richardk: online far too much

This blog is dead, long live my new one!

2009-11-21T16:34:00.000Z

I am ending this blogger blog, but I have risen again at Wordpress.com - richardkendall.wordpress.com, hope see you there. And thanks for dropping by.

Print and online newspaper advertising

2009-11-21T16:19:00.000Z

One problem with the benefits of metrics and statistics on the Internet is that advertisers can now see in stark detail how successful their ads and campaigns have been.

Yet the numbers are frequently low, thus bringing an impression of wasted money, little return on investment.

Yet how successful are print ads, all you know is how many people bought a paper, unless you have a specific offer tied into the ad, there is little way of getting any specfic stats.

Breaking News online: how and why

2009-09-10T00:55:00.001+01:00

An online 'Breaking News' article for a newspaper website: What's happening/happened, where and when.

It doesn't need a full explanation of how and why the event happened.

Breaking it online as it happens will open up the event to feedback and comment or reaction, helping to grow the story or at least gaining a sense of public opinion.

MPs standing down, but not just yet

2009-05-28T23:32:00.000+01:00

Watching Question Time.

So why can MPs who've abused their expenses funded by taxpayers and been found out, then agree to resign after pressure from taxpaying constituents and the media but decide to stay on for another year, and earn more wages?

In what other job would an employee have such control over their destiny?

Journalists vs PR: surely no contest?

2009-05-20T11:39:00.003+01:00

Commenting on Roy Greenslade's MediaGuardian article: Truth-telling hacks defeat the flacks

The Media Society and the Chartered Institute for Public Relations (CIPR) jointly hosted a seminar/debate, "Hacks and flacks: can there ever be a marriage?"

It's when there's so much PR copy being published as news by overworked or understaffed news organisations that the line becomes blurred between journalism and churnalism.

I mean no offence, as PR staff have a valid job to do, but its the use of their content in an ever-challenging news content environment that's creating a problem.

There's surely no competition between a theoretically unbiased, trained journalist against a PR employee directly leaning towards their employee's viewpoint.

Same goes for council 'newspapers'. The lines become blurred for the public until they can't recognise the difference.

Google and newspapers: a how to

2009-04-12T00:30:00.000+01:00

Google links to everything, including news stories on newspaper websites, everybody benefits.

Yes it makes a few pence each time newspaper stories are shown in Google News search results, but then a user will most like click through to read the full story - that they might not necessarily have otherwise found - on a newspaper site. That's when the party starts:

Tell them where they are: clearly brand site, location of newspaper, any clear aims and objectives of website.

Showcase your site alongside all articles: content related to the article; the best/highlighted articles/content/relevant advertising features/commercial partners.

Give clear opportunity to comment/engage/interact and feedback directly to the journalist/editor.

If a newspaper does all this, they need not complain about Google News' use of their headlines, but start increasing traffic and revenue potential...

BBC News Radar - a river of news

2009-04-04T19:12:00.000+01:00

I like the 'river of news' idea of the News Radar (see current beta version), where news junkies can get their fix in real-time of the latest news. check boxes to select certain areas to follow might be a good idea, but then if you want a specific subject, you would go to that section anyway.

The original publication time and last update time are good features - this information should appear in this way on the actual story page itself.

On the design/layout: page width is far too wide (which I assume would have a sidebar in a finished release) which is partly why the feint grey section text appears visually adrift of the headline/abstract.

Almost there - work project: Posh Pages

2009-03-16T23:58:00.000Z

So after getting a little pertinent and constructive feedback from one user, and having a good secondary look at the first beta layout, I've tweaked PeterboroughToday.co.uk's Posh landing page layout.

Tightened up the Posh content header vertically and shrunk heading graphic as it's already under a template header and navigation structure.
Simplified the navigation options, took out extraneous copy on the header to encourage users to dive straight into page content.
Re-organised the content layout on the landing page to give a quick snapshot of latest Posh events whilst keeping as much 'above the fold' as possible, but without overloading the eye - a tough balancing act with only 815pixels in width.
Shortened visible league table so as to draw user into full table which has sortable columns via jquery, plus an extra page view!
Added club information box, an obvious initial oversight.
Highlighted RSS feed/email alerts using Feedburner.
Hoping to bring in CoverItLive element in the future.

Twitpic bug shows the downside of trusting social software

2009-03-12T00:27:00.000Z

After reading about BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones's worrying incident after a Twitpic bug swapped an innocuous image for a rather less family-friendly one, it acutely shows the problem with all the myriad of social software, free tools and applications that become an integral part of our lives, and are even used regularly for work purposes.

You have to trust that the people behind it can keep the tool going and the service reliable in order to honour the faith and trust put in by signing up.

Twitter has become a valuable tool for news producers: at my paper we have a Twitter feed that also powers our facebook status, and if that became buggy like in Rory's experience or stopped working it would impact on our audiences perception of us as a publisher as well as the tool in question.

Blogging the news

2009-02-27T18:50:00.002Z

Some thoughts on a strategy for how best to deliver breaking news alongside newspaper content and keep some clarity for users and the newsroom alike:

A separate breaking news editorial channel, purely for blog-style raw as-it-happens coverage, before a fully rounded story is published in the main news channel.

Use Twitter for interview's (dare I say Twinterviews?) before publishing full story as news/feature - as used by George Hopkin.

Also noticed a follow-up blog post by Adam Tinworth on blogging, journalism, standards and the NUJ which has developed via the comment stream into a debate on the nature of blogging in relation to journalism, and whether journalistic standards should be applied to bloggers.

The initial questions are: define blogging; what are the stated aims and audience of a particular blog; where does Twitter fall in this, micro-blogging as it is, there should still be best language/grammar rules followed if it's published by an established news provider.

Death of a newspaper, Rocky Mountain News

2009-02-27T11:18:00.006Z

Just watching the video 'Final edition' made by Denver, Colorado's daily newspaper Rocky Mountain News on their own demise today, 27 February 2009.

This was not a smalltown operation or a throwaway freesheet, but a major metropolitan newspaper with a pretty impressive website.

You can see in the 21-minute video, a busy, modern newsroom filled with newspeople, focussed on their jobs but coming to terms with the impending doom as the 149-year-old newspaper was closed by its owner Scripps.

I've been in the industry less than 6 years, but this a chilling almost unbelievable vision, their website homepage full of the farewells, a collection of their best features, but most crushingly, hard news reporting on their own job losses: 'Goodbye Colorado'.

As Rich Boehne, the president and CEO of Scripps said, the city of Denver could no longer support 2 morning dailies, the only bright note for Denver is at least they still have one title The Denver Post, only one unopposed voice, but still a voice.

The video itself was well put together, slick, stylish, along with the photos of the papers final hours, all deepening the thought that dozens of talented journalists and staff will have nothing to do come Monday morning.

Reporters talked of stories ready for the Saturday edition that would never be published. Best of luck to all the Rocky staff for the future.

Only days before the owners of the San Francisco Chronicle announced that they needed drastic cuts within weeks or they would be forced to sell or close the paper (in a city where there is no other daily!) which was first published in 1865.

In the end, this is a(nother) telling moment in the evolution of news media, but most ominously a warning for all newspaper owners worldwide where the recession has hit: the business model is crumbling and companies that can't weather the storm will have to cull more titles.

The message to take away I guess is that we all need to get on with it, keep trying to produce the best paper/website we can, try to pull in a more subscribers and visitors and any ideas to save/make money, well they are going to come in handy.

A policy for online news stories

2009-02-03T23:51:00.004Z

Following Felix Salmon's article 'When Newspapers Rewrite Their Online Articles' I considered our policy at PeterboroughToday.co.uk: Incorrect facts must and should be changed in articles already published online.

But we constantly develop breaking stories, but only subtly alter finished stories from paper by rewriting headlines/intros for web audience/SEO purposes - except for factual inaccuracies.

For larger features, or stories with multiple case studies, these are sometimes broken up, but always interlinked to maximise their potential reach to our audience.

I agree the essence of any article once posted shouldn't be changed, and we constantly consider the pros/cons of editing an existing story or adding a new one for an ongoing event or issue.

Newsmix opens the door to engagement

2008-12-10T16:35:00.004Z

Newsmixer is certainly worth taking a look at from a local news perspective.

Basically a news community site (based around Eastern Iowa, in the America) sets out to encourage and facilitate interaction and conversation on local news, integrating facebook into the mix, tapping into a strong online community without having to force potential members to sign up to another site.

It offers users the chance to comment directly, share short 'quip' comments (limited to 140 characters naturally) or to write a 'letter to the editor', showing all the freedom and open-ended opportunity the online world bring to news media.

Bringing the public and journalists closer - certainly not ground-breaking, but by making it the focus of the site rather than an optional element it does help to seed the sense of community?

And if it all works out, we'll all be doing it:

News Mixer is free and open source software, coded in Python with the Django Web development framework, and uses Facebook Connect for authentication. You can read more about our development process in our report, and find our source at Google Code.

Very impressive.

Online journalism timeline: the evolution of news

2008-11-30T23:44:00.003Z

Andy Dickinson's A timeline of online media landmarks embedded below, is based upon Mindy McAdams' Timeline of breaking and Paul Bradshaw’s “Are these the biggest moments in journalism-blogging history? showing how news reporting has changed since the evolution of online journalism from the 1990s to the present day.

The tools and skills of the multimedia journalist and citizen journalist have changed the landscape of journalism and the way the public receive and now interact with the news.

The technology has empowered those in the middle of an event to tell the story in words, pictures and video, live online before any mainstream media arrive, which has forced many of the mainstream media to bring this into the mix, perfectly illustrated by the Mumbai terror attack.

The BBC's online 'as it happened' updates contained many tweets from the ground. Although Mindy McAdams asks:

whether the mainstream media are superfluous in these situations - or can they perform a useful service to the public by sifting and filtering the incoming reports from the center of the events?

A trained journalist should be the gatekeeper for the final version of such stories but maybe social media coupled with the improvement of faster and more efficient mobile technology has allowed citizen journalism to find acceptance in the media?

How can newspapers ride out the 'perfect storm'

2008-11-09T14:54:00.003Z

Apologies for paste such a large chunk of Roy Greenslade's prelude to the Society of Editors conference this week, but it defines the current outlook for newspapers, and a strategy to save the very essence of what newspapers are and what journalism is, rather than just looking at bottom lines and treating companies as a business:

What editors should be thinking about instead is the development of new media journalism as a process. They should be thinking as journalists rather than as managers.
Unless journalists start thinking, debating and innovating in order to explore new methods, they will contribute not only to the collapse of their newspapers - and their own careers - but also to the failure of journalism itself.

What we need to do is find out how we can use the new media tools to take journalism on to a new stage. We need to convince publishers that they should give their journalists time, space and resources to explore new avenues, to build relationships with non-journalists, to stimulate a new form of journalism.

There will be mistakes and we will go down dead-ends (as we have done already), and it will be messy at the beginning. But the eventual benefits for journalists, for communities, for society will make that effort worthwhile.

James Robinson writing in The Observer highlights how the industry may never be the same once this tag-team storm of a worldwide recession and mass shift in media consumption have settled:

Newspapers have weathered recessions before, spending in the good times and cutting costs when revenue falls. 'It will sort out the men from the boys,' says one senior industry executive. But a structural shift, with advertising migrating online, represents a sterner challenge.

Few now doubt that the combination could kill off titles that have been publishing for generations.

The power of the media and delayed outrage

2008-10-29T20:17:00.000Z

So Russell Brand has fallen on his sword for his ill-judged prank call to Andrew Sachs.

I suppose following the delayed outrage of tens of thousands (there were 2 to the BBc in the first week after the broadcast), most of which I wager didn't and never listen to his show and may well not even have heard the broadcast until a week after the event.

The prank itself is not really an issue, that is Brand's style - Ross may well regret joining in - but Channel 4's Fonejacker may well be jealous at the amount of coverage Brand's single call is getting!

But the Beeb broadcast the show despite Sachs not giving the green-light to use the content, and they must face up to that.

But the whirlwind of media and political bandwagon-jumping and finger-wagging is rather sad and tired, talks of a drop in standards of comedy and broadcasting.

We must not stifle creativity - that's not to ignore the fact that some ideas fall flat and backfire - even within a seemingly restricted public service broadcaster.

Searching a website, the NYT way

2008-10-10T16:13:00.000+01:00

You can simply search within the New York Times' content by double-clicking on a word. No need to find and type in a box, open an article and just try it.

Tips

To find reference information about the words used in this article, double-click on any word, phrase or name. A new window will open with a dictionary definition or encyclopedia entry.
From the New York Times - www.nytimes.com

Newspapers: 'how news can no longer sustain itself'

2008-09-30T14:23:00.000+01:00

Here we sit at the dawn of a new media age, yet for most newspapers the future seems bleak, hazy, unclear, coupled with a growing economic crisis spanning the globe.

As Nigel Barlow points out in his post: The digital newsroom and how news can no longer sustain itself, if print publications die, there will be no content for websites to feed off unless there is money being made somewhere along the line to pay the bills.

Nigel quotes Frédéric Filloux from his post The economics of moving from print to online: lose one hundred, get back eight:

Let’s kill a myth. The dream of a compact newsroom, able to output a high-intensity general news website doesn’t fly. Numbers simply don’t add up.

In the UK, Roy Greenslade asks Which regional group will collapse first?:

Note especially [Jane] Martinson's conclusion about Britain's provincial newspaper industry: "After years of falling sales, costs at heavily consolidated regional newspapers are already cut to the bone. Only print production could be cut further and most newspaper groups are already doing that."

There is no tried and tested business model, few groups have the ownership structure of The Guardian's Scott Trust.

Few titles around the world are making any serious revenue online, but let's hope some come up with some successful strategies and hope arrives despite these bleak economic times.

County Championship team of the year

2008-09-25T15:52:00.002+01:00

Following on from BBC TMS's blog article on the County Championship team of the year, here's my selections:

Trescothick
Moore
Goodwin
Ramps
Samit Patel
Bresnan
Read (wkt, cpt)
Kabir Ali
Rashid
Simon Jones
Steve Harmison

Squad members: Rudolph, Bopara, Pattinson, G. Swann, Foster.

One overseas in 1st XI, bats down to number 11, with 4 seamers and 2 spinners.

The majority of them are in by sheer weight of runs/wickets, Read hopefully will be a championship winning captain (at his first attempt) by the end of the week.

Rashid is slowly blossoming as a spinner who bats, and Simon Jones was looking in fine form before another injury.

JP Digital Digest: 10 Ways To Use Mobile Reporting

2008-08-22T13:57:00.000+01:00

JP Digital Digest: 10 Ways To Use Mobile Reporting.

Some ideas for journalists on the road using crowdsourcing methods together with access to twitter, CoverItLive, YouTube, flickr

3rd Test, day one: England struggle against SA

2008-07-30T19:58:00.003+01:00

Responding to the TMS report on England's poor first innings total at Edgbaston, I'm guessing Vaughan won't be dropped before the end of the series, that would be a big change, also remembering South Africa are probably the strongest side in the world at the moment. but if England aren't winning, then he needs runs to keep his place.

But Colly is surely sunk if he doesn't fire in the second innings. I just hope, Freddy can get stuck into the tourists early on day two and we can dig in for the second innings, so show some proper fight and give ourselves a chance of bowling them out to win the game, maybe Monty will be the man on days four and five?

Ambrose needs to hold all his catches and keep getting some half decent runs and maybe he'll get another series, we've chopped and changed so much since Stewart's retirement, we need to give someone a proper run, remembering Chris Read's treatment as a prime example. But Foster and Prior are ready and waiting for the call I'm sure, and clearly at least one will tour.

Sidebottom is Hoggard's successor, a solid, hard-working seamer, Anderson's still has to get important wickets under his belt to convince me.

Sidebtttom's role is not dissimilar to one-Test wonder Mr Pattinson whose inclusion ahead of Tremlett in the selected squad (let alone anyone else) was illogical and very much a hunch-based gamble.

Broad will be around for years to come, he's still young and needs to work on his bowling like anyone his age, his winter tour berth must be assured, as is Simon Jones's if he stays fit (fingers crossed), I think it's only right he proves himself for a full season.

I like Bopara, in theory a like-for-like replacement for Colly, but is he really strong enough to bat at 5 at Test level? And isn't Rob Key just another good county-level bully?

We have Cook, Strauss, KP and Bell all seemingly set, maybe it's time to find a younger proper batting prospect at 5 and let the keeper (?), Flintoff and Broad stiffen the early tail as part of a five-man attack?

Linking out from news articles builds trust

2008-07-23T23:24:00.003+01:00

The web was built on links, the modern web is all about relevance and reputation, relevance to the user's interests, and relevance to the content on the page.

In journalistic terms it's a way of showing the workings of a journalist, backing up facts, showing sources, leading the reader on to their own points of interest.

All this enhances the originating website's reputation and the visitors trust of the publisher/brand. Leaving articles as dead ends can leave unanswered questions for readers, there's always plenty of other content online, so losing your audience's interest is like showing them the door.

As The SEO Company's study shows:

"a good number of online news websites are very good at crediting sources with the appropriate link... Offering useful links actually makes visitors more likely to return to see what other interesting websites they might find in the future, a model that sites such as Digg and Fark are built around."

In terms of search engine optimisation, it's great for the Google ranking of a page to link out to related, reliable and trusted sources.

Newspaper industry @ July 2008

2008-07-14T21:12:00.003+01:00

Financially times were hard for newspapers even before the economy began to fall over, but Mark Potts' has some wise words for newspapers to remember:

"The printed paper should be a snapshot of what's online [at print time.]"
"Local news is the last unique franchise that newspapers own."
"Let the readers get involved at every opportunity."
"Aggressively offer contextual advertising.”

Jason Kintzler adds on the subject of hyper-local, e-hub style community sites:

there's a huge opportunity for newspapers to harness and distribute more news than ever before. Community newspapers could potentially become the source for everything local, and perhaps beyond.

Mugabe wrestles with the colonial chip on his shoulder

2008-07-01T21:35:00.004+01:00

Just be thankful you don't have any oil Mr 'President', or America, and very possibly the UK may well have been in there years ago!

Thanks to Nigel Barlow for spotting this video. He also has an interesting post about a list of Tory MPs along with The Independent newspaper who are profiting from business in Zimbabwe - The pot calling the kettle black?.

What does BBC Local mean for regional press?

2008-06-30T15:40:00.006+01:00

There is already some good debate going on about the BBC's new attempt to widen its local video-based coverage across the UK.

Andrew Grant-Adamson writes:

It is worth going back to the source material and looking at BBC’s proposal. Done properly, the scheme could help make local independent news websites more viable. Most of the local content would be made available for embedding (with BBC branding) in both commercial and not-for-profit sites to supplement their own coverage. The BBC also says it would link to coverage by other local news providers.

Competition isn't all bad, regional press shouldn't necessarily have the monopoly on any location, and the BBC would have to work alongside the local press titles rather than it being a blatant race to the story.

But inevitably there will be duplication of coverage, and I can guess where most people will go first given the choice, because the BBC is, well the BBC. For all its faults - and even recent mistakes - it remains one of the most respected news providers across the world.

As the regional newspaper market struggles in the current economic climate to progress its digital output and improve its web offering, the BBC would remain a well-equipped, well-trained and confident provider of local content, backed up by its enormous raft of related and supporting content.

As Roy Greenslade concludes:

There appears to be no compromise. The BBC feels it is acting logically by fulfilling its public service remit. Regional owners are also acting logically by defending their turf. In truth, both reflect the fact that none of us know what the future holds.

Will the BBC's plan help local papers, as Grant-Adamson suggests? Or will it plunge another dagger into the body of dying newspaper companies? I rather think it will be the latter. But the big question, of course, is whether that is really such a calamitous outcome.

As Greenslade rightly points out, nobody knows how the press, let alone the regional press in particular will survive over the next few years. This potentially adds an additional burden as the economic downturn and advertising slump leave businesses, aka potential advertisers and the public, aka potential newspaper buyers look to spend every penny wisely.

There are pros and cons to the BBC's plans, but if they do get the go-ahead, there should be some constructive positive discussion with the regional press titles in order to make best use of the Beeb's content and strong link-backs to existing local press's online coverage.