• BBC Internet Blog
  Debate in the UK on blogs, the media and accountabilty
  (tags: blog BBC blogging media journalism)
• 250 jobs to be cut companywide, publisher says | Los Angeles Times
  A necessary, but painful, part of fixing our business for the future is getting costs in line with revenues, says the LA Times
  (tags: newspapers internet journalism)

Given the whole debate over the role of local in journalism, a recent Canadian study offers some surprising data.

The study (PDF) into Canadian news habits for the Canadian Media Research Consortium found that TV is the most used source, with the internet and newspapers coming joint second.

What is more interesting is the reasons behind the choice of medium. Television was attractive as it was visual and live, whereas the internet was searchable and offered a choice of sources.

The main reason for choosing newspapers was out of habit. People were either daily readers or subscribers.

But only 8% said they choose newspapers because they were a source of local news. And even less said it was because they like holding a physical paper.

So while journalists and commentators may argue over the importance of local news, it seems like regular newspaper readers, at least in Canada, don’t really care.

A posting for an internship at The St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper and its website for a multimedia intern reads a lot like the job description for a 21st century journalist.

The ad reads:

This new position is for a multidisciplined and flexible multimedia journalist who can generate and execute multimedia ideas. Ideal candidates will be able to hit the ground running and juggle all types of content and content mediums on deadline assignments. One day you’ll be shooting breaking news photos and transmitting live from the scene, the next day creating a Soundslide feature on a local music festival, the next day shooting video of a political rally for the presidential election.

What is more revealing is the skills labeled as mandatory:

• iMovie or Final Cut Pro
• Audacity (or other multi-track audio editing programs)
• Soundslides
• Photo, video and audio content gathering and editing skills
• FTP and remote transmission skills
• Ability to turn high-quality projects quickly
• Ability to write cleanly and create engaging, informative blog entries, captions, web teases and headlines

No mention of reporting, writing or interviewing skills, though perhaps these are taken as read.

Given the way journalism is changing, these skills may become pre-requisites to succeed in the media. I’m glad to say that we cover all of this in the Master’s programme at the UBC Graduate School of Journalism.

(Via the Innovation in College Media blog)

• TheStar.com | comment | A rough patch but not the end
  “Most worrisome to me is the fact that almost a quarter of respondents reported abandoning sources of traditional media for reasons of trust.”
  (tags: journalism internet)
• Audiences Adapting Digital Platforms
  A CMRC survey, Online Canadians and News, shows that Canadians consume an average of 2.3 hours of news and information per day. Consumers spend 24 per cent of their time watching television, while spending 22 per cent of their time consulting both the int
  (tags: journalism internet Canada CMRC)

June’s Carnival of Journalism, a monthly collection of thoughts from the journalism blogosphere, focused on the issue of local.

The question was whether journalism is better the more local it is. The range of responses shows this is a rich area for debate.

I sat out the carnival as I was on honeymoon in Thailand. But one of the entries from Paul Bradshaw, arguing that online all journalism is potentially local, got me thinking whether we are asking the wrong question.

The concept of local news is based on the news value of geographical proximity - the notion that events close to us are more relevant than those in far away lands.

The problem with this approach is that it is based on an out-dated model of news, where there was a scarcity of news and information and the sources for this were limited by geography.

In other words, news was hard to come by and the primary source for this was the local daily paper.

The explosion of electronic media, from radio to TV to the Internet, has undermined this model. We now live in a world where there is an abundance of news from an abundance of sources.

Maybe rather than asking whether journalism should be local, we should ask ourselves what does local mean in the 21st century. Geographical proximity is still a factor in news, as people are interested in what their neighbours are up to.

But perhaps we should pay more attention to the notion of cultural proximity, so stories concerned with people who speak the same language, look the same, and share the preoccupations as the audience receive more coverage than those concerned with people who speak different languages, look different and have different preoccupations.

The issue then becomes how do we decide on what is cultural proximity? Take Vancouver as an example. This is a Canadian city, with several significant and vibrant ethnic communities.

The result is a multifaceted local population, where diversity rather than homogeneity is the norm.

In this case, local takes on a meaning beyond geography, encapsulating issues of demographics, culture and values. Take the example of a story by Anupreet Sandhu Bhamra, one of my students at the UBC School of Journalism.

She produced a video piece on how attitudes to the elderly are changing among Canada’s Asian community.

This story is based in Vancouver but it has a relevance beyond the city. It resonates on a national and global level, as well as across demographics.

You don’t have to live in Vancouver, or in Canada, to be interested in the piece, so to call this “local news” is to deny its wider appeal.

The issue then is less whether local is better, but rather how do we redefine local to remain relevant in a digital news environment.

Regular readers will have noticed the lack of recent updates. That’s because I have just got married.

I’ll be taking a break from blogging for the next couple of weeks during the honeymoon, but will be back refreshed by the end of the month.

• BBC Global News maintains record 233m audience
  the BBC’s combined international news services attracted a global weekly audience of more than 233 million during 2007/8, according to independent surveys.
  (tags: BBC web journalism internet)
• Lost Remote » The Webby’s in 3 minutes and 46 seconds
  Nice
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• A $500 Million Week for Grand Theft Auto - New York Times
  A sign of changing leisure habits
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• BBC Makes Concession To ‘Unfair Advantage’ Gripes With New Links Push | paidContent:UK
  “There will be another push to put Newstracker on those stories,” he said. “We haven’t really integrated it as seamlessly as we’d like in to our CMS. Sometimes, the journalists are in a hurry and just don’t do it.
  (tags: BBC news innovation internet)
• The BBC.co.uk Review: A response to Edward Roussel | guardian.co.uk
  BBC online is highly valued and hugely admired by the people who pay for it and scaling it back to assist the bottom line of the Telegraph or the Guardian would be a massive public disservice to the nation.
  (tags: BBC online journalism internet)

• Big Daily’s ‘Hyperlocal’ Flop - WSJ.com
  “It’s too early for us to put any kind of stamp on it as a success or failure,” said Jim Brady, executive editor of Washingtonpost.com, a unit of Washington Post Co. “We’re just going to keep experimenting,” he added.
  (tags: citizenjournalism journalism media news washingtonpost)
• Social Media: Sarah Lacy on her new book
  In this 11-minute video interview conducted on a windy beach in Tel Aviv, Sarah talks about startup CEOs and her phenomenal access to get some insidery info about the people driving the Web 2.0 revolution.
  (tags: web_2.0 socialmedia social_software social_media)
• Why Online “Noise” is Good For You - ReadWriteWeb
  The social media space is noisy, though. There are many times when filtering that noise effectively makes a lot of sense (some tools discussed below) - but there are also many times when noise is just what we need.
  (tags: blogging communication internet media social_media technology)

Image via WikipediaThe UK’s newspaper watchdog, the PCC, has released the findings of its research into attitudes towards social networking.

It found that 78% would change information they publish about themselves online if they thought the material would later be reproduced in the mainstream media. This is a new ethical issue for journalists, as Facebook and other social networking sites become sources for journalists.

Social networking sites are used by more than 80% of youngsters in the UK. Yet it appears that few think about the personal details they publish online.

The PCC found that only 55% of people think before posting information that it might later be used by journalists or employers without their consent.

The research showed that most web users think there should be clear guidelines about the type of personal information that can be published online. But the press watchdog has shied away from new regulations, preferring instead to rely on self-regulation.

In the words of Christopher Meyer, chairman of the PCC:

In the digital age, self-regulation, with its sound principles and speed of operation, has never been more relevant. That is why I expect our current Code of Practice to be able to handle complaints in this area; and in the process to enable the Commission over the coming months and years to define through its decisions the boundary between the private and the public.

So no new rules, despite concern from the public. However, journalists would have resisted any new regulations and these could have been difficult to enforce.

And the PCC might not be the best body to do this as it has been accused of caving in to the interests of the newspaper industry.

But clearly there is a need to reassess journalism ethics in a digital age. The meaning of private and public is increasingly blurred online. Journalists have a responsibility to behave ethically but the challenge is agreeing how this applies to personal data published online but not intended for the mass media.

The big question is how to define press intrusion in a digital age.

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