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June 2005
New interactive news site set to launch in July
2005-06-01By Diana Day: Dragonfire, a nonprofit news site, is set to launch on July 5 at 10 a.m. EST. The site promises to be "a fully-interactive online publication bringing together innovative audio, video and print content in previously unimagined, mutually-supporting formats," according to a promotional e-mail. The site boasts a crew of over 100 journalists from 30 countries and will make its real-world home on the campus of Drexel University in Philadephia, PA. Although it is not a student publication, it will make use of Drexel's well-known business and tech resources in order to "seriously reinvent how we approach digital journalism." The site "intends to create a community of socially concerned, civically engaged users" and will remain nonprofit under the Drexel University umbrella in order to allow reader access to both current and archived content.
Building an alternative 'P2P' information infrastructure
2005-06-01By Michel Bauwens: P2P and Human Evolution is a book-in-progress which examines the characteristics of a new relational dynamic emerging in distributed works: peer to peer. It has a special section dedicated to the premises of an alternative to mass media broadcasting, drawing on the ideas of Yochai Benkler, Lawrence Lessig, Mark Pesce and others.
A preliminary draft is located at at Network Cultures but I recommend asking for the latest version in Word format which has the full section and the endnotes with extensive quotations on the topic. The endnotes contain references to many initiatives in this area: vlogging, IP-TV, podcasting, skypecasting, mobcasting and more.
For a copy, please contact the author (myself) at michelsub2003@yahoo.com.
These developments are also monitored in a weekly newsletter, Pluralities/Integration, archived at Integral Visioning.
Lessons from history
2005-06-01By Dawn Rivers Baker: One of the day's big stories is the outing of Deep Throat.
It's all kind of amazing, when you stop to think about it. How many people do you know who can keep a secret of that magnitude for 30 years?
The whole thing has engendered a mood of nostalgia for me.
A lot of people would call me a Baby Boomer, but I'm not. I'm a Joneser, a member of that generation that grew up during the '60s but was too young to participate in all the upheaval and had to just watch. We came of age during the 1970s and one of the formative collective experiences of our generation was the whole Watergate scandal and the subsequent Nixon resignation.
I was 15 years old when Nixon resigned, and the whole series of events was ultimately to have a profound impact on me and my view of the world. It meant different things to different people at the time, of course, but the Watergate scandal gave me the first heroes I had as a teenager -- Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.
As I got older, I learned a lot about journalism by becoming better acquainted with the story behind the Watergate story. Much of what I learned informs what I do for a living today.
For me, Woodward and Bernstein's work on the Watergate story became a standard of principled, ethical reporting and a kind of professional courage that is rarely required of people who work in offices but is all the more admirable for that very reason.
The whole saga seemed to me to personify everything that a free press in these United States was supposed to be about: investigating and reporting and being the means through which people can find out what they need to know in order to hold their publicly elected officials accountable for what they do.
And right now, when reporters are being maligned and discredited everywhere you turn, it is good for us all to remember what Watergate taught us about how terribly crucial it is to have a free press that does its job of holding powerful people accountable for what they do.
And, at a time when people seem to think that the press is about apologists and propagandists of the left or the right, we should all remember that reporters aren't here to help one side or the other to win political brownie points and we aren't here to be puppets for anybody's political gain.
We journalists are neither rock stars nor political operatives. We are of the people and we serve the people. Any of us who lay claim to the mantle of journalist and who does not remember that is unworthy of the title.
It is a noble profession and one that is an essential element of the freedom so many Americans take for granted.
[This post was simultaneously posted to The MicroEnterprise Journal's The Journal Blog.]
Bring in the New
2005-06-01By Jan Schaffer: Amid tributes to old-fashioned shoe leather and anonymous sourcing that the unveiling of Deep Throat brings, I urge you all to look at your portfolios, pull out the most innovative ideas and enter the Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism.
The June 9 deadline is fast approaching.
Since May of 2004, we've seen new election coverage, non-narrative storytelling efforts, citizen media ventures, beat blogs, editor blogs, newsroom blogs and individual blogs with a lot of journalistic DNA. We've seen e-mail newsletters and multimedia advances of all sorts.
Enter and we'll give a megaphone to your creative ideas. Plus you might win $10,000.
For guidelines and application:
Batten Awards for Innovations
Community journalism Web site drives print: Denver's YourHub.com to launch weekly print edition
2005-06-06
By Diana Day:
Via Indigio.com: Subscribers of the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post will now receive a weekly printed edition of its community news site, YourHub.com. The print edition will include photos and stories that originated on YourHub.com. "'YourHub.com represents a significant shift in the way we think about modern newsgathering,'" said Rocky Mountain News editor, president and publisher John Temple, because the Web site will be driving the print edition rather than the other way around.
Video Weblogs getting more popular, attacting MSM attention
2005-06-06
By Diana Day:
Video Weblogs are catching on. An article from MercuryNews.com claims that increased interest in video blogs "demonstrate[s] the growing potential for distributing video online." The article gives examples of big-media attention that has been paid to vlogs and vloggers but goes on to say that "vloggers don't necessarily need the MSM ... to get their work seen. Some are assembling their own media mini-empires." Check out the article for the names of a number of up-and-coming vloggers and vlogs.
British political blogs: Colorful characters, but not the punch delivered by U.S. blogs
2005-06-06By Diana Day: Citing the findings of Pew Internet & American Life Project study Buzz, Blogs, and Beyond: The Internet and the National Discourse in the Fall of 2004, an article on Guardian Unlimited Online offers a contrast between American and British political blogging. According to the article, while American blogs have proven themselves as media watchdogs and have demonstrated their muscle at breaking news, in Britain "there is little heavyweight comment and it is rare to see a blog break a story or substantially move it on."
One popular theory for this is that the British press is already "far more rambunctious" than the "generally staid" newspapers in the U.S., and blogging offers Americans a chance for "heated national conversation among competing viewpoints, whereas [the British] can arouse much the same feelings of empathy or revulsion by reading Richard Littlejohn or Polly Toynbee."
Guardian Unlimited assistant editor Neil McIntosh, who launched the Guardian's blogs, says it's just a matter of time before British bloggers launch a "'Private Eye-style blog.'"
Dube to join Canada's premier online news site
2005-06-07By Diana Day: Via Editor & Publisher: Jonathan Dube will be stepping down in July as managing producer of MSNBC.com to become the editorial director of CBC.ca, the online Canadian news organization announced today.
Dube is currently based in Seattle. The award-winning journalist is on the board of the Online News Association. He also founded CyberJournalist.net and writes a column for Poynter Institute. He has written for numerous publications, including Columbia Journalism Review, Washington Monthly and The Charlotte Observer. In 1998, Dube was the first to cover breaking news -- Hurricane Bonnie -- by blogging on a mainstream news site, according to the CBC press release.
The editorial director is a new position at CBC.ca. "' ... it's a critical step as we continue to invest in increasing quality and service for the online audience. CBC.ca's goal is to be in the very top tier of quality media sites, on par with the BBC and the New York Times. We're confident Jonathan can help us do that,'" said Sue Gardner, senior director of CBC.ca.
Newspapers from American small towns preserved, made Web searchable by Seattle company
2005-06-08By Karen Tarica: An interesting angle on newspaper archive accessibility. This company is digitizing newspapers from American small towns for free, and the searchable archive is available for free online. Background and the link are provided below.
A Seattle-based company is, for the first time, making it possible to explore the local history of small town America with the convenience of an Internet search. SmallTownPapers, Inc. provides cutting-edge, digital archive technology used by major corporations, universities and the government to the country's smallest newspapers in an effort to preserve and make accessible the rich history contained in their archived editions.
SmallTownPapers works with publishers to create high-quality, searchable, online versions of newspaper archives providing quick and easy access to the unique historical information they hold. The digital imaging preserves what are often the only remaining copies of delicate or damaged newspapers, opening the door to historical information that has been virtually unavailable.
From the Interactive Media Conference: Blogging vs. Journalism
2005-06-08By Robert Niles: OJR's Staci Kramer should have put the question to rest last year, but E&P and Mediaweek nevertheless dubbed this morning's session at their Interactive Media Conference “Blogging vs. Journalism.” Fortunately, panel members chose not to dwell on that artificial controversy, instead offering practical advice to newspapers which might be considering adding blogs to their websites.
“We're at a tipping point where mainstream media are beginning to embrace interactive media and features like blogs,” said Jeff Pelline, editor at CNET's News.com. Pelline noted that because the Internet has all but eliminated the barriers to entry for alternative news sources such as blogs, traditional news organizations are now realizing that they must offer more interactive services to defend their market share.
Ken Sands, online publisher at the Spokane (Wash.) Spokesman-Review, cautioned newspapers considering blogs to hold off until they can learn to do them right.
“In my experience it is easier to teach a blogger to be a good journalist than it is to teach a journalist to be a good blogger,” Sands said, whose paper publishes 23 active online-only columns. “Bloggers understand the social network.”
Pelline suggested that a “blog should capture the conversations in the newsroom that don't get published” which give additional background and perspective to the paper's coverage.
Yet Nick Denton, publisher of Gawker Media, suggested that newspapers ought not to blog, given that newspapers' traditional objection to linking to, or even acknowledging, their competitors made them unable to engage in meaningful online conversations.
Sands and Pelline acknowledged that point, but instead urged journalists to set those objections aside in an effort to better serve readers.
“In many cases reporters have developed more of a relationship with their sources than with their readers,” Sands said. He said that blogs, if they are to succeed, must become a one-stop source for niche information.
“The best blog reduces the amount of work a reader needs to do, even if it means linking to all your competitors.”
The Interactive Media Conference continues through tomorrow in New Orleans.
From the Interactive Media Conference: Why Writing Still Matters
2005-06-09By Robert Niles: Below are my comments I will deliver during the "Why Writing Still Matters" panel Thursday morning at the Interactive Media Conference in New Orleans.
I suspect that the only folks who question whether writing matters online are those who will not extend their definition of writing to include anything beyond traditional, newspaper-style narratives. The Internet has spawned at least three other distinct writing formats that attract and inform millions of eager readers every day. In addition it has helped engage the audience by crushing the wall that has separated readers from writers in print media.
With millions of readers becoming writers online, the number of voices available to the reading public online now dwarfs the number of writers working in print. This creates both a challenge and an opportunity for professional writers. First, the challenge: we have much, much more competition for readers' attention than ever before. Some critics make the mistake of insisting that the modern audience suffers from stunted attention spans. I reject that hypothesis.
Next month, hundreds of thousands of children across this country will run to bookstores, buy a 672-page book, take it home and read it cover-to-cover, staying up through the night to finish it in many cases. After that, many of those readers will go online, writing their own dispatches to discuss, analyze or just to share the collective experience of having read this book. The Harry Potter generation has no problem with attention span. It does have a problem wasting its time on media that fails to engage it. We no longer live in a world of two daily newspapers, three TV networks and a dozen radio stations. What some misread as poor attention span is more accurately, in my view, explained as a public trying to shift through millions of media options in the same 24 hours of a day.
And there is our opportunity. To survive with an audience large enough to make your publication economically viable, you've got to be good. Fortunately for many of us in this room, we are. So why should we hide our work in a medium and in a narrative form that so many readers are moving away from, when we could expand our readership by publishing in new online narrative forms?
Most readers won't skim the wire copy, lightly reported features and overreported thumbsuckers that comprise too many U.S. daily newspapers. But many of them will devote hours a day reading niche discussion boards online, enduring some of the painful user interfaces ever devised. What draws them is the writing. Not the grammar, the syntax or the pyramid form. Rather, they crave genuine voices who provide clear, wanted information not available elsewhere.
With new voices come new formats, as well. In addition to articles, online readers can chose from among three major new online forms: discussions, blogs and wikis. (I'm not including chat or e-mail as major new forms, since such a small percentage of the writing in those formats attracts readers who are not active participants in those conversations.)
So who's writing well online in these formats? Here are four typical examples of good work I've been reading during the past few months.
Paul Shirley is the 12th man on the Phoenix Suns professional basketball team. His blog on the Suns' website follows a classical journalism tradition of blending an outsider's point of view with an insider's access. As the 12th man, Shirley never gets off the bench during a competitive game. And, frankly, as a white, Midwestern college graduate, he has more in common demographically with the fans in the stands than with his teammates. But he is part of the team, a participant in its practices, warm-up drills, time-outs and plane trips, which he retells to his readers in vivid, often hilarious detail.
Not all Web writing need be frivolous. Josh Marshall reports on Washington politics on TalkingPointsMemo.com, advancing reporting on issues as often as he reacts to others' reporting. He has now expanded the site, embracing interactive writing forms, with TPMCafe.com, a collection of guest and group blogs and discussions. Media critic Eric Alterman called TPMCafe the future of the punditocracy, and I agree.
BoingBoing.net provides an engaging and literate group blog chronicling the more quirky and provocative news of the day. It illustrates how a small group of talented writers can engage a massive audience on a meager budget.
Finally, one of the more compelling examples of interactive writing online came last fall from a sports fan website. Members of the SonsofSamHorn, a Red Sox discussion board, started a thread called “Win It For...” listing some of the deserving Sox players who never got the chance to win a World Series championship. Other readers responded with sometimes heart-wrenching stories of grandparents, parents, siblings, spouses and even children who has passionately followed the team, yet died before seeing their beloved Sox win the title.
This spring, “Win It For...” was republished as a book, the first example I know of an Internet discussion thread being republished in book form. Yes, print/online synergy works for online publishers as well.
Experienced, professional writers can help further develop these forms, and serve their readers, by embracing these new forms and breaking out of their narrative rut. Our readers have. Now, we need to first follow them into new formats if we want to ever back out in front to lead them again.
Los Angeles Times editorial page to launch 'wikitorials'
2005-06-13By Diana Day: The Los Angeles Times announced that it will launch "wikitorials" this week. This new feature will allow readers to rewrite the paper's editorials and comes alongside other changes to the print editorial page, like focusing editorials on themes and offering board members to editorialze once a year on a subject of their choosing.
Lasica's 'Darknet' illustrates battle between industry and innovation
2005-06-13By Robert Niles: “Darknet: Hollywood's War against the Digital Generation,” by OJR Senior Editor J.D. Lasica, offers an intriguing look at how attempts to protect copyrighted digital material threaten creative and technical innovation in the United States.
Lasica speaks with both industry leaders lobbying Congress for legal restrictions against technology as well as computer experts who are undermining existing restrictions in the “Darknet,” a loosely-defined neighborhood of the public Internet where some file traders, open source programmers, remix fans and technological libertarians intersect.
As Hollywood pushes Congress and the courts to punish digital pirates, many innocent consumers are losing “fair use” rights to copy and remix digital entertainment for their personal, noncommercial use. Ultimately, Lasica illustrates, the battle over digital copyrights may result in the U.S. government federal controlling the manufacture of electronic equipment, including computers and their operating systems.
Lasica concludes with a 10-point plan, a “digital culture road map,” he offers as a compromise to protect both professional and amateur artists through market-, not government-, based solutions.
Darknet: Hollywood's War against the Digital Generation, by J.D. Lasica. Wiley, 308 pp. US$25.95.
Interview with Brian Keeler of ePluribus Media
2005-06-13By Jon Garfunkel: Last week I posted an IM interview with Brian Keeler of ePluribus Media. This group had emerged out of Daily Kos earlier in the year when researching Jeff Gannon. Brian spoke to me about his plans for ePM, what he thinks the future of citizen's media is, and why he doesn't consider himself a blogger.
Online video journalist covers Africa & Indonesia
2005-06-13By Ruud Elmendorp: I am a freelance video journalist traveling with dv-cam gear for features on news and current affairs. I'm currently in Indonesia, and will proceed next to Uganda and Zambia.
My blog: http://blogger.xs4all.nl/videorep.
My website: http://www.videoreporter.nl.
Quake illustrates power of grassroots reporting
2005-06-14By Robert Niles: The Los Angeles Times reports that more than 27,000 Southern California residents reported on Sunday morning's 5.6-magnitude earthquake, using forms on the U.S. Geological Survey's website.
The Did You Feel It? feature allows residents to answer a variety of questions about what they felt and the damage they've witnessed, all which help seismologists gauge the intensity of a quake in the reader's location.
"The machines can tell us what the ground did. But only people can tell us what it did to them," seismologist David Wald of the geological survey in Golden, Colo. told The Times. "I call it citizen science. You couldn't do it without the people."
Call it citizen science or citizen journalism (or grassroots journalism, etc.). Either way, the episode provides another example of the power of the Internet to gather information from a massive number of sources almost instantly.
Grassroots journalism guide brings much-needed clarity
2005-06-15By Diana Day: Steve Outing at Poynter has posted a detailed citizen journalism guide "to help you figure out how to put this industry trend to work for you and your newsroom." Outing breaks the complicated -- and often misunderstood -- concept of citizen journalism down into 11 layers. Each layer progresses "from dipping a toe into the waters of participatory journalism to embracing citizen reporting with your organization's full involvement."
New York club calls for contest entries
2005-06-15By Diana Day: The Newswomen's Club of New York has announced the 2005 Front Page Awards. The organization honors women journalists from New York and the surrounding metropolitan area for work in print, Internet, photography, radio and television. This year the club is allowing entries from blogs and interactive media in its Internet Division and Internet photos in the Photography Division. The club was founded in 1922 by reporters covering the suffragist movement. Information about the contest is available at the link above.
Los Angeles Times removes wikitorials, posts note about user abuse
2005-06-20By Diana Day: The Los Angeles Times has removed its wikitorials apparently because of "inappropriate material." The Opinion page has the same brief note as the above link.
See related OJR story.
Associated Press has challenges ahead, CEO says at global town meeting
2005-06-20By Diana Day: The New York Times reports that The Associated Press chief executive Tom Curley spoke of the challenges facing the 157-year-old cooperative at its global town hall meeting this month. "'A.P. has got to develop licensing and revenue strategies tied to eyeballs as they shift to nontraditional outlets,'" Curley said. When Curley came aboard two years ago, his general charge was to "achieve growth through new products and world expansion." So far, he has boosted revenue and cut loss.
But some of the A.P.'s aggressive attempts to increase revenues have caused frustration in the news industry. For example, Michael Phillips, editorial director for E. W. Scripps and co-author of an OJR commentary about the A.P.'s decision to charge an additional fee for using its content online, said in an interview with the Times: "Charge us once, but it's not fair to charge us twice for news we're dealing with in two or three platforms. Our audience is spreading out over a variety of media, and we're simply following."
And later this year, The A.P. plans to launch "eAP," an online database system that will track client use of sound and video clips, news and photos. The A.P. employees' union is worried that the tracking system will be used to make decisions about staffing and whether bureaus stay open. Many top A.P. foreign bureau editors without union contracts have already left or been forced to retire, according to the Times, and the positions have not been filled.
Blog-tracker Technorati launches new site design
2005-06-21By Robert Niles: Weblog-tracking site Technorati debuted its redesign today.
The new design's home page lists the days' most searched-for terms and linked-to blogs. Registered users can also log in to see links to their watchlists on the front page.
(OJR has recently added links to Technorati and Yahoo at the bottom of its columns and feature stories, allowing readers to check which sites are linking to those stories.)
AlwaysOn, Technorati serve up 'power list' of open media players
2005-06-22By Diana Day: AlwaysOn and Technorati have teamed up to present the first annual Open Media 100 -- a "power list" of Open Media revolutionaries -- which they hope will "provide an initial, helpful framework of this emerging industry and highlight its key players who are influencing the adoption of open media and proving the impact it is already having on the technology industry, journalism, and marketing."
The list is broken up into Pioneers, Trendsetters, Practitioners, Toolsmiths and Enablers. AlwaysOn and Technorati acknowledge that names may have been overlooked in the ever-changing realm of the Internet and have invited comment at the above link.
ONA announces 2005 conference panel line-up
2005-06-22By Robert Niles: The Online News Association has announced the line-up of panels for its annual conference, to be held Oct. 28-29 in New York.
- Web Analytics: How do you measure the effectiveness of your Web site? What kind of research do you need to make your site even more effective? During the session we'll find out what the word "effective" means to your audience, editorial staff, your advertiser, marketer and management. At the end of the session we'll compile your ideas and definitions and prioritize them to help you determine how to make your site even more successful.
- Working without a Net: Ethics and Issues in Personal Publishing. Chances are, everyone in online news has had that uncomfortable feeling: Is this story (often, breaking news) going to be sufficiently fact-checked, sourced, organized ? and copy edited before we post it? You've probably felt you were working without a safety net. As the online landscape evolves, we can all expect to host more user-generated content, and our future viewers may expect high standards of credibility and accuracy for that content. How can we ensure standards of accuracy that live up to our audience?s and our profession?s expectations? Also up for discussion: The ethical and rights issues surrounding user-submitted photos and text; the standards for linking to others' news reports and blogs; and, not least of all, how to find the time to monitor all this great new content.
- Working with your newsroom: Changing your attitude so you can change theirs. You wrote off the legacy newsroom years ago when it was obvious "they don't get it," and went in search of fresh content. If you still haven't found it, turn around, look at what you left behind. They're not just "getting it" -- they're doing it. Watch what happens when we match up some skeptical online pioneers (you) with some newsroom types who DID hear us way back when, and have been busy proving it -- from graphic artists who learned Flash to reporters who are podcasting to newsrooms that have changed their structures and workflow to meet the future head-on. Even if you are a pure-play site, this might open your eyes to some new sources of content and new ways of operating.
- Blogging 'how to': Just because you can blog doesn't mean you should. As many media outlets are getting into blogging, they're discovering that it's not as easy as it looks to capture an audience. That's because many of them don't have a content plan, or they're simply taking print writers and turning them loose on the Web. You must truly engage the audience in interactivity, and/or make the blog a "one-stop info shop" that aggregates niche news in one place, making it easier for readers. There are a few good examples, from Spokane, Greensboro, Seattle and elsewhere. And there are lots and lots of bad examples.
- International; Broadening the Bandwidth: A practical and eye-opening look at what digital journalists are doing around the world, this panel will feature speakers from international news sites who will share the details of their successful innovation in digital news gathering, production and dissemination. Panelists from these ground-breaking newsrooms will discuss what they are doing to report news, not just process it, by embracing audience-generated content from blogs to podcasting. From a variety of cultures and backgrounds, these presenters will provide fresh perspectives on the changing role of the digital journalist, which should spark lively debate and a robust exchange of ideas.
- Defining Online Journalism: Don't stammer for an answer the next time someone asks "what exactly do you do?" Audience members will work together in this session to craft a wiki -- in real time -- that defines the skills and methods we use to create online journalism. And that wiki will live online after the conference has ended.
- What's still new in New Media? The Web as a news delivery vehicle is approaching 10 years old. With more than a third of Americans saying their preferred method for getting news is the Internet, the phrase "new media" no longer seems to describe online news. Today, new technologies such as RSS, podcasting, e-mail, SMS and more have replaced the Web as the "new" in new media. And in a bit of irony, the Web's content management systems that were built to overcome the shortcoming of newspaper publishing systems have become the new legacy systems that can slow the adoption of new technologies and delivery vehicles. This session looks at both the technical and pragmatic implications of these new technologies. Just exactly what is RSS or SMS and how can you adopt them in your organization? And in adopting them, what does it mean for how you write headlines or structure stories?
- Participatory journalism -- what's that all about? Blogs, phlogs, wikis, Web casts, podcasts, "reply" links and online forums are boons to interactive and grassroots journalism, but they bring new, nettlesome challenges. In this session, journalists using these leading-edge forms of two-way reporting check in on their use and potential misuse as well as their practicality. Panel attendees will have to work hard to leave without at least one new idea to try out.
- The latest from legal: A moderated discussion with the industry's top lawyers, hosted by Jon Hart of Dow, Lohnes & Albertson, who wrote the book on Internet law. Among the hot topics: With increasing attention to blogging and other user-created content, we'll discuss a Web site's liability for third-party postings. The Supreme Court's decision in the Grokster file-sharing case, the most important technology-related case in 20 years, has implications for every site that provides access to any technology that can be used for infringing, as well as lawful, non-infringing purposes. Jurisdiction remains a troubling topic - where can a publisher be required to defend its work, and which country's laws prevail, when content can go anywhere at the click of a mouse? The settlement in the National Writers' Union suit against online publishers will also be of interest. And contextual advertising, adware and spyware are under scrutiny by the US Congress, state legislatures, and the courts. We'll discuss the latest developments.
- Best of the Best: Have you ever found yourself at an ONA awards ceremony wishing you'd had more time to browse through the finalists' work BEFORE you witnessed one of them win? Now you can! Visit our Best of the Best mini-panels to review the finalists' entries one-on-one -- and to ask the people behind all that fine work how they did it. These 25-minute sessions are scheduled around the conference's formal sessions, so you can drop by when you want for a little real-world advice and inspiration.
OhmyNews hosts forum for online reporters
2005-06-24By Diana Day: Over 100 online journalists from 25 different countries, along with about 180 Korean online reporters, are gathering in Seoul through Sunday for OhmyNews' first International Citizen Reporters’ Forum, reports Asia Pacific Media Network. They will discuss the future of online journalism, especially grassroots journalism.
"'It will be a chance to nurture participatory journalism in countries around the world and discuss matters of mutual concern to international Internet users,'" said OhmyNews CEO and founder Oh Yeon-ho, who is slated to give a lecture at the forum.
2005 Online Journalism Awards now open for entries
2005-06-24By Robert Niles: The Online News Association and the USC Annenberg School for Communication (the publisher of OJR) are now accepting entries for the 2005 Online Journalism Awards.
The ONA has tweaked rules in several categories, notably defining entrants based on the combined audience for all the entering company's websites -- not just the audience for the feature entered. Now, a large media company can't enter one of its niche sites in the General Excellence Small Sites category, for example.
Entry fees have also changed. ONA members entering the contest as individuals can submit an entry for as low as $25.
The entry deadline is July 20 and there will be no extensions beyond that date. For more information, or to enter the contest, visit the ONA website.
Small town newspaper a model for the future
2005-06-27By Diana Day: In The Newspaper of the Future, the New York Times says some media analysts think The Lawrence Journal-World of Lawrence, Kansas "offers guidelines for moving forward" in an era "when newspapers big and small are facing financial and journalistic crossroads."
World Company, the paper's parent, says its online ventures -- a lively selection of options with a fiercely local focus -- will become profitable this year. World Compay CEO, Ralph Gage, says he expects the newpaper's revenue to diminish over time as the online ventures become an area of growth.
In 2001, the newspaper established its "converged news center" where television, print and online reporters work together, sharing tasks, scoops and assignments. Since then, convergence -- offering TV, Internet and print as possible ad platforms -- has become a central pitch of World Company's sales force, even though the company has found it difficult to get readers to click through on Internet display ads.
But World Company is not easily discouraged. Dan Simons, World Company's broadband operations president, said: "'I think as we've converged the content we're going to converge the advertising. ... I think you'll have to adapt to how buyers want to convey their messages so we're not just sellers of space and time. We have to be both advertisers and public relations advisers so we can help companies create their messages.'"
While The Lawrence Journal-World has received praise from some media analysts, others, like Howard Finberg of Poynter, pointed out that even though the Journal-World is clearly creative, it has a monopoly in Lawrence, making it difficult to generalize the success of its model to other markets.
The newspaper, owned by the Simons family since 1891, has a circulation of 20,000 in a town of about 85,000.
New Pew poll: Online newspaper readership growing
2005-06-27By Diana Day: A recent poll from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press revealed that there is a growing number of people turning to the Internet for news. Since 2000, the number of people who say they go online every day for news is up 15 percent, and the number of people who say they check Internet news once a week has grown from 33 percent to 44 percent. The poll also found that using the Internet for news is not just for people under age 30. Thirty percent of Americans between the ages of 30 and 49 say the Internet is their main news source.
Nearly three-quarters of Internet newspaper readers cite convenience as the reason why they read online. While 50 percent of Americans say they are reading print newspapers as much as they did before they started reading Web newspapers, 35 percent say they now read print newspapers less often than their Web counterparts.
Web newspaper readers generally match print newspaper readers in terms of politics but not in demographics. In addition to being younger than print readers, Web newspaper readers are also mostly male and wealthy. Almost half of Internet newspaper readers have college degrees, compared with 27 percent of print readers. While 30 percent of Internet readers -- compared with 20 percent of newspaper readers -- call themselves liberals, they are "no more likely to think of themselves as Democrats, and divided their votes between Bush and Kerry in the 2004 election along almost precisely the same lines as regular newspaper readers," according to the summary of the poll results.
The poll also revealed an increased level of negative criticism of the press in certain areas -- like fairness, patriotism and political bias -- while overall most Americans still like mainstream news outlets.
New study: Radio listeners the most politically polarized, Internet readers the least
2005-06-27By Diana Day: Researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism recently released a study that found "the type of media a person consumes, not necessarily the message, ... determines how polarized people are on a certain issue."
Radio news listeners emerged as the most polarized media consumers, and Internet news readers the least, a finding that surprised the researchers. By listening to politically charged radio shows with one-sided personalities like the conservative Rush Limbaugh, like-minded listeners crystallize and strengthen their views, researchers concluded.
But Internet news readers, while they could read news from online outlets that share their views, might instead be "seeking breadth as well as depth in the information they get from the Internet. This breadth of information shows both sides of political issues, leading to a wider acceptance of differing political views," according to researcher and journalism professor Wayne Wanta.
Overall, print and online newspapers do not have the same space and time limitations as TV and radio and so can present more balanced information. This, in turn, could cause readers to adopt a more balanced outlook, the researchers concluded.
Princeton Research Associations conducted the study, which was sponsored by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.
CNN brings back free access to streaming video
2005-06-29By Diana Day: The Washington Post reports that CNN is pulling streaming video out from behind its paid subscription wall. As of last Friday, the video clip service was sponsored by Xerox, Chase and General Motors.
CNN offered free streaming video from its launch in 1995 until March 2002, when it withdrew the free service and started charging $4.95 a month for access. Now, CNN has brought video back out into the open because more people have high-speed Internet access and because it is much cheaper now to provide streaming video, according to CNN News Services executive vice president Susan Grant.
There will be a new Web video subscription service for the fall. CNN did not say how the paid service would differ from the new free service, according to the Post.
More magazine Web sites becoming profitable
2005-06-29By Diana Day: Via Reuters.com: About half of the consumer magazines in a recent study reported that their Web sites are profitable. This is an increase of 25 percent from two years ago. Additionally, fewer magazines report that their Web sites are losing money.
Two-thirds of magazine Web site's advertising revenue is from display advertising, and many of the magazines have gained online-only advertisers, according to the study, which was conducted by International Federation of the Periodical Press.