Recently in Journalism Category

I read a blog post by The Telegraph's Shane Richmond a couple of days ago that has been bugging me ever since. Not because I disagree with it, because on the whole I think he's right. It's just that something seemed "off" about it. Shane suggest that mainstream media blogs might have a role to play in promoting middle-ranking bloggers:

The conclusion is this: perhaps MSM blogs, often seen as the cuckoo in the nest by those who are going it alone, have a role to play here. Perhaps our position gives us the opportunity, maybe even the responsibility, to help drive more "non-crazies" into the top tier of the blogosphere.

And this bothered me for a few days. Yes, I do think it's a key role of journalist bloggers to link to the best of the community around them, and to encourage the growth of individual bloggers. But there seems to be an underlying assumption in Shane's piece that MSM bloggers have an inherent power that they can use for bloggy good. And my experience is that they don't have that power. They have to earn it like everyone else in the blogging world. A well-known name of brand is good for getting a first look, but that's all. It's the quality of what you produce that gives you power, be you MSM or amateur. 

Web Video That Works

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The sad truth: the Muppets understand web video better than most journalists:


Short (under two minutes) and well worth waiting until the end for... Just perfect.
There's nothing quite like a good awards ceremony, and there's one happening live this evening.

Below should be a live stream of the Frontline Club Journalism Awards, starting at 7pm on Friday (about the time this is posted)

Video clips hosted by Ustream
Whispers of the Hackopalypse
A new week, a new project. Ladies and gentlemen, let me unveil Whispers of the Hackopalypse, my new tumblelog.

It's just a series of the best quotes from bloggers and others about the rapidly changing state of journalism and publishing. 

This serves two needs. First of all, it's something I can point my colleagues to as a resource to quickly understand the thinking going on around digital and networked journalism - as well as the threats to traditional model.

And also it's a great way for me to deal with all those open tabs in Safari with great blog posts, that I can't actually think of anything to add to but "whoa, cool post".

My Plurk followers got an early peek at this at the weekend, and a couple of people have already found it thought-provoking, so I'm feeling confident enough to push it public and see if anyone's interested...
Today, from 9am, and all day, 3 of our community editors, alongside my colleague Andrew, our head of user content, will be using CoverItLive to talk about their day, what they actually do, and interact with anyone interested.

You can follow the day's proceedings, starting in just a few minutes, on Engagement 101

The victims volunteers include Isabel from Farmers Weekly, Stuart from Flight Global and Simeon from Community Care

(If you're wondering what this "chogging" business is, it's a term coined by Andrew as a cross between chat and blogging. I was keen not to associate the term live blogging too directly with CoverItLive, as I just knew that I'd have to spend the next six months explaining that the app isn't the be all and end all of live blogging to our journalists.)
Our big traffic winner for last week? Biglorryblog reporting on the fuel protests:

BLB: Fuel protests
We really must get a nice design on that blog, now we're on Movable Type 4.
Online Journalism Blog logo
Calling all blogging journalists - Paul from the Online Journalism Blog is doing some research into how blogging has changed the way journalists work for a book he's writing.

You can take the short survey online, and help contribute to the greater sum of human knowledge.

It'll give you a warm glow inside.
We're doing lots of work on video at RBI in the moment, much of it shepherded by Andrew. One recurring theme we here is how we need to do really high quality stuff - and usually they mean technical quality rather than content quality.

Our highest trafficked blogger - Flight's Flightblogger - proves how much of a nonsense that attitude can be, by providing his readers with something done using the built-in webcam on his laptop:



Update: Charlie Beckett expresses exactly what I'm trying to say here about video formats:

Stop doing that thing where you try to create a sumptiously produced theatrical experience called studio-based news. Give me something more like Rocketboom. Give me content not packaging.
FriendFeed logo
I've been experimenting a little more with FriendFeed over the last few days. The fact I can follow my stream in Thwirl makes it much easier.

The idea of topic-focused rooms on the service intrigues me, so I've set up one for digital journalism. Feel free to join in, if you want to share and discuss material on the transition to online journalism. 
It's important in life to know where you fit in. And now, thanks to Alan's post on Broadstuff, summarising the London Twittersphere, I know exactly where I am:
LondonScene.jpg
And I bet a good chunk of the people reading this are in that little area of overlap, too.

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This page is a archive of recent entries in the Journalism category.

Blogging is the previous category.

Podcasting is the next category.

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