December 31, 2007 • 1:55 am 0
Here are the most popular five posts during December on Reportr.net:
Thanks for your support over the past 12 months. I wish all the readers of Reportr.net a joyful and prosperous 2008.
December 30, 2007 • 10:40 am 0
This is probably the best ever song about a news site, Digg, and likely the envy of mainstream news outlets:
According to TechCrunch, Kina Grannis, the girl behind the online hit “Digg Song” (video above) has been approached by a record company interested in discussing a record deal.
Technorati Tags: Digg, Kina+Grannis
Site Search Tags: Digg, Kina+Grannis
Filed under: YouTube, video , Digg Song, Kina Grannis
• 2:42 am 0
The way The Vancouver Sun covered a recent survey on the news habits of Canadians is revealing.
The poll conducted by IDC Canada for the Information Technology Association of Canada concluded that the “imminent death of traditional media has been greatly exaggerated”, stressing that “despite our fascination and reliance on digital content, 95 percent of respondents continue to turn to traditional media (newspapers, radio and television) for general news and 82 percent for breaking news.”
The Sun followed the same lead , which is hardly surprising, as it is part of one of Canada’s media conglomerates, CanWest.
The poll, however, could be read in a very different way. The results show that TV is the primary source of news for most Canadians, used by 70%.
But the poll suggests that the Internet is growing in importance, with 42% of respondents using some form of online media for general news, rising to 50% among the younger generation. By comparison, 50% turn to newspapers, around the same percentage who use radio.
One way of interpreting these figures is that the way Canadians learn about the world is changing. As Bernard Courtois, President, ITAC suggested:
65 per cent of Canadian households have high speed Internet, and this high level of adoption is causing a shift in behaviour, as Internet news outlets begin to creep into the media mix
There was an unexplained finding on the level of trust in online news. The survey found that only 11.5 per cent of respondents saying they believe online media is unbiased and 12 per cent believing that it is accurate. This is odd, as the mainstream news outlets also are the dominant online news sources for Canadians.
Filed under: Canada, journalism, newspapers , CanWest, Vancouver Sun
December 28, 2007 • 12:28 pm 0
Apparently you only need to go to high school to read this blog, at least according to The Blog Readability Test..
It works out the level of education is required to understand a blog. The test also works on just about any website.
To grasp the contents of the new website of the UBC School of Journalism, where I teach, you must be a college post-grad. Well, it is a graduate school.
(Via JD Lasica’s SocialMedia)
Filed under: academics, blogs, education , readability, reading level
December 26, 2007 • 9:02 am 0
Former MIT Media Lab director Nicholas Negroponte on his One Laptop Per Child concept:
from www.clipsyndicate.co posted with vodpod
Filed under: innovation , Nicholas Negroponte, OLPC
December 25, 2007 • 8:04 am 1
Is it worth doing a master’s degree in journalism? Apparently, it is worth it, at least financially:
As Mindy McAdams notes in a post on the job outlook for journalism graduates:
New U.S. graduates with a bachelor’s degree in journalism or mass communication had a median annual salary of $30,000, according to a survey of spring 2006 graduates. New graduates with a master’s degree in journalism or mass communication had a median annual salary of $38,000.
As a professor at a graduate School of Journalism, I would recommend doing a master’s degree, but not due to the prospect of a higher salary. A master’s degree offers an opportunity to develop your critical skills. Good journalism is far more than just reporting the news. It is about analysing, understanding and making sense of the world around us.
The UBC Graduate School of Journalism where I teach is a great place to learn these skills. And Vancouver has much to recommend it as a place to live too.
Technorati Tags: master’s degree, UBC School of Journalism
Filed under: Canada, education, journalism, online , UBC School of Journalism
December 24, 2007 • 1:59 am 0
As it is coming up to the end of the year, journalists are busy putting together lists looking ahead to 2008.
The Guardian has published a list of what it reckons could be the next big thing in social media, such as video site Seesmic.com and social travel site Dopplr.com.
The BBC has a slightly different take, with a list of lesser-known social networking sites, under the headline, “Don’t be lonely this Christmas”.
The question is whether any of these sites can grow to be big enough to challenge the dominance of Facebook.
The (short) history of social media is littered with sites that once reigned supreme, such as Friendster, and then fell by the wayside.
Technorati Tags: social+media, Facebook, Dopplr, Seesmic
Site Search Tags: social+media, Facebook, Dopplr, Seesmic
Filed under: Web 2.0, social media, social networking , Dopplr, Facebook, Friendster, Seesmic
December 23, 2007 • 5:13 am 0
If you are heading into 2008 thinking, we must do more with social media, here is a useful primer to social news websites.
From the post:
Social news websites generally operate via a wisdom of the crowds principle; groups of individuals with different points of views are able to collectively determine the value or importance of content disseminated through the community. The users are given the editorial power to influence the visibility of content.
It is written from a marketing point of view. But maybe journalists should think more about how to reach audiences in a fragmented media online environment.
Filed under: Web 2.0, journalism, news, social media , beginner's guide, Digg, Mixx, NowPublic, Reddit
• 1:39 am 1
News editors are slowly realising that video on the web is not TV. And interestingly, it is often newspapers that are leading the way.
In this clip on Beet.tv, Vivian Schiller, general manager at the NYTimes.com, explains how she had to unlearn much of what she knew about video journalism after years in TV news at CNN and Discovery.
For example, TV folks try to avoid having a talking head, but this works well online. On TV, most reports have a narrative, with a beginning, middle and end, whereas online you want to get right to the point quickly.
Earlier this year, the BBC News website ran a trial producing bespoke video, rather than simply rebroadcasting TV reports. It found that these videos, created to run alongside stories, proved far more popular than regular TV pieces.
One key differences was the nature of the web videos. Regular TV reports work on the principle of “tell me the story”, with the reporter as the narrator. Online, most people will already know the story, or can read it. Instead the video should “show me the story”.
(Via Howard Owens)
Technorati Tags: online+video, television
Site Search Tags: online+video, television
Filed under: BBC, television, video , NYTimes, Vivian Schiller
December 21, 2007 • 9:01 am 0
Canadian newspaper execs are slightly more upbeat than their US counterparts about the ad revenues in the coming year.
A report by Toronto-based Kubas Consultants found that “”Canadian newspapers, however, may be the exception, due to their distinctly optimistic outlook on ad revenues. The economy may be better north of the border, but not that much better.”
But execs on both sides of the border are looking to the Internet to shore up the bottom line, with study calling online the “one bright star in what is otherwise a gloomy night.”
Some of the other emerging trends are shared with newspapers in the UK, such as hyperlocal coverage, user-generated content and greater use of video.
Filed under: Canada, newspapers, online , CanWest, Kubas, online revenue
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