Created
February 21, 2014 20:37
-
-
Save julien51/9142953 to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
This file contains bidirectional Unicode text that may be interpreted or compiled differently than what appears below. To review, open the file in an editor that reveals hidden Unicode characters.
Learn more about bidirectional Unicode characters
| $ curl -X GET https://push.superfeedr.com -d'hub.mode=retrieve' -d'hub.topic=http://www.journalism.co.uk/rssmesh/blogandnews_app.php' -u julien:redacted | |
| <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><status feed="http://www.journalism.co.uk/rssmesh/blogandnews_app.php" xmlns="http://superfeedr.com/xmpp-pubsub-ext"><http code="200">Fetched (ring) 200 900 and parsed 0/30 entries</http><next_fetch>2014-02-21T20:41:47.000Z</next_fetch><period>900</period><last_fetch>2014-02-21T20:26:47.000Z</last_fetch><last_parse>2014-02-21T20:26:47.000Z</last_parse><last_maintenance_at>2014-02-21T04:16:09.000Z</last_maintenance_at></status><title>News from Journalism.co.uk</title><entry xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:geo="http://www.georss.org/georss" xmlns:as="http://activitystrea.ms/spec/1.0/" xmlns:sf="http://superfeedr.com/xmpp-pubsub-ext"><id>http://www.journalism.co.uk/?cmd=ArticleJump&id=555915</id><published>2014-02-21T15:01:59.000Z</published><updated>2014-02-21T15:01:59.000Z</updated><title>5 tips from BuzzFeed on making content shareable</title><summary type="text">Giving the keynote speech for the news:rewired conference, Jack Shepherd, editorial director of BuzzFeed, shared his tips for making content people want to share</summary><content type="html">Editorial director of BuzzFeed Jack Shepherd revealed his tips for making content people want to share during his keynote speech at the 11th news:rewired digital journalism conference yesterday (23 February).<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Speaking at the event at MSN UK's offices in London, Shepherd said that creating shareable content was key to how BuzzFeed had grown from its humble beginnings in an office opposite a "gambling den" in 2006 to a site with more than <a target="_blank" href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeedpress/buzzfeed-reaches-more-than-130-million-unique-visitors-in-no">130 million global unique users a month</a> in December 2013.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "When Facebook overtook Google as our top referrer in 2010 it was natural for us to refocus on social content," he added.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Here are Shepherd's five principles for journalists to make news content more shareable on social networks:<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <strong>1. Everyone likes lists</strong><br> | |
| <br> | |
| Although Shepherd said he was not a fan of the word 'listicles,' it would be hard to argue that BuzzFeed hasn't made a name for itself through lists such as <a target="_blank" href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/109-cats-in-sweaters">109 cats in sweaters</a>.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| &nbsp;"Lists are easy to scan, you're not messing with people's expectations, people know exactly what they're going to get," he said.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "The internet is chaotic and frightening and there's something satisfying about having things organised for you."<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <blockquote class="agile_article_pullquote_1"><div><q>A list is just scaffolding for a story</q><cite>Jack Shepherd, BuzzFeed</cite></div></blockquote>However, he noted that a list itself is just "scaffolding for a story".<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "Lists are a natural way for our brains to process information, but what matters is not the list itself, but that it has good stuff in it."<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <strong>2. Appeal to emotion</strong><br> | |
| <br> | |
| Shepherd highlighted a 2010 study of the New York Times's <a target="_blank" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/science/09tier.html?_r=0">most-emailed stories</a> which showed that people liked content which fell into one of four distinct categories: awe-inspiring, emotional, positive and surprising.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "Emotional engagement is a powerful tool," he explained, adding that people are much more likely to share content that creates "a visceral response".<br> | |
| <br> | |
| One way journalists can ensure they're on the right track is to do a "gut check" before sharing something.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "Did you just feel that prickling behind your eyelids that meant you were about to embarrass yourself in front of your co-workers by crying? Did it make you LOL?"<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "If you don't feel it yourself, no one else is going to."<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <strong>3. Extend content with community</strong><br> | |
| <br> | |
| Shepherd admitted there was "no easy trick" for shareability as every community is different, meaning there's no one-size-fits all approach to engagement.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| However, he said one thing all shareable content had in common was "an emotional hook" that would generate discussion and response in a natural way.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "The real goal here is a meaningful conversation and not an interrogation," he said.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Shepherd referred to <a target="_blank" href="http://www.zefrank.com/youngmenowme/">Young Me/Now Me</a>, a project which encouraged users to re-create photos of their younger selves posing with siblings or in wedding shots.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Initially created by <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/zefrank">ZeFrank</a> on Twitter, the emotional response generated by the project, which manged to balance both humour and nostalgia, meant it grew into a viral phenomenon.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <strong>4. Controversy works</strong><br> | |
| <br> | |
| Shepherd said that content was more likely to go viral if it generated a good response across what he called the "'Gets it / Likes it / Doesn't get it / Doesn't like it' quadrant".<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Each of those four responses is an opportunity to share, he said.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| As an example, he showed responses on Twitter to the internet hoax <a target="_blank" href="http://bonsaikitten.com/bkintro.php">Bonsai Kitten</a> – which people either loved or hated, or thought was a real example of animal cruelty.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <strong>5. Pair the right story with the right format</strong><br> | |
| <br> | |
| "The difference between telling a story that people want to hear and that people want to share is often a question of format," said Shepherd.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| For example, he cited the story <a target="_blank" href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/ashleyperez/what-city-should-you-actually-live-in">What City Should you actually live in?</a> which was covered by a lot of other sites but which BuzzFeed opted to do as a quiz.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "If you do it as a quiz it totally changes the game," he said, adding that the piece had recieved close to 20 million visits, becoming BuzzFeed's second most popular piece of content of all time.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| However, Shepherd said that sometimes the right format for a story is a <span><span><span>10,000-word piece, such as Gregory D. Johnsen's article</span></span></span> <a target="_blank" href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/gregorydjohnsen/60-words-and-a-war-without-end-the-untold-story-of-the-most">60 words and a war without end</a> which recieved more than 250,000 unique visits, with 50 per cent coming from social media.&nbsp;<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "It's totally a myth that nobody reads long or serious information on the internet," he said, adding that half the people who read the article also did so on their mobile.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| If you missed news:rewired, you can see Jack Shepherd's speech and all the other sessions from the day with <a target="_blank" href="http://www.newsrewired.com/digital-tickets/">a digital pass available for £100 plus VAT</a>.</content><link title="5 tips from BuzzFeed on making content shareable" rel="alternate" href="http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/five-ways-buzzfeed-makes-content-people-want-to-share/s2/a555915/" type="text/html"/><source><id>news-from-journalism-co-uk-2014-2-21-15</id><title>News from Journalism.co.uk</title><updated>2014-02-21T15:43:55.000Z</updated><link title="News from Journalism.co.uk" rel="alternate" href="http://www.journalism.co.uk" type="text/html"/></source></entry><entry xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:geo="http://www.georss.org/georss" xmlns:as="http://activitystrea.ms/spec/1.0/" xmlns:sf="http://superfeedr.com/xmpp-pubsub-ext"><id>http://www.journalism.co.uk/?cmd=ArticleJump&id=555927</id><published>2014-02-21T12:19:06.000Z</published><updated>2014-02-21T12:19:06.000Z</updated><title>Highlights from the news:rewired digital journalism conference</title><summary type="text">A Storify of tweets from the news:rewired digital journalism conference on 20 February 2014</summary><content type="html">Journalists, editors and other media professionals packed into MSN UK's office in Victoria, London, yesterday for the 11th news:rewired digital journalism conference.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Highlights on the agenda included a keynote speech from Buzzfeed editorial director Jack Shepherd and sessions on short-form video, immersive storytelling and using Instagram for news.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Below is a Storify of some of the tweets from the day.<br> | |
| And if you missed news:rewired this time around, you can still catch up with all the sessions and workshops from the day on video with one of our <a href="http://www.newsrewired.com/digital-tickets/">digital tickets</a>.<br> | |
| <!--NOPROCESS--> | |
| <div class="storify"><iframe src="//storify.com/journalismnews/news-rewired-february-20/embed" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="no" height="750" width="100%"></iframe><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/journalismnews/news-rewired-february-20" target="_blank">View the story "news:rewired February 20" on Storify</a>]</noscript></div> | |
| <!--ENDNOPROCESS--></content><link title="Highlights from the news:rewired digital journalism conference" rel="alternate" href="http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/highlights-from-the-news-rewired-digital-journalism-conference/s2/a555927/" type="text/html"/></entry><entry xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:geo="http://www.georss.org/georss" xmlns:as="http://activitystrea.ms/spec/1.0/" xmlns:sf="http://superfeedr.com/xmpp-pubsub-ext"><id>http://www.journalism.co.uk/?cmd=ArticleJump&id=555903</id><published>2014-02-19T11:30:11.000Z</published><updated>2014-02-19T11:30:11.000Z</updated><title>How Vizzuality wants to bring mapping to the masses</title><summary type="text">A recent grant from the Knight Foundation will fund experiments in data visualisation and storytelling, but 'democratising maps' is a key idea for the team behind open source mapping tool CartoDB</summary><content type="html">"We find ourselves in this perfect storm where suddenly journalists, everybody, is paying attention to data and the ability to collect data and create new data. It's getting easier and people are doing it more often."<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Andrew Hill is a senior scientist at <a target="_blank" href="http://www.vizzuality.com/">Vizzuality</a>, the organisation behind open source mapping tool <a target="_blank" href="http://cartodb.com/">CartoDB</a>, and is particularly effusive about the possibilities that the mapping of data holds for storytelling.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "We're really excited to get the opportunity to experiment," he told Journalism.co.uk, "and give journalists the opportunity to experiment with maps in the way that stories are being told right now."<br> | |
| <br> | |
| In January, Vizzuality received <a target="_blank" href="http://www.knightfoundation.org/grants/201347630/">a $35,000 grant through the Knight Prototype</a> fund to develop its work with data; test the possibilities for how data visualisations can tell stories; and explore how maps and text may interact on the page.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <img src="?cmd=ShowAsset&x=420&assetID=37675&nosurround=true&fakeExtension=.jpg" alt="election 2012 wall street journal"><br> | |
| <span class="agilestyle" style="color: #b9b9b9;">Screenshot from <a target="_blank" href="http://projects.wsj.com/campaign2012/maps/?mod=wsj_elections_2012_nav#r=pres&v=states">WSJ.com</a> of a CartoDB map used to tell the story of the US elections in 2012</span><br> | |
| <br> | |
| The project is still in an early stage as Hill consults with journalists and thinks about "the culture of mapping," but he has a clear idea of where it is heading.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "It's an <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/CartoDB/odyssey.js">open source Javascript library</a> that would let you integrate elements of a web page with maps," explained Hill. "So, as you move, it displays or moves to different locations, or moves and changes the way the map styles.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "But we're really going to ramp up over the next few months and build it into something that anyone can get into and make more interesting maps that are coupled with stories."<br> | |
| <br> | |
| The Knight-funded project is "sort of independent" of CartoDB, said Hill, but keeps the open source philosophy that is central to how Vizzuality think about their work. As a company with a history building tools and platforms for government agencies and scientists, working in conservation or biodiversity, the idea of open knowledge and community is strongly felt.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| For this reason, Vizzuality will continue to develop on CartoDB to make "all the existing pieces work faster and better and easier," he said. Users will have the option to make their data private, unlike the public default at present, or create team accounts for news desks, schools or publications.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "I guess the core mission for CartoDB is to make mapping easier," Hill said, "so we like to say we're democratising maps online but with that comes a need for education.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "We've been trying to make it easier to find the resources and ways to find the skills to make the maps online so we started something called <a target="_blank" href="http://academy.cartodb.com/">the map academy</a>."<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <img src="?cmd=ShowAsset&x=420&assetID=37676&nosurround=true&fakeExtension=.jpg" alt="map academy"><br> | |
| <span class="agilestyle" style="color: #b9b9b9;">Screenshot from <a target="_blank" href="http://academy.cartodb.com/">Map Academy</a></span><br> | |
| <br> | |
| With the map academy, students are thrown in at the deep end, building maps from scratch and "getting pretty far" before the process is deconstructed and analysed.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "The first class in December had around 4,000 people signed in for the live stream of that," he said. "We'll continue doing that but the long term vision for CartoDB is in building the community and ecosystem of developers and mapping knowledge."<br> | |
| <br> | |
| That plan is still conceptual at the moment, said Hill, but the speed at which journalists, developers and the wider public are adopting and acclimatising to the wealth of data that is available means data stories are easier to find, and easier to tell.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "It's a lot easier to make data visualisations and map-based visualisations than it was a year or two years ago on the web," he said. "Where it's going to be in a year or two years from now is still a question for the makers and the consumers.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "But this is our opportunity to explore that with some of the people that are on the leading edge of how to consume information on the web in a way that's meaning full and impactful."</content><link title="How Vizzuality wants to bring mapping to the masses" rel="alternate" href="http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/how-vizzuality-wants-to-bring-mapping-to-the-masses/s2/a555903/" type="text/html"/></entry><entry xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:geo="http://www.georss.org/georss" xmlns:as="http://activitystrea.ms/spec/1.0/" xmlns:sf="http://superfeedr.com/xmpp-pubsub-ext"><id>http://www.journalism.co.uk/?cmd=ArticleJump&id=555902</id><published>2014-02-19T11:09:46.000Z</published><updated>2014-02-19T11:09:46.000Z</updated><title>App for journalists: Audio Memos, for recording interviews</title><summary type="text">A number of handy extras, such as the ability to add 'position markers' for easier transcription, edit audio within the app and easy files sharing make this a good choice for recording interviews</summary><content type="html"><strong>What is it:</strong>&nbsp; App that lets you record, edit and share audio.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <strong>Devices:</strong> Android and iOS (iPhone, iPad and iPod touch)<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <strong>Cost:</strong> 69p<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <strong>How is it of use to journalists:</strong> There are quite a few apps around for recording interviews, but <a target="_blank" href="https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/audio-memos-voice-recorder/id338550388?mt=8">Audio Memos</a> is probably one of the most comprehensive.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| As well as the usual features you would expect from an app like this, such as the ability to record, play back and share audio, it has a few added extras which make it really stand out for professional recordings and easier transcription.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| For example, you can set the quality of your recording (up to 44100 Hz), which is useful if you want to use the audio for a podcast. You can also set the stereo setting and auto-normalise the audio to keep the average amplitude at a consistent level.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| However, the best thing about Audio Memos is the ability to extend the functionality of the app using extensions, which you can browse and buy on the 'info' screen. Most of these cost 69p (or you can buy the whole lot for £6.99).<br> | |
| <br> | |
| One of the most useful extensions is the ability to apply 'position markers,' which allow you to highlight important or interesting parts of an interview while recording.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Later, when it comes to transcribing, you can use the forward or backward button to navigate between markers.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| There is also an 'adjustable speed' extension to speed up playback when searching for a specific moment in a recording.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| You can edit within the app using the 'insert audio' extension by adding to recordings by pressing 'edit' and then 'record' on an existing file.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Meanwhile, the 'trim' function allows you to cut a recording if, for example, there is silence at the end. To do this, simply view the details of the file you want to cut, then click 'copy' and select the part of the audio you want to keep.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Another handy extension is 'multiple selection,' which allows you to merge two separate files or send a number of files to another person or your computer at the same time.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| The 'voice activation' extension is self-explanatory, and you can also choose an audio threshold that the sound must be above in order for a recording to start – which is useful when recording in noisy situations.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| It is also easy to share files using Audio Memo, either by email or via WiFi.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| All iPhones or Android phones connected to the same WiFi networks appear on the 'send' screen, making it easy to share files with people around you.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| You can transfer audio to a computer, again, so long as it is connected to the same WiFi network as your phone.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Just open a browser on your computer and go to <a target="_blank" href="http://imesart.com/index.php">imesart.com</a>, then connect to your iOS device and a list of recordings will appear. From here you can download files to your computer.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| The app also allow users to back-up recordings to iCloud (in default settings) or upload files to Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, Evernote, FTP or WebDAV.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <img src="?cmd=ShowAsset&assetID=37673&nosurround=true&fakeExtension=.jpg" alt="Audio Memos"><br> | |
| <span class="agilestyle" style="color: #b9b9b9;"><span class="agilestyle" style="color: #e6e6e6;">Screenshot from Audio Memos app</span></span></content><link title="App for journalists: Audio Memos, for recording interviews" rel="alternate" href="http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/app-for-journalists-audio-memos-for-recording-interviews/s2/a555902/" type="text/html"/></entry><entry xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:geo="http://www.georss.org/georss" xmlns:as="http://activitystrea.ms/spec/1.0/" xmlns:sf="http://superfeedr.com/xmpp-pubsub-ext"><id>http://www.journalism.co.uk/?cmd=ArticleJump&id=555870</id><published>2014-02-18T17:18:15.000Z</published><updated>2014-02-18T17:18:15.000Z</updated><title>Part 2: 'The backlash against the mainstream in Scotland'</title><summary type="text">Colin Meek, freelance journalist, media trainer and research consultant</summary><content type="html">It is sometimes forgotten south of the border that Scotland voted for devolution in 1979 – 18 years before the 1997 referendum that led to the current Scottish Parliament.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| In 1979 more than 50 per cent of the electorate voted in favour, but a technical condition imposed on the vote by Westminster meant the simple majority was not enough. It is a sign of how far Scotland has travelled since then that such political manipulation is now inconceivable without a decisive backlash against the union.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| During that that great constitutional upheaval in 1979, the Scottish people had no choice – they had to depend on the traditional media. But we now live in a different world. Newspapers are suffering everywhere as audiences fracture and turn to niche publications or free source of ‘authoritative’ news.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| But there are big differences in Scotland. The Scottish-based papers are caught in a vice. On one hand they haemorrhaging readers to online sources, while on the other hand, the UK national titles like the Sun and Daily Mail are using Scottish editions to grab Scottish readers.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| The Herald and Scotsman – both formidable heavyweights in their day – now have print circulations of just 40,000 and 30,000 respectively. The last full-year figures show the Scotsman’s print sales fell by 17 per cent. The Press and Journal (the biggest Scottish-owned regional) has fared better but even it saw its circulation fall by 5 per cent.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| The Daily Record has seen its share of the market shrink by 10 per cent year on year. It is still grinding its axe after the SNP’s landslide in the last Scottish Parliament election – it runs a permanent campaign in support of Scottish Labour.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| The fact that none of the mainstream papers have managed to build a really commanding online presence is more evidence that the traditional media in Scotland is in trouble.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <img src="?cmd=ShowAsset&assetID=37646&nosurround=true&fakeExtension=.jpg" alt="The Scotsman"><br> | |
| <br> | |
| <a href="http://www.scotsman.com">Scotsman.com</a> has come closest, but one glance at the site and you can see it is maybe five to 10 years behind leading news sites elsewhere. Compare it to the beautiful <a href="http://www.walesonline.co.uk">walesonline.com</a> and you get the idea. The Herald is hidden behind a Times-style pay-wall.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Overwhelmingly, the Scottish press response to the new market is to shift its print content online, offer clumsy comment plug-ins, and hope for the best. The Scottish papers may not be the only ones guilty of this approach.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| But perhaps the industry model of a traditional press owned and controlled outside Scotland by international media empires doesn’t give these sites the lightness of foot they need to adapt to what is a much tougher market than elsewhere.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| The industry may have stumbled along like this for years to come. But the 2014 Referendum has detonated change in the Scottish media and, in turn, Scotland’s new media is having an impact on the referendum.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <img src="?cmd=ShowAsset&assetID=37645&nosurround=true&fakeExtension=.jpg" alt="National Collective"><br> | |
| <br> | |
| From almost nowhere, <a href="http://nationalcollective.com">nationalcollective.com</a> has blossomed into a slick and imaginative cauldron of debate. Born in 2011 among artists and writers it is now embarking on a mission to "inspire a tidal-wave of change, confidence and creativity across Scotland". Refreshingly, the project has steered clear of the tired ‘news’, ‘features,’ ‘opinion’ menu of content and tapped into its membership to exploit the potential of a wired artistic community. Its fusion of the visual and the written, the high-brow, the anecdote, the play and the first-person, is a feast for anyone interested in politics and the arts in Scotland.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <img src="?cmd=ShowAsset&assetID=37648&nosurround=true&fakeExtension=.jpg" alt="Bella Caledonia"><br> | |
| <br> | |
| <a href="http://bellacaledonia.org.uk">Bellacaledonia.org.uk</a> is just as impressive. Edited by Mike Small, the magazine-style site has a list of contributors who are at the cutting-edge of debate or the new media revolution in Scotland or both.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <a href="http://www.newsnetscotland.com">Newsnetscotland.com</a> now adds some desperately needed diversity to the ‘same-old’ angles repeated in the mainstream. For a sizeable number of people in the Yes camp, it is gradually becoming their default destination for news. The site now boasts journalist and writer Lesley Riddoch as a regular columnist and two full-time freelance journalists.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <img src="?cmd=ShowAsset&assetID=37649&nosurround=true&fakeExtension=.jpg" alt="Wings Over Scotland"><br> | |
| <br> | |
| And then there is <a href="http://wingsoverscotland.com">Wings Over Scotland</a>. Speak to anyone engaged in the referendum debate and they will know all about it. It attracts just as much praise and respect from those in the Yes camp as it draws vitriol and abuse from the No side. With almost the whole of the UK’s traditional media lined up against Yes, Wings Over Scotland is a refreshing antidote. It is irreverent, brave, challenging, intelligent and often carries brilliant analysis and debunking of the media’s campaign against the Yes movement. The fact that a serious and on-going targeted DoS attack has been launched against the site is proof it is making an impact.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| But while the emergence of these sites is interesting, their growth makes them pivotal players in the referendum campaign. Wings has quadrupled its readership in just one year. Taken together, they now reach more than 500,000 unique visitors per month. Scotsman.com is seeing that kind of audience each week but, given the trajectory of the numbers, those four new-generation sites may soon have a combined readership that will match the most-visited of the mainstream.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| It is as if Scotland has uncorked its journalistic creativity and more voices are adding to the diversity. <a href="http://www.wealthynation.org/our-goal/">Wealthy Nation</a> is a pro-independence web-based think-tank but it is also pro-market and right-of-centre.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <img src="?cmd=ShowAsset&assetID=37647&nosurround=true&fakeExtension=.jpg" alt="Common Weal"><br> | |
| <br> | |
| If you are looking for utterly inspirational minimalist web design then look no further than the <a href="http://www.allofusfirst.org">Reid Foundation’s Common Weal project</a>. Common Weal is a Scots term meaning 'wealth shared in common' and its stated aim is "to develop a vision for economic and social development in Scotland which is distinct and different from the political orthodoxy that dominates politics and economics in London".<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <a href="http://fivemillionquestions.org">5 Million Questions</a> is a University of Dundee project that aims to give the public access to a knowledge exchange on the referendum debate. <a href="http://www.theskinny.co.uk">The Skinny</a> is Scotland’s independent cultural journalism site, launched after the success of the hard copy which became Scotland’s largest listings magazine. It now has 18 staff and has launched an edition in north-west England. There is also <a href="http://athousandflowers.net">A Thousand Flowers</a> with its very different take on current affairs: "Politics is made deliberately dull and difficult to make sure most people don't get a say and we think that needs to change".<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Those sites - and many others - are transforming the Scottish media landscape. And if you think the selection is skewed to sites that are either neutral or pro-independence then you’d be right. The official Conservative and Labour funded Better Together message has failed to spark a grass-roots campaign. The case for the Union made by creative citizen journalists – doesn’t exist. Ironically, one of the liveliest Labour blogs in Scotland is now – <a href="http://www.labourforindy.com">Labour for Independence</a>.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| The Yes movement may not win the referendum. Many predict that Westminster will have an armoury of tricks to deploy in the coming months. Recent history has shown that UK ministers are not shy of deliberately withholding key data from the Scottish public and whispers in dark corridors of the state will be used to leverage support for the Union from the influential.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| It is up to journalists to reveal that data and shine a light in those corridors. Equally, the Scottish Government should be cross-examined about the claims it makes in its White Paper. If Scotland is to embark on the independence journey, then it is up to journalists to help draw the map and highlight the hazards. Scotland’s new media is already making a vital contribution in both of those roles.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| No matter what the eventual result, one thing is definite; Scotland’s media landscape has changed utterly. The dark days of a media caged in by the BBC and a few dominant papers owned and controlled outside Scotland are over.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <em>This is the second half of a two-part comment piece by Colin Meek. The first half asked: '<a href="http://www.journalism.co.uk/news-commentary/is-traditional-journalism-broken-in-scotland-/s6/a555869/">Is traditional journalism broken in Scotland?</a>'</em></content><link title="Part 2: 'The backlash against the mainstream in Scotland'" rel="alternate" href="http://www.journalism.co.uk/news-commentary/part-2--the-backlash-against-the-mainstream-in-scotland-/s6/a555870/" type="text/html"/></entry><entry xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:geo="http://www.georss.org/georss" xmlns:as="http://activitystrea.ms/spec/1.0/" xmlns:sf="http://superfeedr.com/xmpp-pubsub-ext"><id>http://www.journalism.co.uk/?cmd=ArticleJump&id=555893</id><published>2014-02-18T15:30:05.000Z</published><updated>2014-02-18T15:30:05.000Z</updated><title>5 ways hyperlocal sites can do more with data</title><summary type="text">In an adapted extract from Data Journalism: Mapping the Future, Damian Radcliffe shares data journalism advice for hyperlocal websites</summary><content type="html">Data journalism is still an embryonic concept in the UK's growing hyperlocal landscape.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Despite some open data initiatives – and calls from the Coalition Government for an <a target="_blank" href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/eric-pickles-shows-us-the-money-as-departmental-books-are-opened-to-an-army-of-armchair-auditors">army of armchair auditors</a> who will <a target="_blank" href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/letter-to-government-departments-on-opening-up-data">scrutinise</a> public data "at a level that allows the public to see what is happening on their streets" – the results have yet to live up to the hyperlocal hyperbole.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| This should not really be overly surprising. After all, if it takes a certain type of person to set up and run a hyperlocal website, then a hyperlocal publisher with the skills, time and inclination to pursue data journalism will be rarer still.&nbsp; And for a time-pressed hyperlocal journalist there is of course always the risk that data mining will not throw up anything of particular interest, and the time invested chasing down a story will come to nothing.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| No wonder then that <a target="_blank" href="http://richardosley.wordpress.com/author/richardosley/">Richard Osley</a>, deputy editor, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.camdennewjournal.com/">Camden New Journal</a>, came to the <a target="_blank" href="http://richardosley.wordpress.com/2011/03/22/my-life-as-an-armchair-auditor/">conclusion</a> "I reckon a few armchair auditors might decide to watch telly instead."<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Nonetheless, opportunities in this space do exist for hyperlocal publishers, and the sector risks missing out on great stories if it isn't able to embrace this new form of journalism.<br> | |
| Perhaps more importantly, local communities may also miss out on stories which matter to them, particularly around issues related to democratic scrutiny.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| To help redress this, here are five suggestions to help further grow and embed hyperlocal data journalism in the UK.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <strong>1. Using data to create niche blogs or stories</strong><br> | |
| <br> | |
| Given the plurality of news sources <a target="_blank" href="http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/tv-research/news/News_Report_2013.pdf">increasingly</a> used by audiences, publishers may want to explore the idea of responding to a major issue with a unique series of stories, or potentially even a standalone website.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Birmingham City University students showed how this might work when in 2010 they <a href="http://watts-going-on.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/birmingham-budget-cuts-story-so-far.html">set up</a> a hyperlocal blog – <a target="_blank" href="http://birminghambudgetcuts.blogspot.co.uk/">birminghambudgetcuts.blogspot.com</a> – aimed at the 50,000 public sector workers in the region. The site specifically focused on budget cuts and how they were affecting people.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <strong>2. Using data to illustrate key points</strong><br> | |
| <br> | |
| As both social media and many websites increasingly go more visual, so hyperlocal sites also need to consider creative ways to present their stories. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/">DNAinfo.com New York</a> used maps and infographics to help <a href="http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20120604/new-york-city/port-authority-is-top-stop-and-frisk-hotspot-regardless-of-race#ixzz1wrTXMVW5">demonstrate</a> the conclusions of their analysis of the city's 2011 stop and frisk numbers.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| This enabled them to identify the top 25 locations where people were stopped-and-frisked by the police, as well as the extent to which black and Hispanic New Yorkers are stopped-and-frisked far more than any other demographic. Their analysis also showed that more people are stopped at the Port Authority Bus Terminal – regardless of race – than any other location.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <strong>3. Using FoI to unlock hitherto hidden data</strong><br> | |
| <br> | |
| FoI (Freedom of Information) requests can be a useful means to unearth data which might otherwise not be published. As a result, it can offer great potential as a source for stories. Saddleworth News <a target="_blank" href="http://www.saddleworthnews.com/?p=3713">demonstrated</a> this effectively following an FoI into the cost and usage of the Oldham Says website, revealing that the site had received just 2,548 unique visits in the six months to the end of September 2010.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "With a total of £25,544 having been spent on setting up the site, that's roughly equivalent to an incredible £10 for each and every click. The site's readership has been particularly low in the last two months, with just 268 people logging on in August and 296 doing so in September."<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <strong>4. Unlocking the power of the many (or at least a few): networked journalism</strong><br> | |
| <br> | |
| Given that many hyperlocal websites are run by an individual, or a very small number of volunteers, having the time and skills to embrace data journalism can be a challenge. One solution to this issue may be more networked journalism, bringing together people around specific questions or issues as the Birmingham-based website <a href="http://helpmeinvestigate.com/">Help Me Investigate</a> did.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Working in this way may require a change of approach for some publishers – and, of course, recruiting and managing the efforts of volunteers can be a time-consuming. Nevertheless, as Professor Jeff Jarvis has <a target="_blank" href="http://buzzmachine.com/2008/06/06/supermedia/">argued</a>:&nbsp;<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "Professional and amateur, journalist and citizen may now work together to gather and share more news in more ways to more people than was ever possible before. Networked journalism is founded on a simple, self-evident and self-interested truth: We can do more together than we can apart … This, I believe, is the natural state of media: two-way and collaborative."<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <strong>5. Data driven campaigns and partnership working</strong><br> | |
| <br> | |
| Finally there are also opportunities to use data as a tool for partnerships, with hyperlocals identifying stories as a grassroots level which then get escalated at a wider local, regional or national level.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| One simple way to do this is to embed the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">Fix My Street</a> widget to your site as Lichfield Live <a target="_blank" href="http://lichfieldcommunitymedia.org/2012/04/26/how-to-add-recent-fixmystreet-reports-to-your-hyperlocal-site/">has done</a>.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Another way is to create data driven stories which then get picked up by wider media. Perhaps surprisingly this <a href="/news-features/grassroots-networked-journalism-key-to-future-of-local-news-says-polis-director/s5/a539020/">doesn't happen</a> as often as you might think. Writing for Journalism.co.uk in June 2010 Polis director Charlie Beckett, cited the experience of <a target="_blank" href="http://kingscrossenvironment.com/">Kings Cross Environment</a> founder <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/willperrin">Will Perrin</a>:<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Thus far, "there's been only one example of collaboration [with local newspapers]. I found statistics on ambulance call-outs in response to assault incidents. They were rising massively but violent crime was only rising a small amount ... The newspaper picked up on my research, ran some more maths on the numbers, and ran a story".<br> | |
| <br> | |
| No doubt, over time, this situation will change.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <strong>Final thoughts: working together and moving to the next stage in the sector's development<br></strong><br> | |
| Alongside these five areas of opportunity, I would also like to see the sector come together more to help develop data journalism skills, share best practice and explore opportunities for partnership working with other hyperlocals.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| One potential area to do this could be around joint investigations. It would be fascinating to see sites in major cities such as Birmingham or Manchester coming together on a semi-regular basis to jointly explore key datasets around subjects such as crime, public spaces or health.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| This would enable them to tell the story relevant to their own patch as well as build a city-wide or national picture around topics which always enjoy a strong local dimension.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| The <a href="http://onlinejournalismblog.com/2011/11/07/announcing-help-me-investigate-networks/">second version</a> of HelpMeInvestigate – which focuses on supporting a network of community editors around specific issues – offers a potential model for this and it would be interesting to see if this approach could be expanded to other topics and collaborators.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| This could be particularly effective if combined with a trade body (and idea I <a target="_blank" href="/news-commentary/-where-hyperlocal-media-should-focus-its-attention-/s6/a554081/">previously</a> advocated on this site last year,) which can promote training and the sharing of best practice. Such a body could help improve data journalism knowledge and training across the sector and in the process help to take hyperlocal media – as well as hyperlocal data journalism – to the next level.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Given the increasing wealth of public data being made available, it is not unrealistic to expect that the hyperlocal sector will, over time, embrace data journalism more than it has at present. But if that process can be speeded up, perhaps by embracing some of these recommendations, then that is something which both audiences and publisher can benefit from.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <em>This is a specially adapted extract from <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/Data-Journalism-John-Mair/dp/1845496167">Data Journalism: Mapping the Future</a> edited by John Mair with Richard Lance Keeble and Neil Fowler, which was published by Abramis last month. Damian Radcliffe is an honorary research fellow at the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies.</em></content><link title="5 ways hyperlocal sites can do more with data" rel="alternate" href="http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/5-ways-hyperlocal-sites-can-do-more-with-data/s2/a555893/" type="text/html"/></entry><entry xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:geo="http://www.georss.org/georss" xmlns:as="http://activitystrea.ms/spec/1.0/" xmlns:sf="http://superfeedr.com/xmpp-pubsub-ext"><id>http://www.journalism.co.uk/?cmd=ArticleJump&id=555890</id><published>2014-02-18T11:57:22.000Z</published><updated>2014-02-18T11:57:22.000Z</updated><title>Tool for journalists: Crazy Egg, for heat mapping web pages</title><summary type="text">Visualise where your web pages are getting clicks from visitors with this heat and scroll mapping tool</summary><content type="html"><strong>What is it?</strong> A heat mapping tool for web pages, so you can see how people are engaging with your site.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <strong>How is it of use to journalists?</strong> <a target="_blank" href="https://www.crazyegg.com">Crazy Egg</a> produces heat maps, scroll maps and other kinds of visual analytics to show where visitors are clicking on your site.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| The tool would be useful for journalists (and developers) to test new site layouts, designs and content to find the best place for say, an embedded video or an ad.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| To activate heat mapping on your site, you will need to add some JavaScript below the closing tag or in the footer of the site. There is also a plugin available for Wordpress users.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Web pages are tracked via 'snapshots', which you can create simply by inserting the URL of the page you want to track.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| You can also schedule how long you want to track a web page for (either by time and date or after a number of visits) which is useful if you want to compare site usage on different days.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Once a snapshot is set up, it will take around 22 hours for the results to come through. You can then view five different forms of web page mapping, accessible on the top right of your snapshot.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Heatmapping visualises the areas of your site that are getting the most clicks. The brighter the area, the more popular it is. For example, the screenshot below shows that the jobs tab on the Journalism.co.uk navigation bar is one of the most popular areas of the site.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| You can also compare the results of two different heat maps, which is particularly useful for&nbsp; testing different site layouts.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <img src="?cmd=ShowAsset&assetID=37637&nosurround=true&fakeExtension=.jpg" alt="Crazy Egg heat map"><br> | |
| <span class="agilestyle" style="color: #b9b9b9;">Screenshot from crazyegg.com</span><br> | |
| <br> | |
| The scrollmap uses rainbow-like stripes to show the number of times each part of the web page was visible through a browser window.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Again, brighter areas receive a greater number of impressions, with yellow and red being the 'hottest' areas on a page.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <img src="?cmd=ShowAsset&assetID=37639&nosurround=true&fakeExtension=.jpg" alt="Crazy Egg scroll map"><br> | |
| <span class="agilestyle" style="color: #b9b9b9;">Screenshot from crazyegg.com<br></span><br> | |
| Crazy Egg can also produce a rather pretty confetti report, which pinpoints exactly where a person clicks.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Confetti uses colour-coded dots to reveal more useful information about site visitors, such referrers, search terms, search engine and browser.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <img src="?cmd=ShowAsset&assetID=37638&nosurround=true&fakeExtension=.jpg" alt="Crazy Egg confetti report"><br> | |
| <span class="agilestyle" style="color: #b9b9b9;">Screenshot from crazyegg.com</span><br> | |
| <br> | |
| There is also an overlay report, which shows the specific number of clicks that each link receives using plus sign markers, which you can open to reveal the exact number of clicks.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Finally, the list function reveals all the elements on a particular page in order of the amount of clicks they got.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Crazy Egg allows you to track multiple domains with one account, and also supports secure sites, Flash clips and iframe objects such as ad-sense.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| The dashboard itself is intuitive enough to use, but for anyone who needs a bit of extra help Crazy Egg also has a training section, where you can learn more about setting up a page or how the dashboard works.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| New users can try out Crazy Egg with a 30-day free trial, after which plans start from $108 [£64.66] for a basic plan, which allows you to track up to 10 pages and 10,000 visits a month.</content><link title="Tool for journalists: Crazy Egg, for heat mapping web pages" rel="alternate" href="http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/tool-for-journalists-crazy-egg-for-heat-mapping-web-pages/s2/a555890/" type="text/html"/></entry><entry xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:geo="http://www.georss.org/georss" xmlns:as="http://activitystrea.ms/spec/1.0/" xmlns:sf="http://superfeedr.com/xmpp-pubsub-ext"><id>http://www.journalism.co.uk/?cmd=ArticleJump&id=555881</id><published>2014-02-17T13:38:18.000Z</published><updated>2014-02-17T13:38:18.000Z</updated><title>Mobile-first journalism: Tips for engagement</title><summary type="text">Mobile editors and experts from outlets including The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, CNN and Hearst magazines share their tips for mobile-first strategies and engagement</summary><content type="html">Many news outlets are seeing vast leaps in web traffic from mobile audiences as ownership of smartphones and tablets increases.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Accordingly, many organisations are focusing more attention on mobile-first strategies that ensure a good user experience, no matter whether a person is accessing content from a desktop computer, tablet or smartphone.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, CNN and Hearst Magazines UK are just a few outlets that are doing interesting things in terms of mobile strategy and engagement at the moment.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Journalism.co.uk spoke to mobile editors and experts from these organisations, and also from Knight Lab at Northwestern University, and asked them to share their tips for mobile-first journalism.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <strong>Know your users</strong><br> | |
| <br> | |
| Damon Kiesow, mobile editor at The Boston Globe – one of the first major news websites to undergo a responsive re-design in 2011 – said that a key facet of mobile journalism was to "really understand your users".<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "[Understanding] is the key to success everywhere but it's certainly more important as you move into mobile," Kiesow told journalism.co.uk, "which consumers feel is such a personal device – they carry it with them all the time, they're always using it, they're checking it, potentially, a hundred times a day.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "You certainly have a higher standard for reach when you're creating products and experiences for mobile than you do, for instance, on the web."<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Hearst Magazines UK has seen mobile traffic to its websites grow 70 per cent in the last six months to 40 per cent of overall traffic.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Over the last two years, digital product director Lee Wilkinson said Hearst had put time into learning how people were accessing the brands various platforms, which include apps, digital editions and mobile websites<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "With some brands we get a lot of heavy use from smartphones," he said, "and others you get it from tablet and digital editions, and what we do is we start curating and refining the experience so it really works for that consumer.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "With some of the younger demographics, ultimately everyone has a smartphone but not everybody has a tablet. You have to be conscious of that when you're designing a product."<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <strong>Take note of mobile analytics</strong><br> | |
| <br> | |
| Another way to understand your mobile audience is to use mobile analytics to learn when and where they are most likely to access the site or edition, tailoring content and publishing times accordingly.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Miranda Mulligan, executive director at Knight Lab at Northwestern University, noted that it is important to take note of where and when mobile traffic fluctuates.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "If we think specifically about how people are connecting to our websites on average – and if our mobile average is around 25 per cent – it's easy to be dismissive of that audience," she said.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "But during peak traffic times there is 50, 60 or 70 per cent of our traffic coming to us on mobile, so it's a lot easier to make a business argument to improve the reading experience and storytelling experience on mobile."<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Etan Horowitz, mobile editor at CNN, says that while the hours between noon and 1pm on weekdays are traditionally peak traffic times for desktop audiences, when people at work are likely to be taking a lunch break, mobile traffic is generally much higher during evenings – between 8pm and 11pm – and weekends.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| He noted where news breaks later in the day, it's likely to be "a bigger deal" on mobile.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "For example when the US government shut down [in October 2013] it happened around midnight, when there are very few people that are on a computer but there are a lot of people that are on a phone or a tablet. So for that story it did better on mobile than it did on desktop."<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <strong>Social is important</strong><br> | |
| <br> | |
| <blockquote class="agile_article_pullquote_1"><div><q>It's very clear that when a story does well for us on social media it also does well for us on our mobile platforms</q><cite>Etan Horowitz, CNN</cite></div></blockquote>"It's really striking to see the connection between social media and mobile," said Horowitz.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| More than <a href="https://about.twitter.com/company">75 per cent</a> of active Twitters users access the platform via mobile, whereas <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/30/nearly-half-48-of-daily-users-of-facebook-are-now-mobile-only-says-ceo-zuckerberg">48 per cent</a> of daily users on Facebook come from mobile, so it is no surprise that social platforms have impact on the number of people clicking through to mobile news sites.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "If we [CNN] post a good viral video clip on our Facebook page around midnight [EST] we've had one or two cases where that video has become the most popular video on the mobile website for the entire next day," explains Horowitz.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "It's very clear that when a story does well for us on social media it also does well for us on our mobile platforms and vice versa."<br> | |
| <strong><br> | |
| Adapt your content for mobile audiences</strong><br> | |
| <br> | |
| <blockquote class="agile_article_pullquote_2"><div><q>You know how they say 'show, don't tell'? I think the next thing is 'feel, don't show'</q><cite>David Ho, The Wall Street Journal</cite></div></blockquote>"For a long time a lot of what we were doing - and by 'we' I mean news organisations in general – was sort of regurgitating content off the web and shoving it onto mobile," said David Ho, editor of mobile, tablets and emerging technology, The Wall Street Journal.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "When I preach mobile to journalists I tell them we no longer live in a one-platform world so the news, the content they create, goes everywhere – to news, to phones, to laptops and desktops, to giant smart TV sets, to apps, to aggregators.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "For example, I would advise folks never publish anything with the words 'click here' or 'mouse over this' or 'see video below', because there's a good shout that your audience isn't using a mouse, and that the video may not be below the article anymore."<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Ho added that while many news outlets were still "really focussed on responsive", the emphasis should be on creating "mobile-first storyforms" which are designed to take advantage of the capabilities and the ubiquity of the smartphone.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "It's not enough just to take a map that we run in print and make it a Google Map for the web and then shrink it down for a smaller screen.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "You know how they say 'show, don't tell'? I think the next thing is 'feel, don't show'," he said of the possibilities that mobile movement sensors may hold for storytelling. "And we're just getting started in exploring how that will work."<br> | |
| <br> | |
| This shift towards adaptive content is something Damon Kiesow referred to as "responsive web 2.0".<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "Once you have that foundational level of being able to serve the web to all these different devices, the next step is adaptive content and thinking about how to make what you're serving not only fit people's device, but give them the best experience possible on that device," he explained.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <strong>Make headlines 'work for all platforms'<br> | |
| <br></strong>CNN does occasionally write different headlines for mobile and web, although Horowitz said "a really good headline will work for all platforms".<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "Often for some of our stories you may see videos and stories as just a text link," he explained, "so we have to make sure that is still inviting [for the user]."<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Horowitz pointed out a video CNN hosted earlier this month with the headline: '<a target="_blank" href="http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/sports/2014/02/06/curling-olympics-easiest-sport-orig-nws.cnn.html">Is this the easiest Olympic sport?</a>'<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "That's a good example of something that, wherever it shows up&nbsp; – whether it shows up with a picture or it doesn't – that's something that's people are going to want to click and check out," he explained.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| However, Horowitz added that it also works well on mobile to have "very deliberate headlines" that make it clear what users are going to get when they click through to a story.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| For example, on a story like last November's Typhoon Haiyan, instead of the headline 'Typhoon comes ashore' he might use 'Watch typhoon come ashore' or 'See typhoon come ashore', he said.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "That really makes a big difference," he continued, "because people want to know, specifically when they look at a mobile platform, 'what is this going to be when I tap on it?'"<strong><br> | |
| <br> | |
| Use graphics</strong><br> | |
| <br> | |
| One thing the Wall Street Journal is putting a lot of time and effort into, said Ho, is producing graphics and other kinds of news experiences that are really focused on mobile and mobile devices.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "Making graphics - both static and interactives - that work well across all screen sizes is one of the bigger challenges of mobile news," he explained. "Exploring responsive graphics that look good and still make sense on phones and tablet and desktop."<br> | |
| <br> | |
| One example is photo spheres: 360-degree panoramic photos that can be controlled by motion and zoom on mobile.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "We're definitely thinking about ways to tailor experiences specifically for mobile devices," added Ho.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <strong>Work together</strong><br> | |
| <br> | |
| Miranda Mulligan said that in order to have a a successful mobile strategy, the culture of media companies needs to change so that journalists, designers and developers are working much more closely together.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "Traditionally there's a disconnect between the technologists and the people that are writing and creating the stories, she explained.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <blockquote class="agile_article_pullquote_1"><div><q>If I were to make a call to arms, it would be that we need to find a better way of working together</q><cite>Miranda Mulligan, Knight Lab</cite></div></blockquote>"If I were to make a call to arms, it would be that we need to find a better way of working together. I don't necessarily believe that a storyteller needs to be building every single bit of the technology as well as crafting the story, but we need to be working better as teams.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "So the reporter who's been following a beat around a story knows more about the technology possibilities, and can indicate early enough that the technologist will be able to build an experience around the storytelling opportunity."<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <strong>Mobile is 'just the beginning'</strong><br> | |
| <br> | |
| One final things for news outlets to note, said David Ho, is that mobile "isn't the end game of all this, it's only the beginning really".<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "Mobile is part of this larger change where technology or digital information is becoming much more intimate, much more an extension of ourselves," he explained.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "As we focus on mobile now, we also need to keep an eye on what's next – smart watches, smart glasses, other wearable computers. Beyond that we have the internet of things and thinking about how news and information interacts with that. It's a pretty exciting time."<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <em><a href="/podcast/-more-than-just-your-phone-strategies-in-mobile-first-journalism/s399/a555872/">Listen to a podcast of mobile-first thinking for news outlets</a></em></content><link title="Mobile-first journalism: Tips for engagement" rel="alternate" href="http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/mobile-first-journalism-tips-for-engagement/s2/a555881/" type="text/html"/><source><id>news-from-journalism-co-uk-2014-2-17-14</id><title>News from Journalism.co.uk</title><updated>2014-02-17T14:17:29.000Z</updated><link title="News from Journalism.co.uk" rel="alternate" href="http://www.journalism.co.uk" type="text/html"/></source></entry><entry xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:geo="http://www.georss.org/georss" xmlns:as="http://activitystrea.ms/spec/1.0/" xmlns:sf="http://superfeedr.com/xmpp-pubsub-ext"><id>http://www.journalism.co.uk/?cmd=ArticleJump&id=555869</id><published>2014-02-17T12:35:19.000Z</published><updated>2014-02-17T12:35:19.000Z</updated><title>Part 1: 'Is traditional journalism broken in Scotland?'</title><summary type="text">Colin Meek, freelance journalist, media trainer and research consultant</summary><content type="html"><img src="?cmd=ShowAsset&assetID=37595&nosurround=true&fakeExtension=.jpg" alt="Scotland on map"><br> | |
| <span class="agilestyle" style="color: #a2a2a2;">By <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrpattersonsir/">mrpattersonsir on Flickr</a>. <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">Some rights reserved</a>.</span><br> | |
| <br> | |
| The Better Together campaign has effectively won the Scottish independence referendum: aside from the 'wounded still to be bayoneted'. That was the claim made by Glasgow Labour MP Ian Davidson late last year. Nobody denies that politics can get bare-knuckle at times, but even by the standards of the bitter struggle over independence, that jaw-dropping statement has resonated in the campaign ever since.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Mr Davidson certainly intended to provoke the Yes campaign, but for many close to the issues north of the border, it wasn’t the arrogance of the prediction that was most astonishing. Instead, it was the fact that the use of such a violent analogy could be made, by the chair of the Westminster Scottish Affairs Select Committee, with so little attention from the mainstream press.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| What would happen, they ask, if Angus Robertson or Nicola Sturgeon of the SNP drop a similar clanger? Rightly so, the fury would be deafening. But the comment was made by a Scottish Labour stalwart who is the embodiment of New Labour unionism, and it fell under the news radar.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| For many, this example encapsulates the double standards deployed by the traditional media in Scotland where not one daily newspaper has broken ranks to give editorial support to the Yes campaign (the only mainstream paper to give some indication that it may support the Yes camp in the future is the Sunday Herald).<br> | |
| <br> | |
| When the Bank of England Governor Mark Carney made his speech last month on the Scottish Government’s proposals for a currency union, the mainstream papers fell over themselves to find the negative spin. Headlines were packed with ‘warnings’ and ‘risks’. Even the BBC said a stinkbomb had been lobbed into Edinburgh. The Herald screamed: ‘Carney: sharing sterling between iScotland and rUK could lead to Eurozone-style crises’. You’d think only the Sun or the Mail would resort to haggis and bagpipe metaphors in their coverage, but on the same day both the Guardian’s Steve Bell and the Independent’s Dave Brown sketched a disappointed Alex Salmond - in a kilt.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| In fact, Alex Salmond wasn’t disappointed. George Osborne has since made his political opposition to currency union clear, but there’s no doubt that Mark Carney said such a union was technically feasible. He did describe the hazards and fiscal constraints that would exist for a future independent Scotland, but his message was that a currency union was workable. That put him squarely at odds with Chancellor George Osborne – not the Scottish Government.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| So far, the campaign is littered with examples like this. The BP boss who thinks independence will lead to ‘uncertainties’ is front-page news. But when Supermodel Eunice Olumide declares her support for Yes or when the boss of global investment company Aberdeen Asset Management says he’s relaxed about independence - news editors look elsewhere.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| While the papers are slammed for emphasis and spin - they have no obligation to be impartial. Not surprisingly therefore, it is the BBC that is drawing most of the ire of those who believe journalism is failing the independence debate. Bizarre editorial decisions&nbsp;&nbsp;<br> | |
| <br> | |
| In January, a <a href="http://issuu.com/creative_futur/docs/robertson2014fairnessinthefirstyear">year-long study by the University of the West of Scotland</a> found that both the BBC and the STV in Scotland were favouring the ‘No’ campaign in their evening TV news output. The study, which looked at 730 hours of TV news coverage, found that 272 news items broadcast by the BBC favoured ‘No’ compared to just 171 favourable to ‘Yes’. Other forms of significant bias were also described in the study.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| The fall-out has been extraordinary. The BBC wrote to the lead researcher of the study, Dr John Robertson, and copied its comments to the University Principal. <a href="http://www.newsnetscotland.com/index.php/scottish-opinion/8679-uws-academic-responds-to-bbc-scotland-criticism-of-indy-news-study">Dr Robertson replied</a> and said the BBC’s behaviour was "close to bullying of the kind we might expect in a less democratic country". Derek Bateman (until recently one of BBC’s front-line political journalists) then <a href="http://www.newsnetscotland.com/index.php/scottish-opinion/8624-breaking-newsbbc-threatens-academic">waded into the stramash</a> and accused the BBC of first trying to hide the research and then of mounting a campaign of intimidation against the author.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Last year, in the face of furious complaints, the BBC tried to defend the selection of a Question Time panel hosted in Edinburgh that included Nigel Farage of UKIP and George Galloway of Respect – when neither party has any elected representatives in Scotland. But, not only is the tone and balance of the coverage being attacked, the factual reporting is also under fire. Last month the BBC was <a href="http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/appeals/esc_bulletins/2013/nov.pdf">censured by the BBC Trust</a> for wrongly suggesting that Ireland’s European Affairs Minister believed that an independent Scotland would be forced outside the EU, although the Trust found there was no intention to mislead. The Minister herself said her words had been "misconstrued".<br> | |
| <br> | |
| The respected Herald columnist <a href="http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/columnists/can-beeb-be-unbiased-over-indy.23379151">Ian Bell questions</a> whether it is actually possible for the BBC to be impartial: "Editorial guidelines and declarations of impartiality are poor defences for a state broadcaster faced with mass dissent from the state. The corporation is explicitly British in title and attitude. In its more romantic moments, it likes to regard itself, indeed, as a cornerstone of Britishness, the embodiment of national unity."<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Woven into the growing concern about BBC bias and London influence is the debate about financial control. Scotland has secured some devolved political power, but the BBC will not cede autonomy to BBC Scotland. All the licence fee revenue raised in Scotland is sent south and a fraction sent back north to pay for local output – an arrangement that is increasingly difficult to defend. As a growing number of public figures slam the BBC for its bias (author and artist Alasdair Gray was the latest) a vocal Campaign for Balanced Broadcasting in Scotland is turning up the heat. BBC Scotland’s credibility is in a tailspin.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Scotland has transformed itself since devolution, but in many ways Scotland’s traditional media has stagnated. Remarkably, not one of the truly national daily papers sold in Scotland is owned north of the border. Even those based in Scotland are owned in England or the US – including the Scotsman and the Herald. When viewed in that context, there is little surprise that none of them support the Yes campaign. Nobody can argue that is good for democracy.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Some would argue that much of the Scottish daily coverage of the independence debate has been comically biased. But the dull, predictable and uninformed nature of the content is just as serious. Earlier this month, the <a href="http://www.ft.com/indepth/if-scotland-goes">Financial Times published a series</a> on the Scottish referendum issue called If Scotland Goes. Even though it was aimed primarily at an English business audience, its balance and decisive eye for the key fault-lines in the status quo are striking.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Two articles in the series stand out. The <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ba1b785e-8e49-11e3-98c6-00144feab7de.html?siteedition=uk">first is the allegation</a> that the Ministry of Defence is putting pressure on defence companies to speak out about potential job losses and disruption if Scotland votes Yes. It is not surprising that there is anxiety about the referendum within the defence industry – clearly expressed in the article. But the FT also quotes one executive describing the "deft use of the dark arts" by the Ministry to put pressure on businesses to go public and the Scottish Government is given space to give a reaction.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| The other is an <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/5b5ec2ca-8a67-11e3-ba54-00144feab7de.html#slide0">analysis of the economic case for independence</a>. The piece demolishes (again) the persistent myth that Scotland is somehow subsidised by the UK Treasury. It finds that Scotland would be in the top 20 countries globally in terms of GDP per head, would be one of the world’s top 35 exporters and an independent Scotland could expect to start with healthier state finances that the rest of the UK. But the piece isn’t about painting the grass greener. The analysis also finds that the ageing population and long-term oil output decline would challenge the fiscal health of the country. The analysis is balanced, informative, beautifully presented with infographics and context.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| In short – the FT series does well what the traditional press in Scotland does so badly. The FT is not afraid of printing objective facts and news analysis that may support the case for independence. Those stories are simply part of its own objective approach where there’s still some journalistic effort made to separate news from comment.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| There are, of course, exceptions to the blandness of the coverage in Scotland. Most of the papers still find room for exceptional expert opinion and analysis in the comment pages. The Sundays too, make room for the long-form and innovative. But Poll after poll shows that the Scottish electorate want more objective information and debate, but the Scottish press as a whole, including the BBC, seems incapable of producing the balanced, strong, news-led analysis that the FT finds effortless.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <em>Part two, to follow soon, will look at Scotland's online media.<br></em></content><link title="Part 1: 'Is traditional journalism broken in Scotland?'" rel="alternate" href="http://www.journalism.co.uk/news-commentary/is-traditional-journalism-broken-in-scotland-/s6/a555869/" type="text/html"/></entry><entry xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:geo="http://www.georss.org/georss" xmlns:as="http://activitystrea.ms/spec/1.0/" xmlns:sf="http://superfeedr.com/xmpp-pubsub-ext"><id>http://www.journalism.co.uk/?cmd=ArticleJump&id=555871</id><published>2014-02-14T13:20:36.000Z</published><updated>2014-02-14T13:20:36.000Z</updated><title>How Keepr helps journalists search the social web for meaning</title><summary type="text">The Knight Foundation-funded prototype searches social media for breaking news stories and delivers timely, relevant and popular sources</summary><content type="html">"Nothing is really news until the news industry says so," says Hong Qu, the programmer and designer behind <a target="_blank" href="http://www.keepr.com">Keepr</a>. "Someone has to say this is newsworthy and publishable. The New York Times says 'anything that is worth the print'. But <span>Keepr</span> says, lets go back a step, how did something become newsworthy?"<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Qu recently received <a target="_blank" href="http://www.knightfoundation.org/grants/201347767/">a Knight Foundation Prototype grant to develop this idea</a> and the software to explore it – his answer is social media monitoring tool Keepr.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "Events happen all over the world and there's a lot of noise and chatter of people talking about things," he told Journalism.co.uk. "The news industry cannot cover everything, like the long tail of local events and smaller things, even if you have the internet. You can't make everything the story."<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Keepr lets the user search Twitter for keywords on a specific beat or story to find sources, returning media articles, popular and timely tweets and most active accounts on the topic.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "At the moment it's solely mining Twitter data as I feel like that's the biggest win, the biggest benefit for the lowest amount of analysis," explained Qu, although in time he hopes to expand the number of social networks that the platform will integrate with.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "Say I was a crime journalist covering shootings in the US," Qu said. "I can search for shootings and if there's something that's happening you'll find it right away. These are your expert sources. There's eyewitness sources, official sources, expert sources and media sources."<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <img src="?cmd=ShowAsset&x=430&assetID=37548&nosurround=true&fakeExtension=.jpg" alt="mount kelud keepr"><br> | |
| <span class="agilestyle" style="color: #b9b9b9;">Screenshot from <a target="_blank" href="http://www.keepr.com">Keepr.com</a></span><br> | |
| <br> | |
| Searching for the recent eruption of Mount Kelud in Indonesia (above), Keepr displays published pieces "like the Google News feature" on the left; a central column of the developing story with tweets based on interaction and frequency of key words; and the most active twitter accounts on the story displayed on the right.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| The same can be seen for yesterday's Brighton bomb scare, below.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <img src="?cmd=ShowAsset&x=430&assetID=37550&nosurround=true&fakeExtension=.jpg" alt="brighton bomb keepr"><br> | |
| <span class="agilestyle" style="color: #b9b9b9;">Screenshot from <a target="_blank" href="http://www.keepr.com">Keepr.com</a></span><br> | |
| <br> | |
| "My hope is that by making it easier for journalists to use they will turn to it as one of their tools, in addition to Tweetdeck and other social media monitoring software," he said. "Keepr is another resource for them to follow a fast moving news story and maybe as a starting point."<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Finding the 'signal in the noise' of social media is a recurring theme for&nbsp; finding sources. Qu identifies the process as "<a target="_blank" href="https://hackpad.com/About-Keepr-9Ns5vU6e8V7#:h=Brainstorm">noise =&gt; chatter =&gt; rumours =&gt; sources =&gt; developing stories =&gt; news</a>" and hopes that Keepr will be able to streamline the process by highlighting the most relevant and popular tweets around a story.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| The homepage is populated by selected breaking news accounts with trending topics displayed below the search bar, but the search functionality is the focus, said Qu, in helping journalists to quickly assess a story, understand what they need to know and who may be relevant to contact.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "By utilising the high frequency and topics that everyone is talking about, you don't really have to know what to look for," said Qu, "but you will gain situational awareness pretty quickly using Keepr for a story that you just jumped into and you may want to get updates on."<br> | |
| <br> | |
| <img src="?cmd=ShowAsset&x=430&assetID=37549&nosurround=true&fakeExtension=.jpg" alt="UK flood keepr"><br> | |
| <span class="agilestyle" style="color: #b9b9b9;">Screenshot from <a target="_blank" href="http://www.keepr.com">Keepr.com</a></span><br> | |
| <br> | |
| "It's really a news notification service," he said, pointing out the automated email alert service at the bottom of the page. "In the future we hope besides email we can enable the functionality of sending a text message or to your Facebook feed or any way you feel compelled to consume that update."<br> | |
| <br> | |
| Qu recognises that Keepr is still in a very early stage, hence the prototype grant, and welcomes journalists to test the platform and offer feedback. With a career history involving prominent roles at YouTube, Google and Upworthy interspersed with stints at Berkeley, CUNY and Harvard, he hopes that Keepr will be able to join the journalist's toolbox in an increasingly open digital landscape.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "I think news has already gone open source," he said. "Not the act of writing software for news but that it's like Wikipedia. If someone sees something mistaken then someone can overwrite it or contest it. This liberal atmosphere of open dialogue, open opinions and open conversations.<br> | |
| <br> | |
| "In itself, Keepr is agnostic to getting it right. Keepr is a tool that lets the voices be heard."</content><link title="How Keepr helps journalists search the social web for meaning" rel="alternate" href="http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/how-keepr-helps-journalists-search-the-social-web-for-meaning/s2/a555871/" type="text/html"/><source><id>news-from-journalism-co-uk-2014-2-14-13</id><title>News from Journalism.co.uk</title><updated>2014-02-14T13:42:26.000Z</updated><link title="News from Journalism.co.uk" rel="alternate" href="http://www.journalism.co.uk" type="text/html"/></source></entry></feed> |
Sign up for free
to join this conversation on GitHub.
Already have an account?
Sign in to comment