Markmedia

IPI death watch: journalists killed so far this year

IPI death watch:
The International Press Institute includes in its "Death Watch" journalists and media staff who were deliberately targeted because of their profession - either because of their investigative reporting or simply because they were journalists. IPI also includes journalists who were caught in the crossfire while covering dangerous assignments.

Total number of journalists killed so far this year:  49

Right rewrite wrong

Catching up on the Financial Times this morning I see that they report on the plans by the new Swedish right wing government [what! me showing bias - never! :-) ]to sell off and privatize areas of the economy.

Carl Bildt is quoted:
"We need to do with the service sector what we did with the private sector in the 1990s."

Thereafter comes the following:

He was referring to the deregulation of the banking, telecoms, retail and automotive sectors in the 1990s. That created some of the country's most powerful companies, such as Ericsson, the communications company, and Volvo, the world's second largest truck maker.

As far as I remember Ericsson was established in 1876 and Volvo in 1927.
Has the rights triumphalist rewriting of history already begun?

The Future of the Internet 2

A new publication from the Pew Internet Project has some interesting points (haven't read the whole thing yet, just browsed) but it postulates that that a revival of terrorist Luddites is likely (web -0 maybe?) and that despite the dominance of English other languages will not be displaced:

A  majority of the polled experts agree with predictions that by 2020:

• A low-cost global network will be thriving and creating new opportunities in a “flattening” world.
• Humans will remain in charge of technology, even as more activity is automated and “smart agents” proliferate.

However, a significant 42% of survey respondents were pessimistic about humans’ ability to control the technology in the future. This significant majority agreed that dangers and dependencies will grow beyond our ability to stay in charge of technology.

Other points are:

• Virtual reality will be compelling enough to enhance worker productivity and also spawn new addiction problems.
• Tech “refuseniks” will emerge as a cultural group characterized by their choice to live off the network. Some will do this as a benign way to limit information overload, while others will commit acts of violence and terror against technology-inspired change.
• People will wittingly and unwittingly disclose more about themselves, gaining some benefits in the process even as they lose some privacy.
• English will be a universal language of global communications, but other languages will not be displaced. Indeed, many felt other languages such as Mandarin, would grow in prominence.

go joe go

Just listening to Gregor Rohrig telling about the award winning project Jo's Toolkit.

Jo's Toolkit is an online resource for student and grassroot journalists. The site provides advice and tips about various fields from journalism teachers, student media practitioners and prominent media players.

Besides being a great and very usefull site, the presentation is cool. Totaly based on Lego-type figures it is fun.

Gregor is an excellent fotographer by the way.

What I said

There is no print! There is no radio, there is no tv: it is not about the web. There is content - digitalized input and output.

Planning for an expansion into digital media

What do you have to say that is unique and who do you wish to say it to.

 

Analyse the market: Who is the competition? Here it is important to understand that the competition may not be another news organisation. It is anyone who produces the kind of content you wish to spread.

This could mean everything from government agencies to Craig’s list to individual and community blogs.

What do you bring to the area that is not already there?

 

Define your user base

Here there are two categories:

Your target audiences and your actual audiences [see “crunch the log files” below].

There will in all probability be a number of differing audiences particularly within your target audiences.

Map their media situation

In this case you are particularly interested in the levels of access to technology.

Again there are two categories:

Their present level of access and their planned levels.

“Media situation” should be a broad term encompassing not only Internet access but also mp3 players, cell phone penetration etc.

Plan your operation

There will be two levels to this.

Internal - work flow issues, routines (how to spread information internally, the relative weight of different media in the publishing process, publishing policies), user-driven content, digital collection of material, video/TV, sound/radio, databases, archiving etc. Advertising issues need to be looked at – packages over all media types, geographic targeting etc. Who are your strategic partners?

External – what the consumer sees and gets.

This is where you need to gear your site to the technical levels of your audiences. A more (technically) sophisticated audience will want some advanced applications (photo shows, illustrations, podcasts, blogs etc); whereas a less (technically) sophisticated audience will possibly find these extremely annoying.

Judging the correct levels is an ongoing task and as levels of access and sophistication rise the site will have to be tweaked to adapt.
A number of legal issues such as copyright, payment, libel etc. need to be resolved during this process.

Design site
Style book.

Cutting edge technology tends to annoy most users except early adopters (nerds). These can be a very useful group in establishing the services in certain areas (cool factor) but remember your core audience.

It may also be a good idea to stress that the pecking order is journalism/story telling first, fancy technology last.

Test it!!!

Get some ordinary users in and see if they can navigate it.

If something is absolutely clear to the designer (“Only a moron could miss this”) but gives users a problem – ditch it! (and the designers if they moan too much about it). Every new addition should be user tested. The damage a non-functioning product can do is huge.

Crunch the log files

Every organisation with a web site has a huge database of information on its users.

Where they come from and what search terms they used if they found you in a search engine, what they look at, how long they spend on each piece of information, what sort of bandwidth they have, what sort of computers they have, what web browsers they use, and where they go when they leave you.

This information must be used to see if your target audiences are actually the audiences you reach and to see if you are reaching audiences you did not know about.

 Change what does not work!

 

go digital or die

Web 2.0: The Murder of the Old Media

Student Media Conf in South Africa

Print looks better than web: That is not true; some print looks better than some web.
I am a bit lost here. Natalie Dixon from SL is hammering on about the delights of analog. Tactile notebooks, magazines that create stars.

Once again the deep misunderstanding of content and delivery.
Like the web does not create stars? Natalie mentions the Artic Monkeys. Being on the cover of NME made then, she said. But the Artic Monkeys were made by and in MySpace.
When you arrive in London you buy the mag to see who are the hottest bands.
But even better is arriving in London, getting a download of the latest bands to your Ipod, *hearing* the bands and being given links to similar bands and directions on your cellphone to where they are playing. And updates of changes in venue etc.

And when asked what the comparison between the analog magazine buyers and the blog visitors was she answered that she was "blissfully unaware" of the stats, which did not stop her from saying that there was no real interest in the digital version.
It really is not surprising that the web version tanked if the editor just dose not see that it has any importance to the product. They (or at least she) is going to burn and die. And deservidly so

Internet and the US Elections

26 million Americans were logging onto for news or information about the campaign on a typical day in August, the highest such figure recorded by the Pew Internet Project.

On a typical day in August, 26 million Americans were using the internet for news or information about politics and the upcoming mid-term elections. That corresponds to 19% of adult internet users, or 13% of all Americans over the age of 18

Read the whole report

Journalism vs bodyguards

This is so cool: A slice of life from the COSATU (trade union) congress in South Africa from a fun blog:

Afterwards there was much running around from our side to secure interviews with Vavi, and Nzimande. Winnie is surrounded by about four very hardcore bodyguards, so securing an interview proved to be very difficult indeed. But we managed to do it, after having to fight off the TV reporters who were doing their upmost to steal our guests. And once we had all three in our studio there was no room to do any work, because each of them had to be protected by their bodyguards, all standing at strategic places and questioning you whenever you made a move.

Red, Yellow and Black...COSATU congress part 2

Best Free Reference Web Sites 2006

This is an annual series initiated under the auspices of the Machine-Assisted Reference Section (MARS) of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) of ALA to recognize outstanding reference sites on the World Wide Web.

See also their Best Free Reference Web Sites Combined Index, 1999-2005 for at very useful (if largely US-centric) group of web based reference sites