New interns’ blog @Público | Novo blog de estagiários no Público

After what i found to be a successful and interesting experience with i think it was the first official intern’s blog at a national newspaper, Público decided to pursue the effort creating a space where current interns can blog their impressions, difficulties, doubts, hopes, mistakes and accomplishments. This is a praiseworthy iniciative, because it does not only give voice to aspiring journalists as they have their first hands-on experience in a real newsroom environment – and one as reputable as Público’s – as it is a way for the company to show how is keeping up with its responsibilities as a trainer and nursery for budding journalists. A must read for all journalism students.

Depois do que achei ter sido uma experiência interessante e bem sucedida, com o que penso ter sido o primeiro blog oficial de um estagiário num jornal português, o Público decidiu prolongar a iniciativa criando um blog onde os seus estagiários podem fdeixar as suas impressões, dificuldades, dúvidas, esperanças, erros e vitórias. Esta é uma iniciativa de louvar, porque não só dá voz a aspirantes a jornalistas na sua primeira experiência real numa redacção – e uma tão notável como a do Público – como é uma forma de a empresa mostrar como está a cumprir as suas responsabilidades de formação de futuros jornalistas. Uma leitura obrigatória para todos os estudantes de jornalismo.

• Em Estágio (um blog convidado do Público)

Sobre

Este é um blogue feito inteiramente por estagiários em funções no PÚBLICO.

Pretende-se que este espaço sirva para analisar o trabalho jornalístico pelos olhos daqueles que começam agora a exercer a actividade. Questões éticas e deontológicas, dificuldades que se encontrem no decorrer das funções, ou mesmo reflexões sobre a actualidade são o tipo de assuntos que o “Em estágio no PÚBLICO” se propõe abranger.

i: A newspaper is born – the website | Nasceu um Jornal – o website

Today is the beginning a new era in the portuguese news industry. i is out on the stands and the web, and it already has defined a unique personality, becoming a true game changer right from the start. This is a first glance review to their website and their online features.

Hoje é o início de uma nova era na indústria informativa portuguesa. O i está nas bancas e na web, e já tem definida uma personalidade única, assumindo-se desde início como uma verdadeira mudança. Esta é uma análise à primeira vista ao seu website e trabalho no online.

Home & Article | Início & Artigo

What is immediately striking when you open i‘s website is its cleanliness: three content columns under a  header, dominating the top of the page with a slideshow  for the major news stories ; there is no clutter, no text beyond tiles (finally somebody got it), video right in the middle of the page, that doesn’t get to fill the whole width of the screen. The left yellow sidebar shows the main website features, middle column is for content and on the right the usual “most read/commmented” boards, special assignments, and live sport results. At the bottom, three content columns: Country, World, Sports. Can’t get any simpler than that. The newsroom and the newspaper are divided into four sections: Zoom, Radar, More and Sports. The website reflects this oranization. Each article seems to have at least one picture whenever possible and it has the usual vote, send and print features. It also has a social bookmarking tool that allows you to send the story to Google Bookmarks, Technorati, and (the schock!) Facebook, MySpace, Flickr(!?) and almighty Twitter. Social networking seems to be quite a deal for the project since they designated a few reporters to handle Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube accounts. In a Twitter conversation i had with the man in charge for social networking he put the concept in one word: they want to build an “icommunity”. Users are invited to participate in the life of the newsroom, sharing their news in a feature called iReporter. You send content using your user profile, and share it under “news story” or film, restaurant, music (etc) reviews, up to 1500 char. You can also post pictures and video right away. All articles must comply to i’s editorial rules. The website also has a few blogs, i really didn’t explore them, but they all seem to be invited by the editors. Another thing that i’m curious about is how they will interact with the rest of the companies of the group. They own a few regional newspapers and radios, and i wonder how national and local will work together (if ever). The website has a page for them, but for now, it’s just the logos. Video seems to be an important bet for i. They look technically great, though the TV like narrative is still present (not a surprise, the presentation video was made by a TV journalist), but it looks good. Shareable, embeddable (except for wordpress.com, a platform problem), easy to load, what  else could you ask? I’ll be waiting for more video work. Overall, the i website is one step into the future, in design -it looks gourgeous-, philosophy, organization. It is not made for shovelware, and it would be a real shame if they fell into that. There are other details i have to explore in time, like linking, comment moderation, social networks interaction, etc. But they’re off to a good start online.

O que imediatamente salta à vista quando entramos no site do i é a limpeza: três colunas de conteúdos sob um cabeçalho a dominar o topo da página com um slideshow para as notícias mais importantes; não está tudo atravancado, nenhum texto para além dos títulos (até que enfim que alguém percebeu isso), video mesmo no centro da página, que nem chega a ocupar toda a largura do monitor. A barra amarela de lado tem as rubricas principais do site, a coluna do meio é para o conteúdo informativo, e à direita os normais quadros de “mais lidos/comentados”, temas especiais, e resultados desportivos ao vivo. Ao fundo, três colunas de conteúdo: Portugal, Mundo,Desporto. Mais simples não há. A redacção e o jornal estão divididos em quatro secções: Zoom, Radar, Mais e Desporto, e isso nota-se no site. Cada artigo parece ter pelo menos uma foto sempre que possível e tem as ferramentas normais de votação, enviar e imprimir. Existe também uma ferramenta de bookmarking social que permite enviar a notícia para os Google Bookmarks, Technorati, e (o choque!) Facebook, MySpace, Flickr(!?) e o todo-poderoso Twitter. As redes sociais parecem ser um ponto muito importante para o projecto, já que designaram alguns jornalistas para gerir as contas do Twitter, Facebook e Youtube. Numa conversa via Twitter com o homem responsável pelas redes sociais, ele pôs o conceito numa palavra: eles querem construir uma “icomunidade”. Os utilizadores estão convidados a participar na vida da redacção, partilhando as suas notícias numa rubrica chamada iRepórter. Podem enviar conteúdos através do seu perfil de utilizador, e partilhá-lo como notícia, ou crítica a filmes, restaurantes, música etc, até 1500 caracteres. Podem também colocar fotos e video na hora. Todos os artigos têm que cumprir com as regras editoriais do i. Vamos ver como funciona. O site também tem alguns blogs, ainda não os explorei, mas parecem ser todos convidados pela editoria. Outra coisa que me deixou curioso é a forma como vão interagir com as outras empresas do grupo. Eles têm alguns rádios e jornais regionais, e gostava de saber como o nacional e o local irão trabalhar juntos (se é que vão). O site tem uma página para eles, mas para já, são apenas os logos. O video parce ser uma parte importante para o i. Eles tecnicamente parecem ser muito bons, apesar da narrativa TV estar ainda presente (não é surpresa se virmos que o video de apresentação é feito por umn jornalista de TV), mas parece bem. Partilhável, “embutível” (excepto no wordpress.com, mas isso é problema da plataforma), fácil de carregar, que mais podemos pedir? Vou ficar à espera de mais trabalhos video. No geral, o site do i é um passo para o futuro, no design – é bonito- , filosofia, organização, Não está talhado para despejar conteúdo do papel e espero que não caiam nisso. Há outros detalhes que é preciso explorar com tempo, como a economia de links, moderação de comentários, a interacção com as redes sociais, etc. Mas o início online parece promissor.

iTV

A redacção transparente | The transparent newsroom

O Spokesman-Review já foi referido por aqui algumas vezes como um bom exemplo de para os jornais modernos. Desta vez trago-vos um video que mostra a sua filosofia de “redacção aberta”, e como lidam com isso. E ouçam bem o que eles dizem.

I already talked about The Spokesman-Review more than once as a good example for modern newspapers. This time i’m bringing you a video that shows their “open newsroom” philosophy, and how they deal with that. And really listen to what they say.

The Spokesman-Review is a transparent newsroom.What i mean by that is that we are a newsroom that’s open to our community, our doors are open, our processes are open, our decision making is open. And the transparent newsroom is a response to something i used to call “fortress newsroom”, that is a newsroom in which our journalists associated only with other journalists, where objectivity was defined by separation, by distance from community, where we really didn’t worry too much about the consequences of the work that we performed. Transparent Newsroom is the opposite of that. We invite public, we invite citizens into the newsroom and into our conversations, and even to our decision making process. Our goal is very simple: we think we can help improve our credibility in the community by involving citizens interactively. And the internet has provided this vast array of tools that we have never had available to us before to achieve this.

Steven Smith, editor Spokesman-Review

Aqui | Here

Que tipo de editores são? | What kind of editor are you?

Andy Dickinson fez um questionário bem humorado para descobrir em que fase estão os editores: papel ou ecrã? Respondam e vejam os vossos resultados.

Andy Dickinson created a funny questionaire to find out in which phase are the editors: print or screen? Answer and get your results.

How webby are you?
When you talk to other editors and the talk turns to the web do you wonder what it is they are talking about or do they look at you like your talking a foreign language?

Take this handy quiz to find out just how webby you are:

Does your publication have a website?

1. A web what?
2. Yes, we have just got one
3. Yep, we’ve had one for a while – it’s very nice

Have you ever posted a story to the web before it made the paper or on air?

1. Absolutely not. What would be the point of the newspaper
2. Yes, but only the ones that aren’t an exclusive.
3. Yes, we try and get stories on the web when they break but we go for depth in the paper

Has your website published a mobile phone picture from a reader?

1. No one uses mobiles for pictures. I get my son to show me.
2. We let users send in pictures of their nights-out and pets but that’s it
3. We often put out calls for pictures when there is a big local event

Do more than 1% of your newsroom staff blog?

1. Wash your mouth out. I run a clean newsroom
2. They may do but I’m not sure
3. We have one or two well known faces from the paper who blog as part of the website but know others have their own personal blogs as well

Has your newsroom ever posted a video to Youtube?

1. I’m warning you! I’m a married man. Just the thought of it.
2. We tried it once when the paper down the road did it?
3. We try and get as much video on as we can.

Has your website published a slideshow?

1. I once went to a slideshow about my brothers holiday…very dull…
2. Yes, but it was a static one that you had to click through.
3. Yep, we started with static ones but we just got soundslides for the photographers to play with.

Can readers comment on your stories?

1. Yes, they can send letters for my secretary to read
2. We have a forum that runs on the site
3. We have just got a new system that lets people comment on each story

Do you allow people to share your stories on social networks?

1. Well, obviously, we would like them to buy a paper each. But if they leave one at their friends house at least it still gets counted in the circulation figures.
2. We have an email to a friend on the old system. But our new site has links to digg and facebook.
3. Yep. We are currently working on a facebook app.

Resultados aqui | Results here

Open Source: Ferramentas para a redacção | Newsroom Tools

Brian Boyer é um programador-jornalista financiado pela bolsa da Knight News Challenge. O Brian escreveu no seu blog um post dedicado a ferramentas open source para se usar na redacção.A ler. Já agora visitem o post que eu fiz sobre o mesmo assunto há uns tempos atrás.

Brian Boyer is a programmer-journalist financed by the Knight News Challenge scholarship. Brian wrote a post on his blog about open source tools to use in the newsroom. Read it, and since were at it, take a look to another post i wrote sometime ago about the same subject.

Free, as in free speech

I use free and open source software, almost exclusively, when I practice journalism.

Free and open source software is counter-intuitive to many, but the mantra of the free software movement uses terms that journalists should understand very well.

Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer.

It’s a philosophy. It’s about transparency, openness and honesty. You are encouraged to know the inner workings of your tools, and make them better when you find them lacking. There are no secrets, no magic, and no mysterious blue screens of death.

A Redacção OpenSource | The OpenSource Newsroom

Free, as in free speech

via A Coder Practices Multimedia Journalism — with Open Source Tools

A Redacção OpenSource | The OpenSource Newsroom

Que ferramentas podemos ter para fazer um trabalho jornalístico multimédia? As opções no mercado são muitas, mas como ter uma redacção num computador e não gastar quase dinheiro nenhum? Este artigo cobre algumas das opções OpenSource preferidas por um blogger vosso conhecido. Se tiverem algumas sugestões ou conhecerem mais alternativas, avisem.

(Ler mais…)

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(click here to read the english version)

Which tools can we own to make a multimédia journalistic assignment? There are lots of options out there, but how can we build our very own newsroom in a computer, with minimum expenses? This post covers some of the Open Source options, selected by a blogger of your preference. If you have any suggestions or know any other options, let me know.