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April 2006
NYTimes.com debuts redesign
2006-04-03By Robert Niles: The New York Times has debuted a new site design, incorporating a wider screen layout, as well as more prominent links for video and "most popular" stories, as e-mailed by readers.
NYTImes.com Editor in Chief Len Apcar introduced the changes in a note to readers today. Apcar also teased an upcoming feature of the redesign.
"We are very excited about a personalized page called MyTimes that will let you organize your favorite Web sources of information — from NYTimes.com and elsewhere — and view them at a glance. Personalized pages aren't new on the Web but ones offering the guidance of Times editors, reporters and critics are. More than two dozen Times journalists are offering their picks of sites that should engage you, whether you're interested in baseball or climate change, politics or recipes. MyTimes is currently under development but will be opening to a wider audience later this month."
Report questions authorship of Cincy paper's Iraq blog
2006-04-03By Robert Niles: A quick note following on the issue of disclaiming the identity of authors online:
Justin Rood of Josh Marshall's TPMMuckraker.com reports that a blog from Iraq on a Cincinnati Enquirer website is being written by a Public Affairs Officer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The Enquirer's website notes only that the blogger, Suzanne Fournier, is "stationed with the U.S. Army Corp. of Engineers."
Rood writes:
I called the paper, but they declined immediate comment on Fournier's writings for them. The editor who oversees the blogs is on vacation, I was told, and besides, the newsroom was busy -- today is the Reds' Opening Day. I emailed Fournier as well, and haven't yet heard back.So, questions remain: Should a news organization have a military flak writing for it at all? If so, shouldn't she be explicitly identified as a public affairs officer?
Update [4/5/06]: The blog now disclaimers Fournier's ID as "Public Affairs Officer for the Gulf Region Southern District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Iraq."
Fournier writes:
Apparently some people are unhappy that I am communicating with you directly, because they are challenging that I haven't informed you that I am a public affairs officer and my job is to work with the news media and American public.I've explained my job with the Corps several times in my blogs. If I have misled anyone, I sincerely apologize, that was clearly not my intent. I believe the American taxpayers have a right to know how their tax dollars are being invested in Iraq and I believe my current job puts me in a unique position to provide personal observations since I have traveled the Southern provinces of Iraq for the past eight months.
My personal comment: You are doing your job well, Ms. Fournier, and owe no one an apology. Best wishes for your continued safety in Iraq.
But you ought to be posting on a .mil domain, or Blogger or your own personal website. By giving a press agent of the federal government a privileged position on its website, and not disclaiming that to its readers, the Cincinnati Enquirer is as guilty of violating basic journalism ethics as Armstrong Williams was when he pocketed Department of Education money to shill for the Bush administration, or the many television stations that ran various "Karen Ryan" video segments, produced by a PR agency on the adminstration's behalf.
HispanicTips owner says his blog 'fills a void'
2006-04-06By Adriana Padilla: In the almost non-existent world of Hispanic blogs, blogger Tomás Custer is paving the way with his news blog HispanicTips.
Created last July, HispanicTips covers Hispanic news and commentary in both Spanish and English. The blog posts an average of 30 Hispanic-themed news items a day on topics ranging from immigration to entertainment. The rapid growth of HispanicTips surprises Custer, who said that the blog was approaching 6,000 posts toward the end of 2005. Now they boast over 9,000.
"I never really imagined there would be that much material out there," Custer said. "I feel this site has filled a void."
The Web site has already caught the attention of the mainstream press. Two months after the blog’s debut, HispanicTips was offered a partnership with the online version of Hoy, one of the nation's leading Spanish-language newspapers. The blog’s immigration feed and business feed are now featured on Hoy's Web site.
HispanicTips is also the only Hispanic-themed blog to be featured on Feedster's Top 500 Blogs, Custer said.
HispanicTips is just one of several sites run by the prolific Custer. In September, Custer launched CreativeInteligencia, an online network that includes his Spanish music blogs LatinMusicNews.com and Ticias.com.
Custer said he started CreativeInteligencia in order to unite his three active sites and provide a resource for the Hispanic community. CreativeInteligencia will eventually include two online directories -- Hispanicbloggers.com and Hispanicfinds.com -- and a calendar of Hispanic-themed events.
Custer, an artist and Web designer, started blogging a year ago with the creation of Ticias.com. A fan of Latin music, Custer said he would spend hours looking for music news. Figuring that others might be facing the same problem, Custer created Ticias.com so that Latin music lovers could get all their information on one Web site.
"Every time I come across a problem I tend to create a website," Custer said.
Right now the problem Custer said he sees is the lack of Hispanic-Latino blogs on the Internet. According to Custer, there are no more than 12 full-time Hispanic bloggers operating on the net. Custer believes that blogs are the citizen’s voice about what is happening in the world. He said he worries the under-representation of Hispanics online will silence their voices. At the same time, Custer said he believes in the positive impact the Internet could have on the Hispanic community.
"If there is a place that Hispanics can be heard, as diverse and as scattered as we are, online would be that place," Custer said.
Two conferences examine state of online journalism
2006-04-09By Robert Niles: Two events this weekend provided online journalists another opportunity to take a look at the state of our profession. The University of Texas's annual International Symposium on Online Journalism has posted a session-by-session wrap-up of its conference, led once again by the school's Rosental Calmon Alves. (More, from Technorati.)
Ohio University also presented Blogging and Online Journalism: New Media, New Challenges, New Ethics conference at its campus in Athens, Ohio.
I heart RapidWeaver
2006-04-10By Erica Ogg: Of all the hip features RapidWeaver has to offer, the best might be that it’s free.
A relatively new Web design application created for Macs by British company Real Mac Software, RapidWeaver incorporates many of the cool things Mac-lovers know and adore about Apple products: it’s clean and sleek with eye-popping design, and, of course, ridiculously user-friendly. It literally takes three mouse clicks to create a page, add a theme and publish a professional-looking site to the Web.
Undoubtedly the most attractive feature for novice Web publishers is that RapidWeaver does not just excuse your ignorance of HTML with an annoyed sigh. Rather, it lovingly embraces it. Without knowing a single line of code, you can add zippy little photo galleries, blog and movie pages, and you can upload files to share. Even better, it all works seamlessly with Mac OSX applications like iPhoto and iMovie.
For those who dream about coding pages from scratch, RapidWeaver didn’t forget about you. You have the option of creating pages in HTML, XHTML or PHP.
The design window is blessedly unclogged by distracting rows of buttons, fields and boxes. If you want to create a new page, click the plus sign in the lower left corner. To delete a page, click minus. Click the appropriate button on the top left, and a drawer of more than 20 themes pops out. You can also toggle back and forth between “edit” and “preview” modes.
To publish your site, you need only fill in the site path, FTP address, username and password. RapidWeaver also makes it just as easy, if not easier, to upload directly to a .Mac account.
If you do indeed grow to love RapidWeaver and decide you want to create more than three pages, you’ll have to fork over $35. But that’s really not much compared to the stress-free experience and ease of use that come bundled free of charge.
Guardian UK leads Webby Award nominees
2006-04-11By Robert Niles: The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences has announced the nominees for the 10th annual Webby Awards, to be presented this June in New York. More than 5,500 sites entered this year, in 65 categories. The Academy selected five nominees in each category, though it also gave honorable mention to about 1,000 other sites.
In the news category, the nominees are:
And in the newspaper category,
Readers also may vote for their favorites in the Webbys' Peoples' Voice Awards.
Post alters Cheney story after blogger complains
2006-04-13By Robert Niles: ThinkProgress offers up the latest example of blogs fact-checking another media outlet. In this case, bloggers used the video on the Washington Post's website to challenge a Post report on the Washington Nationals baseball club's opening day. Vice President Cheney threw out the ceremonial first pitch, eliciting boos from the crowd.
The Post's original report read:
The first pitch of the Washington Nationals' second season at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium was low and away, bouncing in the dirt before being scooped up by catcher Brian Schneider. For that, Vice President Cheney received a round of boos from the home crowd this afternoon.
Bloggers charged that phrasing did not reflect that the booing started as soon as Cheney walked on the field. The Post later changed the graf, but did not note that the article had been altered.
Vice President Cheney threw out the ceremonial first pitch, a right-handed toss that bounced in the dirt to the outside of the plate before being scooped up by catcher Brian Schneider. Cheney, booed by some as he walked to the mound, got even more catcalls after his throw -- a far cry from President Bush's fastball at last year's home opener
Journo, blogger, activist: An 'uneasy combination' in some parts, says Nepalese blogger
2006-04-13By Kelly Winslow: Journalist. Blogger. Activist. All three labels describe Dinesh Wagle, whose blog United We Blog!, has literally changed the face of journalism in his native nation of Nepal.
Wagle spoke Wednesday at UCLA about journalistic censorship in Nepal and about how his blog has allowed him to express himself without being repressed by the government.
In 2005, King Gyandendra took control of the government and began a series of restrictions on journalists.
"We were starved for information about what was going on," Wagle said.
This prompted Wagle to start a blog, something that for the Nepalese community was a completely new concept. When he started his personal Web site he was working for a Nepalese magazine and was still covering mainstream media.
"It was a median of expression for me to write things I normally couldn’t in regular print," Wagle said.
But Wagle’s blog became more than just an outlet for expression. It became a place where people worldwide would come to get information that they couldn’t find in the mainstream papers.
At the UCLA event, Wagle focused on the idea of alternative media and how being a journalist, blogger and an activist is sometimes an "uneasy combination," especially in the U.S., where blogs are sometimes seen as lacking in objectivity or in editorial oversight.
When asked about mainstream media's perception of him, he said, "many times mainstream media thinks alternative media is insignificant."
He was quick to note however, that after he began his blog, "how invaluable it was" when many news outlets began giving his blog coverage, OJR being one of the first. [See OJR story from February 2005.]
Now there are more than 50 blogs in Nepal, 20 of which are operated by journalists.
"It is very necessary for a country like Nepal to have a voice," Wagle said.
When one audience member asked Wagle's opinion about why he hasn’t been shut down yet, Wagle offered possible reasons and added, "It is amazing that [the blog] hasn't been shut down."
Overall, Wagle said what was most important was what we do as individual reporters.
"We have two responsibilities. One is to protect our right to report and the other is to do the reporting."
Gallery owner blogs Los Angeles art scene
2006-04-17By Krissy Mariano: Los Angeles is a melting pot of creativity, and one ingredient is its flourishing art scene. Gallery owner Caryn Coleman is bringing attention to this scene with her blog Art.blogging.la.
"Art blogs work because people are looking for more information about their art scene or art scenes in other cities," Coleman wrote in an e-mail interview.
The blog, nicknamed abLA, offers reviews and interviews and provides information about artists and upcoming exhibitions. Visitors can instantly link to museum, artist or exhibition websites, allowing them access to a broad scope of art in Los Angeles.
According to Coleman, who created the site in 2004, abLA was the first blog to focus soley on the Los Angeles art scene.
"People from all over the country and world read abLA to find out what's going on here - gossip, exhibtions, artists, and art news," Coleman wrote.
Coleman writes for the blog along with three other contributors: a graphic designer, an art critic and a writer. She also co-owns a Los Angeles gallery called sixspace.
In the future, Coleman wrote that she hopes the blog will "grow in content, number of posts and number of readers."
"I want abLA to continue to support and champion the art community in Los Angeles," she wrote.
When asked about upcoming exhibitions and artists to look forward to, Coleman has a whole list handy. There are "too many!" she wrote, adding a long list of galleries, exhibitions and artists to look for, including: Machine Project, Bank, Anna Helwing Gallery and Kontainer Gallery -- just to name a few.
"The Los Angeles art scene has always has sense of freedom and individuality to it which is one of the reasons it's the most exciting city for art for me," Coleman wrote. For Coleman, abLA is a continuation of her passion for art.
The blog has allowed Coleman to meet many wonderful people within the art industry, something she cites as the most rewarding part of abLA.
New Orleans paper wins Pulitzer for online reports
2006-04-17By Robert Niles: The New Orleans Times-Picayune won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news reporting today for its coverage of Hurricane Katrina and the resulting flooding of the city.
What makes this award so significant for online journalism is the fact that the Times-Picayune published its award-winning coverage only online for the first three days after the storm. This makes the Times-Picayune's award the Pulitzer ever given to online-original news content.
The Times-Picayune and The Sun-Herald of Biloxi, Miss. also won Public Service medals for their responses to Katrina.
Eppy Award finalists announced
2006-04-20By Robert Niles: The finalists for the 2006 Eppy Awards have been announced. The Eppy Awards will be presented May 19 in Las Vegas at the Interactive Media Conference and Trade Show, presented by Editor & Publisher and Mediaweek.
Nominees for awards include CNN.com, NYTimes.com, Slate, USAToday.com, The Wall Street Journal Online and WashingtonPost.com.
Making a case for niche coverage
2006-04-20By Robert Niles: Attention, potential journalist entrepreneurs:
The Pew Internet & American Life Project has released its latest report, The Internet's Growing Role in Life’s Major Moments. The report summarizes Pew surveys which "show that 45% of Internet users, or about 60 million Americans, say that the Internet helped them make big decisions or negotiate their way through major episodes in their lives in the previous two years."
Among the findings:
50% said the Internet played a major role as they pursued more training for their careers. 45% said the Internet played a major role as they made major investment or financial decisions. 43% said the Internet played a major role when they looked for a new place to live.
Have you covered any of these issues before? These numbers make a powerful case for a market seeking information -- a market that journalists can serve through informative, friendly, niche-targeted websites. This Pew survey provides support that might help convince an upper-level newsroom manager, small business banker or potential advertiser to support a new blog or niche web publication.
Phrase of the day: 'sock puppetry'
2006-04-20By Robert Niles: Tim Lambert at Scienceblogs offers the term "sock puppetry" to describe the offense that has (at least temporarily) cost Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik his blog.
Kevin Roderick at L.A. Observed provides more links and details. Hiltzik, a Pulitzer winner who was interviewed by OJR in a Q&A published this week, was accused by a conservative blogger of posting under multiple identities, using one to support the other. (Just like an actor conversing with a sock puppet.)
The Times responded by suspending Hiltzik's blog, writing that such pseudonymity is against the paper's ethics policy.
Blogger discusses long reach of blogging in Iran
2006-04-22By Kelly Winslow: "Working in Iran as a journalist is like walking on a mine field," said Omid Memarian, Iranian journalist, blogger and civil society activist, Monday at the University of Southern California.
During "Inside Iran: A Journalist's Perspective," Memarian discussed his blog Iranian Perspective, which is one of many that have been emerging from Iran. [See related OJR story.]
Blogging is part of an underground movement that Memarian called the "blogger wars." He added that blogging has become an "influential tool to promote social change in [Iran]."
During a panel discussion, Dr. Douglas Becker, from USC's School of International Relations, raised the issue of how much of the information from Iranian blogs is "dissementated to the general population."
Of the 10 million people in Iran, 7 million have access to the Internet.
"Blogging is just a symbol of how Iranian society is eager to change," Memarian said.
Memarian advocates democracy in Iran but pointed out the complexities of bringing democracy to the region.
"If you want to establish a true democracy it takes a long time," Memarian said. "You have to empower the civil society."
He also added that blogging in Iran was a good opportunity for civil society to "express their ideas and for officials to hear the people."
Iranian journalists have been struggling for freedom for years. Memarian says that while free press flourished for a while in the beginning of the new millenium, there was a crackdown in 2000. Since then writers, editors, photographers and even cartoonists have been jailed, tortured and killed for any publication that verges on reformist.
"It's a big fight and many people are involved in it," Memarian said.
At the event, Memarian described how he and 20 other journalists and bloggers were arrested and detained in 2004.
"I was terrified. I couldn't believe it happened to me."
During his two months in jail, Memarian was kept in solitary confinment and tortured.
"They try and destroy the character and personality of journalists inside the jail," Memarian said. "They want to send a message to others."
Memarian said that he was forced to sign a confession of crimes he did not commit. Nevertheless, a month after his release he was back to blogging.
Memarian has also worked with Human Rights Watch, and in 2005 was honored as a Human Rights Watch Defender.
As for now, Memarian continues blogging while attending U.C. Berkeley's graduate program in journalism.
Frustrated by tardy reporting, 'civics nerd' launches local news blog
2006-04-25By Jillian Ukropina: Lisa Williams — a mother of two small children, self-proclaimed "civics nerd," and Watertown, MA resident — was frustrated with the lag time between when local news took place and when the newspapers hit the stands the following morning. She also saw the potential for citizens to get involved in her town’s civic life. So, after experimenting in the growing blogosphere, Williams established H2otown, a grassroots journalism news blog centered on the news of her city -- all four square miles of it.
Williams focuses on all topics and elements of her city, like the escalating winter heating bills in the Northeast, to recent news about Watertown politics.
She is guided by tips from her "network of civic nerds. ... However, they’re always ahead of me," she added.
Williams does not think she is competition for the local and regional newspaper; however, she said she believes going online maintains the freshness and immediacy of the news.
"It’s a bummer for [the newspapers] because I was there first," Williams said. "I think it’s great what they do, but they should find ways to get fresher news."
The homepage is made up of Williams' posts, news stories and
event listings, along with selected blog posts from individual users that Williams decides to feature. The blogs section hosts all the recent posts from individual users.
Williams said she thinks of H2otown’s visitors -- about 3,000 daily -- in two segments.
"The first is made of civics nerds and political junkies who subscribe to the newspaper and then want to discuss what’s happening in town. Recent transplants who want to get more engaged, and also tend to be younger and less connected, make up the second segment."
Despite its quick growth, Williams has no specific plans for H2otown’s future. H2otown’s marketing budget is limited to $60 annually and promotion of her site has been mainly limited to word-of-mouth.
"Initially, I literally didn’t tell anyone, not even my neighbor," Williams said.
But, at a city event around the time of the blog’s launch, Williams made a hit with the kids when she tried a hand at advertising by distributing balloons imprinted with the blog’s web address.
Williams welcomes all visitors to set up accounts and be active contributors but makes sure to keep the content appropriate and void of any solicitation.
"H2otown began as an experiment; some of the stuff has been very surprising, especially when the Town Council president opened an account and posted messages," Williams said.
Knight New Media Center debuts at USC, Berkeley
2006-04-26By Robert Niles: John S. and James L. Knight Foundation have announced the creation of the Knight New Media Center, at USC Annenberg and the University of California, Berkeley. The USC center will offer seminars for new media journalists to learn how to better cover specialized topics while the Berkeley center will offer customized week-long "boot camps" in multimedia reporting for traditional print and broadcast journalists.
USC Anneberg's Vikki Porter, who directed the Western Knight Center for the last six years, will serve as the center's director and direct the topical seminar programming. Former Western Knight Center associate director Lanita Pace-Hinton will be based at Berkeley and direct multimedia training.
"The Western Knight Center's record of attracting and training the nation’s top journalists has shown that training changes what journalists do and influences the quality of the news they report. We are proud of that," USC Annenberg dean Geoffrey Cowan said in a news release. "But we are prouder still that we are changing. This is not a time for business as usual. Thanks to our great directors and our partnership with Knight Foundation and news organizations across the country, we will continue to be in the forefront of the effort to improve journalism nationwide."
Strategic Public Relations blog: PR under the microscope
2006-04-26By Caitlin Donovan: The blog Strategic Public Relations, hosted and written by public relations specialist Kevin Dugan, seeks to capitalize on the growth of the PR industry and bring news to professionals in the field.
Dugan started the blog in July 2002 after reading an article on blogging in Information Week.
Dugan said his site focuses more on feature articles than on breaking news. He finds two or three articles and puts them together to find a common link. Dugan also strives to find articles in places other people might not look and then tries to analyze them in a new way.
"I’m trying to provide something different," he said. "I try to have some sense of humor. Basically I try to bring my style into [the article]."
Dugan features a wide range of topics within PR: he posted a story about Microsoft Live Meeting being used to promote Donald Trump’s "The Appretice." Another post critiques the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) for its handling of a conference cancellation due to Hurricane Wilma.
Dugan also writes articles about blogs in relation to public relations, like a post on whether Target should have a customer blog.
He also stressed quality over quantity, pointing out that "just because you can publish ten times a day, doesn’t mean you should." With this mindset, Dugan balances work, his family and his site, so posts only occur about once a week. Dugan said Strategic Public Relations receives an average of nearly 1,000 hits a day - most of which he assumes are from his target audience, PR specialists.
Dugan does not see the blog growing in far excess of its current state simply because he does not have the time, but he admits it has "been a great way to interact with people in the industry that I would not have otherwise met."