Archive for the ‘Media and Journalism’ Category
Buy one anyway
Friday, July 17th, 2009Media140
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009Today I’m in London for the Media140 event, “bringing together journalists, bloggers, social media advocates and publishers to share and discuss the effects and impact of twitter and other social media tools on mainstream media”.
Looks like a great lineup of speakers.
You can follow the event on Twitter with the hashtag #media140, or watch a livestream of the event:
The National editorial salaries
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009Someone is in big trouble. The pay of 250 staff at the recently launched “The National” newspaper in Abu Dhabi have been leaked online via Wikileaks.
You can have a read of the list here. Or here (Right click on the link to save to your desktop)
As a guide, divide the sums by five for a rough euro conversion. The sums are monthly net pay (no income tax). Rent must be paid out of salary, so the figures might not be as good as they first appear.
Mr Newland, the editor, is on 132,834 dirhams a month. At today’s exchange rate that’s €28,000 a month, tax free. Nice if you can get it. R
Bono to write column for NY Times
Friday, January 9th, 2009He will also do a podcast, says NY Times editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal. The column won’t be weekly but it will be occasional. Bono noted:
Bono called the gig “an honor,” and joked that he’s “never been great with the full stops or commas.”
Ah sure, what harm. I think it’s a good move for the NY Times. What say ye?
Demotix
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009The new website went live today. I prefer it over the previous incarnation. I haven’t started uploading photos (not that there was much to upload, perhaps some Georgia/US election ones).
Not heard of it? It’s a British-based website for photographers to upload and sell their photos, sharing revenue with Demotix (who sell the photos for you). More here.
Where is the news business going?
Friday, January 2nd, 2009I see the Government published the report of the Advisory Group on Media Mergers today. It’s pretty lengthy. I wonder should I bother reading the whole thing.
As everyone knows by now the newspaper industry globally is having a bad time of it. Even a cursory look at my links will tell you how often I read about it.
The question I am asking myself, in light of the dire situation in the US of late, is what newspapers or newspaper groups will survive 2009. On a share price basis, Trinity Mirror Group and Johnston Press are serious contenders for bankruptcy. Given my own vested interest in the Irish media landscape I can’t comment on the newspaper group I work for. But I will say that if either Trinity or Johnston go, they will obviously bring many Irish titles down with them.
For interesting end of year roundups about the newspaper industry do read the following:
The Newspaper Industry and the Arrival of the Glaciers
Newspaper death watch
What might have been
There is nothing anyone can do about it
Bad news, good news
Olbermann in a minute
Friday, November 14th, 2008Buying papers in Chicago
Wednesday, November 5th, 2008It’s proving hard for people in Chicago to get copies of the Chicago Sun Times and the Chicago Tribune. So much so that lines formed on the streets, and people bought dozens of copies each. This guy was happy with his purchase, having already bought about a dozen copies, he asked for another dozen.
And they say the newspaper industry is dying ;-)
Breaking news Facebook
Wednesday, September 10th, 2008I see my company launched a Facebook page/group for its Breaking News section.
It looks like it started back in August and it seems many invites were sent out recently. It’s a step in the right direction.
Yahoo f**k up
Wednesday, September 10th, 2008
Good stuff Yahoo, put a pic of Obama next to a headline about terrorism. I imagine the picture was added automatically because of the related keywords – but shouldn’t they really check it before it goes live?
Update: Someone/something from Yahoo visits within 10 minutes.
25 minutes later and it still features on the main Yahoo News world page:
The Media Elite
Saturday, September 6th, 2008Hehehe.
Wordle in newspapers
Monday, September 1st, 2008
Well the Irish Examiner, after much pitching by me, was brave enough to implement wordle usage. I reckon it might be the first Irish paper to use it.
I think it is effective. It draws the readers eyes in, and gives a sense of what the speech itself contains. What do people think? Is it something that could be used more in other contexts?
Tools of the trade?
Monday, September 1st, 2008I have assembled some of the tools I will be testing over the coming months. Here they are:
Well, except the MacBook Pro, which has been the best laptop I have ever had, and is now over one year old. Besides it is an EeePC 901 (12Gb solid state, 8GB SD, 1.6Ghz Atom, webcam, mic, Windows XP), a Canon 20D (extra battery pack/grip, 4GB CF), and a Flip Ultra.
The Flip Ultra has been interesting. The testing has shown that the mic is incredibly receptive, and the video quality is higher than I expected. I uploaded test footage to my YouTube account and it did degrade slightly, but it was still perfectly watchable.
I am taking a leaf out of the book of Jeff Jarvis, Michael Rosenblum and Howard Owens. Is this the kit all journalists should have? Maybe, maybe not. The DSLR is clunky, a point and shoot might be better. Better yet might be a new Nikon D90, which is a DSLR and a HD video recorder.
But for now I will make do with what I have, and see how effective they are as tools of the trade. Georgia should provide an interesting test bed if nothing else.
Wordle in print
Friday, August 29th, 2008I convinced the powers that be in the Irish Examiner that a wordle cloud would make a good graphic to go along with Barack Obama’s speech. It will feature in tomorrow’s paper. I’ve not seen Wordle used in an Irish paper yet, but since I don’t look at print newspapers that much (I read them all online) I might have missed them!
It will be on Page 14, all in horizontal. ‘Promise’ was the most frequently used word.
Russia revises Ossetia death toll
Wednesday, August 20th, 2008Surprise surprise. I, along with many others, indicated recently that the alleged death tolls as high as 2,500 put forward by Russia were entirely without a basis in fact. Now, according to the BBC:
Russia has issued new, reduced casualty figures for the Georgian conflict, with 133 civilians now listed as dead in the disputed region of South Ossetia. The figure is far lower than the 1,600 people Russia initially said had died.
133? That sounds closer to fact. But Russia Today has been using the 2,000 figure across its ticker for over a week. This would polarise viewers very quickly, and I imagine now many would accept that figure as fact. It was a figure largely accepted by Western media, though always with the proviso that it was based on Russian media/government reports.
And in a further chilling of Western-Russian relations, Russia has said it is to cut all military ties with NATO.