Top 5 Wrap Up | Top 5 Conclusão

My Top5 series turned out to be quite a hit, thanks to references in other blogs, like Mindy McAdams’, so i’ll take this opportunity to put the list in one place: Is Twitter Journalism? Death of the Blogosphere Citizen Journalism Bloggers vs. Journalists The Death of Newspapers These posts could have been more developed but i think they got to the point. These are complex issues and important in this time of change, but lets not wast time with the small stuff and come forward with more solutions than problems. Megan Taylor listed a few other quarrels that are as important as the ones i posted about. I’m not doing another series about  these, but if someone does, please let me know. Thanks.

A minha série Top5 acabou por ser um enorme sucesso, graças a referências noutros blogs, como o da Mindy McAdams, por isso vou aproveitar para arrumar a lista: O Twitter é Jornalismo? Morte da Blogosfera Jornalismo do Cidadão Bloggers vs Jornalistas A morte dos jornais Estes posts podiam estar mais desenvolvidos, mas penso que estão claros. São assuntos complexos e importantes nestes tempos de mudança, mas não vamos perder tempo com picuinhices,mas apresentar soluções em vez de problemas. A Megan Taylor listou mais algumas disputas que são tão importantes como as que eu postei. Como não vou fazer outra série sobre estas, se alguém o fizer, digam. Obrigado.

My additions (in the comments):

6. Paywalls
7. It’s Google’s Fault
8. Linking
9. Comments

Others (in the comments):

7.5. Google should pay restitution for driving traffic to my news site

10. “X is not journalism!” and “Journalism is not Y!”

I think these conversations pop up every few months, though I haven’t kept track of who is having them. Is it the same people over and over? Or, do different people encounter the same questions as the printies move online? Can we build an F.A.Q. for newbies, listing the different points to each argument?

Having the same conversation over and over again does not progress make. We need to move beyond these questions and find new ones.

Some new questions:

How can we support journalism? Do organizations need to turn non-profit? Or get their work funded by the community? What online advertising models are being used and are they effective? How can news organizations collaborate?

Megan Taylor

Top5: Most annoying discussions | Discussões mais irritantes

Bloggers vs Journalists | Bloggers vs Jornalistas

Hemingway blogging | Hemingway a blogar (Kurt Hutton/Getty Images)

In this second post about the most annoying discussions on new media debate, i’ll be adressing the oldest one: bloggers vs journalists, or, Spy vs Spy. This is also a prelude for tomorrow’s post, but you’ll have to wait to know what it is about. Bloggers vs Journalists The real issue: why are all these people in their pyjamas beating journalists in heir own playground? Easy to answer: because it’s more comfy! And because anyone can publish content and have as much or more audience for it than traditional media, for some years now. Bloggers blog because they want to, and are not tied to a strict newsroom structure (it’s more fun than a job- not really, no), nor suffer the pressures of an editorial line besides their own personal views. Because people got tired of reading the same news everywhere and now and then someone had a new perspective and fresh details. They even had some of the major news stories in the last years! Journalists felt their position as town criers was at stake and said blogs weren’t journalism. Yes, for once they got  one right. It’s not, it’s a content management platform. Nobody cares when a newspaper shaped propaganda is shoved down our mail box, we know that, though it looks like a newspaper, it’s not a newspaper. So why the big fuss? Anyone could beat journalists at their own game and they started kicking and squealing. They didn’t even noticed that some of their new competition were people with better expertise and connections than them. Heck, some bloggers were journalists! They were just using their own publishing platform, instead of working for one. There were issues like author anonimity, that sometimes was (is) necessary, because telling the truth can be a dangerous game, but it also can be  a cloak for ill intentioned people.  Or copyright and plagiarism. Or the futility and lack of quality of most of the content. Fortunately, this debate has faded out almost completely. Bloggers have their space in the media and journalists blog. The debate lately turned into how to define rules and ethical guidelines for bloggers, and which and how some can have access to events just like journalists do. Like in journalism, there are lies and rumours and false information. But that is both bad journalism and bad blogging. Media and bloggers turn to each other for information, and blogs helped to shape the link economy, and thus set a new model for online media based on sharing, commenting, referring outside, competing sources. Some of the most successful new media news ventures started as blogs, and they’re making money while traditional media faces the biggest crisis ever.  This must mean that they’re doing it right. Blogs helped  (forced) journalism to take a decisive step into the future.  So stop whining and thank them for it.

Neste segundo post sobre as discussões mais iritantes no debate sobre os novos media, vou falar do mais antigo: bloggers vs jornalistas, ou Spy vs Spy. Isto também é um prelúdio para o post de amanhã, mas vão ter que esperar para saber sobre o que é. Bloggers vs Journalists A verdadeira discussão: porque é que estão estas pessoas todas de pijama a bater os jornalistas no seu próprio jogo? Fácil: porque é mais confortável! E porque qualquer um pode publicar conteúdos e ter tanto ou mais público do que os media tradicionais, há já uns anos. Os bloggers blogam porque querem fazê-lo, e não estão presos a um estrutura rígida de uma redacção (é mais divertido que ter um emprego – não é nada), nem sofrer as pressões de uma linha editorial para além da sua visão pessoal. Porque as pessoas ficaram cansadas de ler a mesma notícia em todo o lado e de vez em quando alguém tinha uma nova perspectiva ou pormenores frescos. Tiveram até alguns dos maiores furos dos últimos anos! Os jornalistas sentiram  a sua posição  como pregoeiros ameaçada e disseram que os blogs não eram jornalismo. E dessa vez lá acertaram uma. Não são, são só uma plataforma de gestão de conteúdos. Ninguém liga quando nos enfiam uma publicidade em forma de jornal na caixa do correio, nós sabemos que apesar de se parecer com um jornal, não é um jornal. Então para quê tanta confusão? Qualquer um agora podia bater os jornalistas no seu próprio jogo e eles começaram a espernear. Nem repararam que alguns dos seus novos competidores eram pessoas com mais conhecimentos e ligações que eles. Raios, alguns bloggers eram jornalistas! Estavam só usar uma plataforma de publicação própria em vez de trabalhar para uma. Houve discussões sobre o anonimato dos autores, que por vezes era (é) necessário, porque contar a verdade pode ser um jogo perigoso, mas também pode ser um manto protector para gente mal intencionada. E sobre direitos de autor e plágio. Ou sobre a futilidade e a falta de qualidade da maioria dos conteúdos. Felizmente este debate esmoreceu quase por completo. Os bloggers têm agora o seu espaço nos media e os jornalistas blogam. O debate incide agora sobre as regras e as linhas éticas que devem seguir, e a quais e como é que devem aceder a eventos, como os jornalistas podem. Como no jornalismo, há mentiras, rumores e informações falsas. Mas em ambos os casos é mau jornalismo e mau blogging. Os media e os bloggers viram-se uns para os outros em busca de informação, e os blogs ajudaram a moldar a economia de links, estabelecendo assim um novo modelo para os  novos media assente na partilha, comentário, referências externas para fontes da concorrência. Algumas das iniciativas em novos media de maior sucesso começaram como blogs e fazem dinheiro enquanto os media tradicionais enfrentam a sua maior crise de sempre. Isto significa que alguma coisa devem estar a fazer bem. Os blogs ajudaram (forçaram) o jornalismo a dar um passo decisivo para o futuro. Por isso parem de se queixar e agradeçam-lhes por isso.

Other related posts | Outros posts relacionados

Bloggers e a grande baleia branca dos direitos dos jornalistas | Bloggers and the great white whale of journalist’s rights

Os blogs sob fogo | Blogs under fire

READ ALSO ABOUT THE OTHERS | LEIAM TAMBÉM SOBRE AS OUTRAS

The Death of Newspapers | A morte dos Jornais

Citizen Journalism | Jornalismo do Cidadão

Death of the blogosphere | Morte da Blogosfera

Links for Today | Links para hoje

• When Journalists Blog: How It Changes What They Do, NiemanReports

By Paul Bradshaw

From journalistic pariah to savior of the news industry, blogs have undergone an enormous transformation in recent years. As a journalist and a blogger, I was curious to see how this transformation from blogophobia to blogophilia was affecting journalism. Was the hype surrounding the potential of blogs to transform our craft being realized—or were journalists simply treating their blogs as another “channel” into which to plough content?

• Personalised newspapers: industry saviour or just another novelty?, Editor’s Weblog

Personal News

In a world where customisation is key (our clothes, our cars, our TV channels…), why can’t we customise our newspapers?  In fact we can, Mary Lou Fulton explains.  Fulton is Vice President of Audience Development at The Bakersfield Californian, and has discovered a Swiss-German innovation called Personal News, collaboration between SwissPost and Syntops GmbH.

Personal News is currently in its pilot stage, and available in a limited area in Switzerland.  However the idea is this; after registering online you select up to seven newspaper sections that interest you (at the moment, available publications include The Washington Post and Austria’s The Standard).  After that, the relevant newspapers send their PDFs to Syntops, who assimilate the PDF into personalised publications and pass them on to Swiss Post, who has them on your doorstep by 11am.  You can even change your newspaper selection up to 7pm the previous night.

• LET’S BUY A NEWSPAPER

The title says it all | O título diz tudo

• “We Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet”: Jack Driscoll on Community Journalism, Henry Jenkins

(Part One) (Part Two)

Driscoll recently published a book, Couch Potatoes Sprout: The Rise of Online Community Journalism, which shares some of his experiences and offers sage advice about how and why community journalism may become an important part of the contemporary newscape. What I love about the book is its emphasis on journalism as a practice and a process rather than simply a product, since it is clear that working on these publications is empowering to those who become involved, changing the ways they think about themselves and their communities.

I was lucky enough to get a chance to pick Jack’s brain about community journalism and to be able to share his perspectives with you here. As you read this, you have to picture this ruddy faced man with gray hair, a sparkle in his eye, and a broad toothy smile. Jack represents what was best about the old style journalism and he represents a bridge to what may be most vital about the future of civic media.

• Improving the web with web analytics, Journalism.co.uk

  (part one) (part two) (part three)

Why most of the web is junk
The truth is that the vast majority of the web contains poor quality content. Even for those sites that do have great content, often they are difficult to find (via a search engine) and the user experience, once you visit it, is so poor, you simply wish to leave.

Despite nearly 15 years of web development, most of us still waste dozens of hours a month trawling the web, weeding out sites that either have irrelevant content to our search query or where the user experience is just too frustrating.

Unfortunately – similar to weeding – those sites don’t really go away. A search engine query the next day can bring up the same poor results and the process starts all over again.

From online to print | Do ecrã para o papel

The Printed Blog

The print people – the Amish, like they are called in a newsroom of a daily here in Portugal –  were getting used to the idea that they were losing ground to a new medium. But  now their realm is being invaded by the same people that questioned their supremacy. Ok, this sounds too drastic, i’ll tone it down. The main effort of print media in the last years has been how to take their inked content into the flashing computer screens. New channels demand new forms of distribution, and that’s fine. But there was a streak of arrogance that remained unnoticed for a long time, in my opinion: they thought their content was better. Sure, you have bloggers in their websites. You have the odd columnist with a blog (more and more actually, which is really healthy for the writer and the publisher). But seldom i’ve seen real blog  contents transferred into print. And that should be an obvious thing. No matter how good your newspaper writers are, there will always be someone better out there. But denial is a bitch, instead of soughting for the best content, they stuck to what they knew. No problem with that, it’s a normal reaction. I came across with this post about a new venture described as “a Current TV model for print news” (don’t agree with the title, but it gets your attention). From pixels to picas The Printed Blog is not new in concept – i talked about a similar project before – but it is bold in their purpose: to create a daily printed newspaper with contents from the blogosphere. The man in charge , Joshua Karp, says “[For] people around the world, who need to and want to consume information, whether it be in developing countries or emerging countries, newsprint is still going to be a main mechanism for information for years to come”. So the print lives on as a medium. This makes me wonder if all the fuss about the survival of newspapers is about medium or ascendancy. The best content will always work no matter what the medium is, from smoke signs to microscopic engravings in toothpicks (if people have access to and are comfortable with the medium it will work, maybe toothpicks and smoke signs are a bit too far off). The point is that there are many good sources for content out there. And there is a new way for the cretors of that content to monetize their work. Hey mister, get your cart off the road!

As pessoas da (im)prensa- ou Amish, como gostam de lhes chamar numa redacção de um diário da nossa praça- estavam já a habituar-se à ideia de perderem terreno para um novo meio. Mas agora o seu domínio está a ser invadido pelas mesmas pessoas que questionaram a sua supremacia. Ok, o tom é exagerado. O esforço principal dos media impressos nos últimos anos foi tentar perceber como levar a tinta para os ecrãs brilhantes. Novos canais exigem novas formas de distribuição, e isso é óptimo. Mas havia uma certa arrogância que passou despercebida durante demasiado tempo: eles achavam que o conteúdo deles era melhor. Claro, temos bloggers nos sites dos jornais. Temos até o colunista com um blog (na realidade são cada vez mais, o que é óptimo tanto para o autor como para quem o publica). Mas raramente vi conteúdos exclusivamente de blogs vertidos para o papel. E isso devia ser um processo óbvio. Indepentemente de terem escritores muito bons nos jornais, há sempre alguém melhor online. Mas a negação é terrível, em vez de terem procurado pelo melhor conteúdo, ficaram agarrados ao que conheciam. Não tem nada de mal, é uma reacção normal. Eu vi este post sobre um novo projecto descrito como “um modelo tipo Current TV para o papel” (não concordo com o título, mas chama a atenção). Dos pixels para as picas O Printed Blog não é um conceito novo – falei aqui antes de um projecto parecido – mas é audacioso no seu objectivo: criar uma edição impressa diária com conteúdos da blogosfera. O homem à frente do projecto, Joshua Karp, diz que “[Para] as pessoas pelo mundo fora, que precisam e querem consumir informação, seja em países em desenvolvimento ou emergentes, a notícia impressa vai ser o mecanismo principal durante anos”. Portanto, o jornal em papel será um meio viável. Isto faz-me questionar se toda a confusão à volta da sobrevivência dos jornais é uma questão de meio ou predominância. O melhor conteúdo irá funcionar sempre seja qual for o meio, desde sinais de fumo a palitos microscopicamente gravados (se as pessoas tiverem acesso e estiverem confortáveis com o meio, funciona. Talvez os palitos e os sinais de fumo sejam um pouco demais). O que quero dizer é que há muitas e boas fontes para conteúdos  por aí. E esta é uma nova forma dos criadores desses conteúdos rentabilizarem o seu trabalho. Ó chefe, tire aí a carruagem do caminho!

The hope is that the hyperlocal content will attract local advertisers who can spend less to reach out to their target audience.  Ads are relatively cheap in comparison ($15-$25) and the paper has already lined up a number of Chicago-based businesses for its debut. It will also host classified ads.

The first issue is expected to launch on Jan. 27, handed out at three CTA stations around Lincoln Park and Wicker Park in Chicago and one location in San Francisco. A New York edition is due out shortly.

While the cost of printing alone — not to mention two issues a day — seems daunting , Karp says he would surprised if he spends more than 15 thousand dollars on the entire production and distribution of the first paper.

New Media Venture Turns Bloggers Into Print Journalists

UPDATE

• Publisher Rethinks the Daily: It’s Free and Printed and Has Blogs All Over, NYTimes

Links for today | Links para hoje

• The lie of print advertising (followed by good news), Buzzmachine

That myth is essentially that every reader of a publication – not just buyer but alleged reader – is exposed to every ad. So every advertiser is charged for every reader of every ad. Great while it lasted, eh?

But the internet punctured that illusion because on the web, advertisers pay only for the ads a reader sees (and, in many cases, clicks on). So online, a paper or magazine can no longer charge every advertiser for every reader. This has exposed the essential inefficiency of print advertising (like TV advertising that is ignored or skipped). But it shows the inherent efficiency of online advertising.

• How Newspapers Can Survive, The Daily Beast

Newspaper companies need to turn the tide and turn it fast if they want to stay in business at all. It’s time to go on the offensive and renovate their businesses around the changing needs and demands of their customers. The difficulty lies in that much of their future may not involve paper, and the industry is having a hard time changing its name.

If they don’t, they will become what the railroad industry became. The railroads could have survived as major players in the business of transporting people, had they believed they were in the transportation business, not the train business. They would have invested in cars, buses and airplanes. But they didn’t, and while there remains a railroad industry today, it’s much smaller and less significant than it was.

• Let’s talk about the economics of great journalism, Mitch Ratcliffe

The fully loaded cost of a great reporter doing great work, then, falls somewhere in the $180,000 range:

$130,000 salary and benefits
$4,800 a year in subscriptions and other information sources
$2,500 a month in travel
$1,250 a month in legal and insurance coverage
$179,800 total, and that’s before the cost of IT, telecom and office space

• Carnival of Journalism: Are we asking the right questions about online revenue models?, Ryan Sholin

I’m not (that) interested (today) in trying to figure out what revenue, then, will support major metro newspapers online.  When a major city loses its last print edition, it will be because it has already been replaced, in terms of reporting, advertising, commentary, and yes, journalism, by (mostly) smaller organizations.

And by definition, I expect a newspaper.com in a no-print city to look and feel infinitely different than it does now, to be a distributed news service, the sum of dozens of tiny parts, a portal to a wide variety of platforms where bits of news pushed out and pulled in.

(Right, so again, these are all the things I’m not going to talk about today. Right. Sure.)

My question, then, is how to support a small, agile, online-only news organization.

• Roanoke, Poynter Develop Ethics Guidelines for Journalists Using Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, Poynter Online

In Roanoke, the journalists grouped the pressure points into three categories: How to use Facebook and MySpace as a reporting tool, how to use the sites as a promotional tool and finally, how to balance your personal and professional images.

As a reporting tool, it’s easy to argue that Facebook, MySpace and Twitter instantly connect journalists to stories that in the past would have taken days or weeks to surface. Last year, the Orlando Sentinel discovered a Facebook group devoted to the lack of water at the University of Central Florida’s brand new football stadium. The group provided immediate access to dozens of sources who’d experienced firsthand the opening game in 95-degree heat.

• Shotgun Approach: Testing Digital Ideas, Michael Karnjanaprakorn

90% of startups fail.

It’s kind of crazy that entrepreneurs think that their vision and their idea is the “right” one.  What qualifies them to know what will work?  Why don’t digital and tech entrepreneurs test their ideas before they waste money and countless hours building a product that’s not needed?  I call this the “me too” syndrome that is so prevalent on the west coast <cough> Silicon Valley…

• TweetNews Ranks News Stories by Twitter Links, Lifehacker

TweetNews keeps an eye on Yahoo News and compares its headlines with which news stories are culling links on Twitter updates. A story’s popularity amongst the tweeting masses will push it up farther on TweetNews. There’s no landing page full of links, though, just search functionality. You can see the Twitter updates each result is pulling from in a drop-down box, and the absolutely minimal site loads seriously fast.

Links for today | Links para hoje

• The internet now second only to television as a news source, EatSleepPublish

Pew Research Center

I bet most of that “online” news is really the work of existing newspapers (newsbrands) who operate online. That’s actually good news. It means that collectively, newspapers are MORE popular than television as a source for news.

As I’ve already said, it’s time to monetize it.

• Is ad-supported journalism viable in a pay-for-performance age?, Ethan Zuckerman

While a great deal of what I write here is underinformed speculation, this piece is unusually speculative and underinformed. It’s possible that I’m flat out wrong about the idea I’m developing here. I’m putting it forward with the hopes that folks will react with examples and data that help prove or disprove this theory. Being told that I’m unambigiously wrong with good data demonstrating my error would be very helpful. Simply being told I’m wrong – less helpful.

• The Journalism Bubble, Lisa Williams

You’ve heard about the housing bubble. And the dot-com bubble. I’m here to tell you about The Journalism Bubble.

Anybody who’s paying attention to the state of journalism in the US is aware of the financial crisis facing the news industry. And there’s wide agreement on the cause of the crisis: advertising revenue for print and broadcast is declining, and advertising revenue for internet offerings is not rising fast enough to make up the difference.

That’s true.

It’s also a completely inadequate explanation for the waves of layoffs, bankruptcies, and outright closures of news organizations.

There is a journalism bubble. And the bubble has burst.

• Outsourcing the News, Newspaper Death Watch

Tribune Co. and the New York Daily News* are looking at closing their foreign bureaus and outsourcing international coverage, The Wall Street Journal says. The beneficiaries would be the Washington Post and a Boston-based startup called GlobalPost. Under the arrangement being discussed by Tribune Co. and the Washington Post, Tribune would contract with the Post for international stories to be delivered to its portfolio of newspapers and would close dozens of foreign offices, saving the bankrupt company millions each year. There’s no word on how much of that coverage would be unique to Tribune, but that’s presumably an issue in the talks. The two companies have long had an alliance via a joint news service.

• Solutions to newsroom troubles, Advancing the Story, via Atrium

Adopt new technologies and workflows to make news production more efficient. Many traditional news organizations have redundant production processes for their traditional (print or broadcast) product and the Web. These must be consolidated.

Distribute professionally created content through as many channels as possible. Stories must go out in print, on the air, online, via mobile technology — and yes, on the Kindle or another “iTunes for news.” When appropriate, news organizations could share the cost of content creation with other news organizations. The Miami Herald and Poynter’s St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, for instance, already collaborate to pay for coverage of the Florida state capital.

• Is ‘on-demand’ journalism the future?, Editor’s Weblog

Williams highlighted the need to find a way to “make journalism happen where it’s needed, when it’s needed, and then redeploy elsewhere when things change.”  Poynter writer Amy Gahran elaborated on the idea of a “cadre of general assignment reporters, ready to work on whatever needed doing.” It is essentially a development of the idea of stringers and freelancers, but she believes it could be an interesting complement to traditional news outlets, and takes it a step further, envisaging a situation where various kinds of organisations, not just news, could purchase reporting capacity.

• Newspaper objectivity combats Internet hysteria, Editor’s Weblog

If newspapers were to die, Pratt believes that we would lose all objectivity – on the Internet, he says ‘it seems that reality can be created and spun’.  ‘Hysterical’ predictions about print’s imminent demise to him signal the exact reason that we need it to stay, to present facts as facts and for the ‘check and balance that news organisations strive to provide’.

• Style guide and tips for online sub-editors, Journalism.co.uk

This page is intended to be a collaborative style guide for online sub-editors, including useful tips.

• Experimentation (Not Stagnation) Should Flourish at J-Schools, MediaShift

Some journalism academics may be even more scared of new technology and more resistant to change than the worst print “dinosaurs” working in media today. But Web 2.0 has made getting online so simple that there are no more excuses for being disconnected. While some reporters see journalism education as a potential refuge from the rapid pace of change in the 21st century digital newsroom, journalism schools should in fact be among the first places to adapt to new technology if they’re to train the journalists of tomorrow and remain relevant today.

I have been working to integrate blogs and other social media into my teaching, but traditional academia’s inherent resistance to educational experimentation — as well as fears around defamation litigation, autonomous student publication, and public relations fallout — can make embracing the journalism of the digital age even more difficult in the classroom than in the newsroom.

• Point and shoot will dominate but you still need a quality strategy: New Year convictions, Andy Dickinson

Fit for purpose

Put all those things together and the only viable strategy for getting video in your newsroom now is point-and-shoot. It’s responsive, cheap and easy to implement and the kind of video produced – short clip content, illustrative video and vignettes of action – is best suited to the embedded style we see on news sites.

That doesn’t mean I’m ditching the idea that a quality video strategy has lost.  It isn’t a betamax Vs. VHS type thing. Those that invested in the training and development of that strategy will always get good results from it.  Those who just bought lots of kit and left the newsroom to it will have already put the camera in a cupboard.

• Congresso: CDS «high tech», Portugal Diário

News article about the live coverage of a political congress using Twitter, by Parlamento Global’s journalists.

Artigo que fala da cobertura do congresso do CDS, através do Twitter pelos jornalistas do Parlamento Global.

As novas tecnologias tomaram conta da política e a Internet tornou-se um veículo para transmitir mensagens e não só. O 23º congresso do CDS, nas Caldas da Rainha, foi um bom exemplo disso. Além de ser transmitido ao minuto através do site Parlamento Global, foram vários os presentes que partilharam com os seus «seguidores» no twitter tudo o que estava a acontecer.

Twitter & Cover It Live

Links for today | Links para hoje

Why art thou so hasty and hard to keep up with, o Web? | Porque sois tão difícil de acompanhar, ó Web?

• Documentary on Cyberjournalism | Ciberjornalismo em documentário, Travessias Digitais

(Portuguese only)

This is a small doc created by researchers of Information and Communication in Digital Platforms from Porto and Aveiro universities. Citizen journalism, cyberjournalism through the eyes of journalists, citizens and academics, in an interesting nine minute video. In Portuguese.

Este pequeno video foi realizado por um grupo de doutorandos em Informação e Comunicação em Plataformas Digitais das Universidades de Aveiro e Porto. Jornalismo participativo e ciberjornalismo na visão de jornalistas, cidadãos e académicos, em nove minutos interessantes.

• The “Ultimate” Video Guide, News Videographer

By Megan Taylor

For the last couple of days I’ve been reading through StreamingMedia.com’s The Ultimate Guide to Creating Online Video Content That Works.

The article comes in two parts, the first concentrating on paying attention to your existing and potential audience, and the challenges that both media companies and independent content creators face. The second part discusses video production quality long-form vs short-form video.

They also interviewed “content decision makers” and “content creators” for input.

First of all, they admit that making online video successful is an art, not a science.

• 8 Indispensable Web Services the Modern Reporter Can’t Afford to Skip, New Media Bytes

As journalism evolves, so do the tools journalists come to depend on. While the Internet can’t provide all the resources a good reporter needs, it does offer a number of them that can make a journalist’s job easier and more productive.

The following web services have become an integral part of the evolving toolkit for the modern journalist: (…)

• What journalism students can learn from blogging, Reportr.net

I have written a piece for PBS Mediashift on why I believe that blogging deserves a place on a journalism curriculum.

The blogs are now live and cover a broad range of topics, from Canadian foreign policy to spirituality to Latin American culture.

Teaching someone to blog might sound odd.  My approach is to consider blogs as a delivery system that may or may not contain journalism.

I use newspapers as a comparison. Tabloids such as The Daily Star or The Sun in the UK are very different to The Times or The Guardian.  They are all newspapers, but have distinctly different content.

What makes a blog a “blog” are the social and cultural practices that have developed alongside this new web-based delivery system. In other words, the technology and history of blogs has resulted in certain generic conventions, much like the evolution of print led to a set of conventions.

• Profile of a backpacker: Inside Mara Schiavocampo’s toolkit & Inside Mara Schiavocampo’s workflow , NiemanJournalismLab via PontoMedia

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

• Major Ubiquity Update, MozillaLabs

We are proud to announce Ubiquity 0.1.5. Since the last major update, Ubiquity has gained a sleeker look and a smarter, more stable core. Ubiquity has also gained the ability to be skinned: anyone who knows how to write standards-complaint CSS can now create and share a custom Ubiquity skin.

• Beautiful: Ubiquity has a new look that increases its visual simplicity and lays the groundwork for full keyboard access.

Links for today | Links para hoje

• Are you putting the user first?, Journalism2.0
  

If you’re editing a news site, are you publishing what users want or what you have?

Assuming you have what users want, are you organizing it the way your users would want it organized? Or is it organized based on some legacy notion like print sections? Or worse, is it displayed based on the org chart?

Startup news sites are fighting an uphill battle against established media brands. But one advantage they have is the ability to put the user first in their content and layout decisions, without the burden of prior procedures.

• Print organisations will need to open source their systems: New year convictions, Andy Dickinson

I only need to look at the increase of twitter followers, new blogs and fresh faces that have appeared since christmas to know that journalists are really fired up about online. They love twitter and blogging and RSS. Once they get excited by slideshows or video or maps they want to try them.  The avalaunche of new apps that appear on the web news of which spread through their newly followed feeds appear as a tweet are the biggest most exciting toy box imaginable. They have stories they want to tell.

Then they go in the office and it grinds to a halt.

That great stuff they tried on their blog the night before needs a form signed in triplicate, a request to central support and good dollop of patience. By then the stories dead and a little bit of the excitment has died with them.

• Paying for it: Which news?, Notes from a Teacher

Things were simpler a decade and a half ago, when the three daily newspapers that landed on my doorstep (all paid for) were what I needed.

Not any more. For any given story, other than perhaps the truly local, there are dozens of sources and there’s no single source that covers it best day in and day out. When I’m following a story, I’ll go through as many as a dozen websites and, for different stories, they are not always the same ones.

I’m hardly unique. Increasingly, it’s the way people inform themselves. And that’s where part of the idea of paying for the news breaks down substantially. How many subscriptions should have to I buy to cover the part-time creation of value?

• Could an iTunes model for news content be the solution?, Editor’s Weblog

As newspapers struggle to sell their content, which in most cases can be found online for free, David Carr of The New York Times asks why the news industry as not followed Apple’s model for iTunes.

The iTunes online music store sold more than 2.4 billion tracks last year, according to the NYT.  The most important thing to retain from this number, according to Carr, is that “Apple has been able to charge for content in the first place,” even though music can be downloaded for free online (illegally, of course).

Their success is a combination of an easy user interface, cooperation within the music industry and a solid business model.  The question is can the model be transplanted?

• The web as a CMS, Derivadow.com
  

If you run a website you’re going to want to manage your content. You might use an Enterprise CMS, an open source CMS, a blogging platform or a bespoke app, and as you might expect at the BBC the same rules apply. Except some of us have been trying out something a bit different — using the web as a content management system.

• Ten things every journalist should know in 2009, Journalism.co.uk

3. That there is a difference between link journalism and ‘cut and paste’ journalism (aka plagiarism).

4. That your readers are smarter than you think. In fact, many are smarter than you – they know more than you do.

5. That churnalism is much easier to spot online. If you do this regularly, your readers are already on to you – merely re-writing press releases without bringing anything to the table no longer cuts it.

• The moral purpose of journalism, Ethical Martini

Before you read any further, you need to know that I am a strong supporter of the Palestinians who thinks the state of Israel is an imperialist construct and an outpost of American projected military power in the Middle East. I’ve come to the conclusion that journalists have a moral responsibility to say as much and to predicate all their reporting of the current Gaza conflict, as well as coverage of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and the associated “terror frame” of news analysis on this controversial starting point.

In other words, I believe in what Martin Bell calls the “journalism of attachment”, rather than feeble attempts at objectivity, which is, in and of itself, a form of inbuilt and largely unconscious bias.

Today’s Special Links | Links do dia

• 10 Golden Rules for Video Journalists, Ricochet by Chrys Wu

At yesterday’s “Creating Video Narratives” workshop at Beyond Bootcamp, Washington Post video journalist Travis Fox shared his 10 guidelines for making video reports.

• Golden Rule 6 Get close to the subject when interviewing them for audio purposes
• Golden Rule 5: Stay quiet when shooting
• Golden Rule 4: If you do not get the shot, you do not have it.

• Too old to become a journalist: How to get the perfect CV – advice from the industry & Too old to become a journalist: CV analysis #1, Journalism.co.uk
  

The new year brings with it the startling reality that I have got less than a month left on my NCTJ course.

I don’t know which scares me more: having to pass my exams in three weeks; or having to find a job. Probably both in equal measure.

While trying to decipher the difference between a ‘revenue support grant’ and ‘relative needs formulae’, I am also overhauling my CV.

Writing a CV is really difficult, especially when you think about the 50 million other people chasing the same jobs as you.

• How do you make it stand out?
• How many pages should it be?
• Should you play it really straight?
• Should you give it a humorous slant etc?
• Is it okay to have gaps in your employment?
• What if you haven’t worked for anyone yet?
• Should you have a kitten pattern border running around it?

• How investigative research happens in the blogosphere, Dave Winer

One of the common complaints from people in journalism about bloggers is that we just comment on reports in the news, we don’t do original reporting. It’s so often repeated it’s become a cliche, but it’s simply not true and I can prove it.

• Godin: It’s a good time to start a newspaper (just not for journalists), Journalism 2.0

Seth Godin offers an interesting suggestion – and a wake-up call – to local newspapers hoping to get more local in a post titled Time to start a newspaper. The twist is that he’s offering this advice to real estate brokers or plumbers or anyone in local business looking to grow their local presence. And he thinks it would be easy to do:

Here’s how I would do it. Assume you’ve got six people in your office. Each person is responsible to do two things each day:

* Interview a local business, a local student or a local political activist. You can do it by phone, it can be very short and it might take you ten minutes.

* Get 20 households to ’subscribe’ by giving you their email address and asking for a free subscription. You can use direct contact or flyers or speeches to get your list.

• New Media Venture Turns Bloggers Into Print Journalists

As old media races to catch up with the Web and figure out how to successfully monetize print content online, one publication is taking a drastically different approach: web to print.

The Printed Blog, a startup founded and funded by former business productivity software entrepreneur Joshua Karp, is launching a twice-daily free print newspaper in cities across the country aggregating localized blog posts.

“Why hasn’t anyone tried to take the best content and bring it offline?” said Karp, who thinks print media is far from dying.

• Free ebooks on creativity and design, sergiosantos.info

Continuing the free ebook spree, I’ve found 3 more on creativity and design.

Social media: Cobertura das cheias de Sta.Catarina | Sta.Catarina floods coverage

As chuvas que assolaram o estado de Santa Catarina no sul do Brasil são as mais dramáticas de sempre. Os números apontam para dezenas de mortos, e milhares de desalojados. Um deles é Rogério Christofoletti que nos vai dando algumas informações sobre a situação. Outros sítios para se ir vendo o que se passa fora dos media tradicionais são os blogs Luz e Estilo e o Visão Extra. No Twitter recomendaram-me De notar que as pessoas se estão a organizar na blogosfera e para além de informar, estão a tentar resolver alguns problemas, como a localização dos desalojados, indicando onde estão neste blog: Blog dos Desabrigados de Itajaí. Sabem de mais links para acompanhar a situação? É nestas situações que realmente se vê o poder e o potencial dos media sociais e das comunidades. Para todos os afectados pelas cheias a minha solidariedade.

The strong rains that hit the southern brazilian state of Santa Catarina are already the most dramatic ever. There are dozens of deads, and thousands of homeless people. One of those is Rogério Christofoletti that posted some information in the situation. There are other sites where we can follow the events outside the MSM coverage,like Luz e Estilo and Visão Extra blogs.@diarinho provides coverage on Twitter. I must highlight that people are organizing themselves in the blogosphere, and besides delivering information, they’re trying to solve some problems, like the whereabouts of som homeless, making their current location known in this blog: Blog dos Desabrigados de Itajaí.Do you know any other links to follow this situation? It’s in events like this that we can really see the power and the potential of social media and community. My heart goes out to all of those affected by the floods.