Tracking convergence
June 30, 2003
The Poynter Institute has launched a new Convergence Catalog to track multi-partner experiments, based on forms news companies filled out about their convergence efforts. So far it includes 30 entires, but only three partnerships reported that they ?always? share project planning, as well as story ideas and budgets before publication. “If you believe, as I do, that sharing is a good thing when it comes to doing better journalism, then these partnerships may be in the forefront of the future of convergence: Sarasota, Jacksonville, Phoenix, and Denver,” says Poynter’s Howard Finberg.
Also check out The Convergence Tracker from The Media Center at The American Press Institute, the largest database of partnerships, collaborations and shared resources among U.S. daily newspapers, online and broadcast media.
How Convergence Works in Phoenix
June 30, 2003
Tracy Collins, the deputy managing editor/planning and multimedia at The Arizona Republic, discusses how convergence is done among their television partner, KPNX, and the company’s online site, azcentral.com, in this Q&A with Poynter’s Howard Finberg. “The ownership focused the desire to make this happen; there’s nothing it could do solve the inevitable cultural/organizational issues, other than keeping us motivated to get them solved,” she says. “We went through our “but this is MY story” stage, with reporters not wanting to share the fruits of their hard work. Overcoming that was just a matter of building trust between the newsrooms and the understanding of the common goal.”
Blogging Brazil
June 29, 2003
Travel stories are great for one-time blogs. BBC reporter Paulo Cabral just traveled along Brazil’s Sao Francisco river, following in the footsteps of Victorian explorer Sir Richard Burton. Each day Paulo posted a diary entry on the Web and responded to reader e-mails.
New Google Toolbar blocks pop-ups
June 29, 2003
Google released the beta version of a new toolbar this week — Google Toolbar 2.0 — that adds several new cool features — the ability to block pop-up ads, fill in forms and update blogs as you surf.
The best feature is the pop-up blocker, which in brief testing appears to work as well or better than other pop-up blocking software that’s available. It’s intuitive, easy to use and effective.
The AutoFill option enables users to fill in information that’s stored securely on your own computer and then is used to automatically complete forms on the Web.
Perhaps most interesting, the toolbar also adds the ability to easily post entries to Weblogs hosted by Blogger.com, which Google purchased in February. By highlighting text on a page and clicking the BlogThis button on the toolbar, bloggers automatically insert a link and the highlighted text into their blog.
New Deskbar outdoes Google Toolbar
June 29, 2003
If you think the Google Toolbar is useful, then have we got a new tool for you. HotBot this week launched the Quick-Search Deskbar, which enables you to not only search Google, but hundreds of other handy sites just as easily.
USA Today’s old-fashioned Thurmond documentary
June 28, 2003
USA Today also put together a nice package on Former Senator Strom Thurmond’s life, including audio clips of others senators talking about him, but what was most interesting was the flash documentary produced about his life. The narrated slide show was made in the style of old black-and-white reel movies — complete with white lines and scratch marks — conveying the feel of an historical film, befitting this historical figure.
Impressive Thurmond obituary package
June 27, 2003
For the second time this month, readers found an impressive package on the life and death of former U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond on the Web site of The State, South Carolina’s largest paper — and this time he died for real (see “Strom Thurmond’s premature death“). In addition to three slide shows, a timeline and more than a dozen stories examining his life and impact, the package included insightful audio commentary by veteran political reporter Lee Bandy. The package also included memorable quotes from Thurmond, though it would have been nice to hear audio from his speeches. Still, advance planning clearly paid off and The State had one of the best online packages on this legendary senator’s life.
Networks jump on e-mail political ‘notes’
June 27, 2003
ABC’s The Note feature has become so popular that CBS started a similar feature, Washington Wrap last year and CNN recently started the Morning Grind, a non-public, e-mail-only distribution to a select group of CNN friends. Now NBC is set to launch First Read, a part news summary, part analysis of the political day ahead that will launch July 1, the Los Angeles Times reports.
First Read will be written by Elizabeth Wilner, who co-wrote The Note until she recently defected from ABC News to NBC News. Wilner said First Read will be written primarily for internal NBC planning use. “If people outside NBC want to look online and see what we’re focusing on in politics every day, that’s terrific,” she said.
The Times Elizabeth Jensen says, “The Internet reports are a reflection of the work that broadcast TV producers, in particular, already are doing but must leave on the cutting-room floor because they have such little air time. They don’t have direct links to bringing more viewers to a network, but the Note in particular has been invaluable in source development, giving ABC News cachet inside and outside the Beltway.”
And another plus, says Hotline newsletter editor Chuck Todd, is that the dispatches show top network executives “what the political units at the networks do on a given day. In an age when everything is a potential future budget cut at a news division, any way you can show on a daily basis their relevancy means they are less likely to end up on the chopping block.”
Newspapers skeptical of cross-ownership
June 27, 2003
Newspaper companies remain skeptical about the the benefits of cross-ownership in part because few meaningful yardsticks exist to demonstrate them, says Editor & Publisher. “The most straightforward way to measure cross-ownership’s success is to count the new ad dollars that a company wouldn’t get, if not for its ability to sell across media. Companies also like to measure the dollar value of promotional time and space donated to tout their same-market print and broadcast outlets. But companies are still at the dawn of being able to link audience growth back to increased promotions.”
How the Web can restore credibility
June 27, 2003
E&P’s Steve Outing suggests a number of ways the Internet can be used to help restore journalistic crediblity in the wake of the Jason Blair scandal: Among his suggestions are including reporter and editor e-mail addresses at the end of stories; having corrections pages online; giving reporters public feedback areas online to keep track of their work and errors and enable them to explain the stories behind the stories to readers. All great ideas.