of them). Along with a total lack of familiarity with the sites themselves - because you have much less of a reason to look at them - this is just one of the downsides of RSS feeds.

One of our last lectures was on that of digital newspapers. Although this a potentially impressive venture, I can't see it taking off myself. It seems simply like a way to preserve a platform with technology, rather than looking at the wider process of news-gathering and how stories themselves are told. With people getting news and analysis, personally geared towards them from multiple sources on their computers and phones, it may be too late for digital newspapers to seriously compete.

So how do we make money out of the web?
For me, this has been the key and often-repeated question that remains unanswered by the end of this week. I don't believe in charging for content online if it can be at all avoided. Services however, can be charged for (such as pro accounts on Flickr, as Helia pointed out to me). Certain, specialist sections of a website can be used to pay for the rest - Ed Roussel told us the Telegraph's Fantasy Football generated 2% of their web traffic, but 20% of their web revenue.

Making money out of journalism online. There's no lack of people working on this issue, but it will require innovation, creativity and many failed ventures, and even then, there is unlikely to be one, simple, universal solution.

So we'll end with a quote from Jeff Jarvis:

'I realized lately that I’d been assuming we could see an orderly transition, Jan. 20-like, from old media to new. But it’s clear that we’re going to see destruction, voids, and vacuums in the transition.'

In defence and explanation of Twitter

Following some debates on my course at the University of Sheffield, I thought I'd write a brief defence of Twitter.

From Peter Cole to Ed Roussel (his Twitter feed is here) and of course everyone on the course, it's been a few days of debate about Twitter.

Firstly, it's not simply for telling people what you are doing 24/7, everyday. In the case of Stephen Fry, public figure and national treasure that he is (and one of the foremost technology reviewers in the country), thousands - 177,371 in fact - want to know what he is doing. But for most people, in most situations, it isn't the case. For me, it exists for 3 reasons:

Breaking news
BreakingNewsOn is one of the more popular Twitter feeds, with nearly 25,000 followers. It offers, in effect, a breaking news wire and it will soon establish a full news feed. I have seen stories appear there before they do on CNN or BBC: the Hudson river crash and the Mumbai attacks included. I've never seen them subsequently have to retract a story.
In addition, members of the public can tweet on news events - plane crashes, the Hudson river crash, even the snow in the UK. For journalists and news organisations, this is a good way of seeing how the public are reacting to an event, either over time or as it happens. The ability to post pictures also adds to this (first picture of the Hudson river crash), as does the easy ability to update Twitter from your phone simply by SMS.

Linking
Using tinyurl, which shortens any url, Twitter can be used to link to blogs, news items, photos - any website in effect. This allows it to act like a blog or web-page linking to other websites, be it through self-promotion or admiration and interest in others work.

Conversation
Twitter is not there to replace Facebook, MSN (if anyone uses that now) or live online chats. What it allows is a simple, uniform platform where it is possible to respond, promote (or 'retweet') to others. It's not just for normal individuals either. Pressure groups (the NUS) think tanks, student unions, politicians, world famous authors like Paulo Coelho, even the University of Sheffield law department all have Twitter feeds.

The downsides
As pointed out to me by Ben Hazell of the Telegraph earlier today, Twitter is far from perfect. Many of the applications, such as searching what people are tweeting about, are provided by third parties. It has had bug problems. And, indeed, it is almost impossible to make money out of the service.
Twitter should be seen not as something that is replacing journalists or media organisations, but as a tool, like Google, they can exploit to attract new users, to network and to find out more analysis and news - you choose what you want to here about.

And just so you know, you can find me on Twitter here.

I'll be writing a fuller post about convergence week later. You can see Helia's, Rich's and Jasmine's comments on the week on their blogs.

Walter Isaacson on The Daily Show

Walter Isaacson, President and CEO of the Aspen Institute, was on the Daily Show talking about charging people for looking at material online:

Quite how someone can suggest such a backward step now is beyond me.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

fWalter Isaacson

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Funny Political News
Joke of the Day

The next term of a postgraduate journalism degree at the University of Sheffield

After the NCTJ law tests and the ethics essay, it's time for the next semester in my MA Web Journalism degree at the University of Sheffield.

This term, I'll be doing more Web Journalism, undertaking a convergence project across the disciplines (print, broadcast, web, magazine) which essentially means I'm doing broadcast training for the next week. I'll also be studying governmental systems and regulation in the industry, and a module under Herman Wasserman (his blog here) on Journalism, Globalisation and Development which I'm really looking forward to.

Beyond this, I'll keep writing and editing for the Forge Press until we hand over to the next team. Hopefully the new website will be up soon, and the backlog of Comment articles will be up. I hope to set up a Twitter feed for the newspaper/website soon. We've got the Union elections coming up, which I was involved with in a big way last year and will be reporting on this year.

What else this term? I'll be applying for work experience, doing a UN writing competition, looking into organising a debate on the media and going a trip to London to PMQ's.

I plan to re-invigorate the blog with new applications and to de-clutter it a bit. I'll be setting up a new website where I can bring together my blog, Twitter, Flickr and other sites into one central point. I also plan to set up a new blog on the media, politics and news in the Middle East, which will be connected with the aforementioned development module.

On with the course!