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Archive for the ‘Online media’ Category

Don’t let this happen to you (sound familiar?)

Posted in Online media, tagged , , on May 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

(Originally posted on Oct. 7, 2010)

You know, the first three paragraphs say it better than I could:

“‘Epic battle between cows, bear caught on cam.’

“The headline was a web site manager’s page view dream, and when a Eugene, Oregon TV station posted the story to its site, it took less than 24 hours to be republished by ABC and AP affiliate web sites nationwide.

“The only problem was that the person and the place in the story were both wrong, exposing countless stations to potential liability for copyright infringement. How it happened is a valuable lesson to anyone in the content publication and aggregation business in a new world where social media accelerates viral stories. ”

There’s a whole string of errors. It’s worth sending around to anyone on staff who has authority to pull in user-generated content.

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Putting the data out there first

Posted in Online media, tagged , , on May 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

(Originally posted Sept. 30, 2010)

Databases of all kinds are extremely popular with online audiences. One of the world leaders in accumulating databases is The Guardian in England, and the Nieman Journalism Lab recently took a look at the organization’s approach to data. Particularly notable was how data editor Simon Rogers described the evolution of how they handle data. Now, for instance, they recognize a hunger by the public for raw data, so often they will throw up the database without even having a story yet:

Sometimes readers provide additional data or important feedback, typically through the comments on each post. Rogers gives the example of a reader who wrote in to say that the Academy schools listed in his area in a Guardian data set were in wealthy neighborhoods, raising the journalistically interesting question of whether wealthier schools were more likely to take advantage of this charter school-like program. Expanding on this idea, Rogers says:

“What used to happen is that we were the kind of gatekeepers to this information. We would keep it to ourselves. So we didn’t want our rivals to get ahold of it, and give them stories. We’d be giving stories away. And we wouldn’t believe that people out there in the world would have any contribution to make towards that.

“Now, that’s all changed now. I think now we’ve realized that actually, we’re not always the experts. Be it Doctor Who or Academy schools, there’s somebody out there who knows a lot more than you do, and can thus contribute.

“So you can get stories back from them, in a way… If you put the information out there, you always get a return. You get people coming back.”

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Technologies that changed journalism

Posted in Broadcast media, Online media, Print media, Social media, tagged , on May 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

(Originally posted on Sept. 28, 2010)

The 10,000 Words blog has a post on key technologies that have aided in the transformation of news (the post’s title actually says they “changed journalism forever”). More accurately, they changed how we report and deliver the news. The oldest “technology” on the list is also the one that arguably is having the biggest effect on the business: Friendster is listed at No. 2 for being the grandaddy of social networking.

Does the list leave anything out?

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A fair definition of engagement

Posted in Broadcast media, Online media, Print media, tagged , on May 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

(Originally posted on Sept. 22, 2010)

Joy Mayer of the Reynolds Journalism Institute had a conversation with Steve Buttry, director of community engagement at TBD.com, about what engagement means since “engagement” is a word much in use in media circles today and is, after all, the focus of Steve’s job title. Highlights of the answer:

“He says engagement comes down to two-way communication, along with a feeling of affiliation. When a media company is engaged with its community, that’s a meaningful relationship — one that doesn’t involve a ‘we know what’s good for you’ gatekeeper’s attitude. It’s reciprocal, and valued.

“… Communities want to be engaged with each other, Steve says. They want to share a collective experience. TBD is experimenting with what the sharing of a collective experience looks like in the digital world, as a media company.”

When reading that post, some of you may stop cold at the fact that Steve has a staff of six doing all this engaging. Don’t let that stop you — they are trying to engage Washington, D.C., and a network of 167 bloggers. The important takeaway is the two-way communication part.

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Trends in news consumption

Posted in Broadcast media, Online media, Print media, Social media, tagged , on May 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

(Originally posted on Sept. 13, 2010)

The good news: Americans are spending more time with the news. People say they spend 70 minutes getting news from various sources, the Pew Research Center says, the highest amount of time reported since the mid-1990s. From there, though, the news is a little murky except that news seen on digital platforms is taking off.

And there is unambiguous bad news for printed newspapers: While 26 percent of all Americans say they read a print newspaper yesterday, that figure falls to just 8 percent among adults younger than 30. And, as you can see in the chart above, people spend less time with the newspaper than with the other media options they have.

And an interesting note: 33 percent regularly use search engines to get news on topics of interest, up from 19 percent in 2008. That points up the growing importance of making sure you are writing online headlines with search engines in mind — and making sure you understand how search engines work.

UPDATE: Related to the search engine note above, during a conference call of news directors today Jason Clough of WNCN pointed out the importance of adding tags to videos posted to YouTube. During coverage of Hurricane Earl, the first videos the station loaded to YouTube weren’t getting much traffic, but once staffers started adding every tag they could think of that people might use to find Earl video, the viewer stats shot way up. (WNCN posts its video to YouTube, by the way, because linking to the YouTube video from Facebook makes the video viewable on mobile devices, while sometimes video posted directly to Facebook is not viewable on some mobile devices. Good tip to remember.)

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A successful experiment

Posted in Mobile media, Online media, Social media, tagged , , on May 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

(Originally posted Sept. 3, 2010)

Repeated here is a very slightly edited note Alex Marcelewski of Media General’s Digital Media distributed after MG’s first-ever multi-property, multi-state online chat, which was about Hurricane Earl. Excellent all the way around:

On Wednesday night from 7:30pm – 8:30pm a multi-property & multi-state interactive chat session was held by Media General for our East Coast properties on Hurricane Earl.  This was the first time an event such as this took place where more than one Media General location and its community were involved.  Overall it was a great success from both a public service and community interaction standpoint.

At one point in the evening we had over 100 participants in there at one specific time along expert representatives from WNCT, WNCN, WCBD, WBTW, and WSLS both in the weather centers and in the field at the Outer Banks of North Carolina.   The chat room was offered and utilized by several MG properties within their own websites (WNCT, WNCN, RTD, WBTW, WCBD, WSLS, and WSAV).   Each of these properties highly promoted the event both on-air and online; which helped drive participants to it.

Our viewers/readers/users were able to ask specific questions on Hurricane Earl which in turn were funneled to the appropriate location and MG expert.  Many of the users commented on their appreciation of having a venue to pose their concerns and questions too.  Interactive chat sessions have been and are being used by various MG properties for different things and each time we see the benefit of it and the service we provide to our communities.

Users were asked via a built-in poll where they were from:

50% – Eastern North Carolina (WNCT area)
18% – Central North Carolina (WNCN area)
18% – Lowcountry Region of South Carolina (Charleston/Georgetown DMA – WCBD)
7% – Central and Coastal Virginia (RTD & WSLS areas)
4% – Grand Strand Region of South Carolina (Myrtle Beach – WBTW/FMN area)
4% – Savannah Georgia (WSAV area)

The following MG Staff who participated as experts were identified via their Photos to set them apart from the public:

David Sawyer (WNCT) – served as overall moderator
Wes Hohenstein, WNCN
Rob Fowler, WCBD
Frank Johnson, WBTW
Scott Leamon, WSLS (on location in Atlantic Beach) via his MG Blackberry
Holly Bounds & Megan Kramer, WSAV
Josh Marthers, WCBD

George Crocker (WNCT) & Jason Clough (WNCN) championed & coordinated the overall project as well as each MG property took turns to help moderate the comments from the public (no comment was posted till approved) – this was a hard task with all the comments that were lining up in the queue but they did real well.

“This coordinated chat session further demonstrated the teamwork philosophy of Media General.  It was a privilege to work with the team of meteorologists and reporters who further confirmed the like mindedness of forecast  tracks; which gave me confidence it my forecast presentation to the viewers of Eastern North Carolina”  – David Sawyer, WNCT Chief Meteorologist

“When we are on TV it is a one way street; but in the chat room it became a two-way street with the viewer which is a valuable interaction to have.” – Wes Hohenstein, WNCN Chief Meteorologistlocal

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Then and now – an idea to steal

Posted in Broadcast media, Online media, Print media, tagged , on May 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

(Originally posted on Aug. 27, 2010)

A post at the Knight Digital Media Center blog points to an excellent project that is “within reach of even small local news organizations” to emulate: CNN’s “Hurricane Katrina: Then and Now.” As Amy Gahran writes:

“When you stroll down a familiar street, or glance at a familiar landmark, your mind’s eye superimposes how that scene looked in years or decades past, under typical and extreme circumstances.

“That common experience is what makes CNN.com’s recent photo retrospective Katrina Then and Now so compelling—and it’s something other news organizations can emulate, not just for disaster remembrances…

“The result is a gallery of 31 haunting photos.

“In each image, a hand holds up a 2005 photo of Katrina’s devastation—in front of that same scene, but in the present day. The images align to create the strong illusion of a window into the past.”

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In praise of lists

Posted in Online media, tagged , on May 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

(Originally posted on Aug. 25, 2010)

The new news-aggregation site TBD.com in Washington, DC, has a reporter devoted exclusively to compiling lists. Lists are popular with Web audiences. That might seem frivolous, but if you think about it, it’s no less frivolous than much of the entertainment material we put in the paper or on the air. If a list is fun or interesting, it achieves its aim of giving the audience something to talk about. One such example from TBD: mottos of local public schools.

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The new-media world is trembling

Posted in Online media, tagged , , , , on May 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

(Originally posted on Aug. 9, 2010)

The biggest news of the week in media may be today’s launch of TBD.com, Allbritton Communications’ new hyperlocal site in Washington, D.C. Many people who devote either their jobs, a large chunk of their free time or both to pondering the future of news media have been eagerly awaiting it. Now that’s it’s here, the early reviews, like this one, or this from Mashable, have been good but not overwhelming — more like “It’s a good start; let’s see what happens.” The editor of the site admits it’s a work in progress — which is why it’s named TBD, “to be determined.”

The editor’s letter to readers includes some details about staffing that had not been widely circulated before, as far as I know:

“TBD has about a dozen reporters. One of them writes nothing but lists. One is all over pedestrian life. One holds politicians throughout the region accountable. Three carry a year-round obsession with the Redskins. Three are covering some of the fastest-developing communities in the region. Three are the final authority on all things arts and entertainment.”

That obviously does not sound like a lot of reporting power for a city as large as Washington. But the site’s focus is on using aggregation and a massive network of independent bloggers to create a come-here-first-for-your-news destination:

“TBD has an aggressive news-filtering machine powered by an entire staff of journalists who scan the region’s blogs, newspapers, and magazines every day. They categorize all the stories from sources in our coverage area so that you can find them with virtually no effort. Just tap your ZIP code or neighborhood into the “My Community” box, and you’ll get the entire “news feed” for your area. Never again will you end up out of the conversation. Moments ago, I entered my ZIP. I found 55 stories written over the past 72 hours from 30 sources.”

The great hope being invested in this site is because to date no one has found the model to make hyperlocal sites profitable on a large scale (emphasis on large). And even if TBD works, it is paired with two Washington-area TV stations, one of them a 24-hour news channel, which may mean some things would not translate to other markets. But it’s the new-media show to watch, and it may answer questions about the viability of online news. If nothing else, it could alter some features of news sites’ designs.

UPDATE: Lessons every news site can learn from TBD’s launch.

8/10 UPDATE: A view from the broadcast perspective:

“On many levels, TBD is worth talking about. It’s the first aggressive effort in local TV circles to compete in a new world of online/mobile news. Allbritton added about 50 people for the site, roughly as many staffers already working on the TV side. And it combined its online brands: WJLA.com and Newschannel 8’s website now redirect to TBD.com. Allbritton is so serious about TBD, it’s rebranding its cable news channel, Newschannel 8 with TBDTV.

“It also is taking a fresh approach to local news: a ‘platform-neutral’ approach to sales, agnostic aggregation (link the competition!) and a citizen blog network with a revenue sharing arrangement, to name a few. …

“(T)his is the first time that a local media group — especially in the TV space — has wrapped these ideas together and aggressively launched them with an investment to back it up.”

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Innovations in journalism

Posted in Online media, tagged , , on May 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

(Originally posted on July 19, 2010)

The winners of the Knight-Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism were announced today. Take a look and see if any give you ideas. The top winner is especially interesting because it’s a model for livestreaming an event while simultaneously providing context and links to further reporting:

“As people watched the live streaming video, the team added additional reporting and document links on the opposite side of the screen, hosted a live blog, and displayed an evolving log of Tweets about the event – all in one place.”

UPDATE: More about the winners.

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