ALJ301

EDITORS WEBLOG (http://www.editorsweblog.org/)

The editors weblog is a site dedicated to newspaper editors worldwide.  Just like Journalism.org which is devoted to journalists, this website helps editors improve, learn from other editors and improve their skills. 

I think this site along with Journalism.org works ‘hand in hand’ in producing quality news.  If there is support and information for the editor and the journalist to help refine their skills and gain more knowledge then the site can only be advantageous to the publication as well as the consumer buying the newspaper.

2) PERSONAL TECH

(http://www.nytimes.com/pages/technology/personaltech/index.html)

Personal Tech has a mixture of blogs along with information on technology.  This site is informative because it updates citizen journalists and qualified journalists about the latest technology that can be for personal use as well as capturing newsworthy events.  It is a good way of keeping the media ‘in touch’ with equipment.

WEEK 12 – Blogs worth monitoring

1) Global Voices (http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/).

Finally, a website that brings the ‘blogs of the world’ together.  Ethan Zuckerman along with a group of international volunteers aim to congregate all kinds of citizen media to create a ‘global blogosphere’.  The site encourages people to understand other countries and how they function in regards to citizen journalism and multi-media. 

If I want to search music blogs in Gambia, for instance, I can select the country and the topic to view all the blogs relating to my search.  This idea is a fantastic creation that enables bloggers, and citizen journalists from all over the world to interact and learn about another country.

2) Project for Excellence in Journalism (http://www.journalism.org/).

Journalism.org is an American website that evaluates how the news is being produced, and helps improve the performance of the journalist.  

I believe that this website is a productive tool because it provides information to journalists, and advice to students wanting to pursue a career in the field.  Quality journalism is what newspapers and other publications strive for, and this site helps journalists improve their standards making it even more beneficial for the journalist as well as the publication. In particular, The State of the News Media 2008, which is an annual report focused on the ‘health and status of American journalism’.

1) Innovations in Newspapers

(http://www.innovationsinnewspapers.com/)

Juan Antonio Giner is the founder of the media consulting company, Innovation International.  His blog revolves around political issues and how politics is represented in the media. 

Giner’s posts have more visuals than words. However, the way he presents these visuals and combines them with his short comments make it very interesting to read, and satirical.

Although the photographs he has posted on his blog are interesting, there are photos placed one after the other, which can make his blog look cluttered.

The issues he covers are related to the issues affecting the world today, such as the debate between John McCain and Barack Obama. 

2) Buzz Machine (http://www.buzzmachine.com)

Jeff Jarvis, an American journalist, is the creator of the weblog, ‘buzz machine’.  Jarvis argues many issues in an informative manner, and his strong arguments can make a reader reflect on his work.

For example, his post, ‘The internet as a right’ personally, was a boring topic.  However, the way Jarvis organised his arguments, and defended his thoughts, made me want to continue reading.

3) Online Journalism news is a British site developed for the journalist.  Most news sites are consumer-oriented in the sense that the sites are focused on presenting the news and other media topics to the people.  Online journalism, however, provides a unique way of reaching out to journalists.  For example, there are tabs on jobs, training, forums, news, and blogs that journalists can navigate. This website is also an incentive for young journalists because it provides helpful research tips to further enhance their writing style and how they approach certain topics.

The question on today’s post is: What does mojo mean in the ‘media world’?  

A mojo is an amalgam for a journalist who only carries mobile phones to capture newsworthy events to stream it online.  Currently throughout the world, Scandinavia, the UK, Europe, the US, and Africa are known for their mojos.

It has helped citizen journalism grow and take a new direction for capturing and broadcasting news.  

In London, a year ago, a Reuters news agency supplied its journalists with a mojo toolkit.  It included a Nokia N95/N82, a Bluetooth keyboard, a digital microphone, and a phone adapted tripod.

Robert Scobel, an American blogger used a service produced by Qik to broadcast live video from his cell phone.  “Qik has put a TV studio in my pocket. I can get live video onto the Internet faster than I can make a phone call,” Scobel said.

A YouTube video on Steve Garfield, a mojo, shows how easy and convenient it is to be able to record information and stream it to the internet straight away. He is able to record important live news before any qualified journalist. He is always ‘in the action’ and the fact that he only needs to hold a mobile phone to do so, is even better.

In many countries, such as Japan, four in five mobile phone users use their mobile phones to connect online instead of using their PC.  A quarter of 18-25 year olds in the UK use their mobile phones to check sites like FaceBook and MySpace.

The ‘media world’ is evolving and people like Frank Barth-Nilsen from Norway are trying to create ideas on how technology will change today’s way of storytelling. He has initiated this by creating a website where people can share their ideas.  Visit MojoEvolution.

REFERENCES

Quinn, S. (2008). “Who found my MoJo”. 

The UpTake 2008, in YouTube, Steve Garfield, Mobile Video Journalist, retrieved 02 October 2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIce0Z2gZ7M

YouTube 2008, Reuters Mobile Phone Reporting Part 2 retrieved 02 October 2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1kVbvhp4Ik

This week’s reading is about the article, 5 Videoblogs That Do It Right on Mediashift.

Jennifer Woodard Maderazo who wrote this article said that it’s hard to classify vlogs. “Are they blogs that incorporate video? Or video accompanied by blogging? Are they video podcasts?” she said.

Ms Maderazo lists and explains five of her favourite vlogs.  They range from politics, comedy, food and wine and a daily dose of news.  

According to Ms Maderazo the reason she chose these vlogs was because they were able to entertain, inform, and be consistent and simple.  

This is a very good point because she states that one of the vlogs she picked; food and wine, does not interest her.  However, the vlog was able to entertain and inform her, which made her continue to watch it.

This is an important point to an effective vlog. Naturally, people being interested in the topic is helpful, but if the vlog is inconsistent or has jargon, then it is very hard to keep the viewer entertained.  

Are videoblogs a passing fad? No, I don’t believe so.  When Youtube began in 2005 there were very few videos. According to Wikipedia, in May 2006, there were 50,000 videos added per day. This increased to 65,000 in July. In January 2008, approximately 79 million users had made over 3 billion video views. The world is becoming more dynamic and the internet has become another world for us to live in; only displayed on a screen.  Although videoblogs and Youtube are different I believe they will eventually follow a similar path.

REFERENCES

Maderazo, J 2008, 5 Videoblogs That Do It Right Mediashift, retrieved 18 September 2008 http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2008/02/5-videoblogs-that-do-it-right046.html

Wikipedia 2008, YouTube, retrieved 18 September 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube

Week 8 – Case studies: STOMP

Singapore’s main media group, Singapore Press Holdings, launched a website called STOMP (Straits Times Online Mobile and Print) in June 2006.  STOMP is a very popular website in Singapore. 

So you can understand its popularity, Singapore’s population is approximately 4.4 million, and within half a year of STOMP operating, it had 300,000 visitors.  

Between 80 to 85 per cent of the site’s content is made up of citizen journalism.  Yet, I still wondered how a site that is created from citizen journalism content can be accurate, trustworthy, and engaging people to take an interest in what citizens have to say about the news, rather than taking the qualified and educated information from a ‘real’ journalist. 

Well, this is how it works… People send an SMS to STOMP about an issue or a story they want published or see as newsworthy.  These people are interviewed about their story, and then the STOMP producers re-write the story.  Before it is published online the person reads it, and checks it for accuracy.  If they are happy, then it’s published, if not, then they fix it. 

According to Jennifer Lewis who is the editor of STOMP, citizen journalism works differently in other countries, like South Korea.  Ohmynews, for example, which is what I wrote about in my previous posts talks about how citizen journalists follow a code of ethics and how they are responsible for what they write.

Although the STOMP site contains things like, ‘talkback’ and ‘club stomp’ which tend to attract teenagers and young adults, it also contains journalism that deals with people’s lives. Therefore according to Jasmine Teo, a STOMP content producer, middle-aged people are also known to interact with the site.

REFERENCES

Quinn, S. (2007). “Citizen journalism gets things done in Singapore as digital revolution moves forward” in Innovations in Newspapers 2007.

The way we process media, receive media and connect with others shows that the world is constantly changing.

According to the Pew Research Center it was reported that in August 2008, 19 per cent of US internet users said they downloaded podcasts on their computer to listen or view it later. In February 2006 it was 7 per cent and then 12 per cent in August the same year.

The best-known softwares to shoot video and stream it to the web are listed below. Many reporters and amateurs use these softwares after shooting video with their mobile phones.

qik.com

kyte.tv

bambuser.com

utterz.com

shozu.com

Mobile phones in Australia are becoming an interactive part of our lives. No matter where you go there are people using their mobile phone in some way.

According to the 4^th Australian mobile phone lifestyle index report, 96 per cent of Australians who own mobile phones have taken photos with it. Sixteen per cent have accessed Facebook, Myspace and MSN, and 70 per cent have created videos or music.

This progression of technology for journalists can be seen as a good thing because technology is much faster than doing it manually; by hand.  It is less time consuming to be able to record something on your mobile phone and then stream it to the web.  

However, this can be seen as a downfall because the more we rely on technology and be expected to be multi-skilled the less need there is for professional photographers or compositors.  The more advance we become the less people we will need to create news.

Image above from : http://www.compareindia.com/media/images/2007/nov/img_29472_mobile_phones_top5_428×320.jpg

REFERENCES

Niles, R. (2008). “Which is the best free photo gallery editor? Part two”

Online Journalism Review at http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/080318niles/

Week 6 – New Tools for Reporting (Part 1)

Qualified journalists, cameras and newspapers are becoming a ‘thing of the past.’  The media world is becoming more diverse, using different tools to gather and report news to the world.  

RSS stands for ‘really simple syndication’ or ‘rich site summary’. It feeds people news, audio, videos, and blog entries. This helps journalists, in particular, become more easily updated with the ‘world around them’ because they don’t need to waste their time searching for news. The RSS feeds news and other content to them instead.

Twitter and live reporting is a tool that was created in late 2007.  It consists of live reporting and blogging via SMS or web.  Each post is called a tweet and each tweet is limited to 160 characters per post.  

BBC is one media outlet that uses Twitter to report breaking news.  Different international and national stories are placed on Twitter for people to search and obtain news. Examples of stories posted on Twitter are the shootings at Virginia Tech in the USA, the Californian fires, the Melbournian boy, Yadav Monohur, who was missing and then found dead, and how Pakistan does not want to recognise Israel or have any diplomatic ties.

The internet would be a ‘perfect place’ if all the information on the web was factual.  To access information quality the best thing to do is to remember then RAP mnemonic. Ask yourself whether the source is reliable, if it’s accurate in terms of grammar and spelling and furthermore is it plausible?

REFERENCES

Quinn, S. (2008). “New tools for reporting”

YouTube (2007). Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone: Interview retrieved 30 August 2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiZpqalej0s

WEEK 5 – OhMyNews

Many people would assume that America has a higher penetration of broadband than any other country. However, just over 50 per cent of Americans use broadband. According to the Listening Post, 89 per cent of South Koreans have broadband.

South Korea has 120 national and local newspapers throughout the country. This is an extraordinary amount considering that South Korea is the same size as New Zealand and Portugal. According to Wikipedia, New Zealand has 27 newspapers and Portugal has 23 newspapers.

OhMyNews was founded by Oh Yeon-ho.  It’s a site created for citizens to become reporters without having to complete a journalism course. The idea that inspired Oh was that, “every citizen is a reporter”. He states in the Listening Post that he wants to, “take the citizen’s voice and make it an influence in making Korea’s public opinion.”

However, this doesn’t mean that citizen journalists have no boundaries. An ‘OhMyNews citizen reporter’s agreement’ has been created for its citizen journalists to abide by.  Part of this contract includes taking legal responsibility for acts of plagiarism and defamation within any article a citizen journalist writes. Australian journalists also have to follow a similar set of rules. When writing articles every journalist must understand the law and what they can and can not write.  OhMyNews also has Code of Ethics. Part of it includes gathering information using legitimate methods, and not using his/her position for personal profit. Australian journalists who are members of the MEAA (Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance) also follow similar rules.

REFERENCES

Quinn, S. (2008). Chapter 7: “OhmyNews in South Korea” in Asia’s Media Innovators, Konrad Adenaueur Foundation, Singapore

YouTube 2007, Listening Post: Rory O’Connor Reports from the OhmyNews Con, retrieved 22 August 2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaVzMA8-pcI

WEEK 4 – E-readings from Fred Wilson and Chris Anderson

“The Web has become the land of the free” Chris Anderson (2008). Anderson’s article demonstrates why $0.00 is the future of business. He writes an interesting account about King Gillette who practised the notion of making money by giving something away. 

I agree with Anderson’s comment about how technology is giving companies greater flexibility in defining their markets. In Anderson’s Youtube video (http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=RZkeCIW75CU) he talks about how a lot of companies are turning into digital companies, which means that more services will turn into software and more products will become downloads. This reiterates Anderson’s point, that ‘every company that becomes digital eventually becomes free.’

I didn’t realise how diverse online advertising could be.  The first thing that ‘entered’ my mind when I was reading Fred Wilson’s article about the ‘media business model’ was advertising banners.  However, Google, Yahoo, merchandise websites, and e-commerce websites that allow you to sell things directly on your website are other forms of content that is provided free to people online. 

Although, Anderson and Wilson raise good points, I don’t think $0.00 is the future of business.  Wherever possible people always want to profit, and if everything online is for free then no one will be rewarded for their work. If an artist writes a song and no one buys the CD because they can get it for free then the artist will stop writing because they won’t be rewarded. Therefore, if everything is free then companies will stop providing.

REFERENCES

Anderson, C. (2008). “Free! Why $0.00 is the future of business” in Wired online at http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free

Wilson, F. (2008). “Make money around free content” in Wired magazine online at http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Make_Money_Around_Free_Content