Do you have your own blog? If not, you should

We start this week by highlighting Adam Westbrook's series on the importance of blogging.

He talks about how blogging has taken off in the last six years and everyone, from journalists to students, policemen to prostitutes, have started keeping a blog. As he says, blogging has transformed from a revision-avoiding-hobby into a career changer.

He himself has gained work from it, talking at events and training other people, although he admits the blogging doesn't provide a direct income yet.

He also details the six types of people who really should have a blog. Are you in the list?

1) Field specialists - It’s a great place, writes Adam, to update new ideas and gives you a platform for research which might not make it to the mainstream. See Ben Goldacre as an excellent example of specialist blogging.

2) Freelance journalists - if your blog isn't on your own website with portfolio, it should at least be linked to it. If it's interesting enough, you may get commissions based on it and it's a good sounding board for story ideas.

3) Foreign or Hyperlocal correspondents - the simple use is to keep people updated with where you are or you can produce your own news service if you're really motivated. We recently mentioned the journalist Ed Lucas, whose own efforts are a masterclass in online journalism.

4) Journalists working for a big organisation - unsurprisingly, the BBC provides the gold standard for this category - the likes of Robert Peston and Nick Robinson have popular blogs, as well as the BBC's own online team. Adam writes how not only can a blog help you connect with your audience, it can build you a community of fans, and even turn into a source for stories and case studies.

5) Journalists with other interests - the long working hours can make you lose track of your personal life, so this might be the way forward. As Adam states, it keeps you writing and helps you practice audience engagement (vital skills for journalists) – as well as helping you pursue your personal interests.

6) Journalism students - this may be the most obvious of the bunch but Adam describes how using the time you have in your studies to develop an online presence may be the difference between getting a job or joining the unemployment crowd.

Holiday

Journalism Digital Digest is on holiday for a week! Normal service will resume on Monday 9th August.

Friday round-up: Learning from (others') experience

"Mood swings that would make a crystal meth addict blink in disbelief"

That was just one of the side-effects of setting up the Caledonian Mercury online, says Editor Stewart Kirkpatrick (pictured) on the blog allmediascotland.

18 hour days, seven days a week was what it took to launch what the CM team describe as "The Economist meets the Huffington Post drinking Irn Bru.”

But the hard work has seemingly paid off. He writes: "Since we launched in January, more than 700,000 people have visited the site, looking at more than 1.5million pages. We have more than 1600 fans on both Facebook and Twitter.

"We're cracking the advertising nut and while our committed team of writers have had to be patient at times, we have started to pay them a decent amount."

(Link via Jon Slattery)

More from the BBC

Content Management Systems can be the bane of an online journalist's life, as notes Adam Tinworth.

He has highlighted a blog by the BBC Online team, that he says makes for fascinating reading, on how they've developed their publishing system.

The new version, they write, underpins the new News site and has made substantial changes to systems and workflow, but it is still focused on the task of managing content which fits into a general journalistic pattern. It does not try to be all things to all people, and this in no doubt plays some part in its success.

A more in-depth blog post on all its bells and whistles is in the offing, but you can see a good overview of the more structured approach they've taken to making it all work - and work well.

And finally, the obvious...

Journalism graduates - like you didn't know finding a job was going to be difficult enough, Deb Wenger, on the Advancing the Story blog, has produced a quick checklist of what a modern graduate needs to have a hope in hell of getting their toe through the door.

It's no good just having a journalism degree - your qualification needs to cover all bases now. And whilst some of the tips only apply to US graduates, there are some other obvious ones - like work experience, basic web publication skills as well as an entrepreneurial attitude.

It may all sound like the ABC of modern journalism but it's still good to consider your own skills set and ask the question - do you measure up?

Reporting the courts in the 21st Century

Journalist and Freedom of Information campaigner Heather Brooke (pictured) has sparked a debate on modern court reporting by asking whether court cases should be allowed to be recorded by journalists.

It seems to have polarised opinion: some journalists argue that it is the natural progression, allowing for more accurate reporting, and could go further - tweeting and live blogging for example; others say that going as far as using twitter and the like could endanger the practice of fair and accurate reporting if it were swamped with opinionated blogging and snippets of information.

Here are a selection of comments so far:

Heather Brooke: "The simple answer is to allow tape recorders for all: no party is disadvantaged and an ‘official’ recording is there for checking. This is how it works in other countries. But this is to ignore the root objection of the courts: that they are losing control of how court proceedings are presented to the public.

"Many trials in the upper courts are now officially recorded (and in the case of the new UK Supreme Court, filmed) yet these records are not accessible to the public. All High Court hearings have been digitally recorded since February 2010 and sit in a basement in the Royal Courts of Justice. When I spoke to the court’s governance officer he told me there were no plans to make these accessible directly to the public. Why not?"

Siobhain Butterworth, The Guardian: "There is something rather quaint about journalists in the 21st century using pens and notebooks to record what goes on in court hearings when the tools of the trade now include laptops, mobiles, BlackBerrys and other digital paraphernalia. Why not use them in court? In fact, why not report live from the courtroom? The obvious answer is that judges won't let you.

"The difference between scribbling notes (publishing later) and filing copy instantly from the courtroom using an electronic device is self-evidently slight and there's a lot to be said for the sort of full, accurate, contemporaneous, reports of court hearings that live-blogs and twitter reporting could achieve."

Mike Dodd, Editor, Media Law: "You'd need to trial it, to see how it worked. I'd be very suspicious about tweeting - I'm not sure that court cases are the sort of thing where you'd want to put out short, pithy messages."

(Quoted in Siobhain Butterworth's article)

Steve Dyson, Media Consultant and former Editor, Birmingham Mail: "No, no and no again. Why not? Only by insisting on accurate, balanced, fair and contemporaneous reports can court coverage be reasoned, calm(ish) and not damaging to justice. Wild snippets as tweets, opinionated blogs and even edited broadcasts will make a mockery of something very precious.

"Live broadcasts, maybe, but courts cannot be subjected to the unhindered internet media. Yes, a pencil and dated notebook sounds archaic but, do you know what, it works; it engenders care; it encourages factual checks; as does the process from reporter to newsdesk to sub... For legal checks on court copy. Let's not get shoddy."

(Commenting on Jon Slattery's blog post on this topic)

What do you think? Should court cases be recorded? Should we go further and start tweeting and blogging in court?

Lessons we can learn from the BBC's election coverage

Covering a major news event like an election can be tricky – how do you keep audiences engaged with a story that stretches over several weeks?

In what Alfred Hermida describes as a “brief but fascinating insight” into his research, Einar Thorsen of Bournemouth University, UK, was made a presentation at the IAMCR 2010 in Braga of his examination of the relationship between BBC online journalism and citizenship during the 2005 and 2010 UK General Elections.

In a quick presentation, reports Hermida, Thorsen explained how civic engagement as a key of the BBC mandate reflected in its election coverage online, with them taking a less fragmented approach in 2010 than their 2005 output.

According to Thornsen, with research showing that audiences were oblivious to original features online, the BBC made it a key aim to distinguish between web and broadcast output.

Another issue was a strategic discussion of how the BBC covered politics online in an attempt to attract more people to politics.

Thorsen showed a BBC live updates page, incorporating reports from BBC journalists, user emails and tweets. But it was based on a manual process, with an individual cutting and pasting bits of HTML content into a static page.

Everything was verified and checked by a second pair of eyes, said Thorsen, usually a person looking over a journalist’s shoulder.

The BBC also outsourced the moderation of comments, allowing them to monitor the debate online to select and highlight some comments.

Thorsen’s research also revealed that some journalists still have doubts over the value of user-generated content (UGC).

He found in some BBC journalists that some described UGC and comments as an example of civic engagement online, while other described it as “utter s**t” and “a complete waste of time”.

Facebook tips for journalists

If you're still trying to get your head round how to make the best use of social networking tools, you may want to have a gander at Facebook's Media page.

As blogged by Paul Bradshaw, the resource is designed to give guidance on "best practice" for journalists wanting to boost their online profile. Although, he says, it features "ad-speak" heavily, it can be pretty useful as a resource.

For those who might wish this sort of thing would all just go away, there is a basic introduction to using Facebook as a journalistic resource plus tips, case studies and links to examples, such as Arianna Huffington's page, for those who are already users of the site.

The process is broken down into three stages: gaining short-term distribution, building lasting connections and advancing the story and features tips such as having "Like" or "Recommend" button on your articles as well as interacting with your audience through regularly kept status updates and creating "events" on Facebook to promote broadcasts.

Should journalists' social media use be policed by the PCC?

The Press Complaints Commission's code of conduct is usually standard practice for most newspapers and the development of online content has already provided grey areas for lawyers but Leicester Mercury editor Keith Perch has questioned the role of the PCC, on his blog, when it comes to journalists' use of social media.

He is quick to explain that the scope would be for the professional use of such tools- such as linking to work done for a particular publication - treating it in the same way as a newspaper columnist and therefore personal use would not be included.

Quoting an email he sent to his journalists asking for their views, Perch writes: "As a columnist, the journalist gets far more freedom and is able to express an opinion. However, as a columnist their work is subject to my editing. I reserve the right to edit their posts.

"In practice, I never see their posts until after they have been published, but staff know that I am reviewing them and, therefore, I believe, they take this into consideration before publication."

Perch is inviting people to debate the issue on his blog. What do you think? Should Twitter feeds, official Facebook pages and the like come under the remit of the PCC?

(via Jon Slattery)

New York Times: early burnout risk for young Online news journalists

If you’re feeling the strain from constant deadlines and draining every resource you have to find something new to break to your readers, you may take some solace from the fact that you are far from alone.

When the Washington-based Politico’s two top editors sent their reporters an email on April Fools’ Day last year saying that they would be required to start at 5am, not everyone saw the funny side, reports The New York Times. One girl even started crying.

This, says the report, is just one indication of the early burnout that young journalists can suffer in the online news business where, they say, the pressure of meeting a deadline for a paper can now be felt at any point of the day where the emphasis can be on getting something out as fast as possible before your rivals get the scoop.

It describes how the vibe of the newsroom is now “frantic and fatigued” with young reporters chained to their computers, rather than living the romantic notion of travelling the globe in pursuit of a story, to write articles that will “impress Google algorithms” and “draw readers their way”.

Like with The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times displays a “most viewed” list on its home pages. Some media outlets, including Bloomberg News and Gawker Media, now pay writers based in part on how many readers click on their articles.

It’s perhaps a familiar tale of woe and one that adds fuel to the fires of those who argue that journalism quality will suffer as focus shifts to the numbers rather than the stories.

But, as Politico’s Editor-in-Chief John F. Harris told The New York Times: “Everybody in the audience is his or her own editor based on where they want to move their mouse or their finger on the iPad,” said the editor in chief, John F. Harris. “And if you’re not delivering to that reader, you’re going to lose them.”

Politico may not be a harbinger but when next you feel your head dropping towards your chest as you rush to break the latest news, you can at least stop and think - to borrow a phrase from our new Prime Minister - “we are in this together”.

(With thanks to Heather Chin for link)

New iPad app offers "world's first fully personalised newspaper"

A new news app for the iPad, Apollo, aims to offer "the world's first fully personalized newspaper," according to a report on the World Editors' Forum blog.

The app is loosely based on the music platform Pandora, which suggests to users new music that it thinks they will like, based on their preferences. The Editors blog reports that after its release on Friday by Hawthorne Labs, Apollo quickly jumped to number 11 in the Apple iPad store, according to co-founder Evan Reas. It is priced at $4.99 (or €3.99).

Quoted by TechCrunch and others as saying that the app aimed to "deliver the final blow to the newspaper industry," Reas stressed to the EW that he did not in fact intend to destroy news providers, but simply that he believed that print newspapers were becoming less relevant to younger people, and that digital news was the future.

"What I was trying to express is that the traditional newspaper (and system that surrounds print news) is dying," he wrote on his blog.

Reas has stressed that he did not want Apollo to be seen as a threat to the news industry. "We believe that we are a friend to traditional news sources, helping them get new views from a new medium," he said, adding that "we think it is mutually beneficial for us and the content sources."

Apollo aims to help readers discover new content that they will like, based both on their expressed preferences - they can like or dislike specific articles, and favourite sources - and on which articles they read, how much time they spend on each, and what 'similar' users like.

The news is separated into different category groups, which are displayed as boxes along the bottom. Each of these has a choice of several different subcategories, which were chosen following extensive user testing, Reas said.

The categories are intended to prompt users to read different types of news, and maybe to discourage them from only reading about the topics with which they are already familiar.

The Editors Weblog write how, one of the arguments against personalized news is that it takes away the element of serendipity, the chance to discover something totally new, but Reas said that the categories and the fact that Apollo is continuously bringing in new sources and articles will retain an element of this.

Apollo selects news from thousands of sources, both established news sources and blogs, using their public RSS feeds to link to content within the app. No content is licensed, and as the RSS feeds are public this should not be a problem.

Multimedia skills not valued by journalists

Journalists feel multimedia production is a manual skill not a tool that helps them tell a story.

This is the surprising find from Henrik Ornebring of the University of Oxford (pictured), giving a quick overview of his six-nation comparative study of journalism skills at the International Association for Media and Communications Research 2010 conference in Braga.

The three-year project, highlighted by Alfred Hermida, run from 2007 to 2010 covers the UK, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Poland and Estonia.

Ornebring conducted a non-representative online survey with 2,200 respondents and a response rate of 4.3%.

He also conducted qualitative research with 62 interviews of journalists.

Among the top skills rated by journalists were writing and working independently. In Italy, Poland and Estonia, networking was also considered a top skill.

As for the lowest skills, all journalists agreed that they did not need management skills.

Without knowing more about Ornebring's methodology for his qualitative research, perhaps these findings can be taken with a pinch of salt, what with such a low response rate to the survey and with the online survey being non-representative.

Otherwise it seems the debate over the importance of multimedia is set to run for quite a while yet.

The 10 laws of multimedia

We can get ourselves into such a fluster in our hurry to add the latest innovation to our websites that we may lose sight of what exactly it's meant to be doing for our readers.

So it's probably a good idea to take a step back from time to time and take stock.

Deb Wenger has a report, on the Advancing the Story blog, of a talk given by multimedia expert Al Tompkins (pictured) to educators at the Poynter Institute listing what he calls the 10 laws of multimedia.

He told them: "To be great, multimedia has to make the story better than it would be in a legacy form.”

The rules include making the site interactive, being search engine friendly, and tapping into local passion groups.

“The most important reason to do multimedia is to improve the journalism,” Tompkins told the group.

Of course, many people have what they consider to be a good multimedia strategy but it's always good to look at what other people suggest doing. You never know, you might be missing a trick.

Comment is not free (not at The Sun Chronicle anyway)

The comments section of websites can be a bit of a minefield. Now popularly lampooned in satirical magazine Private Eye, they can attract postings that are trying to be funny, are full of ignorance, full of spite or all three. But one US newspaper is trying to nip the abuse in the bud.

The Columbia Journalism Review has flagged up a Guardian article which looks at an interesting use of paywall technology – purely in the comments section.

The Sun Chronicle, a paper in Massachusetts, has put the paywall in place to try and prevent the appearance of what they describe as abusive, obscene or “otherwise nasty” comments.

In an interview with CJR on Wednesday, Sun Chronicle publisher Oreste D’Arconte explained that money has nothing to do with the decision.

The one-time fee of 99cents, she says, is to cover the charge of processing the credit card, which they use to verify the user’s name and location before discarding the details.

The Web staff felt they were wasting too much time deleting inappropriate comments and policing repeat offenders. D’Arconte and his staff wanted a way to encourage dialogue, while holding people accountable for what they said. Those who pay the fee and post abusive material will be banned from the comments section.

It may make life easier in terms of moderation but whether the 15,000-strong readership feel that their comment is important enough to warrant the joining fee and hassle of entering their card details remains to be seen.

Friday round-up: lessons from Brazil, going straight to the source and writing like J.K Rowling

Protecting the print product when you go online

We start with a story from the WAN-IFRA editors' blog on how the southern Brazilian newspaper Zero Hora has created a proactive online strategy that will protect its print edition, a product that got 2% circulation bump last year.

Zero Hora has 210 journalists working in its integrated newspaper. Although there are specific teams allocated to print and online, these teams are fluid and journalists are expected to understand the work of others and be flexible in what they do.

Speaking to the blog Editor in Chief Altair Nobre says that as a result of the internet newspapers constantly have to strive to be more original and creative, working harder to convince people to read the paper.

The online version is designed to be very interactive. For example, the Porto Alegre region has a rather unstable climate, explains Nobre, and so Zero Hora editors invite readers to send in pictures and short reports when there are storms.

Other key factors in the paper's success come from having a "young attitude" which attracts new readers from the younger generations and having a carefully planned out social media presence.

Ben Goldacre calls for unedited source material on one website

Journalism.co.uk is one of many to highlight Dr. Ben Goldacre's suggestion for a website that would have a variety of features to improve media transparency over their primary sources for certain stories as well giving readers “unmediated/unedited access to full comments from interested parties”.

The Bad Science author (pictured) suggested the site could do the following:

• Give each news story a unique ID;
• Any involved party can add/upload a full press release or quote to that story’s page;
• Anyone can add a link to a primary source;
• Anyone can vote these up or down like on digg/reddit;
• You can register as a “trusted source” and not need to be modded up or down;
• Anyone can add a link to media coverage of that story.

Who do you write like?

Finishing on a lighthearted note, if you grew up hoping to be the next Hunter S. Thompson, there's a handy little web tool that lets you analyse your writing and see which famous scribe you are most like.

I Write Like takes a pasted bit of text and compares it to the writings of hundreds of famous authors, giving you a result in seconds.

As one college media blogger points out, the results vary wildly depending on which text you submit. For example yours truly writes like Chuck Palahniuk, H.P. Lovecraft and J.K Rowling depending on which blog post is submitted.

It's all a bit of fun for a wet Friday afternoon. Just don't come crying to me if you're told you write like Barbara Cartland.

Project GStyle: Google gets some fashion sense

An interesting find today from blogger Adam Tinworth – Google have decided that fashion bloggers have got the best grasp of social media.

Above all those bloggers who choose to cover other industries, it’s those dedicated followers of fashion that are the cream of the crop when it comes to their understanding of social media tools.

Google have set up GStyle, an internal research project helmed by blogger Tony Wang of post.fashionism fame, to quiz fashionistas on how they use the internet, what their biggest challenges are and how Google can help them reach the upper echelons of blogger fame.

As Tinworth points out, the automatic assumption would be that the tech industry would be top of the tree. But, he writes, personal experience has show that there are vast swathes of the tech industry that don't "get" social media at all.

It makes you wonder how far off the mark journalists and media people are with their own understanding. The information may be for Google’s eyes only for now, but if it is released, there could be a lot to learn from it.

In the meantime, perhaps one should check out the list of the most influential fashion bloggers and see how they do things.

Making your Mobile site work on multiple devices

You may have lovingly crafted a mobile site (m-site) that looks amazing on the new iPhone4 but what happens when you discover half your readership own Blackberries? Does the site work just as well, or will it all fall apart?

With this in mind, as part of their Mobile Sites and Apps series, sponsored by Webtrends Mobile Analytics, the chaps at Mashable have provided five tips for optimising your m-site to be compatible across multiple devices.

You can check the article for full details, including links to useful bits of software to help you get the best out of your m-site, but in short, the five tips are:

1) Narrow your focus – of course, you can’t develop a site to suit every device but carefully consider which one(s) your readership have and develop your site for those devices.

2) Use an emulator to check your work – Mashable have links to their favourite emulators for you to check how your site will look.

3) Use multiple stylesheets for device support – this can be an efficient way of adding or subtracting particular features dependent on the device in use.

4) Change your user agent in Firefox or Safari – this will give you on-the-fly feedback of how the site will look whilst testing in your web browser.

5) Use your CMS – Then you can use a simple plugin device, such as the popular WPtouch device used by WordPress.

Study: Online and Social media boosted coverage of General Election

The televised leaders’ debates may have been the main talking point of the 2010 General Election but a new study highlighted by journalism.co.uk suggests that mainstream coverage was “enriched” by the use of online and social media.

The report, 'UK election 2010: mainstream media and the role of the internet: how social and digital media affected the business of politics and journalism', written by the co-founder of the BBC News website Nic Newman is the result of interviews conducted with more than 20 journalists, political bloggers and founders of political websites.

In a release to mark today’s launch of the report, Newman states how the results show that Twitter in particular has become a "core communication tool" in political and media circles.

With more than 600 party political candidates using the service during the election, it became "an essential source of real-time information for journalists and politicians", he says.

The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) also conducted a survey of more than 200 18-24-year-olds, as part of the study, which suggested that "unprecedented levels of participation" with the general election were a result of increased social media coverage.

The use of social media tools by journalists and mainstream news sites, such as liveblogs and digital correspondents, "helped to amplify the impact of social media even further" on this age group, says the study.

The Economist: maintaining the "niche" in a digital world

An interesting profile by Charlie Beckett,Director of POLIS, the journalism think tank at the London School of Economics, starts our week in digital journalism.

He details the working practices of Edward Lucas (pictured), the Central and East European Correspondent for the leviathan that is The Economist.

(This blogger can also personally comment that Lucas is a funny and charming writer that I have had the pleasure of drinking a foul spirit called Becherovka with, in a bar in Prague, getting to enjoy a tale of journalistic misadventure that shall be herein referred to as “The KGB meets ‘Winnie the Pooh’”).

Beckett writes how The Economist is always looking to build its substantial ‘niche’ as the compact, intelligent, authoritative, liberal package of analysis and reportage for the Globatariat as it tackles the challenges of technological development, such as the impending addition of wifi on aeroplanes.

Lucas, says Beckett, is: “a natural and inveterate blogger who understands the new media environment acutely.”

“The media business is becoming more rational,” Lucas tells him. “There is too much duplication and the institutional cross-subsidies for news are disappearing.”

Lucas has used this online nous to both provide more in-depth content to his stories, as well as injecting humour to try and lessen that feeling that reading The Economist is a bit like “homework”. Hence, says Beckett, his very amusing animation of a map of Europe, a piece of Fantasy Cartography that suggests geo-politics could be improved by moving the countries around.

Lucas has also used online network to “mine the expertise of his readers”. He has a network of contacts that he uses to test out ideas and gather feedback from, as well as regularly communicate with those that comment on the website or email him personally.

So (to abuse the classroom metaphor further) perhaps the lesson to be taken from this is to look at a textbook example of how a top journalist makes the transition from print to an incorporation of online content and do likewise?

Friday round up

A selection of digital stories to see you through the weekend.

Tweetminster launches Media Watch channel

The people behind MP tweet-monitoring service Tweetminster have launched a new aggregation service for tracking UK News media, reports Journalism.co.uk.

The Media Watch channel is the latest in a number of launches for the site which also includes health, economy and environment channels.

The homepage of the channel has a "livestream" that includes all Twitter accounts of mainstream media sources and updates as they update.

Alberto Nardelli, Tweetminster founder, told Journalism.co.uk: "The idea behind channels is to make it easier for people to follow news, see what's trending in each topic or within each source, and also make it easier for people to connect with those driving the conversations.

"The longer term goal is an interactive wire - we'll be developing further channels around issues, networks, events and locations and also soon releasing APIs and feeds."

Five free SEO Tools for journalists

Many journalists see Search Engine Optimisation as "the equivalent of writing headlines for robots", writes Alfred Hermida.


But, he points out, it is key to helping readers find what they are looking for. He then provides five free SEO tools that can help journalists make their work easier to find on the web.


These include WordTracker FreeKeywords which provides alternative keyword suggestions with a weighting to indicate their use, and Google Trends which analyses Google searches and works out how many searches have been done for the terms you enter.





Survey reveals digital journalism is tough going but has lots of opportunity

Finally, The Guardian's PDA Blog has a summary of the annual Oriella digital journalism survey.

From the 770 journalists surveyed (from 15 countries around the globe including the UK), around 46% of journalists said they were expected to produce more work, 30% said they are working longer hours and 28% have less time to research stories.

But some 40% said they believed the web provided new opportunities with many looking at Smartphone applications and paywalls as possible streams of revenue. Twitter is also important with 41% running a Twitter feed.

Should Twitter be taught in J-School?

Alfred Hermida highlights an interesting question in his Reportr blog - should journalism students learn to use Twitter as part of their studies?

It's a question he says is under discussion at the World Journalism Education Congress being held in South Africa. Julie Posetti from the University of Canberra is one of the academics arguing for its inclusion. He shared this YouTube clip:



It's an interesting question to consider - it has clear benefits such as learning to drive traffic to your articles, or how to expose stories of interest (such as the Trafigura scandal) and identify story tip-offs, along with the potential dangers of doing so - surely then it's important to grasp the role of Twitter within your journalism career as soon as possible?

But the question arises that can this skill be taught? Or is it something you learn through trial and error?

To follow this and other discussions from the conference, you can follow its Twitter hashtag #WJEC2 or watch live feeds on the on the conference’s site.

What kind of Online Editor are you?

Whilst many newsrooms continue to experiment with their content to increase and retain readership, Folio Magazine has a story about one company that have developed a simple strategy to maximize their online efficiency.

They profile B2B publisher Questex Media, who have defined the key areas that editors are good at, and get their team to try and learn from each others’ successes.

Says Manager of Search Alison McPartland (pictured): "We want to show the particular strength or weakness in each editor.

"There are different ways to focus on how they're preparing content online and we want to highlight those differences. If someone is our top Optimization Editor, what is he or she doing that you could be doing?"

The team has developed four benchmark classifications for online editors which, in a nutshell, are as follows:

Acquisition Expert: Being particularly strong at drawing in an audience to their stories.

Optimization Editor: Driving the most traffic via organic search, using Search Engine Optimization.

Retention Writer: Having a high quality level of interaction with their reader, getting them to come back to their stories.

Engagement Enhancer: Innovating in the way readers interact with a story, providing RSS Feeds, blogs, comments and the like.

The article highlights how this feedback can prompt editors to raise their game, as well as engage in a little friendly competition.

One publication to benefit from this, Questex Media’s HotelWorld Network, is clear that it doesn’t use the data to set job titles but to identify what the readers engage with and why.

"By creating these different ‘categories' of editor, it's easier for us to see why a particular story or author performs well month over month," says Editor-in-Chief Stephanie Ricca.

"We don't use these categories as specific descriptors—meaning, we don't say things like, ‘Stephanie is the Acquisition Expert because she does X and Y and Chris is the Optimization Editor because he does B and C;' instead we use Alison's reports to get better at all aspects of what gets a reader to our site and keeps them there."

(Via Martin Stabe)

Your Chance to Go Hyperlocal at App-building Conference

Whilst the key issue for online journalism is figuring out how to make it pay, one of the other big ideas last year was hyperlocal journalism.

Many have experimented with the practice, having community bloggers and microsites for example on their news site, or self-publishing. In which case, they will be very interested in the conference on how to build useful apps and codes to assist news gathering being held in Birmingham later this month, as flagged up by journalism blog Journal Local.

The "Hacks and Hackers" event, at Birmingham Science Park in Aston (pictured) on Friday 23rd July intended to bring journalists and freelance publishers (such as hyperlocal site owners) together with developers to share knowledge on news gathering and coding for new gathering.

Publishers and hackers will be put into groups to share ideas about what data they would like to learn more from and together create projects which use the data in interesting ways. Prizes will be given for the best projects.

The event is free but places are expected to fill quickly, so Journal Local recommends booking asap. Registration is available through the Eventbrite page.

How the New York Times football tracker could help journalists with effective targeting

It may all seem like a bit of pointless fun, but the New York Times' football tracker could indicate a way to tailor your content based on what your readers are most interested in.

In something similar to Twitter trending topics, the simple, interactive tool tracks the amount of discussion each team player attracts on Facebook and then creates a graphic based on the resulting numbers. The larger their picture, the more talk there is about them.

For example, Robert Green's infamous football fumbling resulted in him being the player most discussed on June 14th. Likewise, an uninspired performance from England against Algeria on the 18th gave Wayne Rooney the top spot.

Interestingly, perhaps suggesting that the discussions aren't entirely focused on the players' performance on the pitch, Christiano Ronaldo has dominated the tracker. As Portugal were eliminated from the tournament at the end of June, perhaps his continued presence is due to his reported Facebook announcement regarding his new role as a dad.

It's great for both the most obsessive of footy fans who dont want to miss a trick and those who have little interest in football but may want to keep up with the watercooler chats.

Arguably, it's also a good way of sport writers and editors keeping track of who and what is catching the attention of their readers which could allow them to tweak their content accordingly. It certainly gives pause for thought.

The Times puts up its paywall

After a lot of speculation, News International is finally putting up its paywalls on The Times and the Sunday Times, reports blogger Jon Slattery.

From today (July 2) access to the sites will cost £1 per day, or £2 per week – although in an introductory offer, all customers will be allowed 30 days access for just £1. There is a seperate charge for the iPad edition.

CEO Rebekah Brooks said in an email to staff: “We have been very pleased with the response from readers since the sites were launched in May. They both showcase our award-winning journalism in a very visual way, giving readers exclusive content and interactivity so that they can get even more from the news. We believe that they offer real value and we look forward to continuing to innovate for our readers."

But with the survey results highlighted yesterday, it remains to be seen whether the paywalls will pay off.

We prefer print...and we don't like to pay for news

'Tis the season for surveys and anyone who fancies themself a futurologist may wish to take a gander at two results highlighted by The Guardian's digital blog and see if they saw these ones coming.

Both make for depressing reading for those at the vanguard of online journalism (Rupert Murdoch may especially want to look away now).

According to the first survey, conducted by Ipsos, 63% of 501 online adults said they would prefer to access the printed copy of their chosen newspaper – while only 11% would choose to access it digitally.

Of this 11%, most said they would prefer to pay a one-time charge for a mobile app, while 3% of those surveyed said they would opt for a monthly online subscription. Daily subscription charges, or per-article fees were not popular.

Unsurprisingly, reports The Guardian, just over half (51%) of the 15- to 50-year-olds surveyed in May said the biggest barrier to accessing paid-for news online is a reluctance to pay – 31% said they would not pay while it is available elsewhere online for free.

Similarly, the story flags a YouGov survey of 2,160 UK adults, also released today, which found that 60% of adults think it is worth paying for a "good newspaper" with a whopping 83% saying they would refuse to pay for online content.

It doesn't bode well for those umming and ahhing over paywalls. The question is, will the small fraction who will pay for news content be enough to turn the fortunes of struggling media outlets?

Demand for video content on the rise

An interesting study has been flagged up by Francois Nel, project leader on the annual Preston Report news site audit, on the increase in user demand for online video content.

According to Ad Week, polling for the report - conducted amongst eight to 64-year-olds by Metacafe (whose Web site is devoted to professionally made video) and research/consulting firm Frank N. Magid Associates- found 50 percent of Internet users saying they watch online video at least once a week, up from 43 percent saying so last year. Thirteen percent said they watch on a daily basis.

There's good news in the report for advertisers too, with forty-eight percent said they find ads in online videos "just as acceptable as ads in TV shows," and another 7 percent find them "more acceptable."

The demand isn't simply for funny YouTube home-video clips either, with 75 percent saying they watch professionally-produced content.

"As online video evolves, we can expect to see more professional and exclusive online-video content created specifically for the Web," Erick Hachenburg, Metacafe's CEO, told Ad Week, including "more creative ads and more immersive experiences that allow brands to more effectively reach the highly fluid, empowered and engaged consumer."

He continued: "we will also begin to see the lines blur between online video and TV, which will create a tighter integration of content across media channels."

From API to Yahoo Pipes: The Journalist’s guide to the digital jargon

For some, “tweeting” is something birds do and our colleagues’ conversations may sound like a script from Star Trek. But let’s face it, the speed of technological development means that even some of the most dedicated technophiles can struggle to keep up with the pace.

So praise be for the charming guys and gals at Poynter Online, headed by Jennifer 8. Lee (pictured), for instigating the compilation of a comprehensive A to nearly Z of the lingo you need to know to convince your colleagues you know your Mashup from your IPad.

The glossary relates to Web standards, programming, online tools, social networking, online advertising and basic technology and even defines the most common terms such as “app” and “blog” for the seriously technologically challenged.

The glossary was created by the Hacks/Hackers group and was released June 22, 2010 under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 License. The original glossary can be found here.

A tale of caution

We start this week with a reminder that breaking news can be a dangerous career move. The Tabloid Watch blog is just one of many highlighting the resultant egg-on-face for hapless Daily Mail hack Richard Ashmore.

Ashmore fell foul of a spoof Twitter account set up for Apple CEO Steve Jobs and wrote a story based on one of the tweets. Not only did he apparently fail to spot the disclaimer, pointing out that the account was a parody, but also apparently failed to bother to check any basic facts with Apple themselves.

The article was swiftly removed when the error was pointed out. Now, it seems fairly clear that Ashmore has been a bit of a plonker for seemingly failing to do even the most basic of factchecking, but surely it also reminds us about the fine balance between good quality journalism and stealing a march on your competitors in a 24/7 digital age.

At a time where redundancies are rife and getting audiences for your advertisers seems paramount, you can feel a little spark of sympathy for someone thinking they'd managed to break what would have been a major scoop if only it were, um, even vaguely true.

So whilst Ashmore will probably have derisive laughter echoing in his ears for quite some time, perhaps we should take on board the lesson of the dire consequences when either time pressures or plain laziness stop you from doing your job properly.

Welcome!

As the title and description suggest, here you'll find a daily dose of news on the latest innovations and practices relating to online and digital journalism. Alongside the big news stories of the day, you'll also find more off-the-wall stories of how journalists are dealing with the challenges of the 21st century.

With Trinity Mirror's Head of Digital Matt Kelly reported by Press Gazette as saying that the general news business is dead it is clear that the road ahead is still difficult, with no-one yet finding the silver bullet to make online content pay.

But those with either nerves of steel or deep enough pockets continue to experiment with technology as fast as it is being invented. It is those brave (or foolhardy, dependent on your point of view) attempts that are chronicled here. Enjoy!