Lots o’ new ‘professional’ blogs
January 31, 2005
From MediaBistro (which just redesigned its site, plus TVNewswer and Galleycat):
Unbeige: Design blog
MBToolbox: Tips on writing and editing
FishbowlNY: NY media gossip
FishbowlLA: LA media gossip
FishbowlDC: DC media gossip
From Nick Denton’s gang at Gawker Media:
Lifehacker: Tech tips
Gridskipper: Travel blog
(Both of which launched with big advertisers on board)
Free multmedia reporting seminar
January 31, 2005
The Western Knight Center for Specialized Journalism is accepting applications for an expenses-paid “Multimedia Reporting and Convergence Seminar” seminar that combines practical instruction in multimedia reporting with in-depth exploration of media convergence and other critical issues for online news operations. It will be held March 20 - 25 at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.
Read more »
TakeBackTheNews.com
January 31, 2005
Another participatory journalism attempt, TakeBackTheNews.com, has launched. (Yes, it’s getting hard to keep track of all of them…)
This one so far seems to be mostly a blog summarizing mainstream media articles. But the site has more ambitious goals. Individuals are encouraged to participate in the following roles at TakeBackTheNews.com:
• General Content Contributors, who submit interesting news-of-the-day items covering various topics
• Topic-Specific Content Contributors, who focus on a particular topic or content area and submit news items relating to it
• Op-Ed Contributors, who submit original opinion pieces
Contributing Bloggers, who submit takes on the latest news and increase blog exposure
• Editors, established contributors who may apply for or be recruited to serve as volunteer editors
Editors will review all editorial submissions for purposes of appropriateness and clarity before publishing content online.
‘We’re all Web journalists’
January 31, 2005
I think most practicing journalists today are as Webby as any blogger you care to name. Journalists have had access to broadband connections for longer than most civilians, and nearly every story they tackle begins with a Web dump of essential information from Google or a proprietary database such as Nexis or Factiva. They conduct interviews via e-mail, download official documents from .gov sites, check facts, and monitor the competition-including blogs-the whole while. A few even store as a “favorite” the URL from Technorati that takes them directly to what the blogs are saying about them (here’s mine) and talk back. When every story starts on the Web, and every story can be stripped to its digital bits and pumped through wires and over the air, we’re all Web journalists.
The premature triumphalism of some bloggers indicates that they haven’t paid attention to how Webified journalists have become. They also ignore media history. New media technologies almost never replace old media technologies, they merely force old technologies to adapt and find new ways to connect with their audiences.
Blogs covering Iraq election
January 29, 2005
One of the best blogs covering the Iraq elections is Friends of Democracy, which is offering excellent “ground-level election news from the people of Iraq,” including photos and even a Webcast.
(Note: Check back as this post will be updated)
Other blogs on news sites:
• NBC’s David Shuster Baghdad Diary and Webcast
• BBC journalists
• BBC Iraqis’ blog
Other independent bloggers of note:
• A Family in Baghdad
• Iraq Dispatches from an independent journalist in Baghdad
• Life in Baghdad
• Citizen Burning
• Report from London voting on London Kurd blog
• More reports from voting in England on Kurdistan Bloggers Union
• Kurdo
• Iraq Photos blog
• Lance in Iraq, a U.S. medical platoon leader serving in northern Iraq
• Democracy in Iraq (is Coming)
• Neurotic Iraqi Wife
• A star from Mosul
• Life from Baghdad
• Iraqi Girl hnk’s blog
• A citizen of Mosul
• Free Iraqi
More good Iraq blog roundup lists:
• Interactive map of Iraqi bloggers
• Future of Iraq
• From Jeff Jarvis on Buzzmachine
• From Will Femia on MSNBC.com
• The Iraq Files
• Words from Iraq
Know of others? Post them here.
NJ.com’s citizen journalist army
January 29, 2005
NJ.com editor Dean Betz writes in to point out that the site not only has a number of blogs written by “professional journalists”…
• The Jersey Side
• Transit Blog
• Liss Is More
• The Women’s Game
• Reality TV
… but MORE THAN 40 Weblogs written by “citizen journalists” on topics from local events news to “The Sopranos.”
Great reader photos from Iraq
January 28, 2005
In December, The Washington Post and washingtonpost.com solicited images from U.S. soldiers and their family members and friends about life in Iraq. The Post has culled through the photos and published the best ones. You can view the submissions they published here — or use the search box to find specific photographs.
What’s notable about this gallery is that, unlike most photo galleries of reader-submitted photos you see on news sites, these photos are professional quality — from composition to lighting.
This demonstrates how the combination of citizen journalists and professional editing can produce high-quality, publishable content on par with professional work, giving audiences new perspectives without losing quality or credibility.
Join online news chat
January 27, 2005
News to aMUSE
January 27, 2005
Washingtonpost.com has launched a new feature, News to aMUSE, inviting readers to submit odes relating to recent news events. Each Friday the site will post the best poems. “Judging is based on a complex algorithm utilizing whim, star alignment and portions of the Olympic ice-skating point system (please, no lead pipes).”
Week’s end approaches, but let us weep not
Though the work week has ended, it won’t be forgot
So let’s celebrate the sublime and perverse
Of these past few days, through poetic verseGive us your limericks, your haikus and sonnets
Your Seussian babble and off-rhyming couplets
Submit your odes by Friday at 4
We’ll post all the best (the rest we’ll ignore)But first a few rules to lend us some cred
If not news-related, your ode won’t be read
So study the headlines, columns and briefs
Newsmakers, pundits, commanders-in-chief
Get the idea? Relate to the news…
Make your rhyme sing and we’ll be sure to use
BBC: Iraq election log
January 27, 2005
As Iraqis prepare for this weekend’s election, BBC News has launched a daily Iraq Weblog on its site. For two weeks, the site will be publishing a range of accounts from people inside Iraq about their day-to-day lives.
The BBC has set up a page telling readers a little bit about each of the people posting, and is editing posts before publishing.
“Contributors are people who have contacted us, or people in Iraq we have contacted and invited to contribute. The BBC Host in this log is the BBC News website’s Middle East team. The role of the host is to add context and explanation where necessary and point readers to external sites that add to the picture of life in Iraq. This is not a weblog or blog in the pure sense. The log is mediated in that an editor, the BBC Host, will read all posts and the comments they generate before publication.”