This is part 2 of a couple of posts that develop some of the areas covered and not covered by the CNN mobile journalism panel I sat on at the Frontline.

In a previous post I clarified some of the points I made. I didn’t want to sideline them it was just going to be a long post. So I my touch back on some of that in this post.

To try and keep some shape to the post I thought I would go back and look at the suggested areas given to me for the panel. They are broadly the same as the topic areas on the eventbrite page.

How important are eyewitness reports in news today? In the future.

Of course it’s really important. We can’t be everywhere as journalists so being able to get input from the scene is invaluable, however we get it. Given the subject area of the panel I suppose the context for this is the use of mobile as the tool that gets eyewitness accounts to ‘us’, the mainstram media. The fact that the CNNi app comes with ireport built in illustrates the importance of mobile as a possible platform.

Of course this is where the vexed question of CitJ rears its’ head. I was amused to read in the pre-amble to the event “Citizen journalists and ordinary people are, increasingly, beating TV crews to the scene of breaking news stories.”. Yes people are racing to events but they are also there already. We used to call them victims or bystanders.

What motivates people to submit content to news orgnaisations? What type of people do it?

All kinds of people. All kinds of motives. Some people will do it out of a passion for the story and at the other end of the spectrum, some will do it out of spite. What’s clear is that that they send in to an organization because they have some affinity to it. They send to the BBC because they respect it and want to be part of it. They will take time to post a video to CNN because they may get a chance to be associated with it. That’s where we let them down sometimes. We don’t recognize that and engage. Sometimes we don’t even say thank you. How hurt would you be when someone something you respect let’s you down or treats you badly.

Is it important for practicing journalists to understand and use mobile technology in their work? What does it bring to their craft that’s new, or better.

In a nutshell, yes. If you don’t use mobile in what you do how can you possibly know how to serve and interact with your audience who do.

CNNi’s Louis Gump made a great point when he said that mobile is not just one thing. It’s mobile phone apps, its tablets and ipad stuff and its the mobile web (browsing the web on a phone). I think thats really important in this context. But we also need to add that in a journalistic context it’s also a tool to gather content. Alex Woods had it so right when he said we have to think of a mobile in its individual parts. It’s a camera, a video camera, a web browser and a phone.

That brings loads of opportunities but it also challenges.

It challenges the working practice and professional definitions. Take the mobile web. Louis rightly pointed out the stylistic differences for content online (images and bullet point text). But many journalists balk at that as a change from their ‘normal style’. The mobile phone as a tool is great but what about the feeling of inadequacy when using a mobile phone to shoot video rather than a big broadcast camera (subjugating your ego to small devices as @benhammersly summarized it!)? What about the problem that most journalists pay their own phone bills and don’t want to subsidize their org by paying the data tariff so they can stream their own video?

All of those questions, and the related by-ways of debate they create are, I think, one of the reasons the debate was a bit stale for some. You see, we haven’t really answered those questions. As journalists we haven’t come to terms with those changes. When people in the room are asking if it’s a good idea to specialise or learn a range of these ‘new skills’ then you realise that perhaps the debate isn’t so stale.

Tips on creating great stories using a mobile device?

I’d say consume some content on your own phone. Think about the limitations and your experience. It’s no different from the consumer so put yourself in their shoes then act on your own experience. I would also go back to Alex’s point about thinking about the individual functions- the camera, video, apps etc. The rest is then a case of what you are doing. If you are taking a picture then think about what makes a good editorial picture. That doesn’t change because you are using a mobile. Likewise with video. Yes, some of the tropes of TV can be subverted but the basics work.

What’s the impact of new technology on the business of news?
Obviously there is a huge impact. As I was drafting this post the BBC have just announced that they have  had the go ahead for BBC apps. That’ll put the cat amongst the pigeons. But that aside I think it’s important to look at the different sectors of ‘mobile’ to gauge the impact but in general I think the impact is in capacity. You have to spend money to get the capacity to do mobile – the technology part of it. But there is also your the capacity of the people within your organsiation – the understanding and skills.

Of course you could throw a lot of money at the problem but skills and understanding are often resilient to that. Hearts and minds don’t often change with cash. But time and money are well spent when building capacity and the smart people are seeing it as a medium term thing.

Take the ipad for example. In a quick straw poll of the audience only 3 out of 40’ish people admitted to having an ipad. So why the big fuss about it? Well, one part is the apps which are a big area of development. But for the smart set the ipad is a transitional platform. It’s a place to experiment with HTML 5 for example. Get you offering right on the ipad and chances are you will be a step further down the line when browsers catch up.

The danger is that some orgs will try and bypass the necessary investment by seeing mobile as just another platform to aggregate and dump content on to. Thats a mistake. Shovelware on any platform doesn’t work. Aggregation is something that is better left to your audience to do and not your organization.

How is technology changing the way people consume news?
Whenever new technology comes along it will change peoples habits. Mobile is no exception. But the killer combination is mobile and the rise of social media online. Any stats on mobile app use for example shows the importance of Facebook and social sites Facebook. Look at the fluster around Flipboard and you get an idea of the issues as the relate to journalism.

So if you are a large media organisation looking to develop for a mobile platform then ask yourself what social media elements you are adding? What social media habits are you tapping in to? Do your journalists have the capacity to work in a social media environment.

Perhaps the answer to a business model lies in the fact that if you are not up to capacity on understanding and working with communities then decide what content you can give for free in an app wrapper to get you on the platform. But don’t give it much thought beyond that. You just aren’t ready to make the best of it.

A quick bluster through I know. But it’s a start. I’d love more questions.

News reaches me via the newspaper video group about  me about an excellent new project called Findingtheframe by  Colin Mulvany,  multimedia producer at The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington.

According to Colin the site was set up as a website

for the sole purpose of connecting those who need feedback on their multimedia, to professionals willing to share some time and knowledge.

It came off the back of a post on his (excellent) blog Mastering Multimedia where he voiced his disappointment at the quality of the video being submitted to the NPPA Best of Photojournalism Multimedia Contest

The plan is to have onboard as many “expert” volunteers as possible that have solid foundations in video storytelling, audio slide shows or Flash projects. This pool of reviewers will peruse the submitted links of multimedia in the “Story Pool”. If they decide to comment on a story, it will then become public on theFinding the Frame home page where anyone else is free to give added feedback.

The site has already drawn in some great content and some lively debate. Well worth a look and if you are in that game then sign up to help review.

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• Mulvaney: Newspaper video has to improve (collegemediainnovation.org)

You may remember a that Google trialed a bit of code with the New York Times and Washington Post called Living Stories:

Living Stories are a new format for presenting and consuming online news. The basic idea of a living story is to combine all of the news coverage on a running story on a single page. Every day, instead of writing a new article on the story that sits at a new URL and contains some new developments and some old background, a living story resides at a permanent URL, that is updated regularly with new developments. This makes it easier for readers to get the latest updates on the stories that interest them, as well as to review deeper background materials that are relevant for a story’s context.

It wasn’t long before the code became open source for people to tinker with. You need to be prepared to tinker a lot if you want to run it on anything other than Googles AppEngine (and even then you’ll be tinkering for a while). But now that tinkering may be over.

Google have announced the release of a special theme and collection of plugins that allow you to create a version of their Living Stories using WordPress as the base.

I’ve had a quick play and (once I got over a mistake with the installation. I’m a donkey!) it certainly makes it’s presence known. Look at the updated  dashboard!

The post page becomes redundant as you get a choice of a raft of different content types organized in to stories by assigning categories.

You start by defining a category for the story and then creating an event. You can then add other elements and, hey presto, it starts to package it up.

There is no fancy timeline but the way it breaks the content up would make for an interesting approach to group work on a project.

Worth a play.

HT to Charles Arthur (@charlesarthur) for the head up to this one

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• Living Stories can reinvent the article (radar.oreilly.com)
• Google Opens Up ‘Living Stories’ (paidcontent.org)
• Google Declares “Living Stories” Experiment Success, Offers as Open Source (readwriteweb.com)
• Google’s “Living stories”: first thoughts (newsless.org)

Last week I gave a short lecture to broadcast (and a smattering of magazine) students about using the web to help find a job.

I tried to sum the whole thing up in a pithy slide:

It was really about fitting digital in to an already well established pattern for job hunting – traditional ad’s with a good slice of what and who you know.

That’s why I started with a list of job sites offering a digital way of doing that long slog of working through the job ad’s.  No surprise there then.

But I made the point that looking for work in a converged world mean’t a bit of a change of perspective.

Even though you may come from a broadcast tradition and your target job may be in a traditional environment (radio newsroom for example) the market is increasingly varied. (as my highly technical diagram shows) Your skills carry across boundaries in a converging world. You could end up as a radio producer at a newspaper working on their podcasts or working for an online only publication working on video.

Increasingly that converged mindset is what you have to cultivate to get work. But I think it’s also  the mindset to apply for job hunting. Don’t limit yourself to one sector. Instead of starting in one of the circles, position yourself in the middle and aim at all of them. You never know what might crop up. So my tip around searching for jobs also included searching for jobs.

By searching for something like radio OR broadcast jobs UK you get a rich and broad pot that you can then start to refine and filter. To develop your searches, think laterally. Add phrases that are specific to your area of interest or that would be unique to a job : radio OR broadcast ~job +salary +enps uk.

Remember the aim here is not to get Google to simply churn out job ads; the jobs sites will do that. It’s also to introduce an element of serendipity in to the mix that will richen your understanding of the market.

Of course the introduction of a broader range of sites means more content to wade through so you’ll also need to consider ways to manage the flow. Simple things like setting up a Google Alert based on the search terms you enter can help. But you may also want to get your RSS reader working for you to pull all your job related feeds in to one place that you can search and filter.

If a speculative google search throws up an interesting company (who don’t have jobs but you might want to keep an eye on) then search for an RSS feed to subscribe to. Then when a job comes up you know what they have been up to.

When the orginal slides went up in a post on  journalism.co.uk, John Thompson pointed out a way to get custom RSS feeds based on custom searches.

In the top left-hand column on most of the pages on Journalism.co.uk, you will see a panel headed “Job of the week”. About half-way down there is a dropdown menu that allows you to search by job type. For this example, select “editorial assistants and trainees” and click “go”.

On the subsequent search results page, you will see at the top of the central column an advanced search form. This allows you to make a more detailed search based on sectors, categories, salary and location. You will also see an option under format to “return search results as RSS feed”. Select that and also tick “editorial assistants and trainees” under the “categories” section.

Click the search button and, voila, you will be presented with a customised RSS feed containing only editorial assistant and trainee vacancies.

Josh Halliday got in touch via twitter so say he has put together a combined RSS feed of popular job sites that you can subscribe to. (thanks Josh)

I’ve put together an RSS bundle of just five of the UK’s most comprehensive media jobs listings sites: Gorkana, Guardian Jobs, Journalism.co.uk Jobs, Hold The Front Page and the Editorial Jobs Twitter feed (it’s RSS is borked).

And don’t forget that there are other ‘oldschool’ ways. Sign up for email newsletters like the Gorkana alert

The Shmoozing bit.
In the media people will often tell you that it’s about who you know rather than what. So whilst the broad searching will tell you what jobs are available and give a broad view of what’s going on we need to get next to some real people.

At this point it’s worth stressing that this is not about using digital to replace the process. You still need to get out there and meet people. But we can build our own networks online that help us connect and experience the churn or views and news from the industry. It could be eavesdropping on the latest gossip to build up ‘intelligence’ or even using the community to help you get a job.

But if it’s about who you know, how do we know who to connect with?

This is where social networking sites like Twitter come in to their own. They offer an easy way to find and connect with people in your community. Take a look at MediaUK’s twitter page (@mediauk). Obviously a popular follow and the kind of thing that a lot of people in the industry would look at. Now we could go through the list of people that follow and are followed by @mediauk to find useful people; use their contacts if you like. But notice their lists

Mediauk's twitter lists

They are nicely split in to sections and make following a glut of people in your area easy. If you find someone on the list who really resonates with you or fits right in to your area then look at their lists (if they have them) and build your network.

The same logic (if not the same mechanics) work for other social networking sites. Take a look at LinkedIn or even Facebook. Connect with one person or join a Facebook group and you’ll open yourself up to more connections.

Of course, the key to success in social networks is to be an active part; Share, listen, help, participate. All of these things will build your profile. And profile is important as it doesn’t just build your recognition within the community (the most valuable part) but it also makes you more visible online.

The lists from mediaUK are actually generated from user submissions – you can go to their site and add yourself. That’s an easy way to be pro-active about building visibility. For some this might fall in to the ‘rampant self promotion’ section but it’s a way of getting your name out there.

That’s why I think a blog is still a valuable tool in your job searching kit.

Many people are leaving blogs behind in favour of the more dynamic ‘statusphere’ of twitter and social networks. But a blog offers something a little more stable, a more permanent place for you online. It offers you a chance to reinforce and expand your online identity. (I will always look at the link that people put in their twitter profile to get more information about a person.) To start with you could use it simply as a static CV/Portfolio site that you can point people to when applying for jobs. But it could soon expand to offer more. More active posting about your experiences and interests attract audience.

The most popular blogs within the journalism community tend to be the ones that share experiences – Think about Josh sharing that list of RSS feeds. It’s journalists trying things and showing their working out. Thats valuable to the community and people remember you for that (you’re playing an active role). That’s one of the reasons I linked to Adam Westbrook in the presentation. Like Josh, he’s a great example of someone who plays an active part in the community.

You could ask ‘why a blog and not a static website?’ My first response is that blogging is one of those things that you should have experience of in a converged world (back to my point earlier). But there are some, more practical reasons.

There are lots of great website builders out there (I’d add Jimdo to that list ), but blogs offer a lot of under the bonnet stuff that helps promote your stuff and make it easy to share. Built in notification of search engines and automatic RSS feeds are just two of the things that will help spread yourself around the web. They may be the thing that gets you popping up in a search engine when a prospective employer searches your name and it will link them to something that sells you appropriately.

Here’s a quick cheat sheet telling you how you can tweak a wordpress.com blog to start showing static pages rather than the more dynamic posts. You can change it later on when you are ready to go down the more dynamic posting route.

Given that this presentation was to broadcast students I also looked at the problems associated with multimedia on free sites and blogs. I’ve listed a number of third party hosts that you can try to get round some of those restrictions. Using a third party site also has the benefit of getting your work out there on another platform to another audience.

So, there it is. Use the web to sign up to job sites but don’t stop there. Use it to broaden your horizons, think multiplatform in where you look. Be part of and visible in the community and your profile will grow and that can only be a good thing.

I hope it made sense and if you have any questions then drop me a line.

• The slides are available at http://www.slideshare.net/digitaldickinson/webjobs
• On a related note: Any students reading this should go and read Alison Gow’s advice for work placement students. Invaluable stuff
• John Thompson has posted more about j.co.uk’s jobs boards and also points to their advice about CV’s.
• Glyn Mottershead (@Egrommet)has created a nifty yahoo pipe that lets you filter jobs from popular media jobs sites by location (thanks for that Glyn)

Image via Wikipedia

News reached me (via the excellent Newspaper video group) that the season end for House was shot on a Canon 5D Mark II. According to the petapixel blog Greg Yaitanes, the director of the show answered questions on twitter about the show. Most surprising for me was the suggestion that he didn’t use any special lenses or rigging.

When I posted a link to twitter, video whirlwind David Dynkley Gyimah commented:

Arun Marsh commented:

My reply.

It’s not the only show that has used the video side of DLSR’s as part of their shooting kit. Sci-fi series Caprica sneaked in a few shots taken using a DLSR.  Notes on video waded through a number of the shows podcasts to confirm the process and highlighted a nice exchange between the shows exec-producer David Eick and director Jonas Pate:

Pate: This opening sequence was not shot in [the] three camera style, it was actually shot with a [SLR]. And we put a funky little lens on the front of it called a Lensbaby and we shot the whole thing incredibly quickly in probably…I dunno, 30 minutes. Increasingly the digital technologies are allowing camera guys to work quicker.

Eick: Well yeah, what it does is it strips any of the mystique of the so-called art of film making, which is to say that anyone listening to this could probably make their own episode of Caprica if you study these podcasts long enough. The technology really has simplified and shrunk.

I heard a little of Dave’s response in that “…strips any of the mystique of the so-called art of film making”. And it’s a familiar refrain.

The idea that low-pro/pro-sumer equipment can push out pro-quality content is an argument we are more than used to in the world of videojournalism. Give anyone a camera and they are a film maker right?

Maybe not. It still takes a story and people passionate about telling that story to make great video whether it’s House or Video journalism. Kit like the Canon makes it easier for the ‘pros’ to do their job for less and (if you delve in to the caprica podcasts) what they feel is a more liberating and creative way.

In terms of video journalism, the canon may not be the piece of kit that opens the floodgates to the amateurs. But it does show that the walls are coming down.

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• Canon 5D Mark II used to shoot entire House season finale, director says it’s ‘the future’ (engadget.com)
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As I was leafing through the Guardian on Saturday morning I came across an article with the rather alarming headline

Google news tax could boost local papers, report says

Google and other websites that carry news they do not produce should be taxed and the money generated used to prop up local newspapers, says a report which warns control of the media is concentrated in too few hands.

I tweeted it and got a number of interesting replies:

The report comes from the Carnegie trust UK’s commission on Making Good Society. It does indeed set out a suggestion for Industry levies citing Institute for Public Policy Research research that a 1% levy on pay TV providers of 1% “bring in around £70m a year”

A similar fee imposed on the country’s five mobile operators could generate £208m a year. Making Google meet its full tax liability in Britain would boost the pot by a further £100m.‘ The same IPPR report argues that ‘such sums could save many local newspapers and web sites from closing down, could stop the destruction of local and regional news on ITV and could help new media start-ups to plug these gaping holes in public service provision – all without the taxpayer having to stump up any more cash and without having to raid the licence fee.’

But the report also makes it clear that the money would come with something of price

Levies on the use of aggregated material have the potential to generate significant revenue to support the production of new public service and local content, involving civil society associations. If this form of funding were to be explored, changes in regulation would be needed to ensure that revenues go to original news producers and not just to those who present and disseminate material. Original news reporting needs to be supported so that it is financially viable; this could require charging those who are not authorised to use and distribute this material.

Not quite free money from a google tax.

The whole report makes for an interesting read (I mean genuinely interesting not that other academic definition of interesting)

It’s pretty wide ranging but it singles out “democratising media ownership and content as one of it’s four main areas where “a stronger civil society could make the most difference”

A whole chapter (chapter 3) is devoted to trying to understand the pressures on and drivers of news production and the impact that has. They are clear that technology plays a key part citing radical cultural shifts associated with pervasive technology and the rise of ‘digital natives;’ as an uncertain driver of change. But the discussion is a bit more broad ranging:

…[D]espite the proliferation of online platforms, more of the news we receive is recycled ‘churnalism’ and aggregated content. Trends of concentration in media ownership and increased pressure of time and resources have narrowed the sources from which original news derives. Moreover, the centralisation of news production and neglect of local issues has particular repercussions for access to information across the UK and Ireland, especially in the devolved nations.

And it’s clear where the problem is:

…the central issue affecting traditional news providers is not the decline of audiences or interest in news, but the collapse of the existing business model jeopardising the democratic role of journalism. According to the National Union of Journalists: ‘The media industry is essentially profitable but the business model is killing quality journalism.’

Media concentration.
When I first read the Guardian article I bristled at the idea of a google tax of newspapers. Why? Because we would essentially be propping up commercial organsiations who still work at a profit. It would be akin to a bail out. So I found myself drawn to the areas of ownership and centralization in particular. The report is pretty robust here.

The challenge of creating original content and the diminishing number of newspapers is further compounded by the concentration of media ownership in relatively few hands…..with four dominant publishers controlling 70% of the market share across the UK

That concentration of ownership and the influence it exerts is cited as a “key obstacle to transparent policy-making which incorporates a sustainable role for civil society associations” Which comes from the ‘continuing and intimate relationship between key corporate interests and policy-makers; a relationship whose bonds are rarely exposed to the public’

Their suggestion seems to be that the Scott Trust/Guardian model is more likely to serve the development of a pluralist media landscape than a purely commercial one. But it sounds a note of caution

While independent funds directly supporting journalism can come with strings attached and endowments are not immune from economic pressures, philanthropic funding can help preserve journalistic independence and secure guarantees on public service content.

General suggestions.
The big ticket suggestions like tax breaks and levies are balanced by some more specific suggestions that form the main discussion of the chapter.

• Growing local and community news media.
• Protecting the free, open and democratic nature of the internet.
• Strengthening the transparency and accountability of news content production.
• Enhancing the governance of the media.
• Protecting the BBC.
• Redirecting revenue flows to promote diversity and integrity.

Their ideas for strengthening transparency include the suggestion of a Kite mark that shows no dis or mis-information. Good luck with that one.

But back to funding, the last three points are interesting in themselves.

When they talk about enhancing the governance of the media they say that”

“All news organisations in receipt of public funding should actively engage with the public and with civil society associations, through their governing bodies as well as through their daily practice.”

Which could only really mean the BBC right? But in developing the suggestion of redirecting the revenue flow they:

…want to see new funding models explored: for example, tax concessions, industry levies or the direction of proportions of advertising spend into news content creation by civil society associations, or into local multimedia websites.

The price of public money.
My reading of the report was that nothing comes for free. In an earlier chapter the financial sector comes in for a real battering. But though the media orgs are more delicately handled the implicit message is still the same. All the money that could come from tax breaks, funding and other sources comes at a cost. That cost is de-centralisation, openness, stronger regulation and in transparency (a phrase that seems to disappear mid report to be replaced by integrity)

Would be nice but I can’t see it happening.

The full report is available here.

“Those ‘traditional’ consumers are joined by younger readers who prefer to find their news ‘unfiltered’ on the web. We are trying to serve both groups, and we are delighted with the enthusiasm that our new British partners bring to the effort.”

That from a press release for Futurity.org reported in journalism.co.uk.

It’s essentially a website for Universities to publish research and news about their research. Why? Because…

In an increasingly complex world, the public needs access to clear, reliable research news. Futurity does the work of gathering that news. Think of it as a snapshot of where the world is today and where it’s headed tomorrow. Discover the future

A lot of this has a familiar ring. The claims sound a lot like the reasons why journalism is so important and the role of journalists will be vital.

But it also reminds me of the some of the issues that surround much of the ‘council newspapers‘ debate. These are organizations who should be open up to a bit of ‘filtering’ especially when there is public money involved . The content they put out should be open to scrutiny and question.

Of course this risks becoming a circular argument. If journalism was doing its job and reporting science properly then they wouldn’t need to do this.

Futurity.org

But it also goes to underline what we already know but many media orgs seem to be unable to respond to; communities are using the web to tell their own stories.

In the case of Futurity.org it’s a community of interest (with all the self-interest issues that brings) but it’s just as common with hyperlocal communities of geography.

Whatever the motivation, is this the kind of thing that journalism needs to step up to?

I’m not interested in “hyperlocal” journalism that scales.  These start-up, disruptive sites have their best chance at success if they are locally run and locally owned.

Catching up with feeds, as you do, I finally got chance to read Brian Cubbison’s Q & A with Howard Owens about his award winning online news service The Batavian.

Howard is a US newspaper exec and long time advocate of the web, journalism and their combined disruptive power; I have an image of Howard in a t-shirt with the slogan ‘I’m disruptive’ on it.

Obviously the quote I picked chimed with me and my thoughts about hyperlocal only having to be ‘big enough’. But the whole  interview makes for interesting reading and offers some useful insight in to his approach.

Go and have a look.