Behind the Scenes: BBC’s Stuart Hughes’ ‘Blog exclusive’
June 30, 2004
The BBC’s Stuart Hughes was one of the first journalists to report the surprise early handover of Iraqi sovereignty Tuesday, filing his report to the BBC and then posting an entry on his blog. Hughes, who lost his leg to an Iraq landmine, was also the first blogger to report on the handover — and his blog entry beat numerous mainstream media outlets.
While he’s been hailed across the blogosphere for his “blogging exclusive,” in an e-mail interview he points out he “only got the story in the first place because I’m a journalist with a traditional news organisation — albeit one with my own personal blog which allows me to flash stories as quickly as the big boys.”
He says his BBC job and blog complement each other “perfectly,” and notes he often cherry-picked the best bits from his blog and condensed them into columns about his recovery for BBC Online.
Hughes calls his blog his “guilty secret” and says he thinks the hype about how blogs are replacing traditional media is “rubbish.”
Read the full interview…
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Online news award deadlines
June 30, 2004
The Online News Association and Society for News Design are seeking entries for their competitions. The SND.ies new media design competition entry deadline is July 1.The ONA’s Online Journalism Awards deadline is August 1.
SFGate: Same-sex wedding album
June 30, 2004
The San Francisco Chronicle and SFGate put together a “Wedding Album” of over 350 photos and highlights of same-sex couples who were married at San Francisco City Hall. You can browse through the album via a slide show or go directly to a couple via an alphabetical list. Great idea, and it would have been even better if they had built in a guest book feature that let readers post their wedding wishes.
Why AP is launching a blog
June 29, 2004
The Associated Press says its going to debute its first blog at the political conventions in Boston and New York, starring Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Walter R. Mears, because the conventions are a good place to experiment.
“We like to try new things at the conventions because we have such a large staff in one place,” said AP’s Washington bureau chief, Sandy Johnson, in a press release. “In 2000, for instance, we created AP’s first-ever convergence newsroom and had print, photos, graphics, tv, radio and multimedia all working in the same room. We also filed from the convention floor via Palm Pilot in 2000, a pioneering use of the Palms, which were fairly new then, as a reporting tool.”
blog@ap.org will be available to sites that subscribes to AP’s premium election services, AP Politics and AP Election Online.
More precise targeted ads
June 29, 2004
Yahoo!’s Overture Services Inc. has launched a new service, Local Match, that lets advertisers precisely target customers interested in a specific neighborhood and present customized offers and business details to them. The service is notable because it can match customers with businesses as little as a half-mile away.
Newspapers with few resources to match services like this will find this a valuable tool. But others should beware — services like this are just one more step toward companies like Overture encroaching on turf (and ad sales) traditionally owned by local news providers.
A few more details on eAP
June 29, 2004
A few more details about the new Associated Press “electronic AP” or “eAP,” initiative, which is touted as producing “a new generation of content management and distribution systems for newspaper publishers and other subscribers”:
The Associated Press will use software from Convera Corp. to categorize, search and distribute its multimedia news content as part of a major technology initiative, the companies announced Monday.
AP and Convera also will work to tailor the software, called RetrievalWare, to address broader needs of the publishing industry, and will cooperate on marketing and distributing products that are tailored for the publishing industry.
Convera specializes in products that enable the search and categorization of information across text, video, image and audio formats. Its software will make it easier for AP’s thousands of daily newspaper, radio, television and online customers to specify the news
they want to receive and obtain it using a Web-based delivery network, the companies said in a news release.
Great Canadian election coverage
June 28, 2004
CBC.ca has done a great job with its comprehensive Canadian election coverage:
• The Voter Toolkit explains what makes Canada’s electoral system tick
• Readers could submit questions to CBC journalists using the Daily Answer feature or have their say about campaign issues through Your View.
• The site brought in new perspectives with news and views from young voters
• And for a more interactive approach check out the election trivia and games
The site also included audio and video reports, comparisons of party platforms, journalist and voter diaries, guest columnists and a political cartoon gallery.
After the polls close tonight, results for all 308 ridings will be available instantly.
Over on the Web site of CBC Radio 3, check out 36 Days, a Flash video series of non-politicians talking about important issues.
Whack the PM
June 28, 2004
Here’s a polling game you’ll find entertaining even if you don’t follow Canadian politics.
“Whack the PM” is a polling game and strategic voting tool. Voters are asked questions, based on actual statements made by each of the candidates, and they respond by whacking the candidate who has the most irritating answer on the head. Using this process, voters determine which leader they should vote against.
Visitors can even get local information by entering their postal code, and the game will suggest the best choices for them, so that the ballots they cast in their individual ridings can ultimately lead to the defeat of a national leader.
The project was made by The James Gang, a Toronto company also known for Whack the Mayor and Office-Politics.
They said the polling game was played over 33,000 times by 15,000 households.
washingtonpost.com’s traffic soars due to Abu Ghraib prison coverage
June 28, 2004
Washington Post CEO Don Graham says washingtonpost.com’s audience growth has slowed in the past two years from the site’s early “torrid pace,” and requiring registration at the beginning of the year may have contributed to slower growth.
But he says the numbers also show that Americans do care about news online: On the first day that The Post had exclusive photos from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, the site’s page views — which average 7 million on a typical weekday — soared to 22 million.
Here is an interesting chart illustrating how the site’s traffic has been affected by major news events in the past two years…
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CMP to lift CNET linking ban
June 28, 2004
CMP says it will soon lift its ban on CNET’s in-bound links, according to Steve Rubel. The site’s editor says CNET was deep linking to CMP PDF white papers and attempting to capture reader registration data in the process. After CMP sent the competitor a cease and desist letter, CNET removed the user registration requirement, he said, and so now they’ll remove the block.