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Participants at Matt Thompson’s recent gathering on the Future of Context discussed (among many other things) database journalism — city crime maps, for example — and agreed that they can actually be a disservice to readers. The problem comes in maintaining the data: a reporter or team gathers data, analyzes it, creates interesting presentation graphics — and then often fails to maintain the data, so that it is quickly out of date, irrelevant, and even misleading. As well, a map presented without context or interpretation can lead to erroneous conclusions by readers. As news organizations look to add high-value content that might form the core of paid-content sections for their sites, compilations and analysis of public (but not necessarily online) information is one of the areas they’re exploring.
Wolfram Alpha and other ways to enhance database journalism » Nieman Journalism Lab
The Britannica Blog has been running an absolutely terrific series of essays on “ Newspapers & the Net ,” which is examining the questions: “Are newspapers dead? Should we care?” The series kicks off with essays from three of my absolute favorite bloggers: Nick Carr, Clay Shirky and Jay Rosen, who is the author of the amazing blog, PressThink . I highly recommend that you read all the installments, however. Here’s the rundown of participants and essays in the series thus far: Monday, April 7:
britannica blog on the newspapers and the net
Based on my reading of four newspapers every morning, I’m concerned editors still think they need to present big stories as if their readers had never heard them before. This approach sends a message - and it’s not a good one. The message is this: We have nothing new to add to what you’ve already heard.
TEMPLE TALK: The front page dilemma: Why newspapers blow it when they act like they’re the first to report a major breaking news story
Second Thoughts: The Magnetic Filings and Mother Lode of Twitter
See, if you have 70,000 odd followers, as he does, and you swarm them through Friendfeed, often attracting them with a link that you "like" which then posts that link to Twitter, then you create little magnetic filings. These filings make some people "stick" -- let's say it's the usual power curve of 2 percent or even 5 percent who post on forums. They "like" what you like, or they argue with you, or they post other stuff. So there you have this little nonce magnetized grouplet, magnetized around an idea, a debate, a picture and they constitute a kind of node, or let's say lodestone, if there are enough of them, that draws others.
MediaShift . How to Teach Yourself About Social Media When J-Schools Fail | PBS
Journalism is changing rapidly due to social media, and these changes can be bewildering as people wonder how to keep up. I recently gave a social media workshop for journalism students, and I soon realized that many students were still unaware of social media other than Facebook. They were shocked to hear about feed readers, blogs, or micro-blogging and asked how they could learn about all those developments. It seems that we should rethink not only journalism, but also journalism education: Tomorrow's journalists will need to take the initiative to teach themselves about rapidly changing technology. To that end, here are some ways that students can become their own teachers in regards to social media.The Guardian today launched Open Platform , a service that will allow partners to reuse guardian.co.uk content and data for free and weave it "into the fabric of the internet". Open Platform launched with two separate content-sharing services, which will allow users to build their own applications in return for carrying Guardian advertising. A content application programming interface (API) will smooth the way for web developers to build applications and services using Guardian content, while a Data Store will contain datasets curated by Guardian editors and open for others to use. Emily Bell, the Guardian News & Media director of digital content, described Open Platform as a "new chapter in our history and a new foundation for the future of our journalism".
Guardian launches Open Platform service to make online content available free | Media | guardian.co.uk
Nine ways a journalist uses Twitter « Save the Media
So you’ve signed onto Twitter , but how do you use it as a journalist? I’ve written about this before and offered some suggestions , but I think it needs repeating. I keep hearing journalists say: “But I don’t get it.” A co-worker and friend of mine came up with a pretty comprehensive list of how she uses Twitter. I liked it so much, I asked her if I could share it with you. She agreed.
10 Twitter users that every journalism student should follow? | Online Journalism Blog
UPDATE: From the comments: similar lists now available for Norway and Sweden . I will soon begin teaching my annual module in Online Journalism and one of the first things I get the students to do is set up a Twitter account. It’s often a struggle to demonstrate the usefulness of Twitter, so this time around, in addition to following each other, I’m going to give them 10 people to start following from the off. This is the list I’ve come up with – would welcome your suggestions for others: @ davelee - former journalism student and excellent blogger who landed a plum job at the BBC after graduating.
HOW TO: Use Google Reader Like A Rockstar
Google Reader recently got a facelift ; with a fresh look and features, a lot of people are buzzing about the service. Knowing that new users are signing up and veterans are looking for some ideas to make their experience even better, we have put together a quick how-to that should offer something for everyone. When RSS became a standard for publishing material on the web, the way that we received our information changed very quickly. No longer did users have to go find content; now it could come to them automatically. With the world at their fingertips, something had to be created to sort all of the information.A lot of journalists have suddenly discovered Twitter, which figured prominently in some coverage of the Mumbai terror attacks. And many are baffled. Here's my simple explanation of Twitter: You only hear the people you want to listen to, and the people who are saying something directly to you. This gives you a great deal of control over the quality of what you hear. If someone is irritating and trivial, just quit listening to them.
Explaining Twitter to journalists | yelvington.com
Adding forums to my blog | Online Journalism Blog
Keyword: onlinejournalism . Thanks to About.com for a useful brief piece on adding a forum to your blog . Really, it’s just ‘how to create a forum’ using QuickTopic , but still very useful.What a blast! I think it’s fair to say we lived up to the rockstar theme folks. You and 249 others rocked the Pakhuis de Zwijger the whole day. Edial and I think have a lot to think about. And when we’re done with that, we’ll definitely share our findings with you.
BLOG08 conference - Rockstars of the Web!
MediaShift Idea Lab . Five Ways to Gather and Report News with Twitter | PBS
I read Chris O'B rien's IdeaLab post about the latest Twitterquake and the 10 (so far) comments with a great deal of interest. After all, ReportingOn borrows a great deal from Twitter, and I've been writing about the exponentially growing micro-blogging service for around a year now. I can't help but notice that a commenter or two seem to think that anyone actually takes is seriously when Twitter asks its base question of "What are you doing?" The low-hanging fruit: Tweet your headlines. Use Twitterfeed to push RSS to Twitter.WebU: Seven Steps to Writing Like a Digital Native
If you've downloaded a report, meeting minutes or agendas, watched a video or listened to a tape — share it. If it's living elsewhere on the web, link to it. If you have your own copy - can you scan it? Post it yourself? Tell people how they can get their own physical copy? You've already done the hard work, share it with your audience.TimesPeople users can build up friends lists and can see a "news feed" of which stories their friends are recommending, sharing, and commenting on. Times online readers have been able to comment on stories, as well as rate reviewed restaurants and movies, for some time now, but recommending is new. TimesPeople is currently available only as a Firefox browser plug-in, but software engineers told CNET News.com that it would eventually be more widely available and without a download required. New features will be added too, but don't expect the venerable newspaper to try to compete with Mark Zuckerberg: Engineers stressed that the Times will always be an information source, not a social network. That's why the TimesPeople application is extremely light and minimal--profiles are limited to locations and user icons, and content from the social feature is limited to a "news feed" page and a drop-down menu.